In other words the site is so magnificent that to-day expensive hotels are built there, and people come from all over the world to enjoy the view. In fact it is just this situation which Browning admires in the poem _De Gustibus_.
What I love best in all the world
Is a castle, precipice-encurled,
In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.
But our man does not know what he _ought_ to say; he says simply what he really thinks. The views of a sincere Philistine on natural scenery, works of art, pieces of music, are interesting because they are sincere. The conventional admiration may or may not be genuine.
This man says the city is much cooler in summer than the country: that spring visits the city earlier: that what we call the monotonous row of houses in a city street is far more beautiful than the irregularity of the country. It appeals to his sense of beauty.
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry.
But his real rapture over the city is because city life is interesting. There is something going on every moment of the blessed day. It is a perpetual theatre, admission free. This is undoubtedly the real reason why the poor prefer crowded, squalid city tenements to the space, fresh air and hygienic advantages of the country. Many well-meaning folk wonder why men with their families remain in city slums, when they could easily secure work on farms, where there would be abundance of fresh air, wholesome food, and cool nights for sleep. Our Italian gives the correct answer. People can not stand dullness and loneliness: they crave excitement, and this is supplied day and night by the city street. Indeed in some cases, where by the Fresh Air Fund, children are taken for a vacation to the country, they become homesick for the slums.
* * * * *
UP AT A VILLA–DOWN IN THE CITY
(AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY)
1855
I
Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square; Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!
II
Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least! There, the whole day long, one’s life is a perfect feast; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.
III
Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature’s skull, Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! –I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair’s turned wool.
IV
But the city, oh the city–the square with the houses! Why? They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there’s something to take the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry; You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high; And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.
V
What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights, ‘Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights:
You’ve the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint grey olive-trees.
VI
Is it better in May, I ask you? You’ve summer all at once; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. ‘Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.
VII
Is it ever hot in the square? There’s a fountain to spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash
Round the lady atop in her conch–fifty gazers do not abash, Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash.
VIII
All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like death’s lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i’ the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicida is shrill, And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill.
Enough of the seasons,–I spare you the months of the fever and chill.
IX
Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin:
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in: You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. By-and-by there’s the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth;
Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. At the post-office such a scene-picture–the new play, piping hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop’s most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke’s!
Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome and Cicero, “And moreover,” (the sonnet goes rhyming,) “the skirts of Saint Paul has reached,
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached,”
Noon strikes,–here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart With a pink gauze gown all spangles,
and seven swords stuck in her heart! _Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife; No keeping one’s haunches still: it’s the greatest pleasure in life.
X
But bless you, it’s dear–it’s dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate.
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate
It’s a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city! Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still–ah, the pity, the pity! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals,
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
And the Duke’s guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals:
_Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife. Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!
No poem of Browning’s has given more trouble to his whole-souled admirers than _The Statue and the Bust_: and yet, if this is taken as a paradox, its meaning is abundantly clear.
The square spoken of in the poem is the Piazza Annunziata in Florence: in the midst of the square stands the equestrian statue of the Duke: and if one follows the direction of the bronze eyes of the man, it will appear that they rest steadfastly on the right hand window in the upper storey of the palace. This is the farthest window facing the East. There is no bust there; but it is in this window that the lady sat and regarded the daily passage of the Duke.
The reason why this poem has troubled the minds of many good people is because it seems (on a very superficial view) to sympathise with unlawful love; even in certain circumstances to recommend the pursuit of it to fruition. Let us see what the facts are. Before the Duke saw the bride, he was, as Browning says, empty and fine like a swordless sheath. This is a good description of many young men. They are like an empty sheath. The sheath may be beautiful, it may be exquisitely and appropriately enchased; but a sheath is no good without a sword. So, many young men are attractive and accomplished, their minds are cultivated by books and travel, but they have no driving purpose in life, no energy directed to one aim, no end; and therefore all their attractiveness is without positive value. They are empty like a handsome sheath minus the sword.
The moment the Duke saw the lady a great purpose filled his life: he became temporarily a resolute, ambitious man, with capacity for usefulness. No moral scruple kept the lovers apart; and they determined to fly. This purpose was frustrated by procrastination, trivial hindrances, irresolution, till it was forever too late. Now the statue and the bust gaze at each other in eternal ironical mockery, for these lovers in life might as well have been made of bronze and stone; they never really lived.
Contrary to his usual custom–it is only very seldom as in this poem and in _Bishop Blougram’s Apology_, and in both cases because he knew he would otherwise be misunderstood–Browning added a personal postscript. Where are these lovers now? How do they spend their time in the spiritual world? I do not know where they are, says Browning, but I know very well where they are _not_: they are not with God. No, replies the reader, because they wanted to commit adultery. Ah, says Browning, they are not exiled from God because they wanted to commit adultery: they are exiled because they did not actually do it. This is the paradox.
Browning takes a crime to test character; for a crime can test character as well as a virtue. We must draw a clear distinction here between society and the individual. It is a good thing for society that people are restrained from crime by what are really bad motives–fear, presence of police, irresolution, love of ease, selfishness: furthermore, society and the law do not consider men’s motives, but only their actual deeds. A white-souled girl and a blackhearted villain with no criminal record are exactly equal in the eyes of the law, both perfectly innocent.
But from the point of view of the individual, or as a Christian would say, in the sight of God, it is the heart that makes all the difference between virtue and depravity. In the case of our lovers delay was best for society, but bad for them: the purposed crime was a test of their characters, and they added the sin of cowardice to the sin of adultery, which they had already committed in their hearts. Suppose four men agree to hold up a train. When the light of the locomotive appears, three lose their courage: the fourth stops the train, and single-handed takes the money from the express-car and from the passengers, killing the conductor and the express-messenger. After the train has been sent on its way, the three timid ones divide up with the man who actually committed the crimes. Who is the most virtuous among the four? Which has the best chance to be with God? Manifestly the brave one, although he is a robber and a murderer. From the point of view of the people who owned the money, from the point of view of the families of the dead men, it would have been better if all four of the would-be robbers had been cowards: but for that criminal’s individual soul, he was better than his mates, because the crime tested his character and found him sound: he did not add the sin of cowardice to the sins of robbery and murder.
Browning changes the figure. If you choose to play a game–no one is obliged to play, but if you do choose to play–then play with all your energy, whether the stakes are money or worthless counters. Now our lovers chose to play. The stake they played for was not the true coin of marriage, but the false counter of adultery. Still, the game was a real test of their characters, and it proved them lacking in every true quality that makes men and women noble and useful.
