R640200A. Poetical Works (1863).
The Victoria Magazine, February 1864, pp. 298–316. M[oncure]. D[aniel]. Conway.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 31, 329–337.
Robert Browning has been before the public for about thirty years as a professedly dramatic poet. If his friends cannot claim for him a circle of admirers equal in number to those ranged about some of his contemporaries, they may certainly claim in that circle a warmth and enthusiasm such as are rarely awarded to a living poet. Every admirer becomes a devotee. In America, where the works of this poet are very widely read and studied, I have even heard of a Browning Club. At a literary society far away on the prairies of the Western World, at which I was once present, the recitals which elicited the greatest enthusiasm were “The Lost Leader,” “How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix,” and the “Pied Piper of Hamelin.” But it is also true that the popularity of Mr. Browning in England is steadily increasing. There is reason to believe that the present edition of his poems—the only complete one, and very creditable to the publishers,—is in response to a sufficient demand on the part of the reading public here. Nevertheless it must be admitted that Mr. Browning is not, in this country, a popular poet, and that the degree in which he has at last succeeded in enlisting public attention has been gained with a slowness which is in quite remarkable contrast with the progress in public favour of others who began their career about the same time. Nor have explanations of this fact been wanting. Enough honest criticism has been uttered publicly and privately, confessing that people did not understand Mr. Browning, or, if they did, only with a labour greater than they were willing to bestow upon any one writer. And we know that where such a want of rapport between an author and the public occurs, the latter is very apt to have the benefit of the adjudication which itself must give, and the author bear the blame.
In the year 1833 a poem was published entitled, “Pauline: a Fragment of a Confession.” Though written by Mr. Browning, his name did not appear with it. It was a very impressive and vigorous work, and gained a warm welcome from some of the best judges. It is the only one of the author’s poems which has not been preserved in the present edition; and we regret the omission, for it is in every way worthy of him. Two years later Paracelsus was published, and was successful in obtaining credit with careful readers; although as an expression of [p. 299→] inward conflicts and questionings it reached the public at a time when Göethe’s Faust was preoccupying the minds of the more cultivated classes. Two years later appeared Strafford, A Tragedy. Up to this time in Mr. Browning’s career the complaints of obscurity do not seem to have been very general or important, although there were allegations that his style was involved and rough. Doubtless many had found it difficult to get a full comprehension of Paracelsus, but they were ready, in a poem where such high problems were discussed, to be modest in their criticisms. Strafford, also, it would seem, annoyed some by its introduction of many complex motives and new ideas into a region of history which most persons supposed already and completely exhausted. But just here, namely in 1840, Sordello appeared. Into the midst of the disputants who were discussing whether Browning were comprehensible, came Sordello, and settled the question, much as the Somnambulist in the opera appears to the peasants whilst they debate the possibility of such a phenomenon. The defenders of Browning’s perspicuity had not much to say; the others had it their own way. One critic offered his copy of the new work to any one who could put his hand on his heart and say he understood it; another, it was alleged, who began reading it, was seized with a terrible suspicion that he had lost his mind, until his wife declared that she also could not understand a word of it. The question was raised whether Sordello was a man or a city. Nor must it be supposed that the impenetrability of Sordello was a mere jest; it is certain that many honest attempts at reading it have failed.
There can be no doubt that to Sordello is chiefly attributable the prevalent idea of Mr. Browning’s obscurity as a writer, and his slow advance toward popular appreciation; and doubtless at this time, the memory of it withholds many minds from attempting to enter the rich and bountiful gardens which since then our author has with unremitting labour and supreme art been dressing for them. As this charge of obscurity is the chief one against Mr. Browning, and as it is my purpose in this paper to show that those who love this poet have reason for their faith, I will dwell a little upon this question of obscurity, both as a general one and as it relates to this particular author.
Le Sage’s story of the two scholars who found the stone with the enigmatic inscription, Here is buried the soul of Pedro Garcias—one of whom laughed at the absurdity of a soul being buried, and went his way, whilst the other remained to dig and find the gold—is one worth remembering. It is no unfrequent thing to find persons of fair ability ready to turn away from a book whose meaning is not at every step obvious, with the curt remark that if a man has anything to say, he can say it plainly. Nor do I feel inclined to deny the truth of the [p. 300→] aphorism; the English language has not only vast resources in itself, but an enormous stomach for other languages, from which any thinker may desire to import a better phrase. We cannot, moreover, find in a writer’s individuality any justification of obscurity; for great peculiarities of style are entirely consistent with clearness and even simplicity. Mr. Carlyle is an instance where an intense individuality has pervaded the style of expression to the minutest point, and yet his writings have been widely read and understood even among the labouring classes. It was a saying of Göethe’s, that whatever is permanent in any book, is translatable into any language; that is, that individuality is a quite separable ore from the truth it may hold. Where individuality so invades expression as to impede clearness, it is a grave fault; as if a lens should obtrude its glass visibly on the eye, whereas one of its highest qualifications as a reflector is the ability to withdraw as far as possible before the object to be revealed: the more lens visible, the less planet; the more style, the less expression; and extreme individuality is always dangerous to the clarity of the medium, as the glass to the lens, or a current of wind to the air when an observation is to be made. Archbishop Ussher well said, “it takes all our learning to be simple;” it is the duty of every author to devote himself, as an artist, to his style, and see that it is the fair physiognomical expression of his thought.
