* `Letters to a Young Man'. Letter V.
--

And so it may be said in regard to the responsiveness to
the higher spiritual truths -- I don't say COMPREHENSION of
the higher spiritual truths (that word pertains rather to
an intellectual grasp), but RESPONSIVENESS to the higher
spiritual truths. Spiritual truths must be spiritually responded to;
they are not and cannot be intellectually comprehended. The condition
of such responsiveness it may require a long while to fulfil.
New attitudes of the soul, a meta/noia, may be demanded,
before such responsiveness is possible. And what some people
may regard in the higher poetry as obscure, by reason of the mode
of its presentation on the part of the poet, may be only relatively so
-- that is, the obscurity may be wholly due to the wrong attitudes,
or the no attitudes, of their own souls, and to the limitations of
their spiritual experiences. In that case "the patient must minister
to himself".

While on the subject of "obscurity", I must notice a difficulty
which the reader at first experiences in his study of Browning's poetry
-- a difficulty resulting from the poet's favorite art-form,
the dramatic or psychologic monologue.* The largest portion
of his voluminous poetry is in this form. Some speaker is made
to reveal his character, and, sometimes, by reflection, or directly,
the character of some one else -- to set forth some subtle
and complex soul-mood, some supreme, all-determining movement or experience
of a life; or, it may be, to RATIOCINATE subtly on some curious question
of theology, morals, philosophy, or art. Now it is in strictly preserving
the monologue character that obscurity often results. A monologue