Even now Browning knew that some readers would not understand him: so he added the last two lines, which ought to make his lesson clear. You virtuous people (I see by your expression you disapprove and are ready to quarrel with me) how strive you? _De te, fabula_! My whole story concerns you. You say that the lovers should have remained virtuous: you say that virtue should be the great aim of life. Very well, do _you_ act as if you believed what you say? Is virtue the greatest thing in _your_ life? Do you strive to the uttermost toward that goal? Do you really prefer virtue to your own ease, comfort and happiness?
I find Browning’s poem both clear and morally stimulating. My one objection would be that he puts rather too much value on mere energy. I do not believe that the greatest thing in life is striving, struggle, and force: there are deep, quiet souls who accomplish much in this world without being especially strenuous. But in the sphere of virtue Browning was essentially a fighting man.
THE STATUE AND THE BUST
1855
There’s a palace in Florence, the world knows well, And a statue watches it from the square, And this story of both do our townsmen tell.
Ages ago, a lady there,
At the farthest window facing the East Asked, “Who rides by with the royal air?”
The bridesmaids’ prattle around her ceased; She leaned forth, one on either hand;
They saw how the blush of the bride increased–
They felt by its beats her heart expand– As one at each ear and both in a breath Whispered, “The Great-Duke Ferdinand.”
The selfsame instant, underneath,
The Duke rode past in his idle way, Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.
Gay he rode, with a friend as gay,
Till he threw his head back–“Who is she?” –“A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day.”
Hair in heaps lay heavily
Over a pale brow spirit-pure–
Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree,
Crisped like a war-steed’s encolure– And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes Of the blackest black our eyes endure,
And lo, a blade for a knight’s emprise Filled the fine empty sheath of a man,– The Duke grew straightway brave and wise.
He looked at her, as a lover can;
She looked at him, as one who awakes: The past was a sleep, and her life began.
Now, love so ordered for both their sakes, A feast was held that selfsame night
In the pile which the mighty shadow makes.
(For Via Larga is three-parts light, But the palace overshadows one,
Because of a crime, which may God requite!
To Florence and God the wrong was done, Through the first republic’s murder there By Cosimo and his cursed son.)
The Duke (with the statue’s face in the square) Turned in the midst of his multitude
At the bright approach of the bridal pair.
Face to face the lovers stood
A single minute and no more,
While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued–
Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor– For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred, As the courtly custom was of yore.
In a minute can lovers exchange a word? If a word did pass, which I do not think, Only one out of a thousand heard.
That was the bridegroom. At day’s brink He and his bride were alone at last
In a bed chamber by a taper’s blink.
Calmly he said that her lot was cast, That the door she had passed was shut on her Till the final catafalk repassed.
The world meanwhile, its noise and stir, Through a certain window facing the East She could watch like a convent’s chronicler.
Since passing the door might lead to a feast, And a feast might lead to so much beside, He, of many evils, chose the least.
“Freely I choose too,” said the bride– “Your window and its world suffice,”
Replied the tongue, while the heart replied–
“If I spend the night with that devil twice, May his window serve as my loop of hell Whence a damned soul looks on paradise!”
“I fly to the Duke who loves me well, Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow
Ere I count another ave-bell.”
“‘Tis only the coat of a page to borrow, And tie my hair in a horse-boy’s trim.
And I save my soul–but not to-morrow”–
(She checked herself and her eye grew dim) “My father tarries to bless my state:
I must keep it one day more for him.”
“Is one day more so long to wait?
Moreover the Duke rides past, I know; We shall see each other, sure as fate.”
She turned on her side and slept. Just so! So we resolve on a thing and sleep:
So did the lady, ages ago.
That night the Duke said, “Dear or cheap As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove To body or soul, I will drain it deep.”
And on the morrow, bold with love,
He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call, As his duty bade, by the Duke’s alcove)
And smiled “Twas a very funeral,
Your lady will think, this feast of ours,– A shame to efface, whate’er befall!”
“What if we break from the Arno bowers, And try if Petraja, cool and green,
Cure last night’s fault with this morning’s flowers?”
The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen On his steady brow and quiet mouth,
Said, “Too much favor for me so mean!”
“But, alas! my lady leaves the South; Each wind that comes from the Apennine
Is a menace to her tender youth:”
“Nor a way exists, the wise opine,
If she quits her palace twice this year, To avert the flower of life’s decline.”
Quoth the Duke, “A sage and a kindly fear. Moreover Petraja is cold this spring:
Be our feast to-night as usual here!”
And then to himself–“Which night shall bring Thy bride to her lover’s embraces, fool– Or I am the fool, and thou art the king!”
“Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool– For to-night the Envoy arrives from France Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool.”
“I need thee still and might miss perchance To-day is not wholly lost, beside,
With its hope of my lady’s countenance:”
“For I ride–what should I do but ride? And passing her palace, if I list,
May glance at its window–well betide!”
So said, so done: nor the lady missed One ray that broke from the ardent brow, Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed.
Be sure that each renewed the vow,
No morrow’s sun should arise and set And leave them then as it left them now.
But next day passed, and next day yet, With still fresh cause to wait one day more Ere each leaped over the parapet.
And still, as love’s brief morning wore, With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh, They found love not as it seemed before.
They thought it would work infallibly, But not in despite of heaven and earth: The rose would blow when the storm passed by.
Meantime they could profit in winter’s dearth By store of fruits that supplant the rose: The world and its ways have a certain worth:
And to press a point while these oppose Were simple policy; better wait:
We lose no friends and we gain no foes.
Meantime, worse fates than a lover’s fate, Who daily may ride and pass and look
Where his lady watches behind the grate!
And she–she watched the square like a book Holding one picture and only one,
Which daily to find she undertook:
When the picture was reached the book was done, And she turned from the picture at night to scheme Of tearing it out for herself next sun.
So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam The glory dropped from their youth and love, And both perceived they had dreamed a dream;
Which hovered as dreams do, still above: But who can take a dream for a truth?
Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove!
One day as the lady saw her youth
Depart, and the silver thread that streaked Her hair, and, worn by the serpent’s tooth,
The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked, And wondered who the woman was,
Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked,
Fronting her silent in the glass–
“Summon here,” she suddenly said,
“Before the rest of my old self pass,”
“Him, the Carver, a hand to aid,
Who fashions the clay no love will change, And fixes a beauty never to fade.”
“Let Robbia’s craft so apt and strange Arrest the remains of young and fair,
And rivet them while the seasons range.”
“Make me a face on the window there, Waiting as ever, mute the while,
My love to pass below in the square!”
“And let me think that it may beguile Dreary days which the dead must spend
Down in their darkness under the aisle,”
“To say, ‘What matters it at the end? I did no more while my heart was warm
Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.'”
“Where is the use of the lip’s red charm, The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, And the blood that blues the inside arm–“
“Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, The earthly gift to an end divine?
A lady of clay is as good, I trow.”