Where a charge of obscurity in a writer is made, it must first of all be shown that the obscurity does not arise from the critic’s want of familiarity with the subject of which that writer treats. It is obvious that however clear Faraday or Sir William Hamilton might be in their statements, the plainest of them would be dark sayings to persons entirely unversed in scientific or metaphysical studies. In the next place, it must be proved that the subject is not one with which some mystery is inherent; there being many subjects of legitimate inquiry and treatment which lie on the line between the knowable and the unknowable. Discoveries in this region, however simply or exactly expressed, will seem obscure to the majority even of thinkers.
All this admits that we have a right to question the obscure writer. Time is too precious, under our post-diluvial and abridged editions of human life, for us to spend it in deciphering; and, as Sydney Smith exhorted authors to “think of Noah and be brief,” we may, on the same grounds, base a claim for clearness. But it cannot be very difficult to discover whether the time spent on a book will be repaid. One need not eat the whole sirloin to ascertain whether it is cooked or raw. It would seem that wherever there is a work of any kind the worker is to be supposed to have put his heart into it, until it is proved otherwise. He is to be met with good faith. If the book does not at [p. 301→] once make itself understood, almost any paragraph will show its inadequacy or its power; and at least time may be allowed for the comprehension of some one page. And it is doubtful if any book can make a considerable contribution to any department of knowledge or thought which does not call for mental labour on the reader’s part. Good things still come hard, as in Plato’s time. They say in California that the hardest ore holds the cleanest gold.
Estimating Mr. Browning in accordance with these views, we may admit that in Sordello the fault was chiefly with the author. Of this, as it appears from the dedication to the poem in the present edition, he is himself conscious. This dedication (to J. Milsand of Dijon) is so significant that we give it here entire:—“Dear friend,—Let the next poem be introduced by your name, and so repay all trouble it ever cost me. I wrote it twenty-five years ago for only a few, counting even in these on somewhat more care about its subject than they really had. My own faults of expression were many; but with care for a man or a book, such would be surmounted, and without it what avails the faultlessness of either? I blame nobody, least of all myself, who did my best then and since; for I lately gave time and pains to turn my work into what the many might—instead of what the few must—like. But, after all, I imagined another thing at first, and therefore leave as I find it. The historical decoration was purposely of no more importance than a background requires; and my stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul: little else is worth study. I, at least, always thought so—you, with many known and unknown to me, think so—others may one day think so; and whether my attempt remain for them or not, I trust, though away and past it, to continue ever yours, R. B.”
Nevertheless, the poem, as it now appears, is far more comprehensible than it was formerly. Materially it has not been altered; but yet the mere changes of punctuation, and the introduction of “he said” or “she said” before the quotation marks which once bewildered the reader, have removed a host of difficulties. There has also been added above each page a running summary, which casts much light upon the drift of the poem. These very slight but very important changes, point out distinctly what were the real faults of the poem. It had the form of a poet’s extemporaneous thoughts, reported by some one else for him, and printed without previous revision by him. There were a vast number of dashes and quotation marks, which seemed to be the mere pauses of his own mind, and not at all meant to guide the reader. But a yet graver fault was in that very “historic decoration,” which was not merely a background, but which too frequently advanced far enough to obscure the leading figures. To understand that “historic decoration,”—relating as it does to some of the most complicated and mythical periods of Italian history—implies a course of difficult reading and [p. 302→] study. A poet has a right to presuppose an imagination in his reader, and culture also of a certain general kind; but scarcely a knowledge of details which would be discoverable only to those with whom the study of history is a specialty. A German writer undertaking to write the life of Luther, filled the first section of his book with a minute, scientific account of the geologic and botanic characteristics of the soil for many miles around the spot where the Reformer was born: doubtless these characteristics did have something to do with the blood, and bones, and temperament of the Reformer, and yet there was a vast proportion of those who were interested in him, and could appreciate his life and character, in whom the biographer had no right to expect a severe scientific culture. The “incidents in the development of a soul,” are of universal interest, and there is no reason why that soul should not have been placed in relation to the wars of Guelfs and Ghibelines: but would it not have been well to have guarded against any confusion of the outlines of the figures in the foreground with those shadowy forms of the background, which in the distance can scarcely be distinguished as men or trees? There are indeed some masterly productions for which the genius-worshipper is willing to have his ordinary wits turned topsyturvy. When Mr. Emerson was lecturing in England, a gentleman was heard, after listening the first half-hour, to remark to his wife, “My dear, don’t you think we should understand it better if we stood on our heads?” Reading Sordello years ago, I remember that I gained a positive enjoyment of it by the simple method of yielding up all of my usual standards of intelligence, and surrendering myself to Eglamor, Ecelin, Naddo, and the rest, until I had begun life over again in a new world of which these were the population, and without any effort to link them on to the history with which I had been acquainted.
