forced to try and make, else fail to grow-- Formed to rise, reach at, if not grasp and gain The good beyond him--which attempt is growth. So, also, is it better that youth should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made. It is in the independence and originality of such striving that the soul discovers and frees its innate potentialities. An inevitable corollary of this idea of progress is the emphasis put upon aspiration as a habit of the mind. The pursuit of an ideal, a divine discontent with present accomplishment, are enjoined upon man. The gleams of heaven on earth are not meant to be permanent or satisfying, but only to sting man into hunger for full light. When a human being has achieved to the full extent of his perceptions or aspirations, he has, thinks Browning, met with the greatest possible disaster, that of arrested development. Man's powers should ever climb new heights. For his soul's health he should always see "a flying point of bliss remote, a happiness in store afar, a sphere of distant glory." "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" According to this ideal, man's conception of good is ever changing and ever widening and hence never in this life to be fully attained; yet the condition of growth is that he have an unmeasured thirst for good and that he pursue it with unquenchable ardor. The importance of love as one of the most effective agencies in spiritual growth is stated and restated in Browning's poetry and by exceedingly diverse characters. The Queen in _In a Balcony_ turns away from her lonely splendor to exclaim, There is no good of life but love--but love! What else looks good is some shade flung from love; Love gilds it, gives it worth. The Duchess learns from the gypsy How love is the only good in the world. The famous singer in "Dis Aliter Visum" knows that art, verse, music, count as naught beside "love found, gained, and kept." Browning seems to regard almost any genuine love as a means of opening out the nature to fuller self-knowledge, to wider sympathies, and to increased power of action. Hence he condemns all cautious calculation of obstacles, all dwelling upon conventional difficulties, in the path of those who have clearly seen "the love-way." Hence even love unrequited is counted of inestimable value. In _Colombe's Birthday_ Valence says, Is the knowledge of her, naught? the memory, naught? --Lady, should such an one have looked on you, Ne'er wrong yourself so far as quote the world And say, love can go unrequited here! You will have blessed him to his whole life's end-- Low passions hindered, baser cares kept back, All goodness cherished where you dwelt--and dwell.