challenging obstruction akin to that which allured him to every angular
and broken surface, to all the "evil" which balks our easy perception of
"good."[127] Above all, by idealising effort, it created a new ethical
end which every strenuous spirit could not merely strive after but
fulfil, every day of its mortal life; and thus virtually transferred the
focus of interest and importance from "the next world's reward and
repose" to the vital "struggles in this."

[Footnote 127: _Bishop Blougram_.]

Browning's characteristic conception of the nature and destiny of man
was thus not a compact and consistent system, but a group of intuitions
nourished from widely different regions of soul and sense, and
undergoing, like the face of a great actor, striking changes of
expression without material change of feature under the changing
incidence of stress and glow. The ultimate gist of his teaching was
presented through the medium of conceptions proper to another school of
thought, which, like a cryptogram, convey one meaning but express
another, He had to work with categories like finite and infinite, which
the atomic habits of his mind thrust into exclusive opposition; whereas
the profoundest thing that he had to say was that the "infinite" has to
be achieved in and through the finite, that just the most definitely
outlined action, the most individual purpose, the most sharply
expressive thought, the most intense and personal passion, are the
points or saliency in life which most surely catch the radiance of
eternity they break. The white light was "blank" until shattered by
refraction; and Browning is less Browning when he glories in its
unbroken purity than when he rejoices in the prism, whose obstruction
alone