It is indeed the history of a poet, and we are not all poets; and yet the history of a poet but records in a large type the history of that ideal, which, to some extent, enters and pleads with every soul: analyse any little sunbeam and you get the same colours that weave the magnificent arc which spans the sky. Sordello gains at a leap the high point of power, where the ways part; shall he now consecrate himself to his high task, or condescend to sing for the applause of men? Shall he dream on the dream of the Perfect, or shall he renounce that in order to be one segment of his dream?
For the rest,
E’en if some wondrous vehicle exprest
The whole dream, what impertinence in me
So to express it, who myself can be
The dream! Nor, on the other hand, are those
I sing to, over-likely to suppose
A higher than the highest I present [p. 303→]
Now, which they praise already: be content
Both parties, rather—they with the old verse,
And I with the old praise—far go, fare worse!
A few adhering rivets loosed, upsprings
The angel, sparkles off his mail, and rings
Whirled from each delicatest limb it wraps,
As might Apollo from the sudden corpse
Of Hyacinth have cast his luckless quoits,
He set to celebrating the exploits
Of Montfort o’er the Mountaineers.
It is the sad decline of a poet; but it is also the history of every spiritual compromise; the history of each who chooses to build a fame instead of a soul, to reach a throne instead of self-control, or heaven instead of virtue.
Sordello is at last the Minstrel Laureate of the Court, but having gained his crown finds what a terrible price has been paid for it. On one occasion when he is to greet the Prince at his entrance to the city with a poem, the occasion comes, but no poet. Sordello having gone forth into the fields to find a poem, does not find it, but chances upon the old home whose beautiful environments were associated with his pure and early aspirations. He had left all blooming; now he brings ruins to ruins, yet even they give a hope to one trying to recover his old self.
Come home Sordello! Soon
Was he low muttering, beneath the moon,
Of sorrow saved, of quiet evermore,
Since from the purpose he maintained before,
Only resulted wailing and hot tears.
Ah, the slim castle! dwindled of late years,
But more mysterious; gone to ruin—trails
Of vine through every loop-hole . . . .
His forehead pressed the moonlit shelf
Beside the youngest marble maid awhile,
Then, raising it, he thought, with a long smile,
“I shall be King again!” as he withdrew
The envied scarf; into the font he threw
His crown.
But recovery from the first deliberate decline of a great soul is not so easy. Sordello’s worldly choice had necessarily been born into a body of earthly relations, to fulfil which now assumed the authenticity of honour and duty. So the world finds him in his retreat, lays its finger on his shoulder, and he follows,—resolving, however, to carry with him the sanctity of a new life. Through the working of events he is at last brought to face the highest temptation; the badge of royalty is offered him, and he may enjoy the highest earthly power if he will [p. 304→] consent to oppress the world. Here he triumphs, but perishes in the victorious conflict.
Here is a soul whom, to affect,
Nature has plied with all her means—from trees
And flowers—e’en to the multitude! and these,
Decides he save or no? One word to end! . . . . .
What has Sordello found?
They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil,
Aside—and you divine who sat there dead,
Under his foot the badge. Still, Palma said,
A triumph lingering in the wide eyes,
Wider than some spent swimmer’s if he spies
Help from above in his extreme despair,
And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns there
With short, quick passionate cry: as Palma prest
In one great kiss her lips upon his breast,
It beat.
After reading Sordello there is a fine, poetic impression left on the mind; a somewhat faint, but most noble figure has been seen in the flash and turmoil of battle; and though we do not exactly conceive the persons or questions involved in that battle, we feel that it is one whose ranks stretch back toward heaven and hell, and that in the fate of the young and sore-pressed warrior our own most august hopes are involved. Indeed, we discern the higher and lower forms and forces from their reflected appearance in the failures or triumphs of this one soul. We know where the parties stand from the sinking or rising of his spirit as he sides with that or this. Still, some reference to the Encyclopædia concerning Guelf and Ghibeline, and much to the “Biographie Universelle” concerning many names brought forward in the poem, will save the reader much despondency. But this, which implies the defect in Sordello as a work of art, is applicable to that poem alone.
