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MODERN POETS

CHR ISTIAN TEACH ING

ROBERT BROWN ING

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FRANK C. LOCKWOOD .

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N E W ' O R K :'

E A T O N 8: M A I N SCIN CIN N ATI jEN N I N GS 8c GRAHAM

C0pyr1ght , 1 906, by

E A T ON M A I N S.

THIS BOOKIS AFFECTIONATELY INSCR IBE D

T O

MY WIFE

CON TE N TS

CH A PT E R

I .

II .

III .

I ' .

' .

' I .

' I I .

The Man Browning .

Browning’s Way to Truth.

The Path to God .

The H uman H ighway.

The Upwa rd March of Nature .

God’s Message to Man.

Browning’s Influence .

PR E FA CE

T H E writer’s a im in the prepa ration of th isbook has been a modest one . It has not beenhis purpose to enter into a techn ical and exhaustive study of Browning’s poetry from either aphilosophical or an artistic point of ' iew . It hasbeen his des ire, rather, in as s imple and lucid amanner a s poss ible to present to serious readersa connected account of th ings fundamental thatl ie deep ly bedded in Browning’s l ife and poetry .

The need of such a work is to be found in the un-a

deniable fact that Browning is frequently diffi cultto understand and in the equally undeniablefact that there is much in him that is vastlyworthy of be ing understood . It is the author’shope that he may, in some sma ll measure, beinstrumenta l in reveal ing to uninitiated or disco

‘

urage’

d“

readers the rich veins of sp iritualtruth that are everywhere to be found in Browning’s poetry at its best, and thus to impart toothers what has been of inest imable va lue tohimself.The reader wi ll find very l ittle in the book out

s ide of the quotations from Brown ing h imself

8 PREFACE

that is e ither strik ing or original . The authortakes p leasure in acknowledging his speci al obl i

gation to the fol lowing books and authors , thoughthere are many others that he has found helpfulto h im in his work : L ife and Letters of RobertBrown ing, by M rs . S utherland Orr ; Browning as a Philosophica l and Rel igious Teacher

,

by Professor Henry Jones ; Robert B rowning,by Edward Dowden ; The Poetry of RobertB rowning, by Stopford A . Brooke ; Life of Browning

,by Wil l iam Sharp ; Studies of the M ind

and Art of Robert B rowning, by James Fotheringham; the E ssay of Professo r Jos iah Royceon Browning’s Theism , in the Boston BrowningSociety Papers , 1 886— 1 897, and Robert Browning : Personal ia , by Edmund Gosse .

The writer has received no l ittl e a id and en

couragement from Professor Lincoln R . Gibbs ,and to him , a lso, he wishes to expres s h is obl igatron .

F . C . L .

Meadv il le, Pennsylvania .

CHAPTER I

THE MAN BR OWNING

Have you found your life distasteful ?My life did and does smack sweet .Was your youth of pleasure wasteful ?Mine I saved and hold complete .

D o your joys with age diminish ?When mine fail me

,I’ll complain .

Must in death your daylight finish ?My sun sets to rise again .

I F we would find access to the riches of B rowning’s genius we must first unlock the door of hispersonal ity— no easy th ing to do . It is a (l lHl CUlt

matter to read any character ; much more that of apoet, and most of al l that of such a poet as Browning . It was Wordsworth who remarked , whenhe first hear d of B rown ing’s c landestine marriage :So Robert B rown ing and E l izabeth Barretthave gone off together ' Wel l , I hope they mayunderstand each other— nobody else could .

D ifficult a s it may be, though , to fix h is comp lexand il lus ive persona l ity, we shall be well repaidfor mak ing the attempt, for it i s imposs ible tostudy a poet’s productions apart from his personal ity, or h is personal ity apart from his productions .

9

I O ROBERT BROWNING

They are v itally related, and one neces sarilyth rows l ight upon the other .There was noth ing particularly distinctive of

the poet in Browning’s persona l appearance orthe outward circumstances of his l ife . Therewas no false glamour about the man ; noth ing meretric ious o r sensationa l , l ittle that was even ro

mantic or exceptional . He was not l ike Burns ,affl icted with poverty or swayed by i l l- regulatedpas sions ; nor l ike the proud, morb id , and wil lfulByron, given over to reckless and dis so lute courses ;nor l ike the vis ionary and ill- starred Shelley, consumed in the feverish pursuit of imposs ible idea lsof beauty ; nor l ike Keats , struck down i n his youngmanhood with the dreams of his youth unfulfi lled .

He lacked the shyness and the sombernes s ofHawthorne, the picturesquenes s and melancho lyof Tennyson , and the leonine fury, titanic energy,and tumultuousnes s of Landor . His position inl ife was so assured, his fortunes so even , his circumstances so above p ity and beneath envy, thath is career seems commonplace rather than exc it

ing and captivating . He had abundant means ,devoted friends , unto ld riches of love, a career ofh is own choosing, long l ife, and abounding health .

He wa s of“those whose blood and judgment a reso well comm ingled that they are not a p ipe forfortune’s finger to sound what stop she p lease .

”

T H E MAN BROWNING I I

He was neither pass ion’s s lave nor yet the co ld,pa ll i d cynic who neither loves nor strives nordares . He was , in sho rt, a very Horatio of poetsa man that fortune’s buffets and rewards hadta’en with equal thanks .

”

Genealogies interest us l ittle except a s theytouch the l ives of men of genius ; yet the man ofgenius , s ince he i s the crowning product of h israce , has sma ll need of tracing a remote or il lustrious ancestry . So it was with Browning . Theluster of the name wanes by degrees throughfather, grandfather, and great- grandfather to belost in the ranks of the sturdy common peopleof England . He was a descendant of an ob scureSouth of England Anglo-Saxon family . I do notdoubt that much of the freshnes s and vigor socharacteristic of h is gen ius was due to the factthat he came of an unspo i led and hardy racethat had always rema ined in close contact withthe so i l , and had thus suffered no waste of elementa l power through luxury or the overre

finements of artificial society . His opulence andversatil ity of mind , on the other hand , no doubtcame from the remote and d iverse stra ins of bloodthat flowed from German, Scotch , and Creolesources ; for while h is paterna l grandfather was ofsol id Engl ish ancestry h is paterna l grandmotherwas a Creole, h is materna l grandfather a German,

1 2 ROB ERT BROWNING

and his maternal grandmother a Scotch woman .

S uch a descent certainly p rovides abundant poss ib ilities for strength and ardor, vigor and varietyof endowment .In more than one description of Browning

,

written before he had reached middle l ife, thereare flattering references to h is personal beauty andcharm of manner . A friend who had been hiscl assmate for a short t ime when Browning wasa bout eighteen years of age writes : He was thena bright, handsome youth , with long black hairfal l ing over his shoulders .

” Wi l l iam Sharp , oneof h is b iographers , says of him :

“Everyone who

met Browning in those early years of his buoyantmanhood seems to have been struck by his comel iness and s imple grace of manner . Macreadystated that he looked more l ike a poet than anyman he had ever met . As a young man he ap

pears to have had a certain ivory del icacy of coloring

,what an old friend , perhaps somewhat exagger

a tedly, described to me a s an almost flowerlikebeauty

,which passe d ere long into a less girl ish

and more robust complexion . He appeared tallerthan he was— for he was not above mediumheight— partly because of h is rare grace of movement and partly from a characteristic h igh poiseof the head when l isten ing intently to mus ic orconversation .

”

T H E MAN BROWNING 1 3

Bayard Taylor’s p icture of Brown ing as he ap

peared at the age of thirty-nine is one of the mostprecise and sat isfying that has been preservedfor us : “In a smal l drawing- room on the firstfloor I met Browning, who received me with greatcordial ity . In his l ively, cheerful manner, quickvoice, and perfect self- possess ion , he made theimpress ion of an American rather than an Engl ishman . He was then, I should judge , aboutth irty- seven years of age, but h is dark ha ir wasalready streaked with gray about the temples .

His complexion was fair, with perhap s the faintest ol ive tinge, eyes large, clear, and gray, nosestrong and well cut, mouth full and rather b road,and ch in pointed, though not p rominent . Hisforehead broadened rap idly upward from theouter angle of the eyes , s l ightly retreating . Thestrong ind ividual ity wh ich marks h is poetry wasexpressed not only in h is face and head but inh is whole demeanor . He was about the mediumheight, strong in the shoulders but s lender at thewaist, and h is movements expressed a combination of vigor and elasticity .

”

I t must be confessed that some of these moreflattering del ineations of Browning are at variancewith our famil ia r conception of him as he cameand went among men in h is mature years . Froma ll accounts he might easily have been mistaken

14. ROB E RT BROWNING

for a retired sea capta in, a successful Americanbusiness man, or a gen ialmedica l practitioner .Most of h is portra its argue strongly aga inst thetradition of extreme manly beauty, though oneand al l reveal a strong, interesting, and aggressivepersonal ity . But we may accept Hawthorne’sd ictum that in youth a l l th ings are beautiful , andeas ily fit our minds to the bel ief that the creatorof“S au l” and“Pippa Passes” could not have beenother than an attractive man in both personand spirit .From early childhood Browning was reared in

an atmosphere of poetry and refinement . Hismother inherited a love Of music and his fatherwas hardly less gifted than the poet h imself. Hewa s a Wide reader and was pass ionately fond Of

books , espec ially of Greek l iterature ; he was possessed of much sk i ll, and stil l greater talent, as anartist, and was supremely endowed with a ll greatqua l ities Of manhood . He sang Greek lull abiesto the infant B rowning, and he was himself nomean poet . With s uch parents, and with suchhome surround ings, it was not wonderful that theboy began very early to make verses . By the timehe was twelve yea rs of age he had produced a vo lume of poetry in the Byron ic manner which musthave had rea l merit and given great promise, forboth h is father and mother were Wi ll ing to have it


publ ished . He wrote the manuscript out in a fairboyish hand, and used a ll his persuas ive arts toget it printed, but, fortunately, without avail .We are now permitted to apply directly to“Sordello” and “Red Cotton Night-Cap Country ”

energies that m ight Otherwise have been impairedby an exhaustive effort to appra ise the tragic utterances of a world-weary genius of twelve .

The spell of Byron was a dominant one whileit lasted ; but Brown ing

’s authentic ca l l to a l ifeof poetry came two or three years later, when hehad nearly comp leted h is fourteenth year. Atthat time he was as i rrevocably sealed to poetryas was Wordsworth in that high moment Of feeling and resolve when , after a n ight of youthful reve lry, as the morning rose in memorab le pompand drenched the mountains about h im in empyrean l ight, he felt that vows had been made forh im , and bond unknown, that he should, el se s inn ing greatly, be a ded icated sp irit ; and when he

Conversed with promises,had glimmering views

H ow life pervades the undecaying mind ;H ow the immortal soul with godlike powerInforms

,creates

,and thaws the deepest sleep

That t ime can lay upon her ; how on earthMan

,if he d o b ifir l iv e within the light

Of high endH is being , a not fail .

Browning’s less solemn

1 6 ROBE RT BROWNING

and final . By a happy accident he fell upon theworks of Shelley and, through h im , upon thoseof Keats also . He had not even known that suchpoets had poured out their heart’s blood in Engl ish song . But having once caught the note Of

Shelley’s music, and gained a glimpse of theethereal realm that he inhabited , his soul wasentranced, and the spirit Of true poetry took posses s ion of h im for evermore . And scarcely lesspotent than the exhila rating ecstasy of Shel ley’sstra ins was the intoxication of beauty that flowedin the verse of Keats . But Shelley mastered h immore comp letely than did Keats . His voice camel ike the cal l Of an eagle from the blue depths aboveto its prisoned eaglet upon the earth . His influence proved stimulating and lasting, and loosenedonce for all h is p inioned soul for imaginativefl ights Of song .

Browning’s education was conducted chieflyat home, though it was greatly enlarged by travel .He was fond of saying Italy was h is univers ity ;and th is assertion was far from untrue . His pass ion for Ita ly was romantic, s ingle, and unfa il ing ;and Italy repa id h is admiration with all h igh giftsOf art and natura l beauty and grandeur of storiedand immemorial past . Truly, if we had exploredto the “red- ripe Of his heart , we shoul d havefound Italy graven there . No foreigner knew its

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1 8 ROBERT BROWNING

Of the poems concerning their nat iona l l ife .

After a ll, though , he was an Englishman, and itis not diffi cult to bel ieve him when he s ings :

I cherish mostMy love of England— how her name

,a word

Of hers in a strange tongue , makes my heart beat '

Browning had few playmates in his childhood ,and few companions in h is early youth . Hisl ife in th is respect, l ike that of Ruskin , was sorestricted as to be almost unhea lthful . As hegrew toward manhood, though , his socia l natureasserted itself, and he made many enduring at

tachments . In nothing is the breadth Of his naturebetter shown than in th is capacity for friendship .

He was a s opulent in friends as he was in characterand genius

,and his intimacies were l imited by

neither age, sex, nationality, nor occupation .

Among his earl iest attachments were those thatbound him to the gifted and noble- hearted AlfredDomett and his cous ins , the S ilverthornes . Butas h is genius came to be recognized his circle Of

friends rap idly widened, extending graduallyfrom the coterie of l itera ry men with whom he hadearly establ ished pleasant relationsh ips until itcame to include all sorts and conditions of people .

He possessed a strong social instinct, and withthis a nature wholly manly, generous , and devoidof envy . He was quick to discern , and ardent to


acknowledge, greatness in Others ; and in conse

quence he numbered among his stanchest friendsmen he might easi ly have antagonized and turnedinto b itter foes . Carlyle, for instance, was sovolcan ic and censorious that he could scarcely t e

fra in from pouring the v ial s of his wrath uponfriend and foe a l ike

,threatening thus the eternal

destruction of a l l mankind . He was not in rea l ityexcess ively harsh or vindict ive, but he Often leftthat impress ion . Landor, too, the untamed royalBengal tiger among poets , even in his extreme o ldage quarreled with every friend and relative hehad on earth— to say nothing of such as he hadsent to an untimely grave . But Browning wasso quick to see the nob le qua l ities in his associates ,and so disposed to overlook What was petty orignoble in them, that he retained the cordia lfriendship of both of these men throughout l ife ,even ministering to them l ike a son in the ir O ldage and misfortune . Among Engl ishmen, bes idesthe two great men I have named, he enjoyedthroughout l ife the devoted attachment of men asunl ike as Tennyson, D ickens, Rossetti, Kenyon ,Forster, and M i ll ; among Frenchmen, such menas Joseph M ilsand and the Comte de R ipertMonclar ; among Americans , such men as Story,Hawthorne, Hillard , and Bayard Taylor ; andamong Ital ians, such statesmen and patriots as

20 ROB ERT BROWNING

Cavour and Mazzini . Nor i s it strange that whatwas finest and truest in him should have been developed th rough the happy comradeship of women ,for he was the exemplar and champion of al l thathigh-minded women hold dear

,and united in

himself an abounding v ital ity of healthy manhoodwith a pass ionate and exalted devot ion to thefinest ideals Of romantic love . He is read evennow more constantly and widely by women thanby men ; his chief b iographer has been a woman ;he first won the love of E l izabeth Barrett througha bold and romantic friendship . Says M rs . Sutherland O rr, his b iographer : He avowed ly p referred the society of women to that of men ; theywere, as I have already sa id , his hab itual confidantes , and ev idently h is most frequent correspondents .

”

It is , though , only in the inner sanctua ry of thepoet’s domestic affections that we shall breathethe true fragrance of his manhood . His naturethough at times too assertive and brusque— wasin real ity exquis itely a rdent and tender. H islove for h is mother was an absorb ing pass ion .

Even up to mature manhood he invariab ly treatedher with boyish devotion and tendernes s . Thestory of the chival ric love he bore h is wife has beenso Often, and so touchingly, celeb rated that I needonly allude to it . A pass ion so pure, so ideal , so


unselfish , if treated at al l , should be treated withclassical del icacy and restraint . The experienceis best embalmed in their own love- poetry . Therethe initiated and sympathetic may read it withgreater satisfaction, surely, than in their b iographies o r their correspondence . I t is , one i s constrained to say, a record that enriches history,

glorifies human nature, and adds to our store of

confidence in the ultimate poss ib il ities of the race .

The exalting and consecrating power Of this loveupon the l ife of Robert Browning may be read inthe poet’s lyrical outburst in the early part Of“The R ing and the Book ,” beginning :

0 lyric Love , half angel and half bird ,And all a wonder and a wild desire

,

Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun ,Took sanctuary within the holier blue ,And sang a kindred soul ou t to his face

,

Yet human at the red- ripe of the heartWhen the first summons from the darkling earthR eached thee amid thy chambers

,blanched their blue

,

And bared them of the glory— to drop down,

T o toil for man , to suffer or to die ,This is the same voice ; can thy soul know change ?Hail then

,and hearken from the realms of help '

Never may I commence my song,my due

T o God who best taught song by gift of thee,

Except with bent head and beseeching handThat still

,despite the distance and the dark

,

What was,again may be ; some interchange

Of grace,some splendor once thy very thought

,

Some benediction anciently thy smile :- Never conclude , but raising hand and head

22 ROB ERT BROWNING

Thither where eyes , that cannot reach , yet yearnFor all hope , all sustainment , all rewardTheir utmost up and on ,

— so blessing backIn those thy realms of help

,that heaven thy home

Some whiteness which,I judge

,thy face makes proud ,

Some wanness where , I think , thy foot may fall '

Though Browning pursued no regular collegeor univers ity course, his preparation fitted h ima lmost ideally for the l ife of a poet . His homesurroundings were stimulating and refining, hisrel igious and mora l tra ining unexceptionable ;he grew up with the B ible, the Greek sages ands ingers

,and the E l izabethan poets ; he was in

structed in music and drawing and all manly andwholesome physica l exercises ; he had access toNature, and from early youth sought sol itary communion with her both by night and day, at thesame time dwell ing near enough the city of Londonto catch the pulsings Of its mighty heart, and totrans late the mystery and pathos of its notes ofhuman joy and woe . Later he added the wealthof wisdom and ins ight that comes from travel ; andanon the inspiring converse of great poets , andactors , and critics , and artists, and h igh- souledmen of the world . And last of al l he was caught upand transfigured by a great and heroic love wh ichcontinued its chastening and exalting power overhim long after the Object of that pass ion had beentaken from him .

