_This is life to come_ Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven ... * * * * * Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. Yet the mind which originated these nobly philosophic lines found it impossible to continue literary work when severed from the human comradeship and sympathy, criticism and inspiration to which the heart, even more than the brain, had grown accustomed. After the death of Mr. G. H. Lewes we are told--in the author's own words--that "The writing seems all trivial stuff," ... and that work is resorted to as "a means of saving the mind from imbecility."[46] We shall find Browning himself refusing, in the hour of bereavement, to admit the satisfaction to be derived from a contemplation of the progress of the race through individual sacrifice and loss of personal identity; the satisfaction of the knowledge that Somewhere new existence led by men and women new, Possibly attains perfection coveted by me and you; * * * * * [Whilst we] working ne'er shall know if work bear fruit. Others reap and garner-- We, creative thought, must cease In created word, thought's echo, due to impulse long since sped! Poor is the comfort There's ever someone lives although ourselves be dead.[47] Something more than this, more even than "the thought of what was" is demanded for the satisfaction of the soul, yet this is all the Greek has to offer to his correspondent. Before leaving this section of the poem, one further comparison of striking interest claims at least a brief consideration--a comparison also of the life of the man of action with that of the man of thought: of Salinguerra, the Ghibelline leader and Sordello, the poet and dreamer, Ghibelline by antecedents, Guelph by conviction; the visionary and dreamer, but the dreamer whose dreams should remain a legacy to posterity, the visionary who held that "the poet must be earth's essential king." The comparison is especially interesting, since in this case also it is drawn (Bk. iv) by the poet himself. To Sordello, however, the recognition of a future existence has at times a very potent influence upon the present. For him, moreover, in his moments of insight, _service_ not _happiness_, is the inspiration of life. Lofty as is the estimation in which he holds the office of poet, he yet deems Salinguerra One of happier fate, and all I should have done, He does; the people's good being paramount With him.[48] Here is A nature made to serve, excel In serving, only feel by service well![49]