But elsewhere Browning does justice to the pure chivalry of a man's devotion.
Caponsacchi's joy is the joy of a saviour who himself is saved; the great event of his life by which he is lifted above self is single and ultimate; his soul is delivered from careless egoism once and for ever; the grace of love is here what the theologians called invincible grace, and invincible grace, we know, results in final perseverance.

Even here in _Men and Women_ two contrasted poems assure us that, while the passion of a man may be no more than _Love in a Life_, it may also be an unweariable _Life in a Love_.
Of the poems of attainment one--_Respectability_--has the spirit of youth and gaiety in it.

Here love makes its gallant bid for freedom, fires up for lawlessness, if need be, and at least sets convention at defiance: The world's good word!--the Institute! Guizot receives Montalembert! Eh?
Down the court three lampions flare: Set forward your best foot! But, after all, this love may be no more than an adventure of the boulevard and the attic in the manner of Beranger's gay Bohemianism.

The distance is wide between such elan of youthful passion and the fidelity which is inevitable, and on which age has set its seal, in that poem of perfect attainment, _By the Fireside_.

This is the love which completes the individual life and at the same time incorporates it with the life of humanity, which unites as one the past and the present, and which, owing no allegiance of a servile kind to time, becomes a pledge for futurity.