T H E MAN BROWNING 23

His was a restles s and t i reles s nature . Hisenergy knew no bounds , and the opulence andversatil ity Of his genius was surprising . His reading was eager, wide- ranging, and omnivorous ; andhis exact and tenacious memory rendered all thathe read available . Apart from his wide familia rity with the l iterature Of his own day, his easymastery of the E l izabethan poets , and his intimateacquaintance with class ic authors , few men weremore at home with the l iterature Of the M iddleAges and the Renais sance . The Renaissance , indeed, al ike in its intellectual , its humanistic, andits rel igious interest, fa irly l ives again in his poetry .

He wrote as dil igently as he read , producing, a swe have seen , a volume of poetry while st il l a boy ;and no sooner had he reached the verge of youngmanhood than he set h imself the gigantic task Of

writ ing a series Of monodramatic epics , narratives of the l ives of typical souls .

” This partieular plan he never carried out , though in sp irit hewas true to it throughout his l ife, setting to workimmediately and writing two such studies of thesouls of great men—“Paul ine ” and“Paracelsus”—before his twenty- fifth year. But he did notl imit himself to l iterature . He loved music, andspent so much time cultivating it that he became anexcel lent pianist . He was much inte rested in arta lso, and made drawings of no l ittle merit . In

24 ROBERT BROWNING

the early days of his association with the artistsand men Of letters who became his l ifelong friendshe was thought of more as an artist and musicianthan as a poet . While res id ing in Italy after hismarriage he devoted himself for a cons iderabletime to model ing in clay, under the guidance of

h is American friend, M r . Story, and his successin th i s field of art showed that he might haveach ieved d istinction as a sculptor. M r . Sharp ,speaking of h im during the ripe autumnal periodof his l ife, says :“H is avocations were so manifold that it is diffi cult to understand where he hadleisure for his vocation . Everybody wished h im tocome to d ine ; and he did his utmost to gratify eve rybody . He saw everything ; read al l the notab lebooks ; kept himself acqua inted with the leadingcontents Of the journals and magazines ; conducteda large correspondence ; read new French , German ,and Ital ian books of mark ; read and trans latedEurip ides and ZE schylus ; knew a ll the goss ip of thel iterary clubs , salons , and the studios ; was a fre

quenter of afternoon tea part ies ; and then, overand above it all, he was B rown ing : the most p rofoundly subtle mind that has exercised itself inpoetry s ince Shakespeare .

”

Intense, energetic, and many- s ided a s it was ,Brown ing’s character was not particularly e lusiveor complex . He stood in the open with manly

26 ROBERT BROWNING

and her coterie— indeed, to the whole tribe offreeth inkers , free- lovers, and Bohemian a rtists .

It is, I think , j ust because of the s implicity andimpuls iveness of his nature that Browning is hardto fix in a character del ineation . We are d isposedto set caut iously to work to entrap a subtle andserious philosopher in his dark ways when inreal ity we have to do with a joyous , boisterous ,frank- hearted boy . We set about analyzing hissecret as a conversational ist and are surprisedto find that he talks at random , or exc itedly, tocover his embarrassment, or impuls ively, underthe genia l stimulus of a friendly group . Andwhen struck with admiration for his easy socialbearing, graceful manner, and happy repartee wed iscover that these fine ach ievements are heavensent accidents b rought about to save a modest andnervous man from social snares that wouldhave entrapped h is trembling soul to perdition .

Certain it is , at any rate, that Browning was ardent,exc itable , and impuls ive . His sensitive nature andsense of respect for the sacred things of the soulled him to del icate reserves , but usually he wasthe most frank and commun icative of men— laying open his own foibles to the world with theconsciousness , doubtless, that they would rece ivethe more lenient treatment thereby . In convers at ion he was at h is best when exc ited to forgetful


monologue by a friend or a friendly c ircle ; and heconfesses that al l th rough l ife so great was h isnervous trepidation at the thought Of facing someordina ry social exigency that he could not havebeen convinced Of his abil ity to bear it Off successfully had he not had the proof of former experiences to assure h im that he could do it .The same ingenuousness and temperamenta l

ardor Of which I have spoken goes far to explainanother strong tendency of Browning’s naturename ly, his occasiona l indignant outbursts ofwrath . He says of h imself in one Of his poems ,

“Iwas ever a fighter,

” but we natural ly connect th isstatement with the magnificent intel lectua l andspiritua l confl icts in which we know Brown ing eh

gaged ; and we fee l surprised at occas ional uncontrol led outbursts Of anger such as were el icited byM ac ready

’s treatment of him and Fitzgerald’s c riti

c ismof hi s wife’s poetry, and at his impassioned denunc iation of the charlatan who sought to write agarb led biography of his wife for commercial purposes . His feel ings were so strong, and his convictions so fi rm , that when argument fa i led , andwil l power was unava il ing, he was l ikely to resorteither to consuming wrath or pained and grimsilence . Such outbursts were not, however, outof harmony with a tender and gentle heart ; for inthe reaction from such moods these fundamenta l

28 ROB ERT BROWNING

qualities of his nature were frequently most ap

parent ; so it i s evident that impulse and uncon

trolled nervous excitement must account for them .

It i s interesting to be admitted to the workshopof a man Of genius— to know how,

and when,and

where he call s hi s beautiful beings into l ife .

Browning’s biographers say little about his habitsas a poet . We do, though , have some accountsOf the outdoor l ife Of the young poet that are sug

ge stive and arti sti cal ly satisfying . In his earlyyouth he was fond Of resorting to a secluded spoton Herne Hill , where , in the shade cast by th reenoble elms, he could l ie, looking olf upon the cityof London, and dream away the hours . It wasduring a night v is it to this secluded resort that thecall of humanity first made its imaginative appealto his sympathies and awoke in h im the desireand the determinat ion to be its interpreter. During the early years of his manhood he lived muchout of doors, and even , l ikeWordsworth , composedaloud in the Open air . He was much given to extended night walks ; frequently, after writing unti lfar into the night, he would walk out thus, alone,and rema in to watch the dawn . His favorite re

sort at th is t ime was a wood at no great distancefrom Camberwell, and it was during his sol itarynight watches here that he began more and moredeeply to enter into the human l ife that pulsed so


restlessly in the smoky, mist—wreathed city at hisfeet . He was , too, a wonderfully acute Observerof nature, even to its most minute processes , andno one can fully appreciate the del icate real ism ofsome Of his descriptions of insects , flowers , andbirds until he has a picture Of h im , on some sunsh iny holiday, lying breathless and motionless inthe grass, or beside some hedge, watch ing the umconscious l ife about him with the eye Of a Thoreau .

“I have heard h im say,” s ays M r . Sharp ,

“that

h is faculty of Observation at that time would nothave appeared desp icable to a S eminole or an I ro

quois ; he saw and watched everything, the b ird onthe wing, the snai l dragging its shell up the pendulous Woodbine, the bee adding to his goldentreasure as he swung in the bells of the campanula ,the green fly darting hither and thither l ike ananimated seedl ing, the sp ider weaving her gossamer from twig to twig, the woodpecker heedfullyscrutinizing the l ichen on the gnarled oak- bole ,the passage Of the wind through leaves or acrossgrass, the motions and shadows Of the clouds , andso forth .

”

He had throughout l ife a dec ided fondness foranimals and an intimate knowledge Of theirhaunts and hab its . His democratic tastes in h isanimal friendships I cannot but reprehend .

Sometimes during h is boyhood his mother could

30 ROBERT BROWNING

not persuade him to take a disagreeab le medicineunti l she had prom ised to catch a frog for h im byway of reward ; and when he grew Old enough toprovide his own menagerie it conta ined owls ,snakes, monkeys, parrots, an eagle, hedgehogs ,magp ies, toads, and l izards . The creatures woul dfrequently be brought home in h is pockets and beconsigned to his mother’s care . He could at anytime lure a l izard into the sunshine by whistl inga pecul ia r call ; and we have accounts Of h im, a san O ld man, amusing himself in th is way as hewalked about the h ighways and byways Of thelovely l ittl e Ital ian v il lage Of Asolo . When thepoet’s father moved to Hatcham

,about 1 835,

Browning not only had the enjoyment of his uncl e’shorse, ' ork— the hero of Browning

’s most stirring bal lad of the saddle— but a lso the com

panionship Of a pet toad , wh ich would follow himabout in h is walks, and would come out of its holewhen Browning ind icated h is presence by dropp inggrave l into its retreat .Throughout l ife Browning was a man Of robust

health and overflowmg vital ity. First, last, andmidmost, a s we read his works, or rea d worksabout h im, i s this impress ion of viv i d healthfulness and abounding l ife . His father was a man Of

fl awles s phys ica l constitution, hav ing never knowns icknes s during h is long l ife Of eighty-fou r years .


From h im Browning no doubt inherited h i s fineendurance and vigor . From his mother, on theother hand, he received his h igh ly charged nervoustemperament and extreme sensitiveness to physica l stimul i . However this may be, no one meth im without feel ing the impress ion of h is splendidhealth and optimism . His vo ice was strong,v ib rant, and cheering ; his handshake gave one thesense of an electric shock ; and his phys ica l magnetism either attracted or repelled whomsoever heapproached . E l izabeth Barrett felt that from themoment he entered her darkened chamber his presence meant l ife, not death . But upon others h ispersonal ity had quite the oppos ite effect . Thestory i s told of an Old lady with somewhat troub lesome nerves, at an afternoon reception, who aroseto leave with some abruptness, excusing herself toher hostess for her early departure by expla in ingthat the vo ice and proximity of“a too exuberantfi nanc ier” affected her“l ike a mild attack of p insand need les .” Her d iscomfiture may be imaginedwhen she was informed that the obnox ious persona lity was that of Robert Browning . There i spresent al l through h is poetry, too, the ringingnote of joy in mere sensuous existence, as whenin “Saul ” he breaks forth into lusty song :

Oh ,our manhood’s prime vigor ' N o spirit feels waste ,

N ot a muscle is stopped in i ts playing nor sinew unbraced .

32 ROB ERT BROWNING

Oh,the wild joys of living ' th e leaping from rock up to rock

,

The strong rending of boughs from the fir- tree,the cool

silver shockOf the plunge in a pool’s living water

,the hunt of the bear

,

And the sul triness showing the lion is couched in his lair .And the meal

,the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust

divine,

And the locust-fl esh steeped in the p itcher,the ful l draught

of wine,

And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bul rushes tellT hat the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well .H ow good is man’s life

,the mere living ' how fit to employ

All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy '

34 ROB ERT BROWNING

deem far h igher than that of the scientist or ph ilosopher

— h igher,even , than that of the preacher .

The poet is the seer . R eal ity to h im is one andwhole and conv incing . It presents itself to h imnot merely as truth , or beauty, or righteousness, butas al l these at once . His nature exerts itself fully,spontaneously

,and harmoniously ; and in conse

quence he represents humanity at its best .It was so with Browning ; and, a s we turn to his

earl ier works to trace there his theory of knowledge,we find wise, sane , and stimul ating utterances concerning man’s power to grasp and understandtruth . He turns to God as the center of intelligence and the source of al l knowledge

This is the glory,

— that in all conceived,

Or felt or known,I recognize a mind

N ot mine but like mine,

— for the double joy ,

Making all things for me and me for H im .

Yet my poor spark had for its source the sun ;Thither I sent the great looks which compelLight from its fount : all that I d o and amComes from the truth

,or seen or else surmised

,

R emembered or divined,as mere man may .

M an, a s he is created in God’s menta l as well as

mora l image, i s the organ of div ine intell igence,and succeeds only as he rel ies upon his Creator.Though not coerced, he i s urged on to atta inmentand endeavor by the spirit that energizes within

B R OW N I N c’s WA ' TO TRUTH 35

him . S ays the young Paracelsus as he sets outupon his l ife quest for universal truth

I go to prove my soul 'I see my way ‘as birds their trackless way .

I shall arrive ' what time , what circuit first,

I ask not :but unless God send his hailO r blinding fireballs

,sleet or stifling snow

,

In some time,his good time

,I shall arrive

He guides me and the bird . In his good time '

Nor is man’s knowledge l imited to God andhimself. He has acces s a lso to an orderly worldouts ide h imself, and enjoys community of knowledge with those about h im . Knowledge hasobjective val id ity— so far at least as man’s l imitedvis ion extends

,for he does not assert that human

knowledge is absolute . I t is trustworthy as fa ras it goes— as al l other finite powers are— but it isnot such fullness of knowledge a s is possessed bythe Absolute . He sees as God sees, and pursuessafely the path that God points out, but he cannotsee so far as God sees, nor trust himself out of thecircle of l ight shed by the d ivine

Man is not God ,but hath God’s end to serve

,

A master to obey,a course to take ,

Somewhat to cast off,somewhat to become .

Man,therefore

,stands on his own stock

O f love and power as a pin-point rock,

And looks to God,who ordained divorce

Of the rock from his boundless continent .

36 ROBERT BROWNING

M an has no reason , however, to be dismayed ordiscouraged because he has not yet attained to

perfect knowledge . For progres s i s the law ofh is being, and if it i s not yet given h im fully toapprehend

,he may with all confidence reach

toward the prize of his h igh endeavor. For hisknowledge constantly broadens . What he couldnot know to- day he may know to-morrow, andwhat to-morrow withholds a more distant futureis sure to yield . ' outh , with its e rrors anddoubts and passions , is interpreted in the l ight ofthe placid knowledge that comes in old age ; andwhat death leaves us in ignorance of is to beachieved by the soul in its wide- ranging conquestsi n other worlds ‘after it ha s freed itself from thea lloy of flesh

Therefore I summon ageT0 grant youth’s heritage ,

Life’s struggle having so far reached its termThence shall I pass

,approved

Aman,for aye removed

From the developed brute ; a God though in the germ .

And I shall thereuponTake rest

,ere I be gone

Once more on my adventure brave and newFearless and unperplexed ,When I wage battle next

,

What weapons to select , what armor to indue .

So spake the poet and the seer in Brown ing .

And how disappointing to turn , from such large,

BR OW N I N G’s WA ' TO TRUTH 3 7

confident, and luminous teachings concerningman’s power to know, to a consideration of theperverse and erroneous doctrines set forth byBrowning in his O ld age , aftE r he had lapsed fromthe privileged estate of the poet and entered uponthe effort to establ ish his philosophy of l ife inaccordance with strictly speculative methods . Asour chief interest in these pages , however, i s withBrowning the philosopher, rather than with Browning the poet, we must now busy ourselves withhis later, more systematic, and more amb itiousv iews concerning a theory of knowledge .

And we may as wel l admit at once that, considered from the standpoint of speculative reason ,Browning’s ph ilosophy went to pieces upon justthis rock . Browning is an out- and- out philosophical skeptic . He does not trust man’s intellectua l powers , nor see any good ground to hopethat man can enter into sure possess ion of theworld of rea l ity around him . He utterly discredits human knowledge, and with rare subtletyand d ia lectica l skill sets about to undermine theedifice of pure reason . He casts doubt upon thepossib il ity of man’s ever rearing a safe structureupon the foundation of intellect a lone . It is notthat the finite mind is unable to grasp rea lity in itsfullness . That would be merely to assert thathuman knowledge is incomplete— that p rogress

38 RO B ERT BROWNING

is the law of its nature . His skepticism goes muchdeeper than th is . He questions the trustworthiness of human reason . He does not bel ieve that

reason is adequate to enter the realm of un iversaltruth and win sure v ictories there . He mainta insthat by nature it i s deceptive and illusory . Itmakes and unmakes its shadowy world . It weavescobwebs between the finite mind and the world ofultimate real ity, now m istaking these figments fortruth and anon perceiv ing them to be false . Hisassertion of agnostici sm is at its worst appal l ingin its force and comp leteness . In “A Pillar atSebzeva r

”he says :

Wholly distrust thy knowledge,then

,and trust

As wholly love allied to ignorance 'There lies thy truth and safety .

And, aga in, in“Francis FuriniThus much at least is clearly understoodOi power does Man possess no p article :Of knowledge— just so much as shows that stillI t ends in ignorance on every side .

Browning denies even that he has access to acommon world of experience with h is fellow men .

So far as knowledge is concerned he is shut w ith inthe narrow l imits of h is own subjective world .

He knows nothing assured ly except that he h imself exists, that h is worl d of inner consc iousnessi s visited by sensations of pa in and pleasure, and

B R OW N I N G’s WA ' To TRUTH 39

that God exists outside of and above him . He canspeak out for himself, but

“nowise dare play thespokesman for” his “brothers strong and weak .

