ights. 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.

But the love of man and woman is not the only sort. A part of the value
of this individual relationship is that it may be regarded as a
revelation and symbol of the spirit of all-embracing sympathy whereby
mankind should be ruled. When Paracelsus analyzes his life he ascribes
his failure to the fact that he has sought knowledge to the exclusion of
all else; he finally came to see that knowledge, however profound, is of
itself barren of satisfaction. He had meant to serve men by revealing
truth to them, but he found that real service is based on the
understanding given by love. In self condemnation he says,

In my o