The reader of Mr. Browning must learn first of all that he is one of that class of writers whose finest thoughts must be often read “between the lines.” He supposes his reader to have in his mind a scene or action, to which his sentences are footlights. Sometimes where a passage seems obscure one has only to pause and reflect what would be the tone in which a certain speech should naturally be uttered, or what movement of a person would correspond with the situation, to find the dark saying light up to one of, perhaps, unusual simplicity. From many passages which illustrate this we select the following from Colombe’s Birthday. Valence, Advocate of Cleves, has been sent to the Court of Colombe, Duchess of Juliers, to pray redress of the wrongs of that city. At the same time Berthold advances with an indisputable title, and claims the throne of Juliers. Valence is secretly enamoured of Colombe, and bravely [p. 305→] offers to stand by, and defend her Duchy. Prince Berthold offers to settle the matter by marrying Colombe. Valence has the duty of taking to her Berthold’s proposal. The Duchess has just inquired whether Berthold said he loved her. The reply is indicated by her next words.
The D. You reason, then, and doubt?
Val. I love, and know.
The D. You love? How strange! I never cast a thought
On that! Just see our selfishness! You seemed
So much my own . . I had no ground—and yet,
I never dreamed another might divide
My power with you; much less exceed it.
Val. Lady,
I am yours wholly.
The D. Oh, no, no, not mine!
’Tis not the same now; never more can be!
Your first love, doubtless! Well, what’s gone from me?
What have I lost in you?
Val. My heart replies—
No loss there! So, to Berthold back again!
This offer of his hand, he bids me make—
Its obvious magnitude is well to weigh.
The D. She’s . . . yes, she must be very fair for you!
Val. I am a simple Advocate of Cleves.
The D. You! With the heart and brain that so helped me,
I fancied them exclusively my own,
Yet find are subject to a stronger sway!
She must be . . . tell me, is she very fair?
Val. Most fair, beyond conception or belief!
The D. Black eyes? No matter! Colombe, the world leads
Its life without you, whom your friends professed
The only woman—see how true they spoke!
One lived this while, who never saw your face,
Nor heard your voice—unless . . . Is she from Cleves?
Val. Cleves knows her well!
The D. Ah! just a fancy, now!
When you poured forth the wrongs of Cleves,—I said,
Thought, that is afterward . . .
Val. You thought of me?
The D. Of whom else? Only such great cause, I thought,
For such effect: see what true love can do!
Cleves is his love! I almost fear to ask
. . . And will not. This is idling: to our work!
Admit before the Prince, without reserve,
My claims misgrounded; then may follow better
. . . When you poured out Cleves’ wrongs, impetuously,
Was she in your mind?
Val. All done was done for her
—To humble me! [p. 306→]
In this passage, of which it would be hard to find the equal in our language for depth and spirit, freedom and exact accord with the subtlest laws of human nature, it must be remembered that Colombe is totally unconscious of her own growing feeling for Valence, and of his having any other sentiment toward her than that of loyalty. Her disposition to consider Prince Berthold’s generous offer is real, although she is unable to recover at once from the perturbation occasioned by her chief officer’s confession that he loved,—a perturbation which, as yet, seems to her sufficiently explained by a natural jealousy at having her power over her minister divided by any other kind of loyalty in him. Her phrase thus far is “My power with you.” This unconscious struggle in her mind between the Duchess and the woman is one of the most delicate kind, and of a kind which has led to the criticism that Mr. Browning’s works are over-intellectual. Yet I remember well to have seen a vast miscellaneous crowd in an American theatre hanging with breathless attention upon every word of this interview, down to the splendid climax where, in obedience to the Duchess’s direction to Valence how he should reveal his love to the lady she so little suspects to be herself, he kneels,—every heart evidently feeling each word as an electric touch, and all giving vent at last to their emotion in round after round of hearty applause. Indeed, during the entire performance I took occasion, at passages that might have been thought by some readers abstruse, to look around and see if I could discover a flickering intelligence in any face, but was convinced that the whole was thoroughly comprehended and felt by the entire audience. Undoubtedly this was due, to a great extent, to the genuine ability of the leading artists and the care with which they had studied the drama. Indeed the performance of Colombe by Miss Davenport was an excellent analysis of the play. In the line I have italicised—“Well, what’s gone from me?”—her voice sank to the tone of plaintive bewilderment, it being spoken to herself; then it is raised as she turns directly to Valence, and says, “What have I lost in you?” When Colombe says that, whilst he poured out the wrongs of Cleves, she “thought”—Valence is for the moment surprised into a forgetfulness of the secresy of his love, and interrupts hastily,—“You thought of me?” Of course when he stood there before her as an advocate she must have thought of him; and the mystification with which the artist referred to said:—“Of whom else?”—gave a thrilling intensity to those three words which many years cannot obliterate from my memory. When the thought comes over her like a shadow that the very devotion with which he had pleaded the wrongs of Cleves, which had first enlisted her admiration, might have been inspired by a less noble feeling, her chill is felt in a reversion from the woman to the duchess: “This is idling: to our work!” The tender voice becomes hard, the bent neck [p. 307→] of the eager inquiring Colombe is now erect to the stately height of the Duchess of Juliers. She is about to say that when the legal abdication in favour of the Prince has occurred, the marriage proposal may more suitably follow; when, by an exquisite perception in the poet, the thought of marriage, even before it can find words, hurls her back upon that yet unrecognised feeling which is the deepest. And yet the harder tone of the Queen dominates over the woman’s interest, in the severe and blunt question—whether she whom he loved was in his mind when he spoke of Cleves. Let the reader imagine the bitter sneer and averted face of Colombe as her hero sinks, and the flashing upon Valence of the thought that she has discovered his presumptuous love and is punishing it, coming between the first and last parts of his reply—between, “All done was done for her,” and the moan, as from under an engine of torture, “To humble me!” and he will see how important it is to read “between the lines” of this author.