”

There is no Objective world of val id truth , no

meeting place of fact and experience, no externaltest of knowledge . Each one sees and reports forhimself. D ifferent individual s may even observethe same fact yet disagree utterly in their reportof it . The outside world offers merely

Conjecture manifold,

B ut,as knowledge

,this comes only— things may be as

I behold,

O rmay not be,but

,without me and above me , things there

are ;I myself am what I know not— ignorance which proves

no barT o the knowledge that I am ,

and since I am,can recog

nizeWhat to me is pain and pleasure : this is sure

,the rest

surmise .

I f my fellows are or are not,what may pleas e them and

what pain,

Mere surmise : my own experience— that is knowledge , onceagain '

Knowledge stands on my experience : all outside is narrowhem

,

Free surmise may sport and welcome ' Pleasures , painsaffect mankind

Just as they affect myself ? Why , here’s my neighborcolor blind

,

Eyes like mine,to all appearance : green as grass d o I

affirm ?

R ed as grass he contradicts me :which employs the properterm ?

40 ROB E RT BROWNING

But not even here does Browning stay h is misguided course . He pushes resolutely forwardinto the realm of conduct and throws confusionover man’s moral nature . He teaches that it i sas imposs ible to know the good as it is to knowthe true . In this wilderness of nescience intowhich he has strangely stumbled he not only setsmen to pursue phantoms of real ity that foreverelude them— now appearing to be truth , and nowto be falsehood— but he condemns them as wel lto wage unending warfare with the shadows ofgood and evil , and leaves them in perpetual doubta s to which way the battle has gone . He holdsthat the confl icts of l ife

teachWhat good is and what evil

,

—just the same,

Be feigning or be fact the teacher,

and asserts that

Here and there a touchTaught me

,betimes

,the artifice of things

That all about,external to myself

,

Was meant to be suspected,

—not revealedDemonstrably a cheat

,

— but half seen through .

It is hard to understand how a thinker ofBrowning’s subtlety and acumen could have heldsuch false and contradictory doctrines as we havejust deduced . If, however, we proceed a stepfarther with h im in his attempt to understand and


clearly why it was that he deemed it necessary torear h is cloudy and threatening world of skeptic ismover aga inst h is radiant worl d of faith . Itwas because he saw no other way to justify h isoptimism, and was compelled to seek a deeperprinciple than knowledge upon wh ich to groundhis ph ilosophy— that of un iversal love ; discardingknowledge utterly except as a background ofillusion , deception, and uncerta inty . Ignorance isnecessa ry, he ma intains , for the development ofthe moral l ife

I have lived,then , done and suffered , loved and hated ,

learnt and taughtThis— there is no reconciling wisdom with a world dis

traught ,

Goodness with triumphant evil,power with failure in the

aim,

I f— (to my own sense,remember ' though none other feel

the same ''If you bar me from assuming earth to be a pupil’s place ,And life

,time

,

—with all their chances,changes

,- just p ro

b a tion space ,Mine

,for me .

It is only through ignorance of what is true andwhat is fa lse that we are able to make mora lcho ices ; for if we infall ibly knew one course to beevil and the other course to be good

,we would

choose the good course and avo id the ev il one .

And there could be no merit in doing what we wereobl iged to do any more than there would be faul t

BROWNING’S WA ' TO TRUTH 4 3

in doing what was equally compulsory . Themora l l ife would thus come to a standstil l

,and

man would no longer be man, for Browning

Finds progress man’s distinctive mark alone .

Struggle— the passage from what is lower to whatis h igher, or, for that matter, struggle whetherit issue in victory or defeat, s ince Browningthought one scarcely more praiseworthy than theother, if only the battle had been bravely foughtstruggle is the very essence of man’s nature .

Think 'Coul d I see plain , be somehow certifiedAll was illusion

,— evil far and wide

Was good dn uised,—why

,out with one huge wipe

Goes knowledge from me . Type needs antitype :A s night needs day

,as shine needs shade

,so good

Needs evil : how were pity understoodUnless by pain ? Make evident that painPermissibly masks pleasure— you abstainFrom outstretch of the finger - tip that savesA drowning fly.

In“A Death in the Desert as the dying Johnta lks with the watchers who have gathered abouthim to hear concerning the Chri st, whom he hadknown in the flesh— the relation between knowledge and conduct is emphasized in a unique way .

John points out to them that, if the soul couldknow the prosperous course with as much certa intyas the bodily wants , such as cold, hunger, and

4 4 ROBERT BROWNING

th irst, get themselves satisfied when they comewithin reach of what they instinctively feel to bethei r gain, then man

’s p robation would be at anend . H is distinctive function as man wouldbe over with, once for all . For it i s for man toreason and decide . He must weigh and thenchoose . Would he give up fire for go ld or richappare l if he had once come to know its worth ?asks B rown ing .

Could he give Christ up were H is worth as plain ?Therefore

,I say

,to test man

,the proofs shift

,

N or may he grasp that fact like other facts ,And straightway in his life acknowledge it

,

As,say

,the indubitable bliss of fire .

But, interrupt his friends, surely it must havebeen easier for you to bel ieve in Christ, who walkedin daily conversation and communion with himin the flesh , than for us at th is remote time . Notat a ll

,replies the dying apostle . I am left al ive to

show you that such was not the case, for is it notrecorded of me I forsook and fled ” ? If I hadknown Christ’s worth , a s my hand knows warmthand seeks it when cold , how could it have beenpossible that the torchl ight and the noise andthe sudden Roman faces , violent hands, andfear of what the Jews might do ” could haveava i led to separate me from him ? That was my

trial , he continues , and that was the way it ended .

BROWNING’S WA ' TO TRUTH 4 5

But be sure (and here Browning cl inches h is peculiar doctrine' my soul gained its truth from theexperience— would henceforth grow— and fromthat time forth so forceful d id the lesson becomeupon my l ip s , and in my whole l ife, that therewas no l ittle chil d or tender woman , notwith

standing that they had never seen for themselvesthe least thing of all that I had seen ,

Who did n ot clasp the cross with a light laugh,

O r wrap the burning robe round,thanking God .

In the Epistle of Ka rshish Browning flashesthe same truth upon us from a sl ightly d ifferentangle . Here he wishes to show that perfect knowledge woul d be out of p roportion with the temporaland finite order in which man must find h is p laceso long a s he remains upon earth . Lazarus , afterhis recovery from the tomb , knows too much . Hehas had a v ision of how things p roceed behindthe ve il, and the revelation has al l but blasted h ishuman understanding . There seems to be utterlack of adjustment between his open- eyed v is ionof absolute truth , a s it had been made known toh im while h is sp irit existed apart from the body,and the requirements of human action and judgment . Occurrences that seem of supreme importance to those about him he ignores o r d isregards ,and trifl ing circumstances or insignificant incidents

46 ROB ERT BROWNING

arouse him to sudden horror o r exc itement .

Plainly his v iew of“th ings- as- they—are ” had upsetal l his human standards of knowledge and conduct so that he was spoiled for ordinary mortalpursuits . What to other men appeared evil heseeing it in its ultimate bearings — counted good ;

and what to the ordinary man appea red innocentor harmless , to him, by virtue of his perfect intelligence, appeared momentous . He was, thus, practically incapacitated from discharging the moralfunctions of manhood .

SO here—we call the treasure knowledge,say

,

Increased beyond the fi e sh ly facultyHeaven opened to a soul while yet on earth

,

Earth forced on a soul’s use while seeing heavenThe man is witless of the size

,the sum

,

The value in proportion of all things,

O r whether it be little or be much .

D iscourse to him of prodigious armamentsAssembled to besiege his city now

,

And of the passing of a mul e with gourds’T i s on e ' Then take it on the other side

,

Speak of some trifling fact,

- h e will gaze raptWith stupor at its very littleness

,

(Far as I see' as if in that indeedHe caught prodigious import

,whole results ;

And so will turn to us the bystandersIn ever the same stupor (note this point'That we too see not with his opened eyes .Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play

,

Preposterously,at cross purposes .

Shoul d his child sicken unto death , -why,look

For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,

Or pretermission of the daily craft '

B ROW N I N G’s WA ' TO TRUTH 4 7

While a word,gesture

,glance from that same child

At play or in the school or laid asleepWill startle him to an agony of fear

,

Exasperation , just as like .

I have said enough , I think , to make it perfectlyclea r that Browning’s matured theory of knowledge— the theory of knowledge which in spiteof its inconsistencies he tenacious ly clung to in h islater yea rs in preference to the saner intuitivefaith of h is youth and middle age— was held insubordination to what he considered of vastlymore importance— his optimistic theory of theuniverse . It does not fa l l within the purpose ofthis chapter to tell how thoroughgoing, radiant,and stimulating his optimistic theory was , but before I pass from this d iscuss ion I must bring

.

intoclea r rel ief the principle with which he undergirdedhis opt im ism and that he sets over aga inst h isskeptica l theory of knowledge . That p rincip le ,as I have a l ready 1nt1mated, is love —for Browning the essence and ultimate princip le of a ll

real ity . From the beginning of his poetic careerto its close he cont inua lly unfolds th is loftyand impress ive teaching. It sh ines forth in

'

“Paul ine ” and“Paracelsus , h is earl iest works ; itglows upon every page of h i s dramas ; it findseloquent utterance in“The R ing and the Bookit leaps forth into pass ionate splendor in “Sauland “Karshish,” and burns with mel low but un

4 8 ROBERT BROWNING

d immed rad iance in “Fe rishtah’s Fancies andAsolando .

As I have sa id, he sets it over against h i s faultytheory of knowledge and seeks by the allconquering power of love to achieve what the intellecta lone is unable to accompl ish . It is the outgushing of the inner nature of God himself. Its truthand authority and beneficence a re immediate,and their val idity admits of no question . Loveexalts man to immediate vis ion of God ; and to thedegree that love i s p resent in the human heartman’s nature enters into union with the d iv inenature . I t purifies , quickens , and strengthensthe intel lect ; so that in proportion as love is presentknowledge becomes ful l and unerring . The process whereby Browning deduces th is ultimate conc eption upon which he founds h is theory of l ife issound and rat ional . He interprets the universefrom an ideal ist ic standpoint, and finds in theisticevolution the law of its development . He pos itslove a s the sp iritual activity at the heart of real ity,and discovers in it a suffi cient explanation for bothman and nature . While, of course, not exhaustively sc ientific in h is appl icat ion of love as thesolv ing principle of all human and cosmic act1v 1ty,he. tests h is hypothes i s very widely, and makes nov ital postulate that must not be made by bothscience and philosophy . N O fruitful p rogres s can

CHAPTER III

THE PATH T O GOD

He there with the brand flamboyant,broad o

’er night’s for

lorn abyss,

Crowned by prose and verse ; and wielding , with Wit’sbauble

,Learni ng’s rod

Well ? Why , he at least believed in Soul , was very sure ofGod '

BROWNING reaches h is worl d of ultimate truth,

then , not by intellect, but by intuition . He addsnoth ing new to our store of knowledge, though hedoes gain fresh and rich insight into the ultimatereal ities of l ife . Throughout the entire range of

his poetry the existence of God as the ground andexplanation of all being is spontaneously and stoutlyassumed . It is not a matter for argument . It i s afact as immediate and indisputable as the existenceof his own soul . In his narrative and dramaticpoems , such as Paracelsus,

”“Saul ,” Sordello,”

Rabbi Ben Ezra,”“Andrea del S arto

,

”“Luria ,Pippa Passes,

” “Abt Vogler,” and a hundredothers , his characters accept the existence and au

thor ity of God without question or reflection . Godis as much a pa rt of the ir world as the sky underwhich they were born , o r the facts of the world

5 0

T H E PATH TO GOD 5 1

of common sense through which they takethe ir daily course . It no more occurs to themto question his real ity, might, and authoritythan it does to one of Kipling’s Tommy Atkinsmen to raise questions concerning the existenceand authority of her Majesty . Unless it be aBluphocks, or a G igadibs, or a F ifine, Browning’s characters are almost without exception ,“incurably rel igious . Some of them , it i s true,hold very grotesque and reprehens ible theisticv iews— a Cal iban , an Ixion , a Guido, or a Sludge ;but with very rare exceptions they are all theoIogians and each is in h is own way attempting tokeep on the good side of the being whom heenthrones as his God . In his own person , too,particularly in the reflective and speculative poemsin which he grapples with the ultimate p roblemsof thought and real ity that assail the minds of al learnest and intell igent men , Browning postulatesGod as a necessa ry imp l ication of al l that is deepest and most inexplicable in human l ife . In noneof his

'

poems, perhaps, does he more insistentlyand resolutely set himself to interrogate the groundsof his rel igious faith than in“La Sa is iaz,” and herei s the statement of his fundamental p resupposition :

I have questioned and am answered . ' uestion , answerpresuppose

Two points : that the thing itself which questions,answers

,

i s,it knows ;

52 ROB ERT BROWNING

As it also knows the thing perceived outside itself,

- a forceActual ere its own beginning

,Operative through its course

,

Unaffected by its end,

—that this thing likewise needs must be ;Call this— God

,then

,call that— soul

,and both— the only

facts for me .

Prove them facts ? that they o’erp ass my power of proving ,

proves them such :Fact it is I know I know not something which is fact asmuch .

As we examine more closely into this sponta

neously derived conception of God— a naked postulate as yet -we find that it unfo lds into a luminous and consistent theistic theory of the un iverse .

The God that Browning posits proves to be aspiritual activ ity— un ita ryf free , and intell igenta personal being, therefore . From him all finiteexistence proceeds and upon h im a l l l ife depends .

Browning is thus seen to be an ideal ist . Theprimal essence is not matter but mind . Nor doesGod make man and nature out of some primitivematerial that l ies conveniently at hand . Bothman and nature derive their existence from him,

but not by reason of any outward compuls ion orany v iolent rending asunder of h is own being:He is absolute and independent, and underno l aw of necess ity . The cosm1c world withall its varied and beautiful phenomena is ratheran act iv ity of the inner nature of God whereby heexpresses h is creative rapture ; and man l ikewisehe posits in hi s -own image, impelled by some up

T H E PATH TO GOD 53

rush ing interest of joy or love in his own being .

The creat ion of the finite worl d is seen,therefore

,

to be no limitation of himself. It is a processthrough which he more completely rea l izes h imself. Nor i s h is unity destroyed . It is

,rather

,

through his eternally active and unfail ing creativepower that the universe is held together and giventhe stamp of real ity . The laws of nature arenothing other than express ions of h is activity .

Its phenomena are activities of God,and a reflec

tion of him, but they are not part and parcel ofhim ; and so man , though he derives his essencefrom God and is hourly susta ined by the immanentpresence of God , is yet not God, but h imself, withh is own pin- point of independent existence .

Browning escapes both the dark world of mater ialism, into which so many of our modern sc ien

tists and philosophers have stumbled and losttheir way, and the abyss of pantheism ,

into whichph ilosophical poets l ike Emerson and poeticalphilosophers l ike Schell ing have been lured tospeculative destruction .

In“M r Sludge ‘the Medium,

’ “A Death inthe Desert, and“Prince H ohenstiel- Schwangau”he takes del ight in girding at the material istic evolution ist . Speaking of the origin of man

,he says

Will you have why and wherefore , and the factMade plain a s pikestaff ?” modern Science asks .


That mass man Sprung from was a jelly- lumpOnce on a time ; he kept an after- courseThrough fish and insect , reptile , bird and beast ,Ti ll he attained to be an ape at lastOr last but on e .

”

And in another place he says

Well,sir

,the old way’s altered somewhat since

,

And the world wears another aspect n ow :

Somebody turns our spyglass round,or else

Puts a new lens in it : grass,worm ,

fly grow big :We find great things are made of little things

,

And little things go lessening till at lastComes God behind them . Talk of mountains now ?We talk of mold that heaps the moun tain ,

mitesThat throng the mold

,and God that makes the mites .

The Name comes close behind a stomach- cyst,

The simplest of creations,just a sa c

That’s mouth,heart

,legs

,and belly at once

,yet lives

And feels,and could d o neither

,we conclude

,

I f simplified still further one degree .

After hav ing had hiS ‘

fun at the expense of h i ssc ientific brother who holds to his s imian ancestrywith more gusto than an enlightened poet i s wontto do , Browning usual ly states h i s own convictionand conclusion in some such l ines as these

This is the glory,

— that in all conceived,

Or felt or known , I recognize a mindN ot mine but like mine

,—for the double joy ,

Making all things for me and me for H im .

He glows aboveWith scarce an intervention

,presses close

And palp itatingly his soul o’er oursWe feel him

,nor by painful reason know '

The everlasting minute of creation


Is felt there ; now it i s as it was then ,

All changes at his instantaneous will :N ot by the operation of a lawWhose maker is elsewhere at other work ,H is hand is still engaged upon his worldMan’s praise can forward it

,man’s prayer suspend

,

For is not God all-mighty ?

In the passage last quoted we have a fine expression of Browning’s bel ief in the immanenceof God in the universe . There is , even , a strongNeoplatonic influence present in some of his earli est works that leads to a ' iew of God and the

world that verges closely upon pantheism . Butin his mature works he repeatedly makes it clear

,

not only that God is a person— the cause of theworld , not its maker— but, also, that man him self,once created, possesses in h is own right the qualities of freedom, intel l igence, and personal ity

I,

—not H e,

Live , think , d o human work here— no machineH is will moves

,but a being by myself

,

H is,and not H e— who made me for a work ,

Watches my working,judges its effect

,

B ut does not interpose .

