The gain of every life. Death reads the title clear—
What each soul for itself conquered from out things here:
Since, in the seeing soul, all worth lies, I assert."A
A: Fifine at the Fair, lv.
In this passage, Browning gives expression to an idea which continually reappears in his pages—that human life, in its essence, is movement to moral goodness through opposition. His fundamental conception of the human spirit is that it is a process, and not a fixed fact. "Man," he says, "was made to grow not stop."
"Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns
Because he lives, which is to be a man,
Set to instruct himself by his past self."B
B: A Death in the Desert.
"By such confession straight he falls