An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 20

He then relates the weird circ.u.mstances under which he met him, and concludes by saying that the repose he will have at Jerusalem shall make amends for the time his letter wastes, his master's and his own. Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!

But in spite of himself, his suppressed interest in the strange case MUST have full expression, and he gives way to all reserve and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es in a postscript:--

"The very G.o.d! think, Abib; dost thou think?

So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too-- So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, 'O heart I made, a heart beats here!

Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself.

Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine, But love I gave thee, with myself to love, And thou must love me who have died for thee!'

The madman saith He said so: it is strange."

See before, p. 41 {about one-fifth into Part II of the Introduction}, some remarks on the psychological phase of the monologue.

"The monologue is a signal example of 'emotional ratiocination'.

There is a flash of ecstasy through the strangely cautious description of Karshish; every syllable is weighed and thoughtful, everywhere the lines swell into perfect feeling."--Robert Buchanan.

"As an example of our poet's dramatic power in getting right at the heart of a man, reading what is there written, and then looking through his eyes and revealing it all in the man's own speech, nothing can be more complete in its inner soundings and outer-keeping, than the epistle containing the 'Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician', who has been picking up the crumbs of learning on his travels in the Holy Land, and writes to Abib, the all-sagacious, at home. It is so solemnly real and so sagely fine."--N. Brit. Rev., May, 1861.

A Martyr's Epitaph.

A wonderfully effective expression, effective through its pathetic simplicity, of the peaceful spirit of a Christian, who has triumphed over persecution and death, and pa.s.sed to his reward.

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister.

The speaker in this monologue is a Spanish monk, whose jealousy toward a simple and unoffending brother has, in the seclusion of the cloister, developed into a festering malignity. If hate, he says, could kill a man, his hate would certainly kill Brother Laurence.

He is watching this brother, from a window of the cloister, at work in the garden. He looks with contempt upon his honest toil; repeats mockingly to himself, his simple talk when at meals, about the weather and the crops; sneers at his neatness, and orderliness, and cleanliness; imputes to him his own libidinousness.

He takes credit to himself in laying crosswise, in Jesu's praise, his knife and fork, after refection, and in ill.u.s.trating the Trinity, and frustrating the Arian, by drinking his watered orange-pulp in three sips, while Laurence drains his at one gulp. Now he notices Laurence's tender care of the melons, of which it appears the good man has promised all the brethren a feast; "so nice!" He calls to him, from the window, "How go on your flowers? None double?

Not one fruit-sort can you spy?" Laurence, it must be understood, kindly answers him in the negative, and then he chuckles to himself, "Strange!--and I, too, at such trouble, keep 'em close-nipped on the sly!" He thinks of devising means of causing him to trip on a great text in Galatians, entailing "twenty-nine distinct d.a.m.nations, one sure, if another fails"; or of slyly putting his "scrofulous French novel" in his way, which will make him "grovel hand and foot in Belial's gripe". In his malignity, he is ready to pledge his soul to Satan (leaving a flaw in the indenture), to see blasted that rose-acacia Laurence is so proud of. Here the vesper-bell interrupts his filthy and blasphemous eructations, and he turns up his eyes and folds his hands on his breast, mumbling "Plena gratia ave Virgo!"

and right upon the prayer, his disgust breaks out, "Gr-r-r--you swine!"

This monologue affords a signal ill.u.s.tration of the poet's skill in making a speaker, while directly revealing his own character, reflect very distinctly the character of another. This has been seen in 'My Last d.u.c.h.ess', given as an example of the const.i.tution of this art-form, in the section of the Introduction on 'Browning's Obscurity'.

"The 'Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister', is a picture (ghastly in its evident truth) of superst.i.tion which has survived religion; of a heart which has abandoned the love of kindred and friends, only to lose itself in a wilderness of petty spite, terminating in an abyss of diabolical hatred. The ordinary providential helps to goodness have been rejected; the ill-provided adventurer has sought to scale the high snow-peaks of saintliness,--he has missed his footing,-- and the black chasm which yawns beneath, has ingulfed him."

--E. J. H{asell}, in St. Paul's Magazine, December, 1870.

An able writer in 'The Contemporary Review', Vol. IV., p. 140, justly remarks:--

"No living writer--and we do not know any one in the past who can be named, in this respect, in the same breath with him {Browning} --approaches his power of a.n.a.lyzing and reproducing the morbid forms, the corrupt semblances, the hypocrisies, formalisms, and fanaticisms of man's religious life. The wildness of an Antinomian predestinarianism has never been so grandly painted as in 'Johannes Agricola in Meditation'; the white heat of the persecutor glares on us, like a nightmare spectre, in 'The Heretic's Tragedy'.