We turn now to the three aspects of the div inenature that particularly interested Browning

,and

that received ful l treatment and il lustrat ion at h ishand : intel l igence, will, and love .

That the Creator of this orderly un iverse,whomoves forward from generation to generation per

56 ROBERT BROWNING

fectly adapt ing means to ends , subduing constantlythe lower to the higher, and

“equal izing, ever andanon, in momentary rapture, great with small ,i s an intell igent being admits of neither doubt nordiscuss ion in Browning’s mind . The same glancethat convinces h im that “God’s in his heaven ”convinces him l ikewise that “from God down tothe lowest sp irit ministrant intel l igence exists .

”

He reads purpose, forethought, and wisdom everywhere . I r is true, as I have a lready shown, thathe discredits the efforts of the finite mind to comprehend truth ; but he invariab ly does so that hemay the more glorify the immensity and unfath

omable wisdom of the divine m ind . Man’s mindis a spark , but it has for its source the sun ; a p inpoint rock , but it has deep- rooted connection withthe continent . Browning had l ittle patience withscientific and philosoph ica l theories that seek toexplain the universe upon the bas is of mechanica ll aws . He thought it p reposterous that men shouldattribute to b l ind force or impersona l mechan ica ll aw the nob le outcome to be found in man’s ownnature, and in society as he has organ ized it forhis enjoyment and welfare . H is only argumentaga inst such v iews was neglect or good-naturedscorn . His unvarying assumption is that thefoundat ions of the world are laid in wisdom ; thatGod is the great Geometer ; and that al l orders of

58 ROB ERT BROWNING

All is effect of Cause :As it would , has willed and donePower : and my mind’s applauseGoes

,passing laws each on e

,

T o Omnipotence ; lord of laws .

God is the perfect poet, who in h is person actsh is own creations The vis ible world is the out

rushing of h is will ; he ordains the seasons ; setsthe stars in their courses ; out of h is boundlesssp iritual energy suppl ies motive s and incentives toman ; and momentarily, by the unwearied exer

c ise of his will, sustains the complex and farreaching processes of intel l igence which he hasappointed .

Thus far Browning has found the path of theistic faith an easy one to tread . He has reachedGod at a bound, and has instantaneously inter

preted him as a being of l imitless intel l igence andpower . But intell igence and power, he finds , areunab le to sat isfy the deepest needs of his l ife . Foras he looks about him it is manifest that at everyturn of the finite path that leads up to God arethe pa inful evidences of folly, mistake, defeat,and sorrow . Noble and insatiable aspirationsfor truth and knowledge met by l imitations, anddisappointment, and mockery on every hand 'Splendid attempts upon the part of man to conquer and master the elementary forces about h im ,

and to guide h is conduct in accordance with the


wisdom and the power of the universe, is suingeverywhere in waste, calamity, and tragedy 'Whatof the dea r dead men and women who have loved,and erred

,and striven, and fa llen ; who, pursuing

what seemed to them in their folly, or their innocence, or their s infulness to be the one immed iateand certain way to happiness, yet found the roadset with thorns, and reached the journey

’s endonly to fall p1erced and bleeding upon some sharpand ugly fact that had been hidden from them byreason of their ignorance or their pass ion ? Howreconcile the universe as we find it with what weshould suppose it would be if God were all-wiseand all- powerful ? Browning finds h is solutionfor these perplexing problems in that ultimatesolv ing principle at the innermost core of real ityof which I spoke in the last chapter

The love theft tops themight , the Christ in God .

He exclaims with Rabb i Ben Ezra ,

Praise be thine 'I see the whole design ,

I , who saw power , see now Love perfect tooPerfec t I call thy planThanks that I was a man '

Maker, remake , complete ,— I trust what thou shalt d o '

It is Brown ing’s ill um inating ins ight into thisd ivine princip le of love— conce ived by h im as theback- lying motive of all l ife and real ity— and h is

60 ROBERT BROWNING

rich illustration of its presence and activity in allthe intercourse of man with man and man withGod

,that gives character and value to h is theisti c

conception . Browning real ized that for God tofail us here would be for God to fail us wholly ;for the supreme cry of the human heart, beset a sit i s by its sore doubts, temptations , and sorrows,i s not for a God merely, but for a sympatheticGod— for a God who feel s with us and for us andboth understands and bears our infirmities . And ,amid all the wealth of rel igious teach ing andthe variety of dramatic representations of rel igiousexperience that Browning prov ides for us, noth ingis of so much importance to us a s the invariablestruggle of whatever character he sees fit to dep ictto reach back , through h is erroneous , cloudy, orpartia l conception of the God of power and intell igence , to find the hand and read the face of abeing whose love and compass ion should be commensurate with h is wisdom and authority . TheGreek Ixion , the Arab Karshish, the savage Cal iban, the Cathol ic Guido, the Hebrew Dav id , andthe modern English Browning himself— each seeksto find through the shadow, and the thunder, andthe earthquake, the God of love and compass ionthe God, not of the head, but of the hea 1t .

Condemned to eternal torment, Ixion comes tosee that a loveless god is below the respect of man ;

T H E PATH TO GOD 6 1

and, ca lmed, enl ightened, and purified throughhis suffering, he spurns the divin ity wh ich Z eusarrogates to himself, and catches a v is ion of a PurePotency beyond Z eus , in whom reside justice andlove . In a s imilar manner the half- brute Cal iban

,

as he wallows at ease in a shadowed pool on theverge of the sea and communes with h imself as tothe nature of his god Setebos, while able to readinto his nature only power mingled with envy,caprice, and cruelty, perceives a stil l h igher godabove— the god of Setebos himself— a being possessed of a quiet and happy l ife, and actuated bybenevolent motives . The alert, 1nquir ing Arabphys ician, Ka rshish— a theist but not a Christ ianmeets Lazarus, and hears the story of how Christra ised him from the dead ; and, in sp ite of h isscientific temper and hab itual skepticism , returnsaga in and again with fascinated and half- reverentwonder to consider the tale in al l its marvelousimport ; and at last, more than half convinced ofits truth , gives voice to the yearn ings of his heart,and excla ims

So the All-Great were the All-Loving tooSo through the thunder comes a human voiceSaying

,

“0 heart I made

,a heart beats here '

Face my hands fashioned,see it in myself '

Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine ;But love I gave thee

,with myself to love

,

And thoumust love me who have died for thee '”


T he only ray of redemptive hope that strikesthrough the gloomy murk of hell that has settledover the craven spirit of Guido, the Ital ian countand p riest, comes from his tardy real ization of thesaintl ike purity and sweetnes s of the young wifewhose soul and body he has outraged, and whomhe ha s at last murdered . He has finally beenbrought to bay . The civ i l and the eccles iasticalcourts have al ike dec ided aga inst h im . He hasby turns announced h imself a prim itive rel igionist, a hypocrite, and an atheist ; but when at theend the guard call s to take him to the guillotineas he seeks in terror and frenzy some last footholdfor h is soul as it s inks into the bottomles s horrorof perd ition— Brown ing, in one of the most dramatic and powerful passages in l iterature, makesh im cry out :

‘Abate — Cardinal,

— Christ,—Maria

,

—God

Pompilia,will you let themmurderme ?”

The p rinciple of unfail ing goodness and loveas incarnated in the girl wife

,Pompilia , i s the final

and redeeming ground of rel igious hope for th i smost execrable of all of Browning’s depravedcharacters .The consummate dramatic representat ion of aperplexed human heart reaching through thewisdom and power of God to fee l if hap ly it may


apprehend what it counts a h igher and supremeneed— the love of God manifest in terms of finitecomprehens ion— is the prophetic leap of youngDav id’s soul (in his effort to awaken Saul fromhis settl ed despair' toward the Christ that was tobles s and redeem mankind . With cunning fingersand a skil l born of tender sol icitude for the greatking whom his soul loved he touched h is harpto sweet mus1c, hoping thus to win S aul

’s sp iritfrom its dark wanderings . He sought fi rst, byplaying the tune that del ights the b rute creation , to awaken in the king

’s breast the elementalemotions that man possesses in common with theanimals . Then he played the tune s of domesticjoy and sorrow and fellowsh ip ; and, anon, s inceS aul’s sp irit still hovers on the borderland betweenhope and despair, h is voice accompanies the harp ,and he s ings the joys of phys ica l manhood and sensuous delight . Next he s ings of endeavor, ach ievement, and renown . B ut as yet h is music has onlyavailed to reawaken Saul to a consciousness of h imself and his surroundings, and to e l icit ev idences ofaffection and gratitude for Dav id h imself— thehuman friend, the skillful musician . As yet hecares not for l ife , nor finds suffi c ient motive tocl imb aga in the heights that lead to joy andconquest . So at last Dav id, in the extremityof his human weakness and in the fullness of

64 ROB ERT BROWNING

his love for S aul and his des ire to hearten andreclaim h im , ye a rns

Could I help thee,my father

,inventing a bliss

,

I woul d add , to that life of the past , both the future and this ;I woul d give thee new life altogether , as good ,

ages hence,

As this moment , —had love but the warrant , love’s heart todispense '

Then the truth b roke into his soul

“I have gone the whole round of creation : I saw and Ispoke :

I,a work of God’s hand for that purpose

,received in my

brainAnd pronounced on the rest of his handwork— returnedhim again

H is creation’s approval or censure : I spoke as I sawI report

,as a man may of God’s work - all’s love

,yet all’s

law .

What,my soul ? see thus far and no farther ? when doors

great and small,

N ine and ninety flew op e at our touch , should the hundredthappan?

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 , theparts shift ?

Here,the creature surpass the Creator

,

—the end,what

B egan ?Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man

,

And dare doubt he alone shall not help him,who yet a lone

can ?Would it ever have entered my mind

,the bare will

,much

less power,

To bestow on this Saul what I sang of,the marvelous

dower

66 ROB ERT BROWNING

Could 1 . wrestle to raise him from sorrow ,grow poor to

enrich,

T o 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

, ineffab lest , uttermostcrown

And thy love fill infin itud e wholly,nor leave up nor down

On e 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 B eloved '

He who did most,shall bear most ; the strongest shall stand

the most weak .

’T is the weakness in strength

,that I cry for ' my fl esh , that

I seekIn the Godhead ' I seek and I find it . 0 Saul , it shall beA Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me ,Thou shalt love and be loved by

,forever : a Hand like this

handShall throw open the gates of new life to thee ' See theChrist stand '

CHAPTER IV

THE HUMAN HIGHWAY

Man knows partly but conceives beside ,Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact ,And in this striving

,this converting air

Into a solid he may grasp and use ,Finds progress

,man’s distinctive mark alone

N ot God’s,and not the beasts’: God is

,they are

,

Man partly is and wholly hopes to be .

MAN,as we have seen , traces h is origin to God

and bears his imprint . M an is the creature , Godthe creator . The mystery of creation Browningdoes not

,of course, attempt to explain . He

real izes that it does not fall within the province offinite intell igence to d ispart the intricate threadsof being that const itute the interrelated l ife ofman and God . But he does trace humanexistence to its source in the divine l ife , anddoes clearly perceive that al l finite real ity isdependent upon God . He is the cause of all ; hemomentarily sustains all ; all l ife issues from him ;al l earthly intell igence centers in him and gainsits meaning from him ; a ll righteousness , al l love ,is from him . There is , too, unquestionable community of life and interest between him and h is

6 7

68 ROBE RT BROWNING

human creature . ' et, to a degree, man enjoysa sepa rate and independent existence . He 1s notcoerced in h is actions . He is h imself a responsiblebeing, endowed with power of initiative

,and

possessed in h is own right of a nature capable oflove, and knowledge, and vo l ition . In the longrun he must answer to God for the use of his gifts ;but he may contravene the will of God— mayeither grieve or glorify his creator

' ou know what I mean : God’s all,man’s naught .

But also,God

,whose pleasure brought

Man into being,stands away

As it were,a handbreadth off

,

T o give room for the newly-made to live,

And look at him from a place apart,

And use his gifts of brain and heartGiven

,indeed

,but to keep forever .

Who Speaks of man ,then

,must not sever

Man’s very elements from man,

Saying,

“But all is God’s”— whose planWas to create and then leave himAble

,his own word saith , to grieve him ,

But able to glorify him too,

As a mere machine could never d o,

That prayed or praised,all unaware

O f its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,

Made perfect as a thing of course .

Man,therefore

,stands on his own stock

Of love and power as a pin-point rock :And

,looking to God

,who ordained divorce

Of the rock from his boundl ess continent,

Sees in his power made evidentOnly excess by a millionfoldO

’e r the power God gave man in the mold .

TH E HUMAN HIGHWAY 69

The beginnings of man’s nature on the materia ls ide Browning traces to cosmic sources . He doesnot thus make man’s physical nature any les sthe product of divine creation , for, as has a lreadybeen pointed out, nature, as wel l as man , proceedsfrom God . His bel ief is , s imply, that man hasreached his p resent stage of existence througha long course of development, and that he has lefthis imprint upon lower stages of l ife, j ust as theyupon their part, foreshadowed in varying degreehis coming . The earl ier creative p rocesses werecosmic . But as the world took its upward coursethrough shel l and leaf and star, through wormand bird and fish and beast, there were constantprophec ies and foreshadowings Of man . Al lpointed toward his coming . Had he not later arrived to crown the creative p rocess , much thathad p receded him must have ‘seemed fragmentary,incomplete, and inexpl icab le But now, as wespel l the record backward, we are ab le to seeplainly how

all lead up to higher ,All shape out dimly the superior race

,

The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false ,And man appears at last .

God takes time .

I like the thought he should have lodged me onceI’ the hole

,the cave

,the hut

,the tenement

,

The mansion and the palace ; made me learn

70 ROB ERT BROWNING

The feel 0’the first,before I found myself,

Loftier i’ the last,not more emancipate ;

From first to last of lodging I was I ,And not at all the place which harbored me .

D o I refuse to follow farther yetI’ the backwardness

,repine if tree and flower

,

Mountain or streamlet were my dwelling-placeBefore I gained enlargement

,grewmOllusk ?

As well account that way for many a thrillOf kinship I confess to with the powersCalled Nature : animate

,inanimate

,

In parts or in the whole,there’s something there

Manlike that somehow meets the man in me .

The fact 18, man is stil l in the making . He hasatta ined, a s yet, only the first stage of manhood,and he i s still mounting his endless way back toGod . He is coming to know ; he is gaining inpower ; he is growing in love ; but his path to perfection winds in and out round many a mounta inheight as yet unseen , and he has far to go . Butit is j ust h i s imperfection that makes him man ;discriminating him , as it does , from God, upon theone hand , and from unconscious l ife upon theother. And it may be well at this point to remindthe reader that we now find ourselves upon d istinctively Browning territory . We have reachedhumanity’s battleground ; and as we survey it wefind Brown ing there, far over upon the verge ofthe enemy’s country, dauntlessly setting the slughorn to his l ip s and blowing full in the face of thefoe the blast of cha l lenge, of courage, and of con

T H E HUMAN HIGHWAY 7 1

quest . He was the supreme poet mil itant of themora l l ife . He interprets human life in terms ofconfl ict and struggle . And the confl ict is avery rea l one— the issue very distinctly jo ined .

Upon the one hand , man finds with in h imself anirrep ress ible instinct and des ire to ach ieve abso

lute perfection . There arises, from within himself, an ideal of conduct and atta inment which heObjectifies, and pursues as the most rea l and au

thoritative inte rest of l ife . This criterion of excellence he discovers to be the l ife of God in the soul

- laying upon man the requirement to seek andto achieve the highest . But, on the other hand,he finds l im itations laid upon him by h is very nature as man that render it imposs ib le for h im toatta in his ideal or to bring to completion the imperative behests of h i s higher nature . He is thusdoomed to perpetua l fa ilure, defeat, and disappointment ; forever driven to seek perfection bythe workings ofGod’s Spirit within h im, yet foreverdrawn earthward and baffled by the restrictionslaid upon him by v i rtue of his finite nature . Hethus finds himself in the condition which Paulso graphical ly depicts in the seventh chapter ofh is Epistle to the Romans : “I find then a law,

that, when I wou ld do good, ev i l i s p resent withme . For I delight in the law of God after the inward man : but I see another law in my members,

72 ROBERT BROWNING

warring against the l aw of my mind, and bringingme into captivity to the law of s in which is in mymembers . 0 wretched man that I am 'who shalldel iver me from the body of this death I thankGod through Jesus Christ our Lord . So then withthe mind I myself serve the law ofGod ; but withthe flesh the law of s in .

”

To most of us the condition of man as thus de

p icted would seem to be the most unhappy one thatcould be conceived . Why not yield the battle atonce we would a sk . Is it worth Wh ile to continuesuch a hopeless struggle ? Would it not be betterto define the l imits within which we find ourselvesable to work successful ly, and with in those l imitsmake such conquests as a re with in our power ?But to B rowning such a course would have seemedweak , cowardly, and destructive . Such a coursewould be to s ink into what was for h im the deepestand darkest hel l of which he was ab le to conce ive .

