he had a strong intellect, because he had a strong power of conviction, he conceived and developed and asserted these doctrines of the incompleteness of Man and the sacrifice of Omnipotence.  But these doctrines were the symptoms of his optimism, they were not its origin.  It is surely obvious that no one can be argued into optimism since no one can be argued into happiness.  Browning’s optimism was not founded on opinions which were the work of Browning, but on life which was the work of God.  One of Browning’s most celebrated biographers has said that something of Browning’s theology must be put down to his possession of a good digestion.  The remark was, of course, like all remarks touching the tragic subject of digestion, intended to be funny and to convey some kind of doubt or diminution touching the value of Browning’s faith.  But if we examine the matter with somewhat greater care we shall see that it is indeed a thorough compliment to that faith.  Nobody, strictly speaking, is happier on account of his digestion.  He is happy because he is so constituted as to forget all about it.  Nobody really is convulsed with delight at the thought of the ingenious machinery which he possesses inside him; the thing which delights him is simply the full possession of his own human body.  I cannot in the least understand why a good digestion—­that is, a good body—­should not be held to be as mystic a benefit as a sunset or the first flower of spring.  But there is about digestion this peculiarity throwing a great light on human pessimism, that it is one of the many things which we never speak of as existing until they go wrong.  We should think it ridiculous to speak of a man as suffering from his boots if we meant that he had really no boots.  But we do speak of a man suffering from digestion when we mean that he suffers from a lack of digestion.  In the same way we speak of a man suffering from nerves when we mean that his nerves are more inefficient than any one else’s nerves.  If any one wishes to see how grossly language can degenerate, he need only compare the old optimistic use of the word nervous, which we employ in speaking of a nervous grip, with the new pessimistic use of the word, which we employ in speaking of a nervous manner.  And as digestion is a good thing which sometimes goes wrong, as nerves are good things which sometimes go wrong, so existence itself in the eyes of Browning and all the great optimists is a good thing which sometimes goes wrong.  He held himself as free to draw his inspiration from the gift of good health as from the gift of learning or the gift of fellowship.  But he held that such gifts were in life innumerable and varied, and that every man, or at least almost every man, possessed some window looking out on this essential excellence of things.