Cunliffe — Browning’s Idealism. 
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BROWNING’S IDEALISM. 
J. W. Cunliffe. 
L The Aspiration for the Infinite. 
The contradiction between Browning’s personality and his 
poetry, which was often remarked by those who knew him, and 
was interpreted by Mr. Henry James with characteristic sub¬ 
tlety in a notable passage of William Wetmore Story and his 
Friends (II. 88-89), was paralleled by a similar antinomy in 
the poet’s message to his time. 1ST o one insisted more than he 
on the necessity for action, 1 and no one was more convinced 
of the absolute certainty of failure, since all aims worth striv¬ 
ing for are unattainable. 2 Man’s only chance of success is to 
concentrate his efforts on low and immediate aims, and this 
kind of success was, in Browning’s view, the worst kind of fail¬ 
ure. The select spirits must, by the very law of their nature, 
aim at the infinite, and the infinite is beyond their reach; it is 
loftiness of aim which distinguishes them as leaders and up- 
lifters of humanity, not largeness of accomplishment. “ ’Tis 
not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would 
do!” This doctrine is familiar enough to Browning students 
as expressed in some of the shorter poems —A Grammarian’s 
Funeral, Andrea del Sarto, and Rabbi Ben Ezra may be cited 
! E. G. Let a man contend to the uttermost 
For his life’s set prize, be it what it will! 
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 
Is— the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin. 
—The Statue and the Bust. 
2 E. G. The Last Ride Together , Stanzas 5-8. 