Half-hearted endeavor, compromise, surcease ofeffort— these, and these a lone, of all the possiblea lternatives that are open to a human being— aredeserving of scorn and reprehension . His answerto such a suggestion is to be found in his arra ignment of the Lost LeaderB lot out his name , then ,

record one lost soul more,

One task more declined , one more footpath untrod ,One more devils’- triumph and sorrow for angels ,One wrong more toman , onemore insult to God '

74 ROB ERT BROWNING

4 Those who persevere may rest secure ly in thepromise that they shall renew their strength ; theyshal l mount up with wings as eagles ; they shallrun, and not be weary ; and they shal l walk , andnot faint .”

Then,welcome each rebuff

That turns earth’s smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor s i t nor stand but go 'B e our joys three-parts pain 'Strive

,and hold cheap the strain '

Learn,nor account the pang ; dare , never grudge the throe '

As yet we need barely to suggest the ground ofBrowning’s radiant optimism . We have time andagain suggested that he finds in love the explanation of all that is dark and perplexing in l ife, andwe shal l have occasion soon to explain this aspectof h is ph ilosophy in the l ight of the same greatprincip le . But for the present we need only em

phas ize h is teaching that a man’s earth ly career

i s s imply a testing proces s— a sort of speedingground for soul s —where the spirit mil itant is tobe transformed so that it may run a triumphantcourse in newer and h igher rea lms of conquestand achievement . This l ife i s pre '

eminently aplace of probation and discipl ine . We fit ourselves here for a l ife hereafter. S uccess or failure ,

i s not to be j udged by the low standards of t imeand sense .

T H E HUMAN HIGHWAY 75

N ot on the vulgar massCalled “work

,

” must sentence pass ,Things done

,that took the eye and had the price ;

O’e r which ,

from level stand ,The low world laid its hand ,

Found straightway to its mind , could value in a trice

But all,the world’s coarse thumb

And finger failed to plumb ,So passed in making up the main account

All instincts immature ,All purposes un sure ,

That weighed not as his work , yet swelled the man’samount :

Thoughts hardly to be packedInto a narrow act ,

Fancies that broke through language and escapedAll I could never be ,All men ignored in me ,

This I was worth to God ,whose wheel the p itcher shaped .

Andrea del Sarto, the faultles s pa inter, pathetic~

ally real izing that his own art was Weak becausehe was ab le to execute a l l that he conceived ,cried out

Ah,but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp ,

Or what’s a heaven for ?

The hero ic o ld schola r, in “A Grammarian’sFuneral ,

” felt that he was set here upon earth tosettle, and settle forever, certain points in Greekgrammar ; and it mattered not to h im that, whilehe obscurely labored, youth , fame , and enjoymentwere slipp ing through his fingers :

76 ROB ERT BROWNING

He woul d not discount life , as fools d o here ,Paid by installment .

He ventur ed neck or nothing— heaven’s successFound

,or earth’s failur e

Wilt thou trust death or not ?” He answered

,Yes '

Hence with life’s pale lure '”That low man seeks a little thing to d o

,

Sees it and does it :This high man

,with a great thing to pursue ,

D ies ere he knows it .

So insistent is Browning for struggle, effort,growth , that he makes l ife one huge O lymp ic gamein which spiritual athletes contest for imperishab lecrowns . To attain is, of course, a supreme joy ;yet defeat i s no disgrace ; and defeat i s a lways anexperience that makes for fullness of l ife, providedthe contestant renew the struggle . The only un

pardonable th ing is to refuse to enter the game atal l . The person who strives , and

’

endures bol dlyunto the end , even though he may have championed the cause of evil, Browning admires andpraises . For he bel ieves that, whenever andwherever good and evil a re b rought into mora l confl ict, the good will in the final outcome prove victorious, and that the sinner will thus be conv inced,taught, and permanently benefited . It wouldhave been stil l better for him , of course, if he hadknown the good from the beginning and had all iedhimself with it ; but he is better off as it i s than hewould have been if he had been quiescent o r, des ir


ing to do wrong, had refrained because of cowa rd ice or inertia . So confident is Browning that inthe end good will vindicate itself, and rise tr iumphant from the worst struggle into which it may becompelled to enter, that he is fond of creating acharacter now and then who dares to try conclus ions with righteousness to the very death

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 .

And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghostIs— the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin

,

Though the end in sight was a vice,I say .

Each lieR edounded to the praise of man

,was victory

Man’s nature had both right to get and might to gain,

And by no means implied submission to the reignOf other quite as real a nature

,that saw fit

T o have its way with man,not man his way with it .

We see, then , that B rowning’s supreme teach

ing with respect to man is that human life is a testing place for our h igher powers ; that man findswith in h im the work ing of a power that transcendshis finite nature— the l ight of God in the soulurging h im on to the atta inment of absolute perfection ; that th is ideal of perfection, while the mostcommanding fact of h is l ife, is unatta inable in this

78 ROB ERT BROWNING

worl d ; that, nevertheless, the supreme worth ofl ife for time and eternity l ies in the strenuousand courageous pursuit of th is ideal of excellence ;that the very law of man’s being i s movementtoward this standard of perfection ; and that,ever, as we strive for it, we are in a measureattaining it .Having now made clea r Browning’s central

teaching concern ing man, it i s our purpose to studythe various activities of his nature as they relatethemselves to the realms of sense, of intellect, ofa rt, of mora ls, and of rel igion ; at the conclusionof the chapter b ringing into clear view the princ iple o r mot ive that j ustifies and glor ifies such amil itant nature as B rowning ascribes to man .

TH E WORLD O F SENS E

In his relation to the sense world Browning wasChristi an rather than ascetic . He enjoyed a richand complete l ife . He entered into its del ightsin no half-hea rted way . S ays M r . Dowden :“Hissenses were at once s ingularly keen and energetic,and s ingularly capacious of del ight . His eyeswere active instruments of observation , and atthe same t ime were possessed by a kind of rapture in form— and not least in fantastic form‘

and a rapture stil l finer in the opulence and variety of color.” He could not have been a great :


poet had it been Otherwise ; for the material ofsense impression enters l argely into poetry . Al lthe concrete deta il s that enter into the imaginativework of the poet must originally find their wayinto the m ind through the senses ; so the truepoet must be delicately sensitive to the manifol d appeal that comes to h im from the world ofnature . That Browning was finely tra ined inthis particular we have already shown in the opening chapter . There was in him much of the nat

ural man, and he frankly enjoyed all sweet andharmles s experiences of sense . More than mostmen he entered into the purely physical pleasuresof l ife .

As we shoul d expect, though , of a poet of suchmarked spiritual ity and so strong a moral bent,he subordinates the body to the soul . Fleshlyenjoyments, though palpable and immediate, aretainted and disappointing ; While heavenly joys ,though they fl it fa int and far upon the horizon

,

l ike the Northern Lights o r the glorious miststhat wreath the autumn hil l s , are satisfying andenduring . For the most part he looks upon flesha s a retarding medium in the discernment of truth ,and as more or less of an impediment to spiritualattainment . It not infrequently bl inds the mindto its highest interests , and sometimes beguile sthe soul into wrong courses . Its function, of

80 ROB ERT BROWNING

course, i s to serve the higher nature . It i s theCal iban among the human endowments . It mustplay the part of the patient drudge , foregoing itsown del ights in the interest of its brightmaster .The body, nevertheless , is not to be despised .

It i s entitled to its own pleasure, and is muchquicker to learn what is for its comfort and welfare than is the soul ; for it has b rief time to tastethe sweets of l ife . It is short- l ived, so must findits gratification at once or not at all . The spiritcan postpone its education and satisfaction , forit endures ; but the body speaks the famil ia r language of lyric poets and of youth

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

O ld Time is still a - fly ing ;

And this same flower that smiles to-dayT O -morrow will be dying .

The flesh , at any rate, must in no wise be mal igned ; for in some mysterious way soul and bodyare inseparably wedded here on earth ; and evenin the highest and hol iest undertakings of l ife thebody is a necessary and worthy ally of the sp1r1t :

Let us not always say,“Spite of this flesh tod ay

I strove,made head

,gained ground upon the whole '”

As the bird wings and sings .Let us cry

,

“All good thingsAre ours

,nor soul helps fl esh more , now, than flesh helps

soul '”

82 ROBERT BROWNING

can never exhaust the resources of the infinitemind nor discover its ultimate mystery . Keep butever looking,

” says S chramm in “Pippa Passes ,”“whether with the body’s eye or the mind’s , andyou wil l soon find someth ing to look on ' Has aman done wondering at women -there followmen , dead and al ive, to wonder at . Has he donewondering at men —there’s God to wonder at :and the faculty of wonder may be, at the same time,o ld and tired enough with respect to its first object,and yet young and fresh sufli c iently, so fa r as concerns its novel one .

” Nor need we go far to seektruth . If a man would find truth , let h im looknot a lone into the face of the heavens and into thedepths of the earth , but within h is own heart aswell ; for we should expect that God would leavethe deep and indel ible print of his own nature inthe human soul, if anywhere— man of a l l createdth ings being nearest of k in to God

But,

i

fr iend s,

Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no riseFrom outward things

,whate’er you may believe .

There is an inmost center in us allWhere truth abides in fullness ; and around ,

Wall upon wall,the gross fl esh hems it in

,

This perfect,clear perception— which is truth .

A baffling and perverting carnal meshB inds it

,and makes all error ; and to know

R ather consists in opening out a way


Whence the imprisoned Splendormay escape ,Than in effecting entry for a lightSupposed to be without .

The mind bu il ds up its world of truth , however,by slow degrees . We do not gain al l at a leap .

Knowledge is more than intuition . It is

the slowUncertain fruit of an enhancing toil ,Strengthened by love .

The growth of the mind is progress ive . Whatseems true to- day, to-morrow, in the l ight of fullerknowledge

,seems a mistake . We must take ha lf

truths and temporary truths and make the mostof them , until , in the more certain l ight that comesfrom growth and experience, we shal l be ab le torectify and comp lete our tentative knowledge .

We catch at mistake as an intermed iary device toswing ou rselves up to certa in fact . But what wegain we must keep . The most rep rehens iblething is to step backward from a higher to a lowergrade of intel l igence— having once known , to letour truth sl ip us .

And this p rogress ive element in knowledgeshould warn us also of the value of the past . Noman should seek to build h is structure of truthfrom the foundation up . He shoul d build uponthe past, recogniz ing the value of what has gonebefore, and thankfully ut il iz ing the accumulated

84 ROBERT BROWNING

stores of knowledge b rought down to us throughthe hero ic endeavor of the great minds that havepreceded us

N ot so,dear child

Of after- days , wilt thou reject the past ,B ig with deep warnings of the proper tenureBy which thou hast the earth : for thee the presentShall have distinct and trembling beauty , seenBeside that past’s own shade when

,in relief

,

Its brightness Shall stand out : nor yet on theeShall burst the future

,as successive zones

O f several wonder open on some spiritFlying secure and glad from heaven to heavenBut thou shalt painfully attain to joy ,

While hope and fear and love shall keep thee man '

While hope and fea r and love shal l keep theeman '” This teach ing Browning eloquently reite rates . Knowledge is not to be sought as an endin itself. Such a course must always prove ca

lamitous . Life possesses other and richer intereststhan the pursuit ofk nowledge merely for its ownsake . It is not fair that even the flesh shoul d beturned into a veritab le drudge in the interest oflea rning . And if Caliban has a right to rebelaga inst Prospero , how much more imagination ,our da inty Ariel, and love, our grac ious M i randa 'No , the standing scandal of human nature is thatintellect should imperiously seek its own ends atthe expense of al l other modest, sweet, and humble interests of l ife . And, apart from a ll this, it


is imposs ib le that the intel lect itself should thrivein any such high-handed and haughty course .

We know only as we l ive . Knowledge comeswith action, with love, with fellowship ; andthe intellectua l ga in that is secured apart fromthe common paths of daily duty and communionis barren and delus ive . Al l knowledge that emriches draws its very substance from the variedand multiplex l ife about it .

TH E REALM O F A R T

Art is man’s effort to real ize and fix in sens uousform the lovel iness of the universe . To the soulof every artist is granted fresh and glorified v is ionof the fai r and grac ious countenance of eterna lbeauty, and, as best he can , he transcribes for u sthe treasured reve lation . Love is the only truemotive Of art . Apart from love there can be nostirring, ' ital izing, sympathetic art . Whatever itscharacter— love of child , love of country, love ofGod— the supreme motive must be the des ire toconfer benefits upon others . Al l great a rt iswrought in self- forgetful pass ion . The a rt ist inunion with the div ine essence of beauty in the universe and in the abandonment of love for humanity is caught out of h imself, and so creates for thejoy ofh is fel low men . The v irtue and nobil ity ofh is art is determ ined by the degree to wh ich he

86 ROB ERT BROWNING

freely and gladly enters into h is product for thebenefit and joy of others . A self- centered art isimposs ib le . Humanity must evoke every noblestra in, and gu ide every grave or tender touch ofbrush, or pen , or ch isel . And when thus swept bythe creative rapture that works not for persona lends, but to the end that the d iv ine nature may berevealed to the del ight of al l mankind, the artistfinds the very materia l through wh ich he worksentering into pl iant consp iracy with h im to fix hisidea in fa ir and faultless form . Nor will theartist who sees in love the dominant mot ive of al lcreative work find any aspect of h is theme toomean for h is hand , or any l ife too humble andobscure to drink joy from h is art . Says the poetApri le in“Paracelsus” :

For common life,its wants

And ways,would I se t forth in beauteous hues :

The lowest hind should not possess a hope,

A fear,but I’d be by him

,saying better

Than he his own heart’s language .

But the ch ief va lue that comes to us from the

pursuit of art is the rea l ization that perfect beautyand comp lete fruition are unatta inable for man .

I t i s the glory of the art ist that he is able inmoments of ins ight to transcend his earth ly l imitations and snatch bright gl impses of the eternalrad iance ; but it i s h is W isdom not to rest in any


partial ach ievement— not to be satisfied withbroken fragments caught up from God’s rich banquet board . Let the artist never rest in a ccomplishment . One’s art wil l perish so

,his inspira

tion van ish , and he be left thenceforth unvis itedby heavenly gleams

All partial beauty was a. pledgeOf beauty in its plenitude :B ut s in ce the pledge sufficed thy mood ,R etain it ' plenitude be theirsWho looked above '

Art temporarily translates us into the perfect, butnot that we may rest there . Rather that, th roughfail ure to achieve the whole, the perfect, and thepermanent, we may renew our strength for yetother and farther- ranging incurs ions upon therealm of the absolute— freshened , and cheered ,and heartened , to be sure, but never satisfied .

It i s the real ization of this truth that so exalts andcomforts the soul of the musician in“Abt Vogler” '

the conscious repudiation of it that so depressesthe painter in“Andrea del Sarto .

” The p itiful confession of Andrea del Sarto is :

Ah,but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp ,

O r what’s a heaven for ? All is silver-grayPlacid and perfect with my art : the worse '

On the other hand, the words of the mus ician ,while ful l of pathos , are nevertheles s v ib rantwith all high hope and achievement :

88 ROB ERT BROWNING

Well,it is gone at last , the palace of music I reared

Gone ' and the good tears start , the praises that come tooslow

For on e is assured at first,one scarce can say that he feared

,

T hat he even gave it a thought , the gone thing was to go .

Never to be again ' But many more of the kindAs good , nay , better perchance : is this your comfort to me ?

T o me , who must be saved because I cling with mymi ndT o the same , same self , same love , same God : ay ,

what was,

shall be .

Therefore to whomturn I but to thee , the ineffable Name ?Builder and maker

,thou

,of houses not made with hands '

What,have fear of change from thee who art ever the same ?

Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy powerexpands ?

There shall never be one lost good ' What was , shall live asbefore ;

The evil is null,is naught

,is silence implying sound ;

What was good shall be good , with , for evil , so much goodmore ;

On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven a perfect round .

It is in keep ing with th i s ch aracteristic teach ingof Browning’s that he praises the work of the earlyItal ian a rtists who, after their predecessors hadlong rested in the class ic perfection of form thatcame through Greek art, at last renounced s lavishadherence to fixed model s that p roh ib ited allgrowth in art, and sought by strong but crudeand inadequate means to

Make new hopes shine through the fl esh they fray,

New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters :T o bring the invisible full into play 'Let the visible go to the dogs—whatmatters ?

90 ROB ERT BROWNING

our neighbor injures us . Our moral nature cannot grow and thrive apart from the joys, and sorrows, and struggles of our fellow men . Humanl ife with al l its stress and strife, its wea l and woe ,i s the school in which we are to disc ipl ine our souls ;and it i s our happines s and wisdom to take ourpart in the da ily routine . Browning has much tosay about the function of great men in the world ;but one th ing he a lways makes very p la in : ourheroes can never attain greatness apart fromtheir k ind . They cannot shower gifts and servicesupon the multitude unles s they th emselves comedown and dwell famil iarly with the world whichthey woul d conquer and serve . The poem Paracelsus ” eloquently teaches th is . As he is about totake leave of h is dear friends , Festus and M ichalto search out a ll truth , Paracelsus says

If I can serve mankind’Tis well ; but there our intercourse must endI never will be served by those I serve .

th is the wiser but les s bril l iant Festus repl ies

Look well to this , here is a plague Spot , here ,D isgu ise it how you may '’Tis but a Spot as yet . but it will breakInto a hideous blotch if overlooked .

Were I elect like you ,

I woul d encircle me with love,and raise

A rampart of my fellows ; it shoul d seemImpossible for me to fail , so watchedBy gentle friends who made my cause their own .

