In this passage may be found the solution to the whole question of the asceticism advocated. When the love thus expressed had been realized, the step was not a difficult one to the acceptance of the fuller revelation of Love in the Incarnation. And in this realization the highest aspect of life temporal would have been reached. Love, not abrogating the law would have served as its fulfilment. As the statements of Bishop Blougram are personal in relation to the treatment of doubt, so the speaker in _Easter Day_ would make out a case for personal asceticism. Not advocating it as the ideal universal course, he would yet claim for it highest value as safeguarding his individual life. To him who is incapable of moderation, renunciation may become a necessity; yet, through renunciation, may be attained that higher life consisting in a grateful enjoyment and generous communication of all gifts of the Divine Love. Of the other poems dealing with this subject indirectly or directly, _Paracelsus_, 1835, _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, 1864, _Ferishtah's Fancies_, 1884, are sufficiently representative of the different periods of the poet's literary life to render them valuable as illustrations of his mode of treatment. In the last, at least, we may be fairly confident that the decision given is his own. In one aspect _Paracelsus_ may be regarded as the history of a man of genius who marked out for himself a career of complete asceticism; of work apart from human sympathy, love, and friendship, as well as from all gratifications of the flesh. And the scheme was pursued unflinchingly--for a time--until the inevitable reaction set in, spirit and flesh alike avenging themselves for their temporary suppression. Not only are love and friendship found claiming their own, but A host of petty wild delights, undreamed of Or spurned before, (_Par._, iii, ll. 537-538.) offer themselves to supply the place of what the earlier ascetic, in a moment of despairing self-contempt, terms his "dead aims." The declaration at Colmar is made whilst the influence of reaction still prevails. I will accept all helps; all I despised So rashly at the outset, equally With early impulses, late years have quenched. * * * * * All helps! no one sort shall exclude the rest. (_Par._, iv, ll. 235-239.) Only when he has learned from experience that human nature is not to be developed through suppression, that "its sign and note and character" are "Love, hope, fear, faith"--that "these make humanity," only then can he fearlessly, as in youth, "press God's lamp to [his] breast," assured of the divine guidance and protection.