But long ere Robbia’s cornice, fine, With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace, Was set where now is the empty shrine–
(And, leaning out of a bright blue space, As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky, The passionate pale lady’s face–
Eying ever, with earnest eye
And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch, Some one who ever is passing by–)
The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch In Florence, “Youth–my dream escapes!
Will its record stay?” And he bade them fetch
Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes– “Can the soul, the will, die out of a man Ere his body find the grave that gapes?”
“John of Douay shall effect my plan, Set me on horseback here aloft,
Alive, as the crafty sculptor can,”
“In the very square I have crossed so oft: That men may admire, when future suns
Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft,”
“While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze– Admire and say, ‘When he was alive
How he would take his pleasure once!'”
“And it shall go hard but I contrive To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb At idleness which aspires to strive.”
* * * * *
So! While these wait the trump of doom, How do their spirits pass, I wonder,
Nights and days in the narrow room?
Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder What a gift life was, ages ago,
Six steps out of the chapel yonder.
Only they see not God, I know,
Nor all that chivalry of his,
The soldier-saints who, row on row,
Burn upward each to his point of bliss– Since, the end of life being manifest,
He had burned his way through the world to this.
I hear you reproach, “But delay was best, For their end was a crime.”–Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test,
As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself
And prove its worth at a moment’s view!
Must a game be played for the sake of pelf? Where a button goes, ’twere an epigram
To offer the stamp of the very Guelph.
The true has no value beyond the sham: As well the counter as coin, I submit,
When your table’s a hat, and your prize, a dram.
Stake your counter as boldly every whit, Venture as warily, use the same skill,
Do your best, whether winning or losing it,
If you choose to play!–is my principle. Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life’s set prize, be it what it will!
The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin:
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
Is–the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. You of the virtue (we issue join)
How strive you? _De te, fabula_!
The two volumes of _Dramatic Idyls_ are full of paradoxes, for Browning became fonder and fonder of the paradox as he descended into the vale of years. The Russian poem _Ivan Ivanovitch_ justly condemns mothers who prefer their own safety to that of their children. When a stranger gives up his life for another, as happens frequently in crises of fire and shipwreck, we applaud: but when a mother sacrifices her life for that of her child, she does the natural and expected thing. The woman in this poem was a monster of wickedness and did not deserve to live. She started with three children and arrived with none. Now there are some things in life for which no apology and no explanation suffice. What do we care about her story? Who cares to hear her defence? What difference does it make whether she actively threw out the children or allowed the wolves to take them? She arrives safe and sound without them and there is no mistaking the fact that she rejoices in her own salvation. She does not rejoice long, however, for Ivan, who is Browning’s ideal of resolution, neatly removes her head. Practically and literally Ivan is a murderer: but paradoxically he is God’s servant, for the woman is not fit to live, and he eliminates her.
From the practical point of view there is a difficulty ahead. The husband is due; when he hears that the children are lost, he will suffer horribly, and will enquire anxiously as to the fate of his wife. When he learns that she arrived in good condition and that then Ivan knocked her head off, he may not fully appreciate the ethical beauty of Ivan’s deed. But this detail does not affect the moral significance of the story. Yet I can not help thinking that a man with such strong convictions as Ivan ought not to carry an axe.
Ivan, however, is still needed in Russia. Two or three years ago, immediately after a wedding ceremony, the bride and groom, with the whole wedding party, set out in sledges for the next town. The wolves attacked them and ate every member of the party except the four in the first sledge–husband, wife, and two men. As the wolves drew near, these two heroes advised the husband to throw out the bride, for if he did so, the three left might be saved, as their haven was almost in sight. Naturally the bridegroom declined. Then the two men threw out both bride and groom, and just managed to reach the town in safety, the sole survivors of the whole party. I wish that Ivan had been there to give them the proper welcome.
The poem _Clive_ is a psychological analysis of courage and fear, two of the most interesting of human sensations. Clive seems to have been an instrument in the hands of Destiny. When an obscure young man, he twice tried to commit suicide, and both times the pistol missed fire. A born gambler, he judged that he was reserved for something great. He was: he conquered India. Then, after his life-work was fully accomplished, his third attempt at suicide was successful.
After describing the dramatic incident at card-play, which he gave to the old buck as the only time in his life when he felt afraid, his companion remarked that it was enough to scare anybody to face a loaded pistol. But here comes the paradox. Clive was intensely angry because his friend failed to see the point. “Why, I wasn’t afraid he would shoot, I was afraid he wouldn’t.” Suppose the general had said contemptuously that young Clive was not worth the powder and ball it would take to kill him–suppose he had sent him away wholly safe and wholly disgraced. Then Clive would have instantly killed himself. Either the general was not clever enough to play this trump, or the clear unwinking eyes of his victim convicted him of sin.
Clive was one of those exceedingly rare individuals who have never known the sensation of physical fear. But I do not think he was really so brave as those men, who, cursed with an imagination that fills their minds with terror, nevertheless advance toward danger. For your real hero is one who does not allow the desires of his body to control his mind. The body, always eager for safety, comfort, and pleasure, cries out against peril: but the mind, up in the conning-tower of the brain, drives the protesting and shivering body forward. Napoleon, who was a good judge of courage, called Ney the bravest of the brave: and I admired Ney more intensely when I learned that in battle he was in his heart always afraid.
The courage of soldiers in the mass seems sublime, but it is the commonest thing on earth: all nations show it: it is probably an inexplicable compound of discipline, pride, shame, and rage: but individuals differ from one another as sharply in courage as they do in mental ability. In sheer physical courage dive has never been surpassed, and Browning, who loved the manly virtues, saw in this corrupt and cruel man a great hero.
The poem _Muleykeh_, which is one of the oldest of Oriental stories, is really an analysis of love. The mare was dearer to her owner than life itself: yet he intentionally surrendered her to his rival rather than have her disgraced. His friends called him an idiot and a fool: but he replied, “You never have loved my Pearl.” And indeed, from his point of view, they did not know the meaning of love. What is love? Simply the desire for possession, or the desire that the beloved object should be incomparably pure and unsullied by defeat and disgrace? The man who owned Muleykeh really loved her, since her honor was more precious to him than his own happiness.
The short poem _Which_? published on the last day of Browning’s life, is a splendid paradox. In the Middle Ages, when house-parties assembled, an immense amount of time was taken up by the telling of stories and by the subsequent discussions thereupon. The stock subject was Love, and the ideal lover was a favorite point of debate. In this instance, the three court ladies argue, and to complete the paradox, a Priest is chosen for referee. Perhaps he was thought to be out of it altogether, and thus ready to judge with an unprejudiced mind.
The Duchess declares that her lover must be a man she can respect: a man of religion and patriotism. He must love his God, and his country; then comes his wife, who holds the third place in his affections.
I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more.
