Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher

by Sir Henry Jones

From what just is to absolute nothingness."^A

A: The Ring and the Book—Giuseppe Caponsacchi, 1911-1931.

But the matchless moral insight of the Pope leads to a different conclusion, and the poet again retrieves his faith. The Pope puts his first trust "in the suddenness of Guido's fate," and hopes that the truth may "be flashed out by the blow of death, and Guido see one instant and be saved." Nor is his trust vain. "The end comes," said Dr. Westcott. "The ministers of death claim him. In his agony he summons every helper whom he has known or heard of—

"'Abate,—Cardinal,—Christ,—Maria,—God—'

"and then the light breaks through the blackest gloom:

"'Pompilia! will you let them murder me?'

"In this supreme moment he has known what love is, and, knowing it, has begun to feel it. The cry, like the intercession of the rich man in Hades, is a promise of a far-off deliverance."

But even beyond this hope, which is the last for most men, the Pope had still another.

"Else I avert my face, nor follow him