“My own hope is, a sun will pierce
  The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
    That, after Last, returns the First,
  Though a wide compass round be fetched;
    That what began best, can’t end worst. 
    Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst."[B]

[Footnote B:  Apparent Failure.]

It is the poet himself and not merely the sophistic aesthete of Fifine that speaks:—­

  “Partake my confidence!  No creature’s made so mean
  But that, some way, it boasts, could we investigate,
  Its supreme worth:  fulfils, by ordinance of fate,
  Its momentary task, gets glory all its own,
  Tastes triumph in the world, pre-eminent, alone.”

* * * * *

  “As firm is my belief, quick sense perceives the same
  Self-vindicating flash illustrate every man
  And woman of our mass, and prove, throughout the plan,
  No detail but, in place allotted it, was prime
  And perfect."[A]

[Footnote A:  Fifine at the Fair, xxix.]

But if so,—­if Helen, Fifine, Guido, find themselves within the plan, fulfilling, after all, the task allotted to them in the universal scheme, how can we condemn them?  Must we not plainly either modify our optimism and keep our faith in God within bounds, or, on the other hand, make every failure “apparent” only, sin a phantom, and the distinction between right and wrong a helpful illusion that stings man to effort—­but an illusion all the same?

  “What but the weakness in a Faith supplies
  The incentive to humanity, no strength
  Absolute, irresistible comforts. 
  How can man love but what he yearns to help?"[B]

[Footnote B:  The Ring and the Book—­The Pope, 1649-1652.]

Where is the need, nay, the possibility, of self-sacrifice, except where there is misery?  How can good, the good which is highest, find itself, and give utterance and actuality to the power that slumbers within it, except as resisting evil?  Are not good and evil relative?  Is not every criminal, when really known, working out in his own way the salvation of himself and the world?  Why cannot he, then, take his stand on his right to move towards the good by any path that best pleases himself:  since move he must.  It is easy for the religious conscience to admit with Pippa that

  “All service ranks the same with God—­
  With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
  Are we:  there is no last or first."[A]

[Footnote A:  Pippa Passes.]

But, if so, why do we admire her sweet pre-eminence in moral beauty, and in what is she really better than Ottima?  The doctrine that

  “God’s in His heaven—­
  All’s right with the world!"[B]

[Footnote B:  Ibid.]