The Marquise insists that her lover must be a man who has done something. He must not only be a man inspired by religious and patriotic motives, but must have actually suffered in her service. He has received wounds in combat, he is pointed out everywhere as the man who has accomplished great deeds. I can not love him unless I can be proud of his record.
The Comtesse says that her ideal lover must love her first: he must love her more than he loves God, more than he loves his country, more than he loves his life–yes, more than he loves his own honor. He must be willing, if necessary, not only to sacrifice his health and life in her behalf, indeed, any true knight would do that: he must be willing to sacrifice his good name, be false to his religion and a traitor to his country. What do I care whether he be a coward, a craven, a scoundrel, a hissing and a byword, so long as he loves me most of all?
This is a difficult position for the Abbe, the man of God: but he does not flinch. His decision is that the third lover is the one of whom Almighty God would approve.
One thing is certain: the third man really loved his Lady. We do not know whether the other two loved or not. When a man talks a great deal about his honor, his self-respect, it is just possible that he loves himself more than he loves any one else. But the man who would go through hell to win a woman really loves that woman. Browning abhors selfishness. He detests a man who is kept from a certain course of action by thoughts of its possible results to his reputation. Ibsen has given us the standard example of what the first and second lover in this poem might sink to in a real moral crisis. In _A Doll’s House_, the husband curses his wife because she has committed forgery, and his good name will suffer. She replied that she committed the crime to save his life–her motive was Love: and she had hoped that when the truth came out the miracle would happen: her husband would step forward and take the blame all on himself. “What fools you women are,” said he, angrily: “you know nothing of business. I would work my fingers to the bone for you: I would give up my life for you: but you can’t expect a man to sacrifice his _honor_ for a woman.” Her retort is one of the greatest in literature. “Millions of women have done it.”
WHICH?
1889
So, the three Court-ladies began
Their trial of who judged best
In esteeming the love of a man:
Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed Boy-Cupid’s exemplary catcher and cager; An Abbe crossed legs to decide on the wager.
First the Duchesse: “Mine for me– Who were it but God’s for Him,
And the King’s for–who but he?
Both faithful and loyal, one grace more shall brim His cup with perfection: a lady’s true lover, He holds–save his God and his king–none above her.”
“I require”–outspoke the Marquise– “Pure thoughts, ay, but also fine deeds: Play the paladin must he, to please
My whim, and–to prove my knight’s service exceeds Your saint’s and your loyalist’s praying and kneeling– Show wounds, each wide mouth to my mercy appealing.”
Then the Comtesse: “My choice be a wretch, Mere losel in body and soul,
Thrice accurst! What care I, so he stretch Arms to me his sole saviour, love’s ultimate goal, Out of earth and men’s noise–names of ‘infidel,’ ‘traitor,’ Cast up at him? Crown me, crown’s adjudicator!”
And the Abbe uncrossed his legs,
Took snuff, a reflective pinch, Broke silence: “The question begs
Much pondering ere I pronounce. Shall I flinch? The love which to one and one only has reference Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God’s preference.”
VII
BROWNING’S OPTIMISM
Among all modern thinkers and writers, Browning is the foremost optimist. He has left not the slightest doubt on this point; his belief is stated over and over again, running like a vein of gold through all his poems from _Pauline_ to _Asolando_. The shattered man in _Pauline_ cries at the very last,
I believe in God and Truth and Love.
This staunch affirmation, “I believe!” is the common chord in Browning’s music. His optimism is in striking contrast to the attitude of his contemporaries, for the general tone of nineteenth century literature is pessimistic. Amidst the wails and lamentations of the poets, the clear, triumphant voice of Browning is refreshing even to those who are not convinced.
Browning suffered for his optimism. It is generally thought that the optimist must be shallow and superficial; whilst pessimism is associated with profound and sincere thinking. Browning felt this criticism, and replied to it with a scriptural insult in his poem _At the Mermaid_. I cannot possibly be a great poet, he said sneeringly, because I have never said I longed for death; I have enjoyed life and loved it, and have never assumed a peevish attitude. In another poem he declared that pessimists were liars, because they really loved life while pretending it was all suffering.
It is only fair to Browning to remember that his optimism has a philosophical basis, and is the logical result of a firmly-held view of the universe. Many unthinking persons declare that Browning, with his jaunty good spirits, gets on their nerves; he dodges or leaps over the real obstacles in life, and thinks he has solved difficulties when he has only forgotten them. They miss in Browning the note of sorrow, of internal struggle, of despair; and insist that he has never accurately portrayed the real bitterness of the heart’s sufferings. These critics have never read attentively Browning’s first poem.
The poem _Pauline_ shows that Browning had his _Sturm und Drang_, in common with all thoughtful young men. Keats’ immortal preface to _Endymion_ would be equally applicable to this youthful work. “The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages.” The astonishing thing is, that Browning emerged from the slough of despond at just the time when most young men are entering it. He not only climbed out, but set his face resolutely toward the Celestial City.
The poem _Pauline_ shows that young Browning passed through skepticism, atheism, pessimism, cynicism, and that particularly dark state when the mind reacts on itself; when enthusiasms, high hopes, and true faith seem childish; when wit and mockery take the place of zeal, this diabolical substitution seeming for the moment to be an intellectual advance. But although he suffered from all these diseases of the soul, he quickly became convalescent and _Paracelsus_ proves that his cure was complete.
Browning’s optimism is not based on any discount of the sufferings of life, nor any attempt to overlook such gross realities as sin and pain. No pessimist has realised these facts more keenly than he. The Pope, who is the poet’s mouthpiece, calls the world a dread machinery of sin and sorrow. The world is full of sin and sorrow, but it is machinery–and machinery is meant to make something; in this instance the product is human character, which can not be made without obstacles, struggles, and torment. In _Reverie_, Browning goes even farther than this in his description of terrestrial existence.
Head praises, but heart refrains
From loving’s acknowledgment
Whole losses outweigh half-gains:
Earth’s good is with evil blent:
Good struggles but evil reigns.
Such an appraisal of life can hardly be called a blind and jaunty optimism.
Browning declares repeatedly that the world shows clearly two attributes of God: immense force and immense intelligence. We can not worship God, however, merely because He is strong and wise; He must be better than we are to win our respect and homage. The third necessary attribute, Love, is not at all clear in the spectacle furnished by science and history. Where then shall we seek it? His answer is, in the revelation of God’s love through Jesus Christ.
What lacks then of perfection fit for God But just the instance which this tale supplies Of love without a limit?
