402 
LITERARY PAPERS 
But dream of him, and guess where he may be, 
And do their best to climb and get to him. 
All this I knew not, and I failed.” 
Effort in any direction is better than the greatest of evils — 
inaction. 
Take the situation in “The Statue and the Bust,” where 
the poet tells that the lady, resolving on her course, though it 
be to break her vow, — 
“Turned on her side and slept. Just so! 
So we resolve on a thing and sleep: 
So did the lady ages ago.” 
By flight, she thought, — 
“ * I save my soul — but not to-morrow ’ — 
(She checked herself and her eye grew dim) 
‘ My father tarries to bless my state; 
I must keep it one day more for him.’ ” 
Thus how often consideration for the sensitiveness of others 
defeats prompt action! 
Later in the poem listen to the poet’s own words, 
“I hear you reproach, ‘But delay was best, 
For their end was a crime.’ — Oh, a crime will do, 
As well, I reply, to serve for a test, 
As a virtue golden through and through, 
Sufficient to vindicate itself, 
And prove its worth at a moment’s view!” 
Browning insists upon the wrong there is in the silence 
which makes the lie. A procrastinating soul sounds its own 
death warrant. He exclaimed, — 
“If you choose to play, 
Let a man contend to the uttermost 
For his life’s set prize, be it what it will! ” 
The sin he imputes — 
“To each frustrate ghost 
Is — the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, 
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.” 
