[203] Cp. Mrs. Sutherland Orr’s article on “The Religious Opinions of Robert Browning” in the Contemporary Review, December, 1891, p. 878; and the present writer’s Tennyson and Browning as Teachers, 1903. [↑]
[204] Apropos of his Theatrocrat, which he pronounced “the most profound and original of English books.” Mr. Davidson in a newspaper article proclaimed himself on socio-political grounds an anti-Christian. “I take the first resolute step out of Christendom,” was his claim (Daily Chronicle, December 20, 1905). [↑]
[205] See Talks with Emerson, by C. J. Woodbury, 1890, pp. 93–94. [↑]
[206] It was in his old age that Whitman tended most to “theize” Nature. In conversation with Dr. Moncure Conway, he once used the expression that “the spectacle of a mouse is enough to stagger a sextillion of infidels.” Dr. Conway replied: “And the sight of the cat playing with the mouse is enough to set them on their feet again”; whereat Whitman tolerantly smiled. [↑]
[207] Kahnis, Internal Hist. of Ger. Protestantism, Eng. tr. 1856, p. 78. [↑]
[208] Geständnisse, end (Werke, ed. 1876, iv, 59). [↑]
[209] Zur Gesch. der Relig. und Philos. in Werke, ed. cited, iii, 80. [↑]
[210] See Ernest Newman’s Study of Wagner, 1899, p. 390, note, as to the vagueness of Wagnerians on the subject. [↑]
[211] Tikhomirov, La Russie, 2e édit. p. 343. [↑]
[212] See Comte de Voguë’s Le roman russe, p. 218, as to his propaganda of atheism. [↑]