The importance of love as one of the most effective agencies in spiritual growth is stated and restated in Browning's poetry and by exceedingly diverse characters. The Queen in _In a Balcony_ turns away from her lonely splendor to exclaim,
There is no good of life but love--but love! What else looks good is some shade flung from love; Love gilds it, gives it worth.
The famous singer in "Dis Aliter Visum" knows that art, verse, music, count as naught beside "love found, gained, and kept." Browning seems to regard almost any genuine love as a means of opening out the nature to fuller self-knowledge, to wider sympathies, and to increased power of action. Hence he condemns all cautious calculation of obstacles, all dwelling upon conventional difficulties, in the path of those who have clearly seen "the love-way." Hence even love unrequited is counted of inestimable value. In _Colombe's Birthday_ Valence says,
Is the knowledge of her, naught? the memory, naught? --Lady, should such an one have looked on you, Ne'er wrong yourself so far as quote the world And say, love can go unrequited here! You will have blessed him to his whole life's end-- Low passions hindered, baser cares kept back, All goodness cherished where you dwelt--and dwell.
But the love of man and woman is not the only sort. A part of the value of this individual relationship is that it may be regarded as a revelation and symbol of the spirit of all-embracing sympathy whereby mankind should be ruled. When Paracelsus analyzes his life he ascribes his failure to the fact that he has sought knowledge to the exclusion of all else; he finally came to see that knowledge, however profound, is of itself barren of satisfaction. He had meant to serve men by revealing truth to them, but he found that real service is based on the understanding given by love. In self condemnation he says,
In my own heart love had not been made wise To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, To know even hate is but a mask of love's. To see a good in evil, and a hope In ill-success; to sympathize, be proud Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies, Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts; All with a touch of nobleness, despite Their error, upward tending all though weak.