Life and Letters of Robert Browning by Mrs. Sutherland Orr;Robert Browning
page 63 of 401 (15%)
page 63 of 401 (15%)
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and those who fare least delicately, but an insignificant shot to
discharge--or, as the tuneful Quarles well phraseth it-- He's most in _debt_ who lingers out the day, Who dies betimes has less and less to pay. So far, therefore, from these sagacious ethics holding that Debt cramps the energies of the soul, &c. as thou pratest, 'tis plain that they have willed on the very outset to inculcate this truth on the mind of every man,--no barren and inconsequential dogma, but an effectual, ever influencing and productive rule of life,--that he is born a debtor, lives a debtor--aye, friend, and when thou diest, will not some judicious bystander,--no recreant as thou to the bonds of nature, but a good borrower and true--remark, as did his grandsire before him on like occasions, that thou hast 'paid the _debt_ of nature'? Ha! I have thee 'beyond the rules', as one (a bailiff) may say! * Miss Hickey, on reading this passage, has called my attention to the fact that the sentiment which it parodies is identical with that expressed in these words of 'Prospice', . . . in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness, and cold. Such performances supplied a distraction to the more serious work of writing 'Paracelsus', which was to be concluded in March 1835, and which |
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