ss sure and glorious.

"Progress, man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's and not the beast's; God is, they are,
Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be."

Man yearns after more than he can gain here; that yearning is the mark of
his higher nature and the means of progress. If he follows the better
impulses of his nature, all experience will help to unfold his soul into
higher attainments, and impulse will at last become, in clearer moments,
revelation.

"Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so much that moments,
Sure tho' seldom, are denied us,
When the spirit's true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And appraise it if pursuing
Or the right way or the wrong way
To its triumph or undoing.
There are flashes struck from midnights,
There are fireflames noondays kindle,
Whereby piled-up honors perish.
Whereby swol'n ambitions dwindle,
While just this or that poor impulse
Which for once had play unstifled
Seems the sole work of a lifetime,
That away the rest have trifled."

More impersonal and dramatic than George Eliot, Browning introduces his
doctrines less often. It is not easy to discover what are his theories as
distinguished from those of his characters, for he makes no comments, and
is faithful in developing the unity and integrity of his _dramatis
personae_, whether in his monologues or dramas. Great as his other faults
maybe, he surpasses George Eliot in his power to reveal character, but not
in his power to make his characters stand out distinctly and unprejudiced
from his own mind. His obscurity of expression and his involved style are
serious defects in much of his work; and to most readers his thoroughly
dramatic manner is puzzling. He gives but faint clue to the situation in
his monologues, little explanation of the person, time or place. All is to
be discovered from the obscurest allusions and hints. Defective as this
method is in Browning's treatment, it is the true psychologic method,
wherein motive and character are developed dramatically and without labored
discussion. It is a more vital and constructive process than that followed
by George Eliot, because nothing of the meaning and fulness of life is lost
in the process of analysis. That Browning can never be read by more than a
few, indicates how great are his faults; but in lyric passion, dramatic
power and psychologic analysis he is one of the greatest poets of