In these volumes Mr. Browning claims our attention in the various paths of the dramatic, romantic, and lyric poet, and as an interpreter of the thought of the day. This is a vast range for one man: we may very naturally shudder, remembering how vigorous must be the germ of such a banyan-growth; but it is likely that we shall rise up from these volumes feeling that this poet’s eminence above all living poets is the vast range of his knowledge and the equal catholicity of his poetic perception. We have reason to be proud, indeed, of what we call English poetry, yet we cannot but feel that the best standards have been departed from in the tendency of our modern English poets to raise the local and social characteristics of this one country into a more universal light than they will bear. Much as I admire “Locksley Hall,” and “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” or “Aurora Leigh,” I feel a certain insularity in their subjects. They depend for their interest upon the social conventionalities of England; and their effect must be weakened as we advance toward the “federation of the world.” We must look forward to a time when, as we know now many places where, these poems to be fully appreciated must be published with appended explanations of the extent to which caste swayed the society of this particular age and island, even as a Hindoo poem turning upon the Brahmin caste would need annotation here. I agree that a poem should bear in its language, and, to a limited degree, in its point of view, a relation to the poet’s native land; but the stem should draw into itself the soil from which it springs, only that it may better unfold to a flower whose hues shall be drawn from the sky which bends over humanity in every land. Anything short of this is Sordello pausing before he has reached the high task awaiting him, to celebrate
the exploits
Of Montfort o’er the Mountaineers. [p. 308→]
Much then as we value the poets who celebrate the nobleness of our own country, we cannot fail to award the praise of a higher aim to one who is now a German, aspiring with Paracelsus and grappling Strauss; now an Italian, cunning with King Victor and passionate with Sordello; then an Oriental, brother to the princely heart of Luria, and divining the fatal secret of Djabal, and yet a ruddy-hearted Englishman, who knows the noble blood of Strafford and of Pym, and whose love of liberty is the passport of his country, borne through every land and never lost.
It is as a dramatic poet that we have first to estimate Mr. Browning. It is evident that in this direction he himself finds his greatest freedom. Indeed his only allusion to himself in these volumes is as a “writer of plays.” His earliest poems are, in reality, dramas,—Pauline, Paracelsus, and Sordello being such no less than Colombe’s Birthday. Mailed ambition and winged aspiration carry forward upon the stage of Sordello’s heart their plot and counterplot, and grapple at last for the conflict in which one must fall and the other be enthroned. Paracelsus is the “wolfish hunger” for knowledge, or the hunger for knowledge for the power it gives over men and not for them. The Italian poet Aprile, whom he meets, is the corresponding hunger for love, which for personal affections declines the task of life, and sinks to ignoble rest in full view
Of darkling mortals famished for one ray
Of its so hoarded luxury of light.
Each of these has aspired after his own great lust; and what they have attained now appears. Aprile recounts how, when at last he would tear himself from his selfish rest in the narrowest love, for some beckoning duty,—thick films, mist-like influences, “faint memories of the rest that charmed so long,” floated fast and confusingly about him—
As whirling snow-drifts blind a man who treads
A mountain ridge with guiding spear through storm.
This entire passage I quote as being a fine instance of that dramatic representation of the inmost states of mind, in which Mr. Browning is facile princeps. Aprile, whose death is near, cries,
Say, though I fell, I had excuse to fall;
Say, I was tempted sorely: say but this,
Dear Lord, Aprile’s Lord!
Par. Clasp me not thus!
Aprile! That the truth should reach me thus!
We are weak dust. Nay, clasp not, or I faint!
Apr. My King! and envious thoughts could outrage thee!
Lo, I forget my ruin, and rejoice [p. 309→]
In thy success, as thou! Let our God’s praise
Go bravely through the world at last! What care
Through me or thee? I feel thy breath. Why, tears?
Tears in the darkness, and from thee to me?
Par. Love me henceforth, Aprile, while I learn
To love; and, merciful God, forgive us both!
We wake at length from weary dreams; but both
Have slept in fairyland; though dark and drear
Appears the world before us, we no less
Wake with our wrists and ankles jewelled still.
