so understood by some, particularly by Mr J.M. Robertson. But pantheism
was at most a tendency, which the stubborn concreteness of his mind held
effectually in check; a point, one might say, upon which his thinking
converges, but which it never even proximately attains. God and the Soul
never mingle, however intimate their communion. Cf. chap. x. below.]




CHAPTER VI.

_THE RING AND THE BOOK_.

Tout passe.--L'art robuste
Seul a l'éternité.
Le buste
Survit à la cité.
Et la médaille austère
Que trouve un laboureur
Sous terre
Révèle un empereur.
--GAUTIER: _L'Art_.


After four years of silence, the _Dramatis Personæ_ was followed by _The
Ring and the Book_. This monumental poem, in some respects his
culminating achievement, has its roots in an earlier stratum of his life
than its predecessor. There is little here to recall the characteristic
moods of his first years of desolate widowhood--the valiant Stoicism,
the acceptance of the sombre present, the great forward gaze upon the