Browning's England Part 39

So, Master Sheriff, stay that sentence I p.r.o.nounced On those two dozen odd: deserving to be trounced Soundly, and yet ... well, well, at all events despatch This pair of--shall I say, sinner-saints?--ere we catch Their jail-distemper too. Stop tears, or I'll indite All weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!"

So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur, Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur?

And happily hanged were they,--why lengthen out my tale?-- Where Bunyan's Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.

The effect which "Pilgrim's Progress" had on these two miserable beings, may be taken as typical of the enormous influence wielded by Bunyan in his own time. The most innocent among us had overwhelming qualms in regard to our sins, as children when we listened to our mothers read the book. I remember having confessed some childish peccadillo that was weighing on my small mind as the first result of my thoroughly aroused sense of guilt. In these early years of the Twentieth Century, such a feeling seems almost as far removed as the days of Bunyan. A sense of guilt is not a distinguishing characteristic of the child of the present day, and it may also be doubted whether such reprobates as Ned and his wife would to-day be affected much if at all by the "Pilgrim's Progress." There was probably great personal magnetism in Bunyan himself. We are told that after his discharge from prison, his popularity as a preacher widened rapidly. Such vast crowds of people flocked to hear him that his place of worship had to be enlarged. He went frequently to London on week days to deliver addresses in the large chapel in Southwark which was invariably thronged with eager worshipers.

Browning's picture of Bunyan shows the instant effect of his personality upon Tab.

"There sat the man, the father. He looked up: what one feels When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!

He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night, And in the day, earth grow another something quite Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone."

And again

"Then all at once rose he: His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see: Up went his hands."

It is like a clever bit of stage business to make Ned and Tab use the shoe laces to tie up the hands of their victims, and to bring on by this means the meeting between Tab and Bunyan. Of course, the blind daughter's part is imaginary, but yet it seems to bring very vividly before us this well loved child. Another touch, quite in keeping with the time, is the decision of the Judge that the remarkable change of heart in Ned and Tab was due to the piety of King Charles. Like every one else, however, he was impressed by what he heard of the Tinker, and inclined to see what he could do to give him his freedom. It seems that Bunyan's life in jail was a good deal lightened by the favor he always inspired. The story goes that from the first he was in favor with the jailor, who nearly lost his place for permitting him on one occasion to go as far as London. After this he was more strictly confined, but at last he was often allowed to visit his family, and remain with them all night. One night, however, when he was allowed this liberty Bunyan felt resistlessly impressed with the propriety of returning to the prison. He arrived after the keeper had shut up for the night, much to the official's surprise. But his impatience at being untimely disturbed was changed to thankfulness, when a little after a messenger came from a neighboring clerical magistrate to see that the prisoner was safe. "You may go now when you will" said the jailer; "for you know better than I can tell you when to come in again."

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Bunyan

Statue by J. E. Boehm]

Though Bunyan is not primarily the subject of this poem, it is an appreciative tribute to his genius and to his force of character, only to be paralleled by Dowden's sympathetic critique in his "Puritan and Anglican Studies." What Browning makes Ned and Tab see through suddenly aroused feeling--namely that it is no book but

"plays, Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze, But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare,"

Dowden puts in the colder language of criticism.

"The 'Pilgrim's Progress' is a gallery of portraits, admirably discriminated, and as convincing in their self-verification as those of Holbein. His personages live for us as few figures outside the drama of Shakespeare live.... All his powers cooperated harmoniously in creating this book--his religious ardor, his human tenderness, his sense of beauty, nourished by the Scriptures, his strong common sense, even his gift of humor. Through his deep seriousness play the lighter faculties.

The whole man presses into this small volume."

"Halbert and Hob" belongs here merely for its wild North of England setting. We may imagine, if we choose, that this wild father and son dwelt in the beautiful country of Northumberland, in the North of England, but descriptions of the scenery could add nothing to the atmosphere of the poem, for Northumberland is surpa.s.singly lovely.

Doubtless, human beings of this type have existed in all parts of the globe. At any rate, these particular human beings were transported by Browning from Aristotle's "Ethics" to the North of England. The incident is told by Aristotle in ill.u.s.tration of the contention that anger and asperity are more natural than excessive and unnecessary desires. "Thus one who was accused of striking his father said, as an apology for it, that his own father, and even his grandfather, had struck his; 'and he also (pointing to his child) will strike me, when he becomes a man; for it runs in our family.' A certain person, also, being dragged by his son, bid him stop at the door, for he himself had dragged his father as far as that." The dryness of "Aristotle's cheeks" is as usual so enlivened by Browning that the fate of Halbert and Hob grows pathetic and comes close to our sympathies.

