Not a single poem is "stark-naked thought"; not a single poem is addressed solely to the intellect; even _Bishop Blougram_ is rather a presentation of character than a train of argument or a chain of ideas.
In few of these poems does Browning speak in his own person; the verses addressed to his wife, which present her with "his fifty men and women" and tell of mysteries of love that can never be told, the lines, _Memorabilia_, addressed to one who had seen Shelley, and _Old Pictures in Florence_, are perhaps the only exceptions to the dramatic character of the contents of the two volumes.

Yet through them all Browning's mind is clearly discernible; and even his central convictions, his working creed of life, can with no sense of uncertainty be gathered from them.
To attribute to the writer the opinions and the feelings of his _dramatis personae_ would of course be the crudest of mistakes.

But when an idea persists through many poems written at various times and seasons, when it appears and reappears under various clothings of circumstance, when it is employed as if it had a crucial value, when it becomes a test or touchstone of character, we cannot doubt that it is an intimate possession of the writer's mind.

Such an idea is not a mere playmate but rather a confidant.

When, again, after a tangle of casuistic reasoning or an embroilment of contending feelings, some idea suddenly flashes forth, and like a sword sunders truth from falsehood and darkness from light, we may be assured that it has more than a dramatic value.