I.

INTRODUCTION.

"Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie,
Und gruen des Lebens goldner Baum." (_Faust_.)

There is a saying of Hegel's, frequently quoted, that "a great man
condemns the world to the task of explaining him." The condemnation is a
double one, and it generally falls heaviest on the great man himself,
who has to submit to explanation; and, probably, the last refinement of
this species of cruelty is to expound a poet. I therefore begin with an
apology in both senses of the term. I acknowledge that no commentator on
art has a right to be heard, if he is not aware of the subordinate and
temporary nature of his office. At the very best he is only a guide to
the beautiful object, and he must fall back in silence so soon as he has
led his company into its presence. He may perhaps suggest "the line of
vision," or fix the point of view, from which we can best hope to do
justice to the artist's work, by appropriating his intention and
comprehending his idea; but if he seeks to serve the ends of art, he
will not attempt to do anything more.

In order to do even this successfully, it is essential that every
judgment passed should be exclusively ruled by the principles which
govern art. "Fine art is not real art till it is free"; that is, till
its value is recognized as lying wholly within itself. And it is not,
unfortunately, altogether unnecessary to insist that, so far from
enhancing the value of an artist's work, we only degrade it into mere
means, subordinate it to uses alien, and therefore antagonistic to its
perfection, if we try to show that it gives pleasure, or refinement, or
moral culture. There is no doubt that great poetry has all these uses,
but the reader can enjoy them only on condition of forgetting them; for
they are effects that follow the sense of its beauty. Art, morality,
religion, is each supreme in its own sphere; the beautiful is not more
beautiful because it is also moral, nor is a painting great because its
subject is religious. It is true that their spheres overlap, and art is
never at its best except when it is a beautiful representation of the
good; nevertheless the points of view of the artist and of the ethical
teacher are quite different, and consequently also the elements within
which they work and the truth they reveal.

In attempting, therefore, to discover Robert Browning's philosophy of
life, I do not pretend that my treatment of him is adequate. Browning
is, first of