THE GREEKS AND BROWNING 403 
In this poem Browning carries out the idea of Truth to 
self to the extreme verge of its limit. He does not place the 
given incident of the poem as a model of virtue nor one that 
the highest living would contain; but he shows the hateful¬ 
ness of subterfuge and indecision, and the soul-perjury of this 
woman who could take an unmeaning nuptial vow. Even if 
death followed her words, she had not courage to speak and 
be true to herself. Browning does not advocate vice instead 
of virtue; but the greater of the evils is the life wasted in 
unliving resolutions. 
“Aspire, break bounds! I say, 
Endeavor to be good, and better still, 
And best! Success is naught, endeavor ’s all.” 
Sin, punishment, and the recognition of past sins and evils 
which it is the lot of innumerable beings during their evo¬ 
lutionary passage to experience, are the prelude to hope and 
the eternal progressive translations of the soul. 
“ Strive, mankind, though strife endure through endless obstruction 
Stage after stage, each rise marred by as certain a fall!” 
but out of the wreck “to rise” where light is in aspiration and 
hope. Thus it is in the long outlook when the false resolves 
itself into the true. Falsehood, deceit, duplicity, and lies are 
the weights and hindrances to character and soul building; 
while open avowal, sincerity, and truthful action and speaking 
under all circumstances to the degree of individual know¬ 
ledge are the props to the higher planes. 
What may often be considered defects and the reverse of 
virtue may indeed be but the accidents of character and 
tolerable when combined with truthful action. The poet’s 
meaning in the preceding words is not distorted, for in his 
schedule of true living, duty’s place and share are fully ex¬ 
pressed over and over again. In “Saint Martin’s Summer” 
he says — 
“Give my frank word pardon! 
What if I — somehow, somewhere 
Pledged my soul to endless duty 
Many a time and oft?” 
