Through such souls alone
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he highest souls are "seers" in the noblest sense and they "impart thegift of seeing to the rest." But the helpful personality need not begreat in knowledge or rank. In Pippa Browning emphasizes the power ofunconscious goodness in clarifying the spiritual vision of others and inthus stimulating to right action. And in David he shows the power ofpoetic charm, innocence, and eager love to drive away from another hearta mood of black despair. But outside influences are, after all, says Browning, of secondaryimportance. They can, at best, do no more than stimulate and guide. WhenAndrea del Sarto attributes his general lowering of ideals and power tothe influence of Lucrezia, he evades the real issue. Incentives mustcome from the soul's self. Growth is dependent on personal struggle. Manis, by his very nature, forced to try and make, else fail to grow--Formed to rise, reach at, if not grasp and gainThe good beyond him--which attempt is growth. So, also, is it better that youth should strive, through acts uncouth,Toward making, than repose on aught found made. It is in the independence and originality of such striving that the souldiscovers and frees its innate potentialities. An inevitable corollary of this idea of progress is the emphasis putupon aspiration as a habit of the mind. The pursuit of an ideal, adivine discontent with present accomplishment, are enjoined upon man.The gleams of heaven on earth are not meant to be permanent orsatisfying, but only to sting man into hunger for full light. When ahuman being has achieved to the full extent of his perceptions oraspirations, he has, thinks Browning, met with the greatest possibledisaster, that of arrested development. Man's powers should ever climbnew heights. For his soul's health he should always see "a flying pointof bliss remote, a happiness in store afar, a sphere of distant glory.""A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"According to this ideal, man's conception of good is ever changing andever widening and hence never in this life to be fully attained; yet thecondition of growth is that he have an unmeasured thirst for good andthat he pursue it with unquenchable ardor. The importance of love as one of the most effective agencies inspiritual growth is stated and restated in Browning's poetry and byexceedingly diverse characters. The Queen in _In a Balcony_ turns awayfrom her lonely splendor to exclaim,
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