There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eye-brow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale; they meant, you know—
'The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
Well, he can say no other than what he says.'"A
A: The Ring and the Book—Canon Caponsacchi, 14-20.
We are sufficiently willing to let the doctrine be held as a pious opinion. The faith that "all's love yet all's law," like many another illusion, if not hugged too closely, may comfort man's nakedness. But if we are asked to substitute this view for that which the sciences suggest,—if we are asked to put "Love" in the place of physical energy, and, by assuming it as a principle, to regard as unreal all the infinite misery of humanity and the degradation of intellect and character from which it arises, common-sense seems at once to take the side of the doleful sage of Chelsea. When the optimist postulates that the state of the world, were it rightly understood, is completely satisfactory, reason seems to be brought to a stand; and if poetry and religion involve such a postulate, they are taken to be ministering to the emotions at the expense of the intellect.
Browning, however, was not a mere sentimentalist who could satisfy his heart without answering the questions of his intellect. Nor is his view without support—at least, as regards the substance of it. The presence of an idealistic element in things is recognized even by ordinary thought; and no man's world is so poor that it would not be poorer still for him, if it were reduced by the abstract sciences of nature into a mere manifestation of physical force. Such a world Richter compares to an empty eye-socket.