at the same time; each being a different aspect of the other.[86] He
sees, therefore, the truths of Nature, as Nature herself gives them;
while the thinker, who conceives an idea first, and finds an
illustration for it afterwards, gives truth only as it presents itself
to the human mind--in a more definite, but much narrower form. Mr.
Browning often _treats_ his subject as a pure thinker might, but he has
always _conceived_ it as a poet; he has always seen in one flash,
everything, whether moral or physical, visible or invisible, which the
given situation could contain.[87] This fact may be recognized in many
of the smaller poems, which, for that reason, I shall find it impossible
to class; but it is best displayed in a couple of longer ones, which I
have placed under the head "Romantic." They are distinct from the
majority of the "Dramatic Romances," although included in them. For with
these the word "romantic" denotes an imaginary experience, which may be
frankly supernatural, as in "The Boy and the Angel;" or only improbable,
as in "Mesmerism;" or semi-historical and local, as in "In a Gondola;"
or simply human, and possible anywhere and anywhen, as in "The Last Ride
Together;" or in "Dîs aliter Visum," and "James Lee's Wife," which might
be classed with them. I am now using it to mark certain cases, in which
the author's imagination has not brought itself to the test of _any_
consistent experience, but simply presents us with certain groups of
material and mental--of real and ideal possibilities, which we may each
interpret for ourselves. They occur in

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." ("Dramatic Romances."
Published in "Men and Women." 1855.)

"The Flight of the Duchess." ("Dramatic Romances." Published
in "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." 1845.)[88]