HALBERT AND HOB

Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den, In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut, Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these--but-- Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degrees Softens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst were these.

Criminals, then? Why, no: they did not murder and rob; But, give them a word, they returned a blow--old Halbert as young Hob: Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed, Hated or feared the more--who knows?--the genuine wild-beast breed.

Thus were they found by the few spa.r.s.e folk of the countryside; But how fared each with other? E'en beasts couch, hide by hide, In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curled The closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in the world.

Still, beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow, Came father and son to words--such words! more cruel because the blow To crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curse Completed with oath in wager, like pastime in h.e.l.l,--nay, worse: For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at last The son at the throat of the father, seized him and held him fast.

"Out of this house you go!"--(there followed a hideous oath)-- "This oven where now we bake, too hot to hold us both!

If there's snow outside, there's coolness: out with you, bide a spell In the drift and save the s.e.xton the charge of a parish sh.e.l.l!"

Now, the old trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oak Untouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy broke One whipcord nerve in the muscly ma.s.s from neck to shoulder-blade Of the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like a feather weighed.

Nevertheless at once did the mammoth shut his eyes, Drop chin to breast, drop hands to sides, stand stiffened--arms and thighs All of a piece--struck mute, much as a sentry stands, Patient to take the enemy's fire: his captain so commands.

Whereat the son's wrath flew to fury at such sheer scorn Of his puny strength by the giant eld thus acting the babe new-born: And "Neither will this turn serve!" yelled he. "Out with you!

Trundle, log!

If you cannot tramp and trudge like a man, try all-fours like a dog!"

Still the old man stood mute. So, logwise,--down to floor Pulled from his fireside place, dragged on from hearth to door,-- Was he pushed, a very log, staircase along, until A certain turn in the steps was reached, a yard from the house-door-sill.

Then the father opened eyes--each spark of their rage extinct,-- Temples, late black, dead-blanched,--right-hand with left-hand linked,-- He faced his son submissive; when slow the accents came, They were strangely mild though his son's rash hand on his neck lay all the same.

"Hob, on just such a night of a Christmas long ago, For such a cause, with such a gesture, did I drag--so-- My father down thus far: but, softening here, I heard A voice in my heart, and stopped: you wait for an outer word.

"For your own sake, not mine, soften you too! Untrod Leave this last step we reach, nor brave the finger of G.o.d!

I dared not pa.s.s its lifting: I did well. I nor blame Nor praise you. I stopped here: and, Hob, do you the same!"

Straightway the son relaxed his hold of the father's throat.

They mounted, side by side, to the room again: no note Took either of each, no sign made each to either: last As first, in absolute silence, their Christmas-night they pa.s.sed.

At dawn, the father sate on, dead, in the self-same place, With an outburst blackening still the old bad fighting-face: But the son crouched all a-tremble like any lamb new-yeaned.

When he went to the burial, someone's staff he borrowed--tottered and leaned.

But his lips were loose, not locked,--kept muttering, mumbling.

"There!

At his cursing and swearing!" the youngsters cried: but the elders thought "In prayer."

A boy threw stones: he picked them up and stored them in his vest.

So tottered, muttered, mumbled he, till he died, perhaps found rest.

"Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?" O Lear, That a reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear!

In the "Inn Alb.u.m," a degenerate type of Nineteenth-Century Englishman is dissected with the keen knife of a surgeon, which Browning knows so well how to wield. The villain of this poem was a real personage, a Lord de Ros, a friend of the Duke of Wellington. The story belongs to the annals of crime and is necessarily unpleasant, but in order to see how Browning has worked up the episode it is interesting to know the bare facts as Furnivall gives them in "Notes and Queries" March 25, 1876. He says "that the gambling lord showed the portrait of the lady he had seduced and abandoned and offered his dupe an introduction to her, as a bribe to induce him to wait for payment of the money he had won; that the young gambler eagerly accepted the offer; and that the lady committed suicide on hearing of the bargain between them." Dr. Furnivall heard the story from some one who well remembered the sensation it had made in London years ago. In his management of the story, Browning has intensified the villainy of the Lord at the same time that he has shown a possible streak of goodness in him. The young man, on the other hand, he has made to be of very good stuff, indeed, notwithstanding his year of tutelage from the older man. He makes one radical change in the story as well as several minor ones. In the poem the younger man had been in love with the girl whom the older man had dishonorably treated, and had never ceased to love her. Of course, the two men do not know this. By the advice of the elder man, the younger one has decided to settle down and marry his cousin, a charming young girl, who is also brought upon the scene. The other girl is