f life is run over and
enchanted by the wild rose.

And in there breaks the sudden rose herself,
Over us, under, round us every side,
Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs
And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all--Buries
us with a glory, young once more,
Pouring heaven into this shut house of life.

So come, the harp back to your heart again!

I return, after this introduction, to Browning's doctrine of life as it
is connected with the arts. It appears with great clearness in
_Easter-Day_. He tells of an experience he had when, one night, musing
on life, and wondering how it would be with him were he to die and be
judged in a moment, he walked on the wild common outside the little
Dissenting Chapel he had previously visited on Christmas-Eve and thought
of the Judgment. And Common-sense said: "You have done your best; do not
be dismayed; you will only be surprised, and when the shock is over you
will smile at your fear." And as he thought thus the whole sky became a
sea of fire. A fierce and vindictive scribble of red quick flame ran
across it, and the universe was burned away. "And I knew," thought
Browning, "now that Judgment had come, that I had chosen this world, its
beauty, its knowledge, its good--that, though I often looked above, yet
to renounce utterly the beauty of this earth and man was too hard for
me." And a voice came: "Eternity is here, and thou art judged." And then
Christ stood before him and said: "Thou hast preferred the finite when
the infinite was in thy power. Earthly joys were palpable and tainted.
The heavenly joys flitted before thee, faint, and rare, and taintless.
Thou hast chosen those of this world. They are thine."

"O rapture! is this the Judgment? Earth's exquisite treasures of wonder
and delight for me!"

"So soon made happy," said the voice. "The loveliness of earth is but
like one rose flung from the Eden whence thy choice has excluded thee.
The wonders of earth are but the tapestry of the ante-chamber in the
royal house thou hast abandoned.

All partial beauty was a pledge
Of beauty in its plenitude:
But since the pledge sufficed thy mood,
Retain it! plenitude be theirs
Who looked above!

"O sharp despair! but since the joys of earth fail me, I take art. Art
gives worth to nature; it stamps it with man. I'll take the Greek
sculpture, the perfect painting of Italy--that world is mine!"

"Then obtain it," said the voice: "t