The base of his creed, as of Carlyle's, is the gospel of labour; he believes in the supreme moral worth of effort.

Life is a "training school" for a future existence, and our place in it depends on the courage and strenuousness with which we have laboured here.

Evil is in the world only as an instrument in the process of development; by conquering it we exercise our spiritual faculties the more.

Only torpor is the supreme sin, even as in _The Statue and the Bust_ where effort would have been to a criminal end.
"The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin: And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Was, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a crime, I say." All the other main ideas of his poetry fit with perfect consistency on to his scheme.

Love, the manifestation of a man's or a woman's nature, is the highest and most intimate relationship possible, for it is an opportunity--the highest opportunity--for spiritual growth.