A: Any Wife to Any Husband, III.
It were almost an endless task to recount the ways in which Browning exhibits the moralizing power of love: how it is for him the quintessence of all goodness; the motive, and inspiring cause, of every act in the world that is completely right; and how, on that account, it is the actual working in the man of the ideal of all perfection. This doctrine of love is, in my opinion, the richest vein of pure ore in Browning's poetry.
But it remains to follow briefly our poet's treatment of love in another direction—as a principle present, not only in God as creative and redeeming Power, and in man as the highest motive and energy of the moral life, but also in the outer world, in the "material" universe. In the view of the poet, the whole creation is nothing but love incarnate, a pulsation from the divine heart. Love is the source of all law and of all beauty. "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night speaketh knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard." And our poet speaks as if he had caught the meaning of the language, and believes that all things speak of love—the love of God.
"I think," says the heroine of the Inn Album,
"Womanliness means only motherhood;
All love begins and ends there,—roams enough,
But, having run the circle, rests at home."A
A: The Inn Album.
And Browning detects something of this motherhood everywhere. He finds it as
"Some cause