s that Frederick Denison Maurice takes this precise view of the
resurrection, with apparent unconsciousness of what Swedenborg has stated,
and that I, too, long before I had ever read Swedenborg, or had even heard
the name of Maurice, came to the same conclusion.... I believe in an
active, human life, beyond death, as before it, an uninterrupted life."
Mrs. Browning would have found herself in harmony with that spiritual
genius, Dr. William James, who said: "And if our needs outrun the visible
universe, why may not that be a sign that the invisible universe is there?
Often our faith in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the
result come true." Faith is the divine vision, and no one ever more
absolutely realized this truth than Elizabeth Browning.

"Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
And star-like mingles with the stars."

At another time Mrs. Browning remarked that she should fear for a revealed
religion incapable of expansion, according to the needs of man; while Dr.
James has said, "Believe what is in the line of your needs." Many
similarities of expression reveal to how wonderful a degree Mrs. Browning
had intuitively grasped phases of truth that became the recognized
philosophy of a succeeding generation, and which were stamped by the
brilliant and profound genius of William James, the greatest psychologist
of the nineteenth century. "What comes from God has life in it," said Mrs.
Browning, "and certainly from the growth of all living things, spiritual
growth cannot be excepted."

The summer passed "among our own nightingales and fireflies," playfully
said Mrs. Browning, and in the autumn Mrs. Sartoris stopped to see them,
on her way to Rome, "singing passionately and talking eloquently."

Notwithstanding some illness, Mrs. Browning completed four thousand lines
of "Aurora Leigh" before the new year of 1855, in which were expressed all
her largest philosophic thought, and her deepest insight into the problems
of life. Fogazzaro, whose recent death has deprived Italy of her greatest
literary inspirer since Carducci, said of "Aurora Leigh" that he wished
the youth of Italy might study this great poem,--"those who desire poetic
fame that they might gain a high conception of poetry; the weak, in that
they might find stimulus for strength; the sad and discouraged, in that
they might find comfort and encouragement." It was t