The continued popularity of _In Memoriam_ is undoubtedly due in large measure to the fact that the author has there given poetic utterance to those questionings and aspirations of the human soul, peculiar to no time or place, to no nation or form of creed--to the cry wrung from the heart when inexorable Death brings with it the hour of separation. There is in truth a triumphant note towards the close of _In Memoriam_: the child of the fifty-fourth stanza "crying in the night, and with no language but a cry," though yet crying in the night, becomes in the final section (stanza cxxiv) a child "who knows his father near." But even when the heart rises triumphantly, and in defiance of the arguments of reason asserts "I have felt," the faith so expressed is not the faith of Browning. Beyond all the temporary darkness of _La Saisiaz_ we recognize that the author of _Asolando_ is speaking nothing more than the truth when he tells us that he "never doubted clouds would break." The dispersal of the clouds gathered over La Salève added confidence to the _Epilogue_ which constitutes so fitting a close to the life's work. The assertion "I believe in God and Truth and Love," expressed through the medium of the lover of Pauline, finds its echo in the more direct personal assertion of the concluding lines of _La Saisiaz_, "He believed in Soul, was very sure of God." This was the irreducible minimum of Browning's creed. How much more he held as absolute, soul-satisfying truth it is the design of this and the six following lectures to determine. And here at once on the threshold of our investigation we are confronted by the difficulty inseparable from any consideration of Browning's literary work; the difficulty of eliminating the dramatic and gauging the extent of the purely personal element. Although, as was inevitable, such difficulty has been universally recognized by critics and students, yet the very strength of the dramatic power has in many cases proved misleading. Browning has too completely lost himself in his subject. In the writings of the man capable of merging his personal identity in that of an Andrea and a Pippa, of a Caliban and a S. John; of assuming positions as opposed as those of a Guido and a Caponsacchi, it is a sufficiently simple matter to discover opinions supporting directly or indirectly any individual line of thought. To him who seeks with intent to obtain such confirmation may the promise be fairly made As is your sort of mind So is your sort of search; you'll find What you desire.[4]