Browning’s philosophy therefore is purely Christian. The love of God revealed in the Incarnation and in our own ethical natures–our imperfect souls containing here and now the possibilities of infinite development–makes Browning believe that this is God’s world and we are God’s children. He conceives of our life as an eternal one, our existence here being merely probation. No one has ever believed more rationally and more steadfastly in the future life than our poet; and his optimism is based solidly on this faith. The man who believes in the future life, he seems to say, may enjoy whole-heartedly and enthusiastically the positive pleasures of this world, and may endure with a firm mind its evils and its terrible sufferings. Take Christianity out of Browning, and his whole philosophy, with its cheerful outlook, falls to the ground. Of all true English poets, he is the most definitely Christian, the most sure of his ground. He wrote out his own evangelical creed in _Christmas-Eve_ and _Easter Day_; but even if we did not have these definite assurances, poems like _A Death in the Desert_ and _Gold Hair_ would be sufficient.
Sequels are usually failures: the sequel to _Saul_ is a notable exception to the rule. The first part of the poem, including the first nine stanzas, was published among the _Dramatic Romances_ in 1845: in 1855, among the _Men and Women_, appeared the whole work, containing ten additional stanzas. This sequel is fully up to the standard of the original in artistic beauty, and contains a quite new climax, of even greater intensity. The ninth stanza closes with the cry “King Saul!”–he represents the last word of physical manhood, the finest specimen on earth of the athlete. The eighteenth stanza closes with the cry “See the Christ stand!”–He represents the climax of all human history, the appearance on earth of God in man. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
No modern Pagan has ever sung the joy of life with more gusto than Browning trolls it out in the ninth stanza. The glorious play of the muscles, the rapture of the chase, the delight of the plunge into cold water, the delicious taste of food and wine, the unique sweetness of deep sleep. No shame attaches to earthly delights: let us rejoice in our health and strength, in exercise, recreation, eating and sleeping. Saul was a cowboy before he was a King; and young David in his music takes the great monarch back to the happy carefree days on the pasture, before the responsibilities of the crown had given him melancholia. The effect of music on patients suffering from nervous depression is as well known now as it was in Saul’s day; Shakespeare knew something about it. His physicians are sometimes admirable; the great nervous specialist called in on Lady Macbeth’s case is a model of wisdom and discretion: the specialist that Queen Cordelia summoned to prescribe for her father, after giving him trional, or something of that nature, was careful to have his return to consciousness accompanied by suitable music. Such terrible fits of melancholy as afflicted Saul were called in the Old Testament the visitations of an evil spirit; and there is no better diagnosis today. The Russian novelist Turgenev suffered exactly in the manner in which Browning describes Saul’s sickness of heart: for several days he would remain in an absolute lethargy, like the king-serpent in his winter sleep. And, as in the case of Saul, music helped him more than medicine.
When David had carried the music to its fullest extent, the spirit of prophecy came upon him, as in the Messianic Psalms, and in the eighteenth stanza, he joyfully infers from the combination of man’s love and man’s weakness, that God’s love is equal to God’s power. Man’s will is powerless to change the world of atoms: from God’s will stream the stars. Yet if man’s will were equal in power to his benevolence, how quickly would I, David, restore Saul to happiness! The fact that I love my King with such intensity, whilst I am powerless to change his condition, makes me believe in the coming of Him who shall have my wish to help humanity with the accompanying power. Man is contemptible in his strength, but divine in his ideals. ‘Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!
The last stanza of the poem has been thought by some critics to be a mistake, worse than superfluous. For my part, I am very glad that Browning added it. Up to this point, we have had exhibited the effect of the music on Saul: now we see the effect on the man who produced it, David. While it is of course impossible even to imagine how a genius must feel immediately after releasing some immortal work that has swollen his heart, we can not help making conjectures. If we are so affected by _hearing_ the Ninth Symphony, what must have been the sensations of Beethoven at its birth? When Haendel wrote the Hallelujah Chorus, he declared that he saw the heavens opened, and the Son of God sitting in glory, and I think he spoke the truth. After Thackeray had written a certain passage in _Vanity Fair_, he rushed wildly about the room, shouting “That’s Genius!”
Now no man in the history of literature has been more reticent than Browning in describing his emotions after virtue had passed out of him. He never talked about his poetry if he could help it; and the hundreds of people who met him casually met a fluent and pleasant conversationalist, who gave not the slightest sign of ever having been on the heights. We know, for example, that on the third day of January, 1852, Browning wrote in his Paris lodgings to the accompaniment of street omnibuses the wonderful poem _Childe Roland_: what a marvellous day that must have been in his spiritual life! In what a frenzy of poetic passion must have passed the hours when he saw those astounding visions, and heard the blast of the horn in the horrible sunset! He must have been inspired by the very demon of poetry. And yet, so far as we know, he never told any one about that day, nor left any written record either of that or any other of the great moments in his life. In _The Ring and the Book_, he tells us of the passion, mystery and wonder that filled his soul on the night of the day when he had found the old yellow volume: but he has said nothing of his sensations when he wrote the speech of Pompilia.
This is why I am glad he added the last stanza to _Saul_. It purports to be a picture of David’s drunken rapture, when, after the inspiration had flowed through his soul, he staggered home through the night. About him were angels, powers, unuttered, unseen, alive, aware. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews; the stars of night beat with emotion. David is Browning himself; and the poet is trying to tell us, in the only way possible to a man like Browning, how the floods of his own genius affected him. He gives a somewhat similar picture in _Abt Vogler_. It is not in the least surprising that he could not write or talk to his friends about such marvellous experiences. Can a man who has looked on the face of God, and dwelt in the heavenly places, talk about it to others?
Furthermore this nineteenth stanza of _Saul_ contains a picture of the dawn that has never been surpassed in poetry. Only those who have spent nights in the great woods can really understand it.
SAUL
1845-1855
I
Said Abner, “At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak, Kiss my cheek, wish me well!” Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek.
And he: “Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent, Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet, Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet For out of the black mid-tent’s silence, a space of three days, Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise, To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife, And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life.”
II
“Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God’s child with his dew On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat Were now raging to torture the desert!”
III
Then I, as was meet,
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet, And ran o’er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped; I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped; Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone, That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way on Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I prayed, And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid But spoke, “Here is David, thy servant!” And no voice replied. At the first I saw naught but the blackness: but soon I descried A something more black than the blackness–the vast, the upright Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all. Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, showed Saul.
IV
He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side; He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his pangs And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily hangs, Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come With the spring-time,–so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb.
V
Then I tuned my harp,–took off the lilies we twine round its chords
Lest they snap ‘neath the stress of the noontide–those sunbeams like swords!
And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one, So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream’s bed; And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star Into eve and the blue far above us,–so blue and so far!
VI
–Then the tune for which quails on the corn-land will each leave his mate
To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate Till for boldness they fight one another; and then, what has weight To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house– There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse! God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.
