but also of intellectual rectitude. In this group of poems
are embodied the profoundest principles of education --
principles which it behoves the present generation of educators
to look well to. The acquisition of knowledge is a good thing,
the sharpening of the intellect is a good thing, the cultivation
of philosophy is a good thing; but there is something of
infinitely more importance than all these -- it is, the rectification,
the adjustment, through that mysterious operation we call sympathy,
of the unconscious personality, the hidden soul, which co-operates
with the active powers, with the conscious intellect, and,
as this unconscious personality is rectified or unrectified,
determines the active powers, the conscious intellect,
for righteousness or unrighteousness.

The attentive reader of Browning's poetry must soon discover
how remarkably homogeneous it is in spirit. There are many authors,
and great authors too, the reading of whose collected works
gives the impression of their having "tried their hand" at many things.
No such impression is derivable from the voluminous poetry of Browning.
Wide as is its range, one great and homogeneous spirit pervades
and animates it all, from the earliest to the latest.
No other living poet gives so decided an assurance of having
a BURDEN to deliver. An appropriate general title to his works
would be, `The Burden of Robert Browning to the 19th Century'.
His earliest poems show distinctly his ATTITUDE toward things.
We see in what direction the poet has set his face --
what his philosophy of life is, what soul-life means with him,
what regeneration means, what edification means in its deepest sense
of building up within us the spiritual temple. And if he had left
this world after writing no more than those poems of his youth,