fuller
existence, and neglect no opportunity of usefulness or enjoyment. A
serious and commendable change would seem to be denoted by the words, "I
have tried each way singly: now for both!" (page 121); and again at page
126, where a new-born softness asserts itself. His language has,
however, a vein of bitterness, sometimes even of cynicism, which belies
the idea of any sustained impulse to good. He is worn in body, weary in
mind, fitful and wayward in mood, and just in the condition in which men
half impose on others, and half on themselves. He alludes to the habit
of drinking as one which he has now contracted; and he is clearly
entering on the period of his greatest excesses, perhaps also of his
most strenuous exertions in the cause of knowledge. But his energy is
reckless and irregular, and the spirit of the gambler rather than that
of the student is in it. He works all night to forget himself by day,
gathering up his diminished strength for, a lavish expenditure; and a
new misgiving as to the wisdom of his "aspirations" pierces through the
assertion that even sickness may lend an aid; since

"... mind is nothing but disease,
And natural health is ignorance." (vol. ii. p. 122.)

We feel that henceforward his path will be all downhill.

In the fifth and closing scene, thirteen years later, Paracelsus
"attains" again, and for the last time. He is dying. Festus watches by
him in his hospital cell with a very touching tenderness; and as
Paracelsus awakes from a period of lethargy to a delirious remembrance
of his past life, he soothes and guides him to an inspired calm in which
its true meaning is revealed to him. The half prophetic death-bed vision
includes everything which experience had taught him; and a great deal
which we cannot help thinking only a more modern experience could have
taught. It disclaims all striving after absolute knowledge, and asserts
the value of limitation in every energy of life. The passage in which he
describes the faculties of man, and which begins

"Power--neither put forth blindly, nor controlled
Calmly by perfect knowledge;" (vol. ii. p. 168.)

contains the natural lesson of the speaker's career, supposing him in a
condition to receive it. But it also reflects Mr. Browning's constant
ideal of a fruitful and progressive existence; and the very beautiful
monologue of which it forms part is, so far as it goes, his actual
confession of