VII
Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand
And grow one in the sense of this world’s life.–And then, the last song
When the dead man is praised on his journey–“Bear, bear him along, With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm seeds not here
To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!”–And then, the glad chaunt
Of the marriage,–first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt
As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.–And then, the great march
Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch Naught can break; who shall harm them, our friends? Then, the chorus intoned
As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned.
VIII
And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart; And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered: and sparkles ‘gan dart
From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a start, All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart. So the head: but the body still moved not, still hung there erect. And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked, As I sang:–
IX
“Oh, our manhood’s prime vigour! No spirit feels waste, Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock
Of the plunge in a pool’s living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy! Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didst guard
When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward? Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung The low song of the nearly-departed, and hear her faint tongue Joining in while it could to the witness, ‘Let one more attest, I have lived, seen God’s hand through a lifetime, and all was for best’?
Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, not much, but the rest.
And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grew Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strained true:
And the friends of thy boyhood–that boyhood of wonder and hope, Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye’s scope,– Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine; And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head combine! On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like the throe
That, a-work in the rock, helps its labour and lets the gold go) High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them,–all Brought to blaze on the head of one creature–King Saul!”
X
And lo, with that leap of my spirit,–heart, hand, harp and voice, Each lifting Saul’s name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice Saul’s fame in the light it was made for–as when, dare I say, The Lord’s army, in rapture of service, strains through its array, And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot–“Saul!” cried I, and stopped, And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped
By the tent’s cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name. Have ye seen when Spring’s arrowy summons goes right to the aim, And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone, While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone
A year’s snow bound about for a breastplate,–leaves grasp of the sheet?
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet, And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain of old,
With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold– Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar Of his head thrust ‘twixt you and the tempest–all hail, there they are!
–Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his crest For their food in the ardours of summer. One long shudder thrilled All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled At the King’s self left standing before me, released and aware. What was gone, what remained? All to traverse ‘twixt hope and despair,
Death was past, life not come: so he waited. Awhile his right hand Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant forthwith to remand To their place what new objects should enter: ’twas Saul as before. I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, we watch from the shore, At their sad level gaze o’er the ocean–a sun’s slow decline Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o’erlap and entwine Base with base to knit strength more intensely; so, arm folded arm O’er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.
XI
What spell or what charm, (For awhile there was trouble within me,) what next should I urge To sustain him where song had restored him?–one filled to the verge
His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty; beyond, on what fields,
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by? He saith, “It is good;” still he drinks not: he lets me praise life, Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. XII
Then fancies grew rife Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep Fed in silence–above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep; And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie ‘Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip ‘twixt the hill and the sky:
And I laughed–“Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks,
Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks, Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know! Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,
And the prudence that keeps what men strive for.” And now these old trains
Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus–
XIII
“Yea, my King,”
I began–“thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute: In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit.
Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree,–how its stem trembled first
Till it passed the kid’s lip, the stag’s antler; then safely outburst
The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turn,
Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet more was to learn,
E’en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight,
When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight
Of the palm’s self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall stanch
Every wound of man’s spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine. Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine! By the spirit, when age shall o’ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life of a boy. Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou hast done
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e’en as the sun Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though tempests efface,
Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace The results of his past summer-prime,–so, each ray of thy will, Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they too give forth
A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the South and the North
With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past! But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last: As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height, So with man–so his power and his beauty forever take flight. No! Again a long draught of my soul-wine! Look forth o’er the years! Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer’s! Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb–bid arise A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to the skies,
Let it mark where the great First King slumbers: whose fame would ye know?
Up above see the rock’s naked face, where the record shall go In great characters cut by the scribe,–Such was Saul, so he did; With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid,– For not half, they’ll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend,
In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend
(See, in tablets ’tis level before them) their praise, and record With the gold of the graver, Saul’s story,–the statesman’s great word
Side by side with the poet’s sweet comment. The river’s a-wave With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave: So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art!”
XIV
And behold while I sang … but O Thou who didst grant me that day, And before it not seldom hast granted thy help to essay, Carry on and complete an adventure,–my shield and my sword In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was my word,– Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour And scaling the highest, man’s thought could, gazed hopeless as ever
On the new stretch of heaven above me–till, mighty to save, Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance–God’s throne from man’s grave!
Let me tell out my tale to its ending–my voice to my heart Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took part,
As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep, And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep! For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrieves
Slow the damage of yesterday’s sunshine.
XV
I say then,–my song While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and ever more strong Made a proffer of good to console him–he slowly resumed His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand re-plumed His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes Of his turban, and see–the huge sweat that his countenance bathes, He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of yore, And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before. He is Saul, ye remember in glory,–ere error had bent The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent
Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose,
To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed by the pile Of his armour and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile, And sat out my singing,–one arm round the tent-prop, to raise His bent head, and the other hung slack–till I touched on the praise
I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there; And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was ‘ware That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak roots which please
To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: through my hair
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power–
All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine– And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign? I yearned–“Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this; I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, As this moment,–had love but the warrant, love’s heart to dispense!”
XVI
Then the truth came upon me. No harp more–no song more! outbroke–
XVII
“I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke: I, a work of God’s hand for that purpose, received in my brain And pronounced on the rest of his handwork–returned him again His creation’s approval or censure: I spoke as I saw: I report, as a man may of God’s work–all’s love, yet all’s law. Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked. Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare. Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care! Do I task any faculty highest, to image success? I but open my eyes,–and perfection, no more and no less, In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod. And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew (With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too) The submission of man’s nothing-perfect to God’s all-complete, As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known, I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own. There’s a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink, I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as I think) Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst E’en the Giver in one gift–Behold, I could love if I durst! But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o’ertake God’s own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for love’s sake. –What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small,
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appall? In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all? Do I find love so full in my nature, God’s ultimate gift, That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift?
Here, the creature surpass the Creator,–the end, what Began? Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can? Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power, To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul, Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole? And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest) These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best?
Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height This perfection,–succeed with life’s day-spring, death’s minute of night?
Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake, Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now,–and bid him awake From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set Clear and safe in new light and new life,–a new harmony yet To be run, and continued, and ended–who knows?–or endure! The man taught enough by life’s dream, of the rest to make sure; By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, And the next world’s reward and repose, by the struggles in this.”
XVIII
“I believe it! ‘Tis thou, God, that givest, ’tis I who receive: In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. All’s one gift: thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer
As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. From thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth: _I_ will?–the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair? This;–’tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!
See the King–I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall through. Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would–knowing which, I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now! Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou–so wilt thou! So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown– And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath, Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death! As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved! He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak.
‘Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!”
XIX
I know not too well how I found my way home in the night. There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware: I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there, As a runner beset by the populace famished for news– Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews;
And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not, For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth– Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day’s tender birth; In the gathered intensity brought to the grey of the hills; In the shuddering forests’ held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still
Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe: E’en the serpent that slid away silent,–he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers: And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, With their obstinate, all but hushed voices–“E’en so, it is so!”