T H E HUMAN HIGHWAY 9 1

They shoul d ward off fate’s envy— the great gi ft ,Extravagant when claimed by me alone ,Being so a gift to them as well as me .If danger daun ted me or ease seduced ,H ow calmly their sad eyes should gaze reproach '

The secret of the expanding mora l l ife , then ,l ies in service to our kind . And serv ice, the poethas repeatedly shown us , does not rank as greator smal l . Its ' irtue l ies in do ing lov ingly andwel l the deed at hand . It is imposs ible for usto know what is great and what i s smal l . Pippaand T heoc rite wrought not one whit less noblythan ' ueen and Pope . Browning does not est imate success a s most men e stimate it . Successdoes not come ch iefly through do llars and cents,or houses and lands, or fame and earth ly favor .

Defeat in a noble cause outsh ines the most gloriousach ievement secured at the expense of honor, orjustice, or truth .

I t is Browning’s distinction, though , that herefines upon the law of service, and finds the secretand motive of al l human conduct in the principleof love . To the degree that they are wrought inlove men’s deeds ring true . Love is pure andself- forgetful . It counts not its own l ife dear untoitself, but pours it out upon the object of its affection without stint o r measure . Love brightensand redeems every path the human foot may tread ,however sordid, thorny, or polluted . N O be ing

92 ROB ERT BROWNING

who cherishes I n his b reast the sl ightest spark ofth is unselfish and uncalculating love can proveutterly worthless . So long as love pers ists in thesoul , hope and faith and God pers ist there . Indeed , Browning holds that man

’s temporary l ifein the flesh was orda ined for no other purposethan to teach him the lesson of love :

For life,with all it yields of joy and woe ,

And hope and fear,

— believe the aged friend,

Is just our chance 0’the prize of learning love .

Let B rowning launch h is craft where he may,sooner or later it finds its way to this measureles socean of love . Whether his bark be a fairy pinnacewith fluttering pennant and s ilken sail s launchedupon some quiet rivulet and freighted with fabrics woven in the loom of fancy, or whether it bethe grim warship , swinging loose from its moorings in the broad , friendly, placid river, with itssullen towers, and guns, and turrets, and deathdeal ing cargo of shot and shell , forged in the furnace of pass ion, it i s al l one . It matters not

whether we call the craft“S ummum Bonum ” or“The R ing and the Book ” ;“My Star ” or“Sordello ” ; “Fer ishtah’s Fanc ies ” or “F ifine at theFair ”— they are destined fo r the same open seathe keel of each is at last to feel the waters of theshoreless ocean of love .

In the first part of“Pippa Passes he shows how


even the tainted love of a guilty and voluptuouswoman may, under the influence of a sudden andconsuming flame Of self- abnegation, instantaneously be transmuted into worth and redeemingbeauty . In“Cristina he suggests how a man anda woman, rea ding intuitively at first s ight that theirtwo soul s had been wedded in love from eternity,may tread divergent paths— the woman downward,the man upward . For the woman , throughpride of birth and haughtiness of spirit, spurnsthe preordained all iance ; while the man takesI into his great soul the instantaneous as surancethat th is ins ight is the sanctifying experience ofh is l ife

She has lost me,I have gained her ;

Her soul’s mine : and thus,grown perfect

,

I shall pass my life’s remainder .Life will just hold out the provingBoth our powers

,alone and blended

And then,come the next life quickly '

This world’s use will have been ended .

In“Confessions a dying man recall s with consol ation the sweet , mad , il l ic it love of h is youth . Hehas cherished the memory of this clandest ine loveal l his days, and now he v iews it with no regret ;but , rejecting the minister

’s words of rel igious admonition , he turns to it as the sole influence that canbrighten h is dying p illow . In“' outh and Art ”we have the story of h igh worldly success secured

94 ROB ERT BROWNING

at the cost of murdered love and consequentitual atrophy

Each life’s unfulfilled, you see ;

It hangs still,patchy and scrappy

We have not sighed deep ,laughed free

,

Starved,feasted

,despaired

,

—been happy .

And nobody calls you a dunce ,And people suppose me clever

This could but have happened once,

And we missed it,lost it forever .

In “The R ing and the Book Caponsacchi— a

brill iant, handsome, ardent youngmonkm—undera misguided sense of the sacredness and seriousness of his holy offi ce, fal ls into the sensuous andfrivolous l ife common to h is cl ass ; but, sudden ly,th rough his h igh, pure, and romantic pass ion forPompilia undergoing transformation into a warrior- sa int, becomes a veritable sword of consuming flame wielded by God’s own right arm

Sirs,I obeyed . Obedience was too strange

,

This new thing that had been struck into meBy the look 0

’ the lady,

— to dare disobeyThe first authoritative word .

’Twas God’s .

I had been lifted to the level of her,

Could take such sounds into my sense . I said,“We two are cognizant o’ the Master now ;She it is bids me b ow the head : how true ,I am a priest ' I see the fun ction here :

I thought the other way self- sacr ifi ceThis is the true

,seals up the perfect sum.

T H E HUMAN H IGHWAY 95

Thus it is that Brown ing makes love the touchstone for al l the experiences of l ife . He tracesits effects through good report and evil report,through success and failure, through youth andold age . He depicts the love of man for man , ofman for maid, and of patriot fo r fatherlandembroidering his theme with endles s subtle ty,variety, and beauty, but a lways laying stress uponlove as a supreme mora l test .

T H E RELIG IOUS WORLD

The passage from the rea lm of morals into therea lm of rel igion is but a step ; for the energy thatwe have found so pers istent in the soul of man,urging him to purity

,and serv ice, and perfect

love, i s the same energy which , outs ide and abovethe soul of man, we name God . It i s poss ible forthe sp irit of man and the Spirit of God to be perfectly united in purpose and communion . And

the common ground where the act ivities of Godand man become one is the motive of perfect love ;for in the last resolve love is the essence of God’snature . When he th inks , love is h is thought ;when he will s , love is the product of h is will . Tothe degree, therefore, that man th inks and willsthe good— to the degree that he rea l izes love inh is finite deal ings— he interfuses h imself withGod ; and in the process man not only atta ins h is

96 ROB ERT BROWNING

own h ighest perfection and joy, but God, too , arta ins the ultimate goa l of h is endeavor. In so faras he loves , then , man is one with God . Andto the degree that he loves he is rel igious . So itis apparent that there is no wide gulf betweenmora l ity and rel igion . A man may l ay ho ld of themerest shred of the measureless love of God, butto the extent that he comes into even th is fragmentary relation with this perfect love he isrel igious . Sometimes , by faith, or ins ight, or thepurifying power of a great pass ion that takes h imcompletely out of himself, man finds h imself inabsolute accord with God, and there results a senseof satisfaction, of surcease, of rapturous quiescence .

Such experiences come to the best of men butrarely . As for earthly loves , they are only foregleams of the perfect love with which God wouldbles s us . . The issue of the purest human lovemust needs be

Infinite passion,and the pain

Of finite hearts that yearn .

We have found at last, then, the explanation ofBrowning’s opt im istic fa ith that man is in a goodway and that all must be well at last . The ultimate fact of the universe i s love ; and I ts sway is allcomprehensive, and abso lutely certa in of finalv i ctory . Pope’s as sertion that

Man never is,but always to be blessed ,

CHA PTER '

THE UPWAR D MAR CH OF NATUR E

He dwells in all,

From life’s minute beginnings,up at last

T o man .

TH I S chapter deals not so much with Browning’sartistic treatment of nature as with his philosophical interpretation of nature . It would be afascinating task to show the various ways in whichhe subdues nature to poetic ends, for it occupiesan important p lace in his poetry . For example,we might study the precis ion and accuracy withwhich he depicts form in nature ; o r revel in h isrichness, variety, and sp lendo r of color ; o r marvelat the manner in which— drench ing his mind withthe inner meaning of some potent aspect or moo dof nature— he flashes forth its ful l s ignificance in amagic word o r flaming l ine ; o r adm ire the art withwhich , upon rare occasions , he brings nature intofriendly or harmonious relations with some high orecstatic mood of man ; or ponder with subdued en

joyment his masterful del ineation of the vast elemental forces of nature as they pursue their ownmysteries o r impress ive ends in utter a loofness from

98

T H E UPWARD MARCH OF NATURE 99

men and in apparent disregard of the ir transientand petty affairs . But we must forego these pleasures in order that we may continue the connectedstudy of his system of thought .Nature in one form or another has been an im

portant element in the work of al l great poets .God, man, nature — these a re the interests thatenter into the warp and woof of al l true poetry .

Usually al l three of these interests enter into a notable and enduring poem ; though usual ly a s ingleinterest p redominates in any particular production . Our modern Engl ish poets— especial ly s incethe t ime of Wordsworth and Coleridge— have entered into very intimate relations with nature, andmost of those who have ach ieved lasting distinction have held somewhat definite reflective v iewsof the origin , function, and s ignificance of nature .

Coleridge teaches that nature derives its mean ingfrom the human mind ; that whatever l ight, orwisdom , or glory nature possesses is read into itby the spirit of man :

0 Lady 'we receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does Nature liveOurs is her wedding-garment

,ours her shroud '

And would we aught behold,of higher worth

,

Than that inanimate cold world allowedT o the poor

,loveless

,ever-anxious crowd

,

Ah ' from the soul itself must issue forthA light

,a glory

,a fair luminous cloud

Enveloping the earth .

I OO ROBERT BROWNING

Wordsworth does not accept such a view of nature— though , for the most part, there was closek inship of thought between these two poets . ButWordsworth emphas ized preeminently the spiritual function of nature ; holding that nature isa l ive ; that it is dominated by a un itary spirit ; thatit is all but conscious ; that it is the direct word ofGod ; that it sustains an intimate kinship with man ;and that it conveys fresh and thrilling messagesof love and joy and tranquil l ity to the soul of man .

Byron had, perhaps , no very clearly defined philosophical conception of nature, but he sets it insharp contrast over against human ity

,and at

times seeks rel ief in its moods of calm, or power,from poisonous and feverish intercourse with humanity . He found most satisfaction in its massive, elemental, and turbulent aspects . Shelleyendows certain p rimitive manifestations of naturewith a l ife wholly apart from that of man, and then,by an exquis ite poetic gift, i dentifies h imself imaginatively with the ancient, remote, and a l ien creature, and causes it to utter its pla int or its chantfor the delectation of man . Emerson saw in nature a divine dream— a faint incarnation of God .

Its function, he bel ieves , i s to suggest the Absoluteto man , and to teach him the lesson of worship .

As it i s inviolable, and unta inted by the humanwill, it i s a fixed point whereby we may measure

102 ROB ERT BROWNING

Of the body , even'— what God is , what we are ,What life is— how God tastes an infinite joyIn infinite ways—one everlasting bliss

,

Fromwhom all being emanates,all power

Proceeds ; in whom is life for evermore ,Yet whom existence in its lowest formIncludes ; where dwells enjoyment there is heWith still a flying point of bliss remote

,

A happiness in store afar,a Sphere

Of distant glory in ful l ' iew ; thus climbsPleasure its heights forever and forever .The center-fi r e heaves un derneath the earth

,

And the earth changes like a human face ;The molten ore bursts up among the rocks

,

Winds into the stone’s heart,outb r an ches bright

In hidden mines,spots barren river beds

,

Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams baskGod joys therein . The wroth sea’s waves are edgedWith foam

,white as the bitten lip of hate

,

When,in the solitary waste

,strange groups

O f young volcanoes come up,cyclop s- like ,

Staring together with their eyes on fl ameGod tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride .

Then all is still ; earth is a wintry clod :But spring-wind

,like a dancing psaltress

,passes

Over its breast to waken it,rare verdure

Buds tenderly upon rough banks,between

The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,

Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face ;The grass grows bright

,the boughs are swoln with blooms

Like chrysalids impatient for the air,

The shining dorrs are busy,bee tles run

Along the furrows,ants make their a do ;

Above,birds fly in merry flocks

,the lark

Soars up and up,shivering for very joy ;

Afar the ocean sleeps ; white fi sh ing -gullsFlit where the strand is pur ple with its tribeOf nested limpets ; savage creatures seekTheir loves in wood and plain— and God renewsH is ancient rapture .

T H E UPWARD MARCH OF NATURE 1 03

Al l forms of l ife up to man are perfectly adaptedby nature for the environment and pursuits forwhich they were created, and each creature takespleasure in the exercise of its functions . Therehas been no failure in adapting means to ends ; noinstinct or tendency has been implanted in anynatural form Without its accompanying means offulfil lment . It is only with the a rrival of manthat is, with the introduction ofmora l l ife into thescheme— that apparent fail ure begins ; for

“a mancan use but a man’s joy while he sees God’s .

”

If,in the morning of philosophy ,

Ere aught had been recorded , nay ,perceived

,

Thou,with the light now in thee , couldst have looked

On all earth’s tenantry , from worm to bird,

Ere man,her last

,appeared upon the stage

Thou wouldst have seen them perfect,and deduced

The perfectness of others yet unseen .

All’s perfect else : the shell sucks fast the rock ,The fi sh strikes through the sea

,the snake both swims

And slides,forth range the beasts

,the birds take flight

,

Till life’s mechanics can no farther goAnd all this joy in natural life is putLike fire from off thy finger into each

,

So exquisitely perfect is the same .

N or does Browning even here lose s ight of love,

the underlying, a lways present, mot ive of his work .

Even nature, acknowledging the sway of thi s allconquering energy in the un iverse, d im ly gropestoward the perfect day when love shal l b e enthronedover all . God teaches “what love can do in the


leaf or stone ” ;“the lov ing worm with in its clod

responds to the love of the sun and of the dew ; andthe dumb brute, through some deep- seated instinctof love, protects its offspring at the cost of its ownlife . David, the mus ician, a s he went homethrough the night, after his p rophetic announcement to S aul th at God’s love is to be revealed toman th rough the incarnation of Christ, foundthe W hole ea rth awakened ; “the stars of n ightbeat with emotion, and tingled and shot out infire the strong pain of pent knowledge . Thewhole universe pulsed in sympathy with themessage of love which he had div ined

E’en the serpent that slid away Silent— h e felt the new law .

The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by theflowers ;

The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved thevine-bowers

And the little brooks witnessing murmured,persistent and

low,

With their obstinate,all but hushed voices E’en so

,

it is so .

”

Browning endows nature with a distinct l ifeof its own , and sees in it the creat ive presence ofGod, but he finds l ittle v ital intercourse betweennature and man . Nature pursues its own mysterious ends without particular reference to manor his interests . Nature is vastly ol der than man,and she endures unchanged while individual man

106 R OB E RT BROWN I NG

pose in all that his power has wrought, and th roughher, a lso, may be brought face to face with God

’sinfinitude . The wise heart will look through Nature up to Nature’s God .

” It wi ll rej oice in th isearth as an incomparable palace of beauty fitted upfor its probationary stage ; but it will not attemptto satisfy itself with th i s one rose flung freely“outof a summer’s opulence .

”In this token it will

read, rather, the des ire of God to woo us to theparadise in wh ich it grew .

Miser,there waits the gold for thee '

Hater,indulge thine enmi ty '

And thou,whose heaven self-ordained

Was, to enjoy earth unrestrained ,

D o it ' Take all the ancient Show 'The woods shall wave , the rivers flow .

I stooped and p icked a leaf of fern ,And recollected Imight learnFrom books , how many myriad sortsOf fern exist , to trust reports ,Each as d istinct and beautifulAs this

,the very first I cull .

Think,from the first leaf to the last '

Conceive,then

,earth’s resources ' ' ast

Exhaustless beauty,endless change

Of wonder ' And this foot shall rangeAlps

,Andes

,—and this eye devour

The bee-bird and the aloe-flower ?

Does it confound thee — this first pageEmblazoning man’s her 1tageCan this alone absorb thy sight ,As pages were not infin ite ,

T H E UPWARD MARCH or N ATUR E 1 07

Like the omnipotence which tasksItself to furnish all that asksThe soul it means to satiate ?What was the world

,the starry state

O f the broad skies , —what , all displaysOf power and beauty intermixed ,Which now thy soul is chained betwixt ,What else than needful furnitureFor life’s first stage ? God’s work , be sure ,N0 more spreads wasted than falls scant 'He filled

,d id not exceed , man’s want

Of beauty in this life . But throughLife p ierce

,—and what has earth to do,

Its utmost beauty’s appanage ,With the requi rement of next stage ?

So,in God’s eye , the earth’s first stuff

Was,neither more nor less , enough

T o house man’s soul , man’s need fulfill .Man reckoned it immeasur able ?”

All partial beauty was a pledgeOf beauty in its plenitude :But since the pledge sufl‘ic ed thy mood ,R etain it ' plenitude be theirsWho looked above '”

In one other way, a lso, relationsh ip is suggestedbetween nature and man, a relationsh ip wh ich ,however, has less s ignificance for nature than forman . I refer to Browning’s retrospective enjoyment of nature’s progress ive attempts to consummate its development, and to fulfill hints that ithad continua lly sent before, by at last shaping outthe superior race— humanity itself. As man ,stand ing now at the apex of creation, looks back


over the long, slow proces s by which he reachedh is present stage of l ife, he imprints his own richand complex nature upon al l these fragmentarybeginnings of l ife, and casts upon them all

“a supplementa ry reflux of l ight” that

Illustrates all the inferior grades,explains

Each back step in the Circle .