I, too, have sought to know as thou to love—
Excluding love as thou refused’st knowledge.
Still thou hast beauty and I power. We wake:
What penance canst devise for both of us?
Apr. I hear thee faintly. The thick darkness! Even
Thine eyes are hid. ’Tis as I knew: I speak
And now I die. But I have seen thy face!
O, poet, think of me, and sing of me!
But to have seen thee and to die so soon!
Par. Die not, Aprile! We must never part.
Are we not halves of one dissevered world,
Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part never!
Till thou, the lover, know; and I, the knower,
Love—until both are saved.
In that incomparable work Pippa Passes, which is apt to be held as set apart and sacred in the mind of any careful reader, the poet’s entire gamut of powers is swept through. As a creation of art we can think of but one other character in literature worthy of a comparison with Pippa, and that one is Mignon; both are the highest expressions of lyric poetry. But one can scarcely stop to praise the perfection of art in this poem, when it is transfigured in the light of the highest spiritual beauty. Even more than a type of lyric poetry Pippa is the impersonation of that unconscious influence which alone is perfect. As we go forth with this child to enjoy her one day of freedom from the silk mills, intent on nothing more definite than the flower or butterfly in her path, singing her little hymns—as we follow those songs floating up through the castle window, searching out the guilty like the finger of God, or to the patriot’s ear nerving his faltering purpose, or uplifting the sculptor from his cruel wrongs to a nobler life, and at last rescuing herself from a hideous plot—and see her again in her chamber without a dream of the revolutions in human lives which her simple songs have accomplished—Pippa and her day denote for us the day of life, and every heart that will not “squander a wavelet” of it, but coin every breath into truth and purity. “Every life,” we cry, “lived not for effect but in simplicity and humility, is such a strain, adopted thus by the Maker of human hearts as His own awful utterances to those whom they have not known, and may never know!” [p. 310→]
We quote the closing lines. Pippa has, in her day’s play, been indulging the childish conceit of being all in succession of the most distinguished persons in Asolo, as she passed near the residences of each. Returning to her little chamber she has begun to undress herself, and soliloquises:—
Now one thing I should like to really know;
How near I ever might approach all these
I only fancied being, this long day!
—Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so
As to . . in some way . . move them—if you please,
Do good or evil to them, some slight way.
For instance, if I wind
Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind
[Sitting on the bedside.
And broider Ottima’s cloak’s hem.
Ah me! and my important part with them,
This morning’s hymn half promised when I rose!
True in some sense or other, I suppose,
Though I passed by them all, and felt no sign.
[As she lies down.
God bless me! I can pray no more to-night.
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.
All service is the same with God—
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we: there is no last nor first. [She sleeps.
That but two or three of Mr. Browning’s plays have been put on the stage, is certainly not because they lack the elements of popularity. A good subject, a novel and striking plot, and picturesque situations, are three things in which he never fails. The manager, in the name of the pit, demands vigorous action and brief speeches in a play; Mr. Browning furnishes the action and brief speeches; and it is probable that these last have frightened manager and actor. But they would find, on closer examination, that these poetic speeches and dialogues are practically separable in most cases from the play. They would, indeed, be invaluable, and even necessary for the actor in explaining to him the part he is to fill. When, for example, in A Blot in the ’Scutcheon, Mildred, her error known to Tresham, her brother, falls swooning at his rebuke, Guendolen flies to her aid, but Austin holds back; upon which Guendolen utters a grand rebuke of him. This occupies a page and one-third. But an artist, once having drilled herself by a careful study, might express it, with the advantage of the action and excitement of the theatre, in a gesture, a line, and a look. Indeed Mr. Browning has throughout his works made his plays susceptible of this adaptation; and we cannot doubt that in the “good time coming,” a share in which the theatre needs as much as other institutions, these plays will bring their startling situations, their living expressions of heroism in man and woman, and their singular pathos, to the delight of that generation and the discredit of this. [p. 311→]
In the conception of characters Mr. Browning shows more originality than in anything else. He emphasises personality rather than individuality; that is, he sees that Nature, who appears in the material world working up endless diversities from a few simple forms,—as a spine, an egg, a leaf,—shapes the diversities of character from a few simple elements also; but he sees also that men and women are inferior or superior by their degree of loyalty to the part assigned them, which may be distinguished, in the character implied, as personality. Thus, though everyone may be classified, the singleness of each to his or her purpose secures definite outlines. As a result of this constant reference to organisation, Mr. Browning’s representations of character are borne out in the minutest points. Colombe is Colombe as much when she receives so sweetly her maid Sabyne’s birthday-gift of river-bells, as when she gives up Juliers and the world for the one she loves,—which all her attendants know she is sure to do even before she knows it herself. Thus every act and word of each character becomes physiognomical, and mingle with the tints of hair and eyes which our author contrives in slight ways to hint to us. Mr. Browning is, in fact, a poetic portrait-painter; and, indeed, the only instance in which we think he has misconceived the character of his own work is in naming certain of his works “Romances,” which are really a series of pictures. An artist might put on canvass every line of “Count Gismond” or of “The Flight of the Duchess,” without needing a quotation to help him out. And we dare say that every reader of these volumes will have left on his mind a strong impression of the very physical personality of Colombe, Mildred, Constance, Michal, of Ottima, “magnificent in sin,” of Tresham, and Sir Loys. Nor must we omit to observe a power our author has of giving as much in a turn of expression, at times, as Giotto did in his “O.” How completely we are brought into the presence of Valence by these few words:
Adolf. He holds a paper in his breast, whereon
He glances when his cheeks flush and his brow
At each repulse—
Gau. I noticed he’d a brow.