On a clear, warm day in March, 1912, I stood on the Piazza Michel Angelo in Florence, with a copy of Browning in my hand, and gazed with delight on the panorama of the fair city below. Then I read aloud the first two stanzas of _Old Pictures in Florence_, and realised for the thousandth time the definiteness of Browning’s poetry. This particular poem is a mixture of art and doggerel; but even the latter is interesting to lovers of Florence.
Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco?
Did you ever stand in front of the picture by Lorenzo that Browning had in mind, and observe the churlish saints? Most saints in Italian pictures look either happy or complacent; because they have just been elected to the society of heaven and are in for life. But for some strange reason, Lorenzo’s saints, although in the Presence, and worshipping with music, look as if they were suffering from acute indigestion. If one will wander about the galleries of Florence, and take along Browning, one will find the poet more specifically informing than Baedeker.
The philosophy of this poem is Browning’s favorite philosophy of development. He compares the perfection of Greek art with the imperfection of the real human body. We know what a man ought to look like; and if we have forgotten, we may behold a representation by a Greek sculptor. Stand at the corner of a city street, and watch the men pass; they are caricatures of the manly form. Yet ludicrously ugly as they are, the intention is clear; we see even in these degradations, what the figure of a man ought to be. In Greek art:
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken, Which the actual generations garble,
Was reuttered.
_Which the actual generations garble_–men as we see them are clumsy and garbled versions of the original. But there is no value in lamenting this; it is idle for men to gaze with regret and longing at the Apollo Belvedere. It is much better to remember that Perfection and Completion spell Death: only Imperfection has a future. What if the souls in our ridiculously ugly bodies become greater and grander than the marble men of Pheidias? Giotto’s unfinished Campanile is nobler than the perfect zero he drew for the Pope. In our imperfect minds, housed in our over-fat, over-lean, and always commonplace bodies, exists the principle of development, for whose steady advance eternity is not too long. Statues belong to time: man has Forever.
For some strange reason, no tourist ever goes to Fano. One reason why I went there was simply because I had never met a person of any nationality who had ever seen the town. Yet it is easily accessible, very near Ancona, the scene of the _Grammarian’s Funeral_, and the place where Browning wrote _The Guardian Angel_. One day Mr. and Mrs. Browning, walking about Fano, came to the church of San Agostino, in no way a remarkable edifice, and there in the tiny chapel, over the altar, they found Guercino’s masterpiece. Its calm and serene beauty struck an immortal poem out of Browning’s heart; and thanks to the poet, the picture is now one of the most familiar in the world. But no copy comes near the ineffable charm of the original, as one sees it in the dim light of the chapel.
The child on the tomb is looking past the angel’s face into the glory of heaven; but the poet, who wishes that he might take the place of the little child, declares that he would gaze, not toward heaven, but into the gracious face of the bird of God. If we could only see life as the angel sees it, if we could only see the whole course of history, we should then realise that:
All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.
We can not see the forest for the trees: the last place to obtain an idea of the range, grandeur, and beauty of a forest, is in it: one should climb a high mountain and look over its vast extent. So we, in life, “where men sit and hear each other groan,” believe that the world is some dreadful mistake, full of meaningless anguish. This is because we are in the midst of it all: we can not see far: the nearest objects, though infinitesimal in size, loom enormous, as with the palm of your hand you can cut off the sun. But if we could only see the end from the beginning, if we could get the angel’s view-point, the final result would be beauty. Browning is not satisfied with Keats’s doctrine:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”–that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
He shows us what happened to Aprile with this philosophy. Browning adds the doctrine of love. The moment we realise that the universe is conceived in terms of beauty, love fills our hearts: love for our fellow-beings, who are making the journey through life with us; and love for God, the author of it all, just as a child loves one who gives it the gift of its heart’s desire. That the supreme duty of life is love is simply one more illustration of Browning’s steadfast adherence to the Gospel of Christ.
THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL
A PICTURE AT FANO
1855
I
Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave That child, when thou hast done with him, for me! Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special ministry, And time come for departure, thou, suspending Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending, Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
II
Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more, From where thou standest now, to where I gaze, –And suddenly my head is covered o’er
With those wings, white above the child who prays Now on that tomb–and I shall feel thee guarding Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.
III
I would not look up thither past thy head Because the door opes, like that child, I know, For I should have thy gracious face instead, Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together, And lift them up to pray, and gently tether Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment’s spread?
IV
If this was ever granted, I would rest My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast, Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands, Back to its proper size again, and smoothing Distortion down till every nerve had soothing, And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.
V
How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired! I think how I should view the earth and skies And sea, when once again my brow was bared After thy healing, with such different eyes. O world, as God has made it! All is beauty: And knowing this, is love, and love is duty. What further may be sought for or declared?
VI
Guercino drew this angel I saw teach (Alfred, dear friend!)–that little child to pray, Holding the little hands up, each to each Pressed gently,–with his own head turned away Over the earth where so much lay before him Of work to do, though heaven was opening o’er him, And he was left at Fano by the beach.
VII
We were at Fano, and three times we went To sit and see him in his chapel there, And drink his beauty to our soul’s content –My angel with me too: and since I care For dear Guercino’s fame (to which in power And glory comes this picture for a dower, Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)–
VIII
And since he did not work thus earnestly At all times, and has else endured some wrong– I took one thought his picture struck from me, And spread it out, translating it to song. My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend? How rolls the Wairoa at your world’s far end? This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.
The three poems, _Caliban on Setebos, Rabbi Ben Ezra_, and _A Death in the Desert_, should be read in that order; for there is a logical order in the thought. The first is God as an amphibious brute would imagine him: the second is noble Hebrew theism: the third is the Christian God of Love. Whilst the second is the finest poem of the three, the first is the most original. The word “upon” is ironical: it is Caliban’s treatise on theology. We read Caliban on God, as we read Mill on Political Economy: for Caliban, like many a human theologian, does not scruple to speak the last word on the nature of the Supreme Being. The citation from the Psalms is a rebuke to gross anthropomorphism: Caliban, like the Puritans, has simply made God in his own image.
The difference between Shakespeare’s and Browning’s Caliban is simply the difference between Shakespeare and Browning. Shakespeare made the monster for decorative purposes, to satisfy his love of the grotesque, as an architect placed gargoyles on a cathedral: the grotesque is an organic part of romantic art. Browning is interested not in Caliban’s appearance, but in his processes of thought. Suppose a monster, half fish, half beast, living with supreme comfort in the slime, could think: what kind of God would he imagine had created this world?