Man,once descried , imprints forever

H is presence on all lifeless things : the windsAre henceforth voices , wailing or a shout ,A querul ous mutter or a qui ck gay laugh

,

Never a senseless gust now man is born .

The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts,

A secret they assemble to discussWhen the sun drops behind their trunks which glareLike grates of hell : the peerless cup afloatOf the lake- lily is an urn ,

some nymphSwims bearing high above her head : no birdWhistles unseen

,but through the gaps above

That let light in upon the gloomy woods ,A shape peeps from the breezy forest- top ,

Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye .The morn has enterprise , deep quiet droopsWith evening

,triumph takes the sunset hour ,

' oluptuous transport ripens with the cornBeneath a warm moon like a happy face :—And this to fill us with regard for man .


plete sat isfact ion . He has left spoken and written words on record outs ide of his poetry which,unless interpreted in the l ight of his entire l ife andcomplete utterances, whether publ ic or private,seemcontradictory. One author, Robert Buchanan

,says that when he asked Brown ing upon

one occas ion whether he were a Christian, Browning“thundered, ‘No '’ Moncure Conway recordsthat, Brown ing’s ‘orthodoxy’ brought h im intomany a combat with his rationa l istic friends ,some of whom could ha rdly bel ieve that he tookhis doctrine seriously. To one who hadspoken of an expected ‘Judgment Day’as a superstition I heard h im say : ‘

I don’t see that . Whyshould there not be a settl ing day in the universe,as when a master settles with his workmen at theend of the week M rs . O rr, one of his mostauthoritative b iographers, in one place quotesB rown ing’s own words as fo llows (a reiteration ofthose ofNapoleon': I am an understander ofmen,and He was no man . ' et she a lso states uponthe oppos ite page that the poem“La Sa isiaz ”“is conclus ive both in form and matter as to h ishete rodox attitude toward Chri stianity .

”M r .

E dward Dowden, his latest and most scholarlyb iographer, seems to me to p lace the matter in itstrue l ight when he says, in commenting upon“Christmas Eve

GOD’S ME S SAGE To MAN 1 1 1

The central idea of the whole is that where love is thereis Christ ; and the Christ of the poem is certainly no ab stra c

tion,

no moral ideal,

no transcendental conception of

absolute charity,but very God and very Man , the Christ

of Nazareth,who dwelt among men , full of grace and truth .

Literary criticism which would interpret Browning’s meaning in any other sense may be ingenious , but it is not disimterested ,

and some side-wind blows it far from themark .

My own study renders it clea r to me that Browning was through and through a Christian ; but that,const itutional ly, and in keeping with h is wholetheory of l ife, he la id les s stress upon intellectualassurance or final ity in his Christian fai th than hedid upon spiritual acceptance of Christianity bythe whole man, through an intuitive vis ion ofChrist’s worth , and the consequent loyalty to histeach ings in the practica l conduct of daily l ife .

H OW anyone can careful ly read with an open andcandid m ind a ll that Brown ing has sa id and written concerning the Christian revelation , and thenafli rmthat he was not a Christian in every legitimate sense of that word, i s more than I can understand .

The candid incline to surmise of lateThat the Christian faith proves false

,I find ;

I still , to suppose it true , for my part ,See reasons and reasons ; this , to begin

’Tis the faith that launched point-blank her d artAt the head of a lie— taught Original Sin

,

The Corruption of Man’s Heart .

1 1 2 ROB ERT BROWNING

And I , for my part, can find no other explanationfor the attempt of both orthodox and heterodoxreaders of Browning to twist the poet’s utterances to thei r own respective ways of think ingthan that suggested here in Browning’s own l ines

O riginal S in,

The Corruption of Man’s Heart .

To complete his general theory of the un iverse itwas necessary that B rowning should find a placefor some such revelation of God as we have in theIncarnate Christ . God had amp ly attested hisintel l igence ; the evidences of his power, too, writla rge and clea r in al l natural phenomena

,could

no more be mistaken than the handwriting on thewal l of Belshazzar’s pa lace . But his goodnessshowed itself but dimly in the machinel ike prec ision of materia l laws ; in the dread power thatworked man’s interest sometimes, but that veryoften, also, worked his destruction ; and in thetangled web of pain and joy that man was everweaving for h imself. The poor half- savage Cal iban conceived of a god who gave evidence of noh igher motive for the guidance and contro l of hiscreatures than c ruelty and caprice ; and it c ahnotbe denied that some not altogether humanizedscienti sts and philosophers of the nineteenth century found such a concept ion of God adequate to


was requis ite . Grant that man might have inferred from the love that he found in his own soul ,as, in the poem “Saul ,” Browning representsDavid to have done, the assurance that God

’spurposes toward men were benevolent, still howvague, remote, and wistful must have been his conc eption of God’s good intentions ' In“An Epistleto Ka rshish

” and in “Cleon Browning givesus a dramatic il lustration of this very need . BothKa rshish and Cleon are rel igious ; and both , whilerecognizing the power and intell igence of their respective gods , yearn for a solution of human pain ,futil ity, and l imitation— both yearn for a revel ationof love . But with fine dramatic effect B rowningbetrays each of them into the unconscious ironyof reject ing the story of Christ’s incarnation as atale unworthy of serious considerat ion . It wasnecessary that God’s love should find concrete embodiment among men , so that in our own humanway we might clasp his hand , and hear h is voice,and commune with him , and see in the

‘

sufferings towhich he condescended in the flesh that the painwhich had been set as a necessary part of our disc ipline was not vis ited upon us without cost of painto him also ; but that, on the contrary, the moraloutcome was so worthy and so des irable that heh imself was wil l ing to share our sorrow with us,and endure all that human ity must needs undergo,

GOD’S ME S SAGE To MAN 1 1 5

to the end that we m ight at last become Godl ikeourselves . Thus it is that God acquaints us withhimself, and at the same time suppl ies us with apowerful mot ive to heroic conduct . For, too frequen t ly

,it i s not knowledge that we lack so much

as will ; and the earthly presence of God in ourmidst wonderfully avails to reinforce our faltering purpose and supply us with incentives freshfrom God .

’Tis on e thing to know,and another to practice .

And thence I conclude that the real God - functionIs to furnish a motive and injunctionFor practicing what we know already .

And such an injunction and such a motiveAs the God in Christ

,d o you waive , and “heady,

H igh-minded,

” hang your tablet-votiveOutside the fane on a finger -post ?Morality to the uttermost

,

Supreme in Christ as we all confess,

Why need we prove woul d avail no jotT o make him God

,if God he were not ?

What is the point W here himself lays stress ?Does the precept run

,

“Believe in good,

In justice,truth

,now understood

For the first time” ?— or,

“Believe in me,

Who lived and died,yet essentially

Am Lord of L ife” ? Whoever can takeThe same to his heart and for mere love’s sakeConceive of the love

,

— that man obtainsA new truth ; no conviction gainsOf an old on e only

,made intense

By a fresh appeal to his faded sense .

But in affirming that the incarnation was vitalto Browning’s theory of l ife I have stated only

1 1 6 ROB ERT BROWN ING

one s ide of the truth ; for it has become pla in to uslong before th is that no smooth path to fa ith or

fruition ever met with Browning’s approval . Hewould have placed l ittle value upon the truththat could be taken up at once and completely byman’s mind . A truth that admitted of such mastery by a finite mind must, in the very nature ofthe case, be a l imited truth and, therefore, un

adapted to the p rogress ive needs of humanity .

This explains why he prizedthe doubt

Low kinds exist W ithout,

and so often l ays stress upon the val ue of a mil itantfa ith :

With me,faith means perpetual unbelief

K ept quiet like the snake ’neath Michael’s foot,

Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe .

These last l ines came from the l ips of the famousBishop B lougram—one of Brown ing’s worldly ec

c lesiastics . For fear that this may be too stronga putting of Browning’s own point of v iew, I quotethe words of the subl ime old Pope in “The R ingand the Book concerning his intellectual attitudetoward Christianity . He has j ust been say ingthat he cares not whether the Christian revelation be revealed as an absolute, abstract, independent historic truth , or only as truth reduced to man

’spower of compreh ens ion and adapted to h is l imitedm ind, and he concl udes h is med itation as fol lows :

1 1 8 RO B ERT BROWNING

its own manner. He first introduces us to avulgar, bigoted, repuls ive company of worshipersin a d ingy, bare, un lovely, nonconformist chapel ;next, to the prone mult itudes who worsh ip throughthe resplendent symbols of a ltar, and incense, andcrucifix, and asp iring architecture, and m ightymusic, in Sa int Peter

’s at R ome ; and , lastly, tothe lecture room of a German univers ity, wherebearded students l i sten with breathless attentionto the Christmas Eve discourse of the wan, wel ln igh celest ia l , hawk-nosed, h igh- cheek—boned,consumptive Professor. In no case has he foundedific ation or been at ease ; for he evident ly hasbeen tra ined to the serv ices of the Church of England ; but in both Z ion Chapel Meeting and theservices at Sa int Peter’s in Rome, in spite of theuncouthness and grotesqueness of the fi rst and thed ispl ay and servil ity of the second, he has d iscovered a redeeming core of faith and love . Withthe devita l ized and rationa l ist ic exercises of theunivers ity lecture room, however, he is utterly atvariance . With rea l gusto he gives us an accountof how the Professor

proposed inquiring firstI nto the various sources whenceThi s Myth of Christ is derivable ;

D emanding from the evidence(Since plainly no such life was l ivable'

H ow these phenomena Shoul d class ?Whether ’twere best op ine Christ was ,

GOD’S ME S SAGE TO MAN 1 19

Or never was at all , or whetherHe was and was not

,both together

I t matters little for the name ,So the idea be left the same .Only

,for practical purpose’ sake

,

’Twas obviously as well to takeThe popular story , —understandingH ow the ineptitude of the time

,

And the penman’s prejudice , expandingFact into fable fit for the d ime ,Had

,by slow and sure degrees

,translated it

Into this myth , this Individuum ,

Which when reason had strained and abated itO f foreign matter , left , for residuum ,

A Man — a right true man,however

,

Whose work was worthy a man’s endeavorWork that gave warrant almost sufficientT o his disciples for rather believingHe was just omnipotent and omniscient

,

A S it gives to us , for as frankly receivingH is word

,their tradition

,— which

,though it meant

Something entirely differentFrom all that those who only heard itIn their simplicity thought and averred it

,

Had yet a meaning quite as respectable .

H av I ng thus summarized the discourse of theProfessor, he addresses h imself to battle, withsword, mace, and lance, tintil he mercilessly bearshis antagonist to earth . He accuses h im of exhausting the atmosphere of truth atom by atom ,

until only vacuity is left . What is retained ? heasks . Christ’s intellect ? But other voices haveattested equa l ly well mere moral ity . Indeed, ifhe were mere man, it was immoral for him torepresent himse lf as God . How comes it, too, that


a wise, good, and s imple man such as you repre

sent Christ to have been shoul d have taught soobscurely that where one finds the story to bemere fable a mill ion take it for actua l truth ?And why should you, and al l of h is other fol lowersfrom Peter down , yield fea lty to a mere man ?

The goodness,— how d id he acquire it ?

Was it self-gained , did God inspire it ?Choose which ; then tell me , on what groundShould its possessor dare propoundH is claim to rise o’er us an inch ?

If Christ had by his own effort ga ined such goodness as he displayed, we might p raise h im withpride and joy for teaching us how he kept the mindGod gave h im so pure from fleshly ta int o r spot .We might ca l l him a saint, but we should certa inlynot worsh ip him . Nor should W e be one whit moreincl ined to worsh ip him if he held that h is gift ofgoodness descended from God . For what goodgift does not descend from God ? But no richestgift, no pil ing of gift upon gift, can make thatcreator wh ich was at first mere creature . If, then ,Christ i s mere man , with ra re endowment, whatshould hinder any ho ly man so to rise in growthand grandeur of soul as to surpass Chris thimself

Fromthe gift looking to the giver ,And from the cistern to the river ,And from the finite to infinity

,

And from man’s dust to God’s divinity ?

1 22 ROB E RT BROWNING

emphas izes the fact that Christ del ightswith all who love h im :

So he said , so i t befalls .God who registers the cupOf mere cold water , for his sakeT o a disciple rendered up ,D isdains not his own thirst to slakeAt the poorest love was ever offeredAnd because my heart I proffered

,

W ith true love trembling at the brim,

He suffers me to follow himForever , my own way , —dispensedFrom seeking to be influencedBy all the less immediate waysThat earth

,in worships manifold ,

Adopts to reach,by prayer and praise

,

The garment’s hem,which

,10

,I hold '

I will be wise another time,

And not desire a wall between usWhen next I see a church- roof coverSo many species of one genusAll the foreheads bearing loverWritten above the earnest eyes of them .

D o these men praise him ? I will raiseMy voice up to their point of praise 'I see the error ; but aboveThe scope of error , see the love ,Oh , love of those first Christian days '

Brown ing keenly real ized the d ifli culties thatbeset the pathway of the true Christ ian, and thesharp temptations that assa il h im . He was notan ascetic, but he was aware that the world i s ful lof snares for the foot of the unwary Christian, and


that th e flesh i s prone to betray the spirit in manya cruc ial hour of l ife . Noth ing could be fa rtherfrom h is own conception of the strenuous and selfsac r ific ing cha racter of the Christ ian l ife than thelow, selfish, and relaxing doctrines of the greatB ishop B lougram

I act for,talk for , live for this world now ,

As this world prizes action , life , and talkN o prejudice to what next world may prove ,Whose new laws and requirements , my best pledgeT o observe then , is that I observe these now ,

Shall do hereafter what I d o meanwhile .

I’m at ease now,friend ; worldly in this world ,

I take and like its way of life ; I thinkMy brothers

,who administer the means

,

Live better for my comfort— that’s good tooAnd God ,

if he pronounce upon such life,

Approves my service,which is better still .

No one took more del ight in the world that nowis than did Browning . He knew how to apprec iatethe sl ightest gift that the pass ing days pl umped intoh is outstretched hand . But he was not b l indedto comparat ive values . He rested sati sfied inno sensuous or tempora l gift ; but, knowing wellthat al l things have been planned for the happ inessand joy of God’s creatures, he accepted the giftof the pass ing hour gladly as an earnest of whatincomparab ly greater gifts God has in store forh i s sp iritua l children . Not for a moment did heconfuse sensuous va lues with sp iritual va lues . I n


deed, so immeasurab ly apart in value were the twoworlds, so strong the seductions of the one as compared with the more remote but sweeter sol ic itarions of the other, and at times so confusing themotives that assailed h im as a citizen of both theearthly and the celestial worl ds, that he woul dgladly have chosen the fiery path of the martyr

,

so that he m ight once for al l attest h is unreservedand unalterab le allegiance to Christ .

I'

have denied thee calmly—d o I notPant when I read of thy consummate power ,And burn to see thy calm pure truths outfl a shThe brightest gleams of earth’s philosophy ?D o I not shake to hear aught question thee ?If I am erring save me

,madden me

,

Take from me powers and pleasures , let me dieAges

, so I see thee ' I am knit roun dAs with a charm by s in and lust and pride

,

Yet though my wandering dreams have seen all shapesO f strange delight , oft have I stood by theeHave I been keeping lonely watch with theeIn the damp night by weep ing O livet ,O r leaning on thy bosom

,proudly less

,

O r dying with thee on the lonely cross ,O r witnessing thine outburst from the tomb .

H ow very hard it is to beA Christian ' Hard for you and me ,—N ot the mere task of making realThat duty up to its ideal ,Effecting thus

,complete and whole

,

A pur pose of the human soulFor that is always hard to d oBut hard

,Imean

,for me and you


poet h imself. He has del iberately chosen theworld . These words , descriptive of him, coul dnever have been truthful ly uttered of Brown ing :

This finite life,thou hast preferred

,

In disbelief of God’s plain word,

T o heaven and to infinity .

Thou saidst,— ‘Let spirit star the dome

Of sky ,that flesh may miss no peak

,

N O nook of earth,

— I shall not seekIts service further '’

Christ shows him that while the beauty and thewonder of nature, the lovel ines s of the realms ofart, the conquests of the mind, the consolationsof earthly love

,a re al l pledges and foregleams

of God’s good purpose toward him , none of thesecoul d completely s atisfy his soul . That wascreated for infinite love, and coul d be satisfied bynoth ing else .

M rs . O rr asserts th at this poem refuses torecogn ize in poetry, or a rt, or the attainments ofthe intellect, or even in the best human love, anyp ractica l correspondence with rel igion .

” I th inkshe makes a similar mistake here to the one She

makes when she avers that“La Saisiaz” i s “conc lus ive both in form and matter as to his heterodoxattitude toward Christian ity .

” In“La Sa is iaz ” hechooses to face his p roblem at its worst— to try itbefore a strictly intellectua l tribunal . But nothing


is more evident in the study of Browning thanthat he held the heart to be a better inlet to truththan the head ; and if he here chooses to makebattle in intellectual panoply, in right knightlyfashion , he does not renounce the use of sword ordirk if the encounter turn out badly“Mine is but man’s truest answer— how were it did God

respond ?”

