One of the very few critics who seem to have got near to the actual secret of Browning’s optimism is Mr. Santayana in his most interesting book Interpretations of Poetry and Religion.  He, in contradistinction to the vast mass of Browning’s admirers, had discovered what was the real root virtue of Browning’s poetry; and the curious thing is, that having discovered that root virtue, he thinks it is a vice.  He describes the poetry of Browning most truly as the poetry of barbarism, by which he means the poetry which utters the primeval and indivisible emotions.  “For the barbarian is the man who regards his passions as their own excuse for being, who does not domesticate them either by understanding their cause, or by conceiving their ideal goal.”  Whether this be or be not a good definition of the barbarian, it is an excellent and perfect definition of the poet.  It might, perhaps, be suggested that barbarians, as a matter of fact, are generally highly traditional and respectable persons who would not put a feather wrong in their head-gear, and who generally have very few feelings and think very little about those they have.  It is when we have grown to a greater and more civilised stature that we begin to realise and put to ourselves intellectually the great feelings that sleep in the depths of us.  Thus it is that the literature of our day has steadily advanced towards a passionate simplicity, and we become more primeval as the world grows older, until Whitman writes huge and chaotic psalms to express the sensations of a schoolboy out fishing, and Maeterlinck embodies in symbolic dramas the feelings of a child in the dark.

Thus, Mr. Santayana is, perhaps, the most valuable of all the Browning critics.  He has gone out of his way to endeavour to realise what it is that repels him in Browning, and he has discovered the fault which none of Browning’s opponents have discovered.  And in this he has discovered the merit which none of Browning’s admirers have discovered.  Whether the quality be a good or a bad quality, Mr. Santayana is perfectly right.  The whole of Browning’s poetry does rest upon primitive feeling; and the only comment to be added is that so does the whole of every one else’s poetry.  Poetry deals entirely with those great eternal and mainly forgotten wishes which are the ultimate despots of existence.  Poetry presents things as they are to our emotions, not as they are to any theory, however plausible, or any argument, however conclusive.  If love is in truth a glorious vision, poetry will say that it is a glorious vision, and no philosophers will persuade poetry to say that it is the exaggeration of the instinct of sex.  If bereavement is a bitter and continually aching thing, poetry will say that it is so, and no philosophers will persuade poetry to say that it is an evolutionary stage of great biological value.  And here comes in the whole value and object of poetry, that it is perpetually challenging all systems with