Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry by Robert Browning
page 56 of 525 (10%)
the imprisoned splendour may escape, than in effecting entry
for a light supposed to be without."

All possible thought is IMPLICIT in the mind, and waiting
for release -- waiting to become EXPLICIT. "Seek within yourself,"
says Goethe, "and you will find everything; and rejoice that, without,
there lies a Nature that says yea and amen to all you have discovered
in yourself." And Mrs. Browning, in the person of Aurora Leigh,
writes: "The cygnet finds the water; but the man is born
in ignorance of his element, and feels out blind at first,
disorganized by sin in the blood, -- his spirit-insight
dulled and crossed by his sensations. Presently we feel it
quicken in the dark sometimes; then mark, be reverent, be obedient, --
for those dumb motions of imperfect life are oracles
of vital Deity attesting the Hereafter. Let who says
`The soul's a clean white paper', rather say, a palimpsest,
a prophet's holograph defiled, erased, and covered by a monk's, --
the Apocalypse by a Longus! poring on which obscure text,
we may discern perhaps some fair, fine trace of what was written once,
some off-stroke of an alpha and omega expressing the old Scripture."

This "fair, fine trace of what was written once", it was the mission
of Christ, it is the mission of all great personalities,
of all the concrete creations of Genius, to bring out into
distinctness and vital glow. It is not, and cannot be, brought out, --
and this fact is emphasized in the poetry of Browning, --
it cannot be brought out, through what is born and resides in
the brain: it is brought out, either directly or indirectly,
by the attracting power of magnetic personalities, the ultimate,
absolute personality being the God-man, Christ, qea/nqrwpos.
DigitalOcean Referral Badge