mosaic-like clearness dominated by the image of an incisively individual
and indivisible self. In later life the sharp lines which he drew from
the first about individual personality became a ring-fence within which
each man "cultivated his plot,"[132] managing independently as he might
the business of his soul. The divine love might wind inextricably about
him,[133] the dance of plastic circumstance at the divine bidding
impress its rhythms upon his life,[134] he retained his human identity
inviolate, a "point of central rock" amid the welter of the waves.[135]
His love might be a "spark from God's fire," but it was his own, to use
as he would; he "stood on his own stock of love and power."[136]

[Footnote 131: _Christmas-Eve._]

[Footnote 132: _Ferishtah_.]

[Footnote 133: _Easter-Day_.]

[Footnote 134: _Rabbi ben Ezra_.]

[Footnote 135: _Epilogue_.]

[Footnote 136: _Christmas-Eve_.]


IV.


In this sharp demarcation of man's being from God's, Browning never
faltered. On the contrary, the individualising animus which there found
expression impelled him to raise more formidable barriers about man, and