All the Greek love of life, of physical beauty is here, intensified by the consciousness of the brief and transitory character of its existence. If death ends all things, then the poet and philosopher, whilst acquiring the knowledge "how to live," has sacrificed the power of living. Yet a sacrifice even greater than this is enthusiastically welcomed by the Grammarian of the Revival of Learning, greater since in this case the devotion of a lifetime leaves behind it no monument of fame. Yet, having counted the cost, Oh! such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it. * * * * _Sooner, he spurned it._[43] We can almost detect the voice of Cleon in the urgency of the student's contemporaries. "Live now or never," since "time escapes." In the reply lies the clue to the immensity of difference between the two positions-- Leave Now for dogs and apes! Man has Forever.[44] In the one instance, life being lived in the light of the "Forever," it is possible to perceive with Pompilia that "No work begun shall ever pause for death":[45] and life, whatever its trials and limitations, becomes to the believer in immortality very well worth the living. Thus the Christian conception of human life transcends the pagan as the designs of the Italian painters surpass in their suggestive inspiration the perfection of the more purely technical achievements of Greek art. The whole discussion is so peculiarly characteristic of Browning's work that it seemed impossible to omit this comparison in the present connection, even though we shall be again obliged to revert to the Grammarian, and the theory exemplified in his history, in analyzing the defence of Bishop Blougram. In passing, then, to the concluding section of Cleon's reply to Protus, we are met by no exclusively Greek utterance; the voice is the voice of humanity unfettered by limitations of race or mental training. "But," sayest thou ... ... "What Thou writest, paintest, stays; that does not die: Sappho survives, because we sing her songs, And Æschylus, because we read his plays!" Why, if they live still, let them come and take Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup, Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive? (ll. 301-308.) It is self-abnegation, carried to an extent rendering impossible the preservation of the race, which can look to happiness, or even to satisfaction, in the prospect of annihilation so long as posterity shall enjoy the fruits of a life of labour--which may express all its yearnings towards immortality in the petition: O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: ... * * * * * _So to live is heaven_: * * * * *