LITERARY PAPERS 
408 
sky of eternity, — then the wise explorer knows full well that 
the every-day mountain shoe and axe of these lower ranges 
will not carry him on to those walls of everlasting white¬ 
ness. To scale these summits requires new devices. The 
would-be pioneer must start on a journey where experience 
and knowledge from without are of little avail. These ad¬ 
juncts have brought him far, but they cannot help him now. 
With Browning’s attempt to ascend these altitudes he never 
loses sight of the lowlands, and from time to time he returns 
to the level to gain new force in order to advance a step higher. 
He does not forget the heights from which he has descended, 
but he reminds his readers of the “resting-place, the C major 
of this life,” and the obligation to use this life’s materialities 
for climbing and the soul’s growth. He gathers happiness, 
too, from earth’s favors, as well as from earth’s bitters. 
“Through wholesome hard, sharp soft, your tooth must bite 
Ere reach the birdling.” 
He says, — 
“ Man I am and man would be . . . merest man and nothing more,” 
and in the same poem he exclaims, — 
“Now on earth, to stand suffices.” 
The poet teaches that although he and a chosen few may 
advance farther on the snows, still those in the valleys who 
desire to climb must be fed and nourished by the exertions of 
their stronger fellow men. 
“God thus admonished: ‘Hast thou marked my deed? 
Which part assigned by providence dost judge 
Was meant for man’s example? Should he play 
The helpless weakling, or the helpful strength 
That captures prey and saves the perishing? 
Sluggard, arise; work, eat, then feed who lack!’ 
Waking, ‘I have arisen, work I will, 
Eat, and so following. Which lacks food the more, 
Body or soul in me? I starve in soul; 
So may mankind; and since men congregate 
In towns, not woods, — to Ispahan forthwith.’ ” 
