SD1726. Calvin S. Locke to Unidentified Correspondent
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 365–365 (in part).
Cambridge
Apr. 10. 1854
My Dear Friend,
During the time afforded by a nine hours journey from Bath I have had an opportunity to reflect that my promise to write you soon would be unfulfilled if I waited long, so I have devoted the first moments of my return to you....
While on my journey [from Bath, Maine, to Cambridge, Massachusetts] I read the Paracelsus of Browning. Its design is to show that “knowledge alas! is all in vain[”] & how a man must give up that as his aspiration before he can attain peace. It is a good poem to read in connection with Faust. I can hardly tell you the difference between the poems in a better way than this. Goethe wrote his sitting at an apple stand in State street after a fishing excursion to the north of Maine & Browning his in a rock bounded recess, watered by a clear, cold rivulet flowing over white pebbles, overshadowed by large hemlocks & looking out on the sea with ships in the horizon. Browning[’]s is wholly a drama of inner experience & leaves out the heathenish machinery of devils & witches. The result is far more satisfactory. Browning “will have fit audience, tho’ few” (Is that like the Unitarian congregations?). I should not wonder if his dramas were acted by the spirits in the seventh sphere. He uses his imagination more than his fancy. He keeps a strict curb on the latter & never lets it take the bit between its teeth like his worthy wife. If they have never read it will you be kind enough to draw the attention of the young ladies at Hartford to the scene in Paracelsus in which Aprile speaks. I think they will enjoy it.– I found that Fichte came out right after all. The part on Faith contains passages of grand thought that I have seldom seen surpassed or equalled.– When we come to action all doubt vanishes. What we ought to do is plain enough & we must act under the idea that we & those about us are free. …
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pennsylvania State University.
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