And so in thepoem“Easter Day we find Browning working under a particula r mood toward aspecific end . He des ires to show that the love ofChrist is the white l ight that sends its rad iance intoall ea rthly joys and pursuits , and that a l l earthlyatta inments or loves are the prismatic colors intowh ich this pure l ight is broken as it pas ses throughthe prism of the finite soul :

And all thou dost enumerateOf power and beauty in the world

,

The mightiness of love was curledInextricably round about .Love lay within it and without

,

T o clasp thee,

— but in vain ' Thy soulStill shrunk from H im who made the whole ,Still set deliberate asideH is love '

TH E FUTURE LIFE

Bel ief in a future l ife is inwoven with everygreat doctrine that B rowning enunciates, andshines forth with varying bri l l iancy from everymasterful poem that he wrote . H is philosophy


l eads up to it at every point . The soul of mancannot be explained except in the l ight of a continuous and expanding l ife . All fragmentary ex

per iences, al l asp irat ions beyond our power toreal ize, al l hopes that cannot be compassed int ime, all loves that have been foregone or cut shortin th is l ife, all apparent fail ures, al l futile attemptsto atta in complete knowledge, point al ike to a l ifeof perfect fruition . He does not bel ieve that thesoul can wholly die . It is h is trust that in anotherworl d al l error may be mended . If l ife be bereftof the hope of immortal ity, he looks upon it as apoor ch eat, a wretched bungle, and he woul d, forone, protest

“and hurl it back with scorn .

” Hebel ieves that it is not ask ing too much to requirethat Nature fi ll the creature ful l that she dared toframe hungry for joy, and with l imitless des ire“to stay its longings vast .”And although he finds comfort in the revel a

t ion of eternal l ife through Christ, and in manypoems gives dramatic express ion to his faith thatJesus was essentia l ly“Lord of Life , he also frequently deduces the certainty of a continually expanding l ife from the worth of the gift of l ife as heknows it here upon the earth , and the inherentnecess ity of the soul for infinite growth and progress . It does not seem poss ib l e to h im that the recan be any break in the unfolding l ife of the soul .


c inating treatment to this theme of the u ltimateweal or woe of the pers istent s inner in“The R ingand the Book and in“Apparent Failure, and anexposition of these two poems wil l make his teaching upon this point sufli c iently c lear .Guido is a s detestable a miscreant as man’s gen

ius can dep ict . What shal l be the ultimate fateof such a man ? H is saintly girl wife

,whom he

has murdered, thus alludes to h im when she comesto die

We Shall not meet in this world nor the next,

But where will God be absent ? In his faceI s light

,but in his shadow healing too :

Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed '

Caponsacchi— the brave, nob le young priest who

came to champion Pomp il ia in her need- des iresonly that Guido be left to s l ide out of l ife despised,spurned, and execrated by al l humank ind ; until ,s lowly edged off the table- l an d where l ife up

sp rings , he shal l be lost in lonel iness and s ilence atcreation’s verge—“out of the ken of God or careof man , forever and evermore .

” The great goodPope, who gives the ed ict fo r h i s death, does soin the hope that

So may the truth be fl ashed out by one blow ,

And Guido see,one instant

,and be saved .

Else I avert my face,nor follow him

Into that sad obscure sequestered stateWhere God unmakes but to remake the soulHe else made first in vain ; which must not be .

GOD’S ME S SAGE TO MAN 1 3 1

We may suppose that, in the words of both Pompil ia and the Pope, Browning gives utterance to

h is own conviction concerning the fate of such acharacter as he has described in Guido .

In the poem “Apparent Failure ” we find thepoet standing in a Paris morgue, where thedrowned of Paris a re taken for identification, before

The three men who did most abhorTheir life in Paris yesterday

,

So killed themselves .

Poor, misguided , bedraggled human wretch , eachof them ' One, a mere boy, dead, perhaps , because he could not be a Buonaparte and cl a imthe Tuileries for his toy ; the second an old man , ablood- red social ist and leveler, with his fist stillcl inched in death ; and the last, one who had erredthrough women and cards and dice : al l three a

3ghastly spectacle of earth 5 worst wreckage, hauledashore from the Seine and exposed here to beclaimed . Does the spectacle daunt the poet ?

By no means . He faces the problem at its worstat l ast, but his faith is equa l to the demands madeupon H

My own hope is,a sun will pierce

The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ;That

,after Last

,returns the First

,

Though a wide compass round be fetched ;That what began best

,can’t end worst

,

N or what God blessed once,prove accurst .

CHAPTER VI I

BR OWNING’S INFLUENCE

Ah,that brave

Bounty of poets,the on e royal race

That ever was,or will be , in this world '

They give no gift that bounds itself and endsI’ the giving and the taking : theirs so breedsI’ the heart and soul 0

’ the taker,so transmutes

The man who only was a man before,

That he grows godlike in his turn,can give

H e also : share the poets’ privilege,

Bring forth new good,new beauty

,from the old .

T H E poetry of Robert Browning has come to beone of the most potent mora l and sp iritual for cesof our age . His influence is steadily growing .

Although from the first there was present in h ispoetry the authentic note of greatness , he was longignored, neglected, or misunderstood . He wascompelled to create a taste for his own a rtistic product ; and the Engl ish- reading publ ic awoke s lowlyto a recognition of the value and the power of hispoetry . Scarcely worse than the neglect to whichhe was at fi rst doomed was the adulation he wassubsequently compel led to suffer. From thehands of the dul l and indifferent he wa s betrayedinto the hands of h is friends— the illuminated , theseekers after a S ign, the specia lly preordained to re

1 32

134 ROB ERT BROWNING

one battle above the clouds . M y answer to sucha question is brief. If Browning is read andtreasured a thousand years from now, it wil l bebecause his verse contains the essential elementsof great poetry— truth, beauty, pass ion : nottruth written down in hard, cold, intel lectual form ,

nor beauty dest itute of moral grandeur or sp iritualsignificance, nor pas sion sordid, unregulated, ordepress ing ; but truth, beauty, and pass ion weddedand interfused into harmonious and satisfyingunity . It i s utterly imposs ible to dissociate thesubst an ce of poetry from its form . N O enduringpoetry— it matters not how sensuous or Witchingits beauty —l ives purely because of its perfection of technique . Nor, on the other hand, i s itposs ible for any thought, however commanding,to win permanent c i rculati on in verse withoutsome grace of express ion to commend it . Theexplanation of th is i s that no words of hauntingsweetnes s eve r immortal ly knit themselves intothe mystic dance of verse save under the impuls ion of some potent truth or vital sent iment ; andconversely, l ikewise, it i s imposs ib le that thereshoul d be any thought of commanding value orany emotion of transcendent worth that wi ll notsooner or later attract to itself, by laws as irresistib le as those of l ight or gravitat ion, l iterary exp ress ion of such fel ic ity and conjuring power a s to

BROWNING’S INFLUENCE 1 35

W in for it an imperishable place in the soul s of men .

Poetry possesses absolute worth to the degree thatthe great truths and emotions of l ife have thus oncefor all taken to themselves the vestments of techn ica l express ion in which it was preorda ined thatthey should array themselves . A truth onceadequately spoken is spoken forever . A truthnot yet made comfortable upon men’s l ips willnever cease paining the soul s of true poets .

Now, Browning wrote about many importantthings in a wretched ly bad manner ; he wrote aboutsome comparatively insignificant things in a veryhappy manner ; and wrote about some amazinglyuninteresting things in an astoundingly annoying manner . And I suppose that, if we shoul dadd together a ll that he wrote in one or the otherof these three faulty manners , we Should have atota l of something more than one half of al l thathe produced . So I do not doubt that the vesse lwh ich carries h is fame down to remote posteritywill, with in a century or two, have l ightened itselfof a number of such cumbersome p ieces of cargoas “Sordello,” “Prince H ohenstiel—Schwangau ,“Red Cotton Night-Cap Country,” “M r . S ludge‘the and “Jochanan H akkadosh .

”

But how beyond value the a rgosy with which itShal l continue its course ' What shall we say of thepriceless gems and ingots

,the costly bales and rich


stuffs that rema in ? What of“Saul , and“PippaPasses

,and “Abt Vogler, and “Andrea del

S a rto,” and“Rabb i Ben Ezra, and Cleon ,

” andLuria ,

” and “S ummum Bonum,

” and “Loveamong the Ruins, and Evelyn Hope,

” and“Twoin the Campagna , and portions of“The R ing andthe Book” ? to say nothing of fragments and nuggetsscattered everywhere in abundance sufficient to furni sh wares for a whole fleet of les s ambitious craft .M y conclusion is, then , that B rowning wil l b e

remembered a thousand years hence not for h ismessage spec ifical ly, nor his intellectua l subtlety,nor h is new method in poetry, nor h is exquis itetechnique . He wil l be treasured, rather, becausehe has written inimitably upon imperishablethemes ; because he has touched with exquis iteskil l the largest and most thri ll ing interests of thehuman soul . His fame will not be enhanced byhis neglect of any detail of arti sti c beauty ; nor willit suffer loss because he has chosen to treat theh igher intellectual and spiritua l interests of man .

The only product th at wil l survive will be thatin wh ich form and content consp ire together forthe del ight and profit of mankind .

One secret, of course, of Brown ing’s t remendous

influence l ies in h is personal ity . Few Engl ishpoets have had greater origina l endowmentsmore force and independence of character. H is


high- sp irited than penetrating and del icate ; h ispathos was manly, restrained, and free from sentimentality. His supreme pass ion was for theimperishable th ings of the Spirit ; and, as we haveseen, his great poems a re those that deal with thecrucia l experiences of men and women when theyare brought face to face with choices that a re toaffect thei r welfare, for weal or for woe, throughout time and eternity . He has , final ly, an originality and power of imagination that l ifts h imat times into the highest realms of creative Work,enk indl ing, harmoniz ing, and glorifying al l of h isother endowments, and issuing in perfeét productions of art .A qua l ity of Browning’s temper that commends

his poetry to rugged and serious natures i s h isfa ithfulness to facts ; h is courage in facing a l l theissues of l ife . Though an optimist and a roman

\t ic ist he was endowed with a robust commonsense and downright honesty that made it imposs ible for h im to ignore or evade rea l ity . Indeed,th is temper has been character l st I C of nearly al lhis great contemporaries . They have a ll beenearnest and serious men whom noth ing coul d satisfy save the sternest real ity . From Wordsworthdown they have had a pass ion for verit ies and anunmistakab le contempt for sham and pretense .

Cost what it might, they have ins isted upon press '

BROWNING’S INFLUENCE 1 39

ing home to the very heart of truth . To looksteadily at the object i s the way Wordsworthphrases it . Carlyle declares that it i s the duty ofthe hero to bring men back to rea l ity,

“to forcethem to penetrate beneath the surface, to teachthem to stand upon things and not upon the showsof th ings .” Ruskin ins ists upon utter fa ithfulness to nature and demands that the artist rejectnothing, select nothing, scorn noth ing . The re

sult has been that Brown ing, in common with theother great writers of the nineteenth century, ha sunflinchingly faced, and fea rlessly accepted , theproblems’of science, the problems of soc ia l l ife ,and the problems of the mora l consciousness .Never before in the h istory of l iterature have theconsequences of moral infirmity been set forthwith such inev itab le force, neither have the darkerand more terrifying aspects of the mora l andrel igious l ife been so resolutely confronted , so remorse lessly analyzed , as by George E l iot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Robert Browning . N o specterof the soul has been allowed to pass without challenge, no lurking spirit of doubt or despa ir thathas not been tracked to its den and dragged intothe open l ight of day .

Be it s a id , then, to h is prais e that he d id notstand upon the Shows of th ings,

” but p ressedinward until he found firm footing upon things


themselves . He found that there was no rea l itys ave spirit . He found that the ab iding and universa l interests of the human race have been itsfa iths , and loves , and joys , and asp irat ions . Andwas he not correct in h is findings ? What hasl ife offered so absorb ingly and perennially rea la s these ? What man is a stranger to them

,or

indifferent to them The interests that have beenmost constant and universal have not been of theearth , earthy . M en have most tenaciously setthei r affections upon th ings which are above

,not

upon things which are upon the earth . Cold andhunger, cord and gibbet, flame and torture

,have

seemed les s real to the human race than have love,

and faith , and hope . And ten thousand times overhas th is been proven by hero and s aint, by devotedmother and insp ired philosopher ; for the real isthe sp iritual, and sp irit plumes its wings to tryimmortal worlds .

Browning’s great poetry thus habitually touchesl ife at its h ighest points . He appreciates j ustlythe values of l ife and lays the stres s where it shouldbe laid . If we compare h is poetry with the poetryof Byron , and Keats , and M r . Swinburne, and M r .

Stephen Phill ips , we do not affi rm that their poetryis bad and that h is is good . It is a matter, rather,of good poetry and poetry that i s much better.For the poet who feeds our h igher nature is the


nal standards of authority, our poets and seersseek thei r inspi ration from with in , and create newworlds according to the deep instincts of their ownnature . The indescribable charm and potencyof these great sp irits l ie in the fact of their clearperception and vigorous affi rmation of an idealuniverse, a world invis ible to fleshly eyes andintangible to fingers of earth, yet immeasurablymore r ea l than any that has ever attested itself tothe five senses . Al l men at some time, and somemen at all t imes, feel themselves to be a part ofsuch an imperishable sp iritua l order ; but to mostof us, weak , proud , ignorant men that we are , comeonly stray flashes of l ight and hazy adumbrationsfrom those truths that forever l ive for us, yet forever elude us . But to our poets and prophets hasbeen granted the steady and penetrating gaze thatsees from center to ci rcumference . Our poetshave been men of faith and men of v i s ion , andwithout fear or guile they have given us accuratetranscripts of real ity as it has appeared to them .

“Philosophy, says Emerson ,“i s still rude and

elementa ry . It wil l one day be taught by poets .

The poet is in the natural attitude— he i s bel ieving ;the ph ilosopher after some struggle hav ing onlyreasons for bel iev ing .

” Th i s has been true of Emerson himself, and has been no less t rue of Browning . S ane in intel lect and true at heart, he

BROWNING’S INFLUENCE 1 4 3

impl ic itly trusted the deeper instincts of h is being,and, unhampered by dogma , custom, or tradition ,viewed the world and the problems of l ife in freshrelations . He looked upon l ife as its own interpreter

,and deemed it a s human , as essential , and

as much a d iscovery of the real , to love, to wil l , totrust

,and to aspire, a s to know . He pointed men

to God as the ground of all being ; asserted theinalienable

'

worth and d ign ity of the human soul ,and afli rmed those fundamental inst incts andpromptings

which,be they what they may

,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day,

Are yet a master light of all our seeing .

And , finally, more convincingly and adequately,I think , than any other poet eve r did it, he set forthall that I s I nvolved in the Christian rel igion . Tothe fact that his poetry is saturated with the Christian idea is due, in l arge measure, its stimulating,enlarging,~and l ife-giv ing qual ity . He was aChristian by the necess ities of h is nature . As wehave seen, his sta rting point was ever the humansoul . He perceived in man’s l ife such vast worth

,

dignity, and s ign ificance that he felt ob l iged to

study and interpret it in the l ight of some truth orhypothes is adequate to explain its infinitely richposs ib il ities and implications . His v is ion of theinfinite value and p romise of human l ife was


immed iate and convincing . How account for itsvalue and provide for the perfect development ofits capab il ities ?Christ ian ity, and Christianity a lone, solved this

question for B rowning . He found in Christ allthat his nature sought . The humanity of Christmet and responded to h is humanity ; the d ivin ityof Christ afforded h im the necessa ry connectinglink with the infinite and the eternal . So we findBrowning’s philosophy of l ife th rough and througha Chris tian philosophy of life . He teaches thatservice is the pure gold of this l ife

,and that it mat

ters l ittle into what denomination it be coined ifonly it be kept in c irculat ion . He asserts that thehuman sp irit can never satisfy itself s ave with theperfect and imperishable . He shows that progressand growth are essentia l to man’s nature ; and that,therefore, he must not expect in th is earthly l ifeto find full satisfaction for e ither mind or heart .But he assures h im of conscious immortal ity andendles s progres s in the world to come ; and teachesthat there is an ineradicable rel igious instinct within all men that prompts them to seek God

Just when we are safest , there’s a sunset- touch,A fancy from a flower -bell

,some one’s death

,

A chorus- ending from Eurip ides,

And that’s enough for fifty hopes and fearsAs old and new at once as nature’s self,To rap and knock and enter in our soul ,

1 46 RO B ERT BROWNING

them up to where he has himself found firm groundfor his feet . We feel that it i s the strong faith andconviction of Browning h imself that wings withfiery energy the words of the worl dly (though nota ltogether unbel ieving' b ishop to h is skept ica linterlocutor :

Once own the use of faith , I’ll find you faith .

We’re back on Christian ground . ' ou call for faithI show you doubt , to prove that faith existThe more of doubt

,the stronger faith

,I say ,

I f faith o’er comes doubt . H ow I know it does ?

By life and man’s free will,God gave for that '

T o mold life as we choose it , shows our choiceThat’s our one act

,the previous work’s his own .

What thi nk ye of Christ,friend ? when all’s done and

said ,Like you this Christianity , or not ?

It may be false,but will you wish it true ?

Has it your vote to be so if it can ?Trust you an instinct Silenced long agoThat will break Silence and enjoin you loveWhat mortified philosophy is hoarse

,

And all in vain , with bidding you despise ?If you desire faith— then you’ve faith enoughWhat else seeks God— nay, what else seek ourselves ?

mo d - forgottenbooks.com beauty; nor like keats, struck down i n hisyoung ... hawthorne, the...

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