Evelyn Hope is made “of spirit, fire, and dew.” And “Pym’s arm points like a prophet’s rod.” King Victor’s rascal Minister is photographed in
The clipped grey hair, and dead white face,
And dwindling eye as if it ached with guile,
D’Ormea wears.
In considering Mr. Browning’s lyric poetry a question of expression at once arises. A lyric involves two ideas essentially: one of a brief [p. 312→] poem complete in itself, and not depending upon extraneous details for the expression of its totality of beauty. Mignon’s song in “Wilhelm Meister,” Kennst du das Land? is fine enough to be considered as a standard of lyric form and effect; whilst it grows out of the story of the child stolen from the grand halls of her ancestors in the far South, subjected to much hardship, and yearning for the home she but dimly remembers, it is touching and significant apart from the story, and is the voice of all human hearts yearning for past or present ideals. So far a lyric is strictly a poetic conception; and so far we must declare Mr. Browning’s works to be studded with them, the best, indeed, being scattered through his plays and longer poems. But there is a second essential in the lyric, implied in its name, and relating to musical expression. It requires not only that a conception shall be beautiful in itself, but that it shall, so to say, chant itself. The lyric-language must in many instances sacrifice exactness to sound, and freedom to form. In the hands of the lyric master it does, indeed, suggest much that it is not permitted to utter. The mind with which language is a “pure work of thought,” as our author confesses it to be in his own case, can scarcely find its full play in the lyric form; and, as the old Greek motto, αεί αρὶστυειν is the only guarantee of poetic as of all other success, we can scarcely expect to find our author’s highest success in his lyrics. Mr. Browning’s style of expression is to be admired for the very quality which forbids its being a complete vehicle of lyric poetry,—namely, its exactness. He is apt to find and use the word which conveys his thought with precision, a precision which is never sacrificed to rhetoric. Dr. Johnson’s perfectly dressed woman,—of whom one could not remember how she was dressed,—suggests this style, in which one only remembers that a clear statement of a distinct and beautiful thought was contained. Hence, after reading one of Mr. Browning’s lyrics, one does not find oneself repeating over vague and musical words, but imagining a picture of satisfying sweetness. The ear has ceased to tingle with the melody, but it goes on in memorable echoes through the imagination. His finest lyrics, consequently, seem to me to be, like his “romances,” susceptible of a better characterisation as pictures. But they certainly are of wonderful beauty, by whatever name they may be called. Here is one entitled, “Meeting at Night:”
I.
The grey sea, and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low,
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep;
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand. [p. 313→]
II.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
In this little piece every line is a thoroughly wrought part of a pre-Raphaelite picture. There is softness and caution in the half-moon, and apprehension in the startled wavelets. We feel that it is no usual landingplace, that slushy sand. And throughout there is a long story full of separation, fear, and resolution, implied; and yet it is completely lyric in that it is complete in itself without any explanation or history, as a flower is apart from the stratum where its roots lie, and the climate around, of which it is characteristic. In a few cases Mr. Browning does succeed in giving us a complete lyric. Of this kind are the so justly admired “Lost Leader,” “Evelyn Hope,” and “How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix.” Mertoun’s song in A Blot in the ’Scutcheon, is an instance of rare expression.
I.
There’s a woman like a dew-drop, she’s so purer than the purest;
And her noble heart’s the noblest, yes, and her sure faith’s the surest,
And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre
Hid i’ the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster,
Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck’s rose-misted marble:
Then her voice’s music, call it the well’s bubbling, the bird’s warble!
II.
And this woman says, “My days were sunless, and my nights were moonless,
Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark’s heart’s outbreak tuneless,
If you loved me not!” And I who—(ah, for words of flame!)—adore her!
Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her,
I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me,
And by noontide as by midnight make her mine as hers she makes me!
Before we leave the consideration of Mr. Browning as a poet, for a brief allusion to his merits as an interpreter of the thought of the day, it is but just to advert to his powers of felicitous illustration, and of concentrating in one fine statement a vast range of feeling or thought. It will be sufficient to quote a few examples.
