"There are," says Plotinus, "different roads by which this end
[apprehension of the Infinite] may be reached. The love of beauty,
which exalts the poet; that devotion to the One and that ascent of
science which makes the ambition of the philosopher; and that love
and those prayers by which some devout and ardent soul tends in its
moral purity towards perfection. These are the great highways
conducting to that height above the actual and the particular,
where we stand in the immediate presence of the Infinite, who
shines out as from the deeps of the soul."--_Letter to Flaccus._

We have grouped together our English writers who are mystical in
thought, according to the five main pathways by which they have seen the
Vision: Love, Beauty, Nature, Wisdom, or Devotion. Even within these
groups, the method of approach, the interpretation or application of the
Idea, often differs very greatly. For instance, Shelley and Browning may
both be called love-mystics; that is, they look upon love as the
solution of the mystery of life, as the link between God and man. To
Shelley this was a glorious intuition, which reached him through his
imagination, whereas the life of man as he saw it roused in him little
but mad indignation, wild revolt, and passionate protest. To Browning
this was knowledge--knowledge borne in upon him just because of human
life as he saw it, which to him was a clear proof of the great destiny
of the race. He would have agreed with Patmore that "you can see the
disc of Divinity quite clearly through the smoked glass of humanity, but
no otherwise." He found "harmony in immortal souls, spite of the muddy
vesture of decay."

The three great English poets who are also fundamentally mystical in
thought are Browning, Wordsworth, and Blake. Their philosophy or