And here at length if not before we have a clear glimpse of the athlete
who lurks behind the explorer. Browning's joy in imagining impediment
and illusion was only another aspect of his joy in the spiritual energy
which answers to the spur of difficulty and "works" through the shows of
sense; and this other joy found expression in a poetry of soul yet more
deeply tinged with the native hue of his mind. "From the first, Power
was, I knew;" and souls were the very central haunt and focus of its
play. Not that strong natures, as such, have much part in Browning's
poetic-world; the strength that allured his imagination was not the
strength that is rooted in nerve or brain, slowly enlarging with the
build of the organism, but the strength that has suddenly to be begotten
or infused, that leaps by the magic of spiritual influence from heart to
heart. If Browning multiplies and deepens the demarcations among
material things, he gives his souls a rare faculty of transcending them.
Bright spiritual beings like Pippa shed their souls innocently and
unwittingly about like a spilth of "X-rays," and the irradiation
penetrates instantly the dense opposing integuments of passion,
cupidity, and worldliness. At all times in his life these accesses of
spiritual power occupied his imagination. Cristina's momentary glance
and the Lady of Tripoli's dreamed-of face lift their devotees to
completeness:--

"She has lost me, I have gained her,
Her soul's mine, and now grown perfect
I shall pass my life's remainder."

Forty years later, Browning told with far greater realistic power and a
grim humour suited to the theme, the "transmutation" of Ned Bratts.
Karshish has his sudden revealing flash as he ponders the letter of