Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/170

Rh the while controls, of a soldier in battle, of a lover composing his woeful sonnet, of a statesman planning his nation’s destiny, of an anchorite in the desert waiting patiently for God. The endless varieties of the finite situation depend partly upon the immediate contents presented; partly upon the particular contrast between current data and current ideas; partly upon the degree to which fulfilment, never here consciously attained, is approximated at any instant; and finally, upon the direction in which the special search is tending. Browning’s lover, in the Last Ride Together, when he has his universal vision of finitude, sees, in essence, precisely the situation that we have been defining, precisely this aspect of all our present form of conscious life when he says: —


 * “Fail I alone, in words and deeds?
 * Why, all men strive, and who succeeds?
 * We rode; it seemed my spirit flew,
 * Saw other regions, cities new,
 * As the world rushed by on either side.
 * I thought, All labor, yet no less
 * Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
 * Look at the end of work, contrast
 * The petty done, the undone vast,
 * This present of theirs with the hopeful past;
 * I hoped she would love me; here we ride.


 * “What hand and brain went ever paired?
 * What heart alike conceived and dared?
 * What act proved all its thought had been?
 * What will but felt the fleshly screen?
 * We ride, and I see her bosom heave.
 * There’s many a crown for who can reach,
 * Ten lines, a statesman’s life in each!
 * The flag stuck on a heap of bones,