A still voice from without said—“Seest thou not,
Desponding child, whence spring defeat and loss?
Even from thy strength.” . . . . .
And I smiled as one never smiles but once;
Then first discovering my own aim’s extent, [p. 314→]
Which sought to comprehend the work of God,
And God Himself, and all God’s intercourse
With the human mind,
Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal,
Two points in the adventure of the diver:
One—when a beggar he prepares to plunge,
One—when a prince, he rises with his pearl?
Festus, I plunge!
If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God’s lamp
Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day!
For the loving worm within its clod,
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds.
Yet seems this patriotism
The easiest virtue for a selfish man
To acquire! He loves himself—and next the world—
If he must love beyond—but nought between:
As a short-sighted man, sees nought midway
His body and the sun above.
There are blind ways provided, the foredone
Heartweary player in this pageant world
Drops out by, letting the main masque defile
By the conspicuous portal:—I am through—
Just through!
How inexhaustibly the spirit grows!
One object she seemed erewhile born to reach
With her whole energies and die content,—
So like a wall at the world’s end it stood,
With nought beyond to live for; is it reached?
Already are new undreamed energies
Outgrowing under, and extending further
To a new object; there’s another world!
Mr. Browning’s universal culture, involving an evident acquaintance with the philosophical and religious systems which engage most of the earnest thinking of the present day, and the depth and even vehemence of his convictions, entitle him to more consideration in this regard than our space will permit us to give in the present article. He has, indeed, a fine philosophic insight into the workings of the human mind and heart, and is a fair analyst of the forms in which they are best represented in the present age. A distinguished thinker has called Paracelsus, “the wail of the nineteenth century.” It does, indeed, see the lamed god that man is, the Vulcan in the smithy, [p. 315→] covered with its soot, but grappling with iron and shaping enduring forms. Long before Darwin gave to the world his theory of the transmutation of species by natural selection, Mr. Browning had traced a similar law working in human society, and the statement of it in the closing pages of Paracelsus is one of the most powerful pieces of philosophic statement with which we are acquainted. He sees in man:
The consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life: whose attributes had here and there
Been scattered o’er the visible world before,
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole,
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some point where all those scattered rays should meet
Convergent in the faculties of man.
All tended to mankind,
And, man produced, all has its end thus far:
But in completed man begins anew,
A tendency to God.
Man set fairly upon this higher circle must be regarded as a newborn infant; endowed with a capacity for knowledge and love,—which now take the place of the great forces which finally produced from Nature his physical form,—must similarly strive on till the erect and heaven-facing race fulfils a circle corresponding to that which was ended and sealed in the appearance of his form as the climax of the animal world.
Prognostics told
Man’s near approach; so in man’s self arise
August anticipations, symbols, types
Of a dim splendour ever on before
In that eternal circle run by life.
For men begin to pass their nature’s bound,
And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant
Their proper joys and griefs; they outgrow all
The narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade
Before the unmeasured thirst for good: while peace
Rises within them ever more and more.
Such men are even now upon the earth,
Serene amid the half-formed creatures round
Who should be saved by them and joined with them.
Throughout all of Mr. Browning’s works, there are varied expressions of this theory, which show that it is with him no momentary leap into the empyrean, but a fundamental and steadfast perception.
An entire article would scarcely suffice for a full and just appreciation [p. 316→] of Mr. Browning as a religious thinker and poet. This must be my apology for concluding this without any attempt at an analysis of some of the most significant and powerful productions of this or any other age. That most thrilling soul-symphony “Saul;” the “Strange medical experience of Karshish, the Arab physician,” like some rare flower out of a seed buried for a hundred generations with some old king in his pyramid; the Dantesque splendours of the “Christmas Eve and Easter Day,” all invite exploration and would most richly reward it. They are replete with visions which recall the “Arcana Celestia,” whilst with them are mingled a play of human feeling which the Seer of Stockholm never knew. Borne, as upon a chariot of fire, from glory to glory, this intellect is still clear, and the pulses of this heart are, though quickened, never confused or morbid. Reading Browning’s religious poems I have been fain to remember the saying of Locke, that “God, when he makes the prophet, does not unmake the man.”
Although the chief attraction of Mr. Browning’s poems is to be found in the solid and vigorous thinking which characterises them, and the life which they possess, and consequently can impart, yet they are equally to be valued for the presence in each poem of that heart,
blood-tinctured with a veined humanity,
which long ago won the reverence of the gifted woman so lately removed from his side. He may well work on at his task in all sincerity, whether fully recognised or not. Deep ever calleth unto deep: as these volumes have come from the profoundest convictions and experiences of an earnest man, they are insured an entrance to corresponding depths in others. The voice whose call is not met with loud echoes is not therefore lost in the void; rather has it been all the more unimpeded in accomplishing that whereto it was sent.
M[oncure]. D[aniel]. Conway
Reviewed:
Poetical Works (RB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1863.
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