More subtle forms are drawn with greater elaboration.

If 'Bishop Blougram's Apology', in many of its circ.u.mstances and touches, suggests the thought of actual portraiture, recalling a form and face once familiar to us, . . .it is also a picture of a cla.s.s of minds which we meet with everywhere.

Conservative scepticism that persuades itself that it believes, cynical acuteness in discerning the weak points either of mere secularism or dreaming mysticism, or pa.s.sionate eagerness to reform, avoiding dangerous extremes, and taking things as they are because they are comfortable, and lead to wealth, enjoyment, reputation,--this, whether a true account or not of the theologian to whom we have referred. . .is yet to be found under many eloquent defences of the faith, many fervent and scornful denunciations of criticism and free thought. . . . In 'Calaban upon Setebos', if it is more than the product of Mr. Browning's fondness for all abnormal forms of spiritual life, speculating among other things on the religious thoughts of a half brute-like savage, we must see a protest against the thought that man can rise by himself to true thoughts of G.o.d, and develop a pure theology out of his moral consciousness. So far it is a witness for the necessity of a revelation, either through the immediate action of the Light that lighteth every man, or that which has been given to mankind in spoken or written words, by The WORD that was in the beginning.

In the 'Death in the Desert', in like manner, we have another school of thought a.n.a.lyzed with a corresponding subtlety. . . .

The 'Death in the Dessert' is worth studying in its bearing upon the mythical school of interpretation, and as a protest, we would fain hope, from Mr. Browning's own mind against the thought that because the love of G.o.d has been revealed in Christ, and has taught us the greatness of all true human love, therefore,

"'We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not.'

"In one remarkable pa.s.sage at the close of 'The Legend of p.o.r.nic', Mr. Browning, speaking apparently in his own person, proclaims his belief in one great Christian doctrine, which all pantheistic and atheistic systems formally repudiate, and which many semi-Christian thinkers implicitly reject:--

"'The candid incline to surmise of late That the Christian faith may be false, I find, For our 'Essays and Reviews'*1* debate Begins to tell on the public mind, And Colenso's*2* words have weight.

"'I still, to suppose it true, for my part, See reasons and reasons: this, to begin-- 'Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie,--taught Original Sin, The Corruption of Man's Heart.'"

-- *1* A volume which appeared in 1860, made up of essays and reviews, the several authors having "written in entire independence of each other, and without concert or comparison". These essays and reviews offset the extreme high church doctrine of the Tracts for the Times.

*2* John W. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, in South Africa; he published works questioning the inspiration and historical accuracy of certain parts of the Bible, among which was 'The Pentateuch, and the Book of Joshua critically examined'.

Holy-Cross Day.

On which the Jews were forced to attend an annual Christian sermon in Rome.

The argument is sufficiently shown by what is prefixed to this poem.

The 'Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600', is presumably imaginary.

Saul.

This is, in every respect, one of Browning's grandest poems; and in all that is included in the idea of EXPRESSION, is quite perfect.

The portion of Scripture which is the germ of the poem, and it is only the germ, is contained in the First Book of Samuel 16:14-23.

To the present consolation which David administers to Saul, with harp and song, and the Scripture story does not go beyond this, is added the a.s.surance of the transmission of his personality, and of the influence of his deeds; first, through those who have been quickened by them, and who will, in turn, transmit that quickening-- "Each deed thou hast done, dies, revives, goes to work in the world: . . .each ray of thy will, every flash of thy pa.s.sion and prowess, long over, shall thrill thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they too give forth a like cheer to their sons: who, in turn, fill the South and the North with the radiance thy deed was the germ of"; and, then, through records that will give unborn generations their due and their part in his being.

The consolation is, moreover, carried beyond that afforded by earthly fame and influence. David's yearnings to give Saul "new life altogether, as good, ages hence, as this moment,-- had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense", pa.s.s into a prophecy, based on his own loving desires, of the G.o.d-Man who shall throw open to Saul the gates of that new life.

With this prophecy, David leaves Saul. On his way home, in the night, he represents himself as attended by witnesses, cohorts to left and to right. At the dawn, all nature, the forests, the wind, beasts and birds, even the serpent that slid away silent, appear to him aware of the new law; the little brooks, witnessing, murmured with all but hushed voices, "E'en so, it is so!"

A Death in the Desert.