ps this
is not to be regretted--at any rate Browning's poems could hardly be
translated into any language in which this distinction exists. But let
us not forget that the _ascetic_ element is as strong in Browning as in
Wordsworth. Love, he seems to indicate, is no exception to the rule that
our joys may be "three parts pain," for "where pain ends gain ends
too.[398]"

"Not yet on thee
Shall burst the future, as successive zones
Of several wonder open on some spirit
Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven;
But thou shalt painfully attain to joy,
While hope and fear and love shall keep thee man.[399]"

He even carries this law into the future life, and will have none of a
"joy which is crystallised for ever." Felt imperfection is a proof of
a higher birthright:[400] if we have arrived at the completion of our
nature as men, then "begins anew a tendency to God." This faith in
unending progress as the law of life is very characteristic of our own
age.[401] It assumes a questionable shape sometimes; but Browning's
trust in real success through apparent disappointments--a trust even
_based_ on the consciousness of present failure--is certainly one of
the noblest parts of his religious philosophy.

I have decided to end my survey of Christian Mysticism with these two
English poets. It would hardly be appropriate, in this place, to
discuss Carlyle's doctrine of symbols, as the "clothing" of religious
and other kinds of truth. His philosophy is wanting in some of the
essential features of Mysticism, and can hardly be called Christian
without stretching the word too far. And Emerson, when he deals with
religion, is a very unsafe guide. The great American mystic, whose
beautiful character was as noble a gift to humanity as his writings,
is more liable than any of those whom we have described to the
reproach of having turned his back on the dark side of life. Partly
from a fastidiousness which could not bear even to hear of bodily
ailments, partly from the natural optimism of the dweller in a new
country, and partly because he made a principle of maintaining an
unruffled cheerfulness and serenity, he shut his eyes to pain, death,
and sin, even more resolutely than did Goethe. The optimism which is
built on this foundation has no message of comfort for the stricken
heart. To say that "evil is only good in the making," is to repeat an
ancient and discredited attempt to solve the great enigma. An