Caliban speaks in the third person (does Browning make a slip when he changes occasionally to the first?) in order to have indicated the low order of his intelligence; just as a little child says, “Don’t hurt her: she hasn’t done anything wrong.” He is lying in liquid refuse, with little lizards deliciously tickling his spine (such things are entirely a matter of taste, what would be odious to us would be heaven to a sow) and having nothing to do for the moment, like a man in absolute leisure, turns his thoughts to God. He believes that God is neither good nor bad, but simply capricious. What’s the use of being God, if you can’t do what you like? He treats earth’s creatures as a wanton boy treats his toys; they belong to me; why shouldn’t I break them if I choose? No one ought to complain of misfortunes: you can not expect God is going to reward the virtuous and punish the guilty. He has no standards whatever. Just as I, Caliban, sit here and watch a procession of crabs: I might lazily make up my mind, in a kind of sporting interest, to count them as they pass; to let twenty go in safety, and smash the twenty-first, loving not, hating not, just choosing so. When I feel like it, I help some creatures; if in another mood, I torment others; that’s the way God treats us, that’s the way I would act if I were God.
As Caliban’s theology has much of the human in it, so his practical reasoning is decidedly human in its superstition. Granted that we are in the hands of a childish and capricious God, who amuses himself with torturing us, who laughs at our faces distorted with pain, what is the thing we ought to do? How shall we best manage? Caliban’s advice is dear: don’t let Him notice you: don’t get prominent: above all, never boast of your good fortune, for that will surely draw God’s attention, and He will put you where you belong. This superstition, that God is against us, is deep-seated in human nature, as the universal practice of “touching wood” sufficiently demonstrates. If a man says, “I haven’t had a cold this winter,” his friends will advise him to touch wood; and if he wakes up the next morning snuffling, he will probably soliloquise, “What a fool I was! Why couldn’t I keep still? Why did I have to mention it? Now see what I’ve got!”
Caliban disagreed with his mother Sycorax on one important point. She believed in the future life. Caliban says such a belief is absurd. There can be nothing worse than this life. Its good moments are simply devices of God to strengthen us so that He can torture us again, just as in the good old times the executioners gave the sufferers they were tormenting some powerful stimulant, so that they might return to consciousness and suffer; for nothing cheated the spectators worse than to have the victim die during the early stages of the torture. The object was to keep the wretch alive as long as possible. Thus in this life we have moments of comparative ease and rest, wherein we recuperate a little, just as the cat lets the mouse recover strength enough to imagine he is going to get away.
Caliban is of course an absolute and convinced pessimist. A malevolent giant is not so bad a God as an insane child. And Browning means that pessimism is what we should naturally expect from so rudimentary an intellect as Caliban’s, which judges the whole order of the universe from proximate and superficial evidences.
The close of the poem is a good commentary on some human ideas of what kind of service is pleasing to God. Poor Caliban! he had saved up some quails, meaning to have a delicious meal. But in his fear he cries to God, I will let them fly, if you will only spare me this time! I will not eat whelks for a month, I will eat no chocolates during Lent, anything to please God!
CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS; OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND
1864
“Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.”
[‘Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit’s much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: And while above his head a pompion-plant, Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, And now a flower drops with a bee inside, And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,– He looks out o’er yon sea which sunbeams cross And recross till they weave a spider-web (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) And talks to his own self, howe’er he please, Touching that other, whom his dam called God. Because to talk about Him, vexes–ha,
Could He but know! and time to vex is now, When talk is safer than in winter-time. Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep
In confidence he drudges at their task, And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]
Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!
‘Thinketh, He dwelleth i’ the cold o’ the moon. ‘Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match, But not the stars; the stars came otherwise; Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that: Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon, And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same. ‘Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease: He hated that He cannot change His cold, Nor cure its ache. ‘Hath spied an icy fish That longed to ‘scape the rock-stream where she lived, And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine O’ the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, A crystal spike ‘twixt two warm walls of wave; Only, she ever sickened, found repulse
At the other kind of water, not her life, (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o’ the sun) Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe, And in her old bounds buried her despair, Hating and loving warmth alike: so He
Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, And says a plain word when she finds her prize, But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks About their hole–He made all these and more, Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else? He could not, Himself, make a second self To be His mate; as well have made Himself: He would not make what he mislikes or slights, An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains: But did, in envy, listlessness or sport, Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be– Weaker in most points, stronger in a few, Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while, Things He admires and mocks too,–that is it. Because, so brave, so better though they be, It nothing skills if He begin to plague. Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,– Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; Last, throw me on my back i’ the seeded thyme, And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. Put case, unable to be what I wish,
I yet could make a live bird out of clay: Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban Able to fly?–for, there, see, he hath wings, And great comb like the hoopoe’s to admire, And there, a sting to do his foes offence, There, and I will that he begin to live, Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns Of grigs high up that make the merry din, Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not. In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, And he lay stupid-like,–why, I should laugh; And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,– Well, as the chance were, this might take or else Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry, And give the mankin three sound legs for one, Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg, And lessoned he was mine and merely clay. Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme, Drinking the mash, with brain become alive, Making and marring clay at will? So He. ‘Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. ‘Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs That march now from the mountain to the sea; ‘Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. ‘Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; ‘Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm, And two worms he whose nippers end in red; As it likes me each time, I do: so He.
Well then, ‘supposeth He is good i’ the main, Placable if His mind and ways were guessed, But rougher than His handiwork, be sure! Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself, And envieth that, so helped, such things do more Than He who made them! What consoles but this? That they, unless through Him, do nought at all, And must submit: what other use in things? ‘Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint That, blown through, gives exact the scream o’ the jay When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue: Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay Flock within stone’s throw, glad their foe is hurt: Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth “I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing, I make the cry my maker cannot make
With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!” Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.
But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease? Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that, What knows,–the something over Setebos That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought, Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance. There may be something quiet o’er His head, Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief, Since both derive from weakness in some way. I joy because the quails come; would not joy Could I bring quails here when I have a mind: This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth. ‘Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch, But never spends much thought nor care that way. It may look up, work up,–the worse for those It works on! ‘Careth but for Setebos
The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,
Who, making Himself feared through what He does, Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar To what is quiet and hath happy life;
Next looks down here, and out of very spite Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real, These good things to match those as hips do grapes. ‘Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport. Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle: Vexed, ‘stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words; Has peeled a wand and called it by a name; Weareth at whiles for an enchanter’s robe The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;
And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye, And saith she is Miranda and my wife:
‘Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge; Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared, Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame, And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge In a hole o’ the rock and calls him Caliban; A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. ‘Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,
Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.
His dam held that the Quiet made all things Which Setebos vexed only: ‘holds not so. Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex, Had He meant other, while His hand was in, Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick, Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow, Or overscale my flesh ‘neath joint and joint, Like an orc’s armour? Ay,–so spoil His sport! He is the One now: only He doth all.
‘Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him. Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why? ‘Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast