Contentment is stagnation: development is happiness. The mystery of
life, its uncertainty, its joys paid for by effort, these make human
existence worth while.
Browning delights to prove that the popular longing for static
happiness would result in misery: that the sharp sides of life sting
us into the real joy of living. He loves to take popular proverbs,
which sum up the unconscious pessimism of humanity, and then show
how false they are to fact. For example, we hear every day the
expression, "No rose without a thorn," and we know very well what is
meant. In _The Ring and the Book_, Browning says:
So a thorn comes to the aid of and completes the rose.
REPHAN
1889
How I lived, ere my human life began
In this world of yours,--like you, made man,--
When my home was the Star of my God Rephan?
Come then around me, close about,
World-weary earth-born ones! Darkest doubt
Or deepest despondency keeps you out?
Nowise! Before a word I speak,
Let my circle embrace your worn, your weak,
Brow-furrowed old age, youth's hollow cheek--
Diseased in the body, sick in soul,
Pinched poverty, satiate wealth,--your whole
Array of despairs! Have I read the roll?
All here? Attend, perpend! O Star
Of my God Rephan, what wonders are
In thy brilliance fugitive, faint and far!
Far from me, native to thy realm,
Who shared its perfections which o'erwhelm
Mind to conceive.
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