It is the necessary failure in the attainment of a satisfactory conclusion by ratiocinative methods alone which causes the apparent uncertainty: apparent rather than actual, since, wherever in the course of the discussion feeling is allowed free exercise, there faith--or hope--prevails. In _Prospice_, reasoning offers no check to the emotions, and faith holds complete sway. Though Faith and Reason are no antagonistic forces, the ventures of Faith must yet transcend the powers of Reason, and Reasoning, whilst it may define, is incapable of limiting the province of Faith, since even "true doctrine is not an end in itself: it cannot carry us beyond the region of the intellect.... All formulas are of the nature of outlines: they define by exclusion as well as by comprehension; and no object in life is isolated. Our premisses in spiritual subjects, therefore, are necessarily incomplete, and even logical deductions from them may be false."[91] But whatever the intellectual questionings and uncertainties occurring in the course of the poem itself, the prologue is a pure lyric of spiritual triumph. Though actually the outcome of the premises preceding and the conclusions following the argument between Fancy and Reason, no suggestion of effort is apparent in the joyous song of the soul freed from the trammels of the body to "wander at will," in the fruition of its fuller life. The reference to its mortal tenement recalls no painful element in the process of material decay; only autumn woods, the glowing colours of fading leaves and mosses. Waft of soul's wing! What lies above? Sunshine and Love, Skyblue and Spring! Body hides--where? Ferns of all feather, Mosses and heather, Yours be the care! Of the circumstances immediately giving rise to this personal expression of feeling the briefest notice will suffice, the bare facts being stated beneath the title in the latest edition of the works; whilst for the details necessary to fill in the outline, we have only to turn to the poem itself, reading the first 140 lines. Miss Egerton-Smith was one of Browning's oldest women friends, but it was not until many years after their first meeting in Florence that their intercourse seems to have become a really important factor in the lives of both: when, after the return to England following his wife's death, the poet temporarily established himself in London with his sister as housekeeper. Miss Egerton-Smith would appear to have been of a nature not readily responsive to the demands of ordinary social intercourse; a nature likely to make special appeal to the man who saw in imperfection, perfection hid, and in complete temporal adaptability the exclusion of possibilities of future growth. Hence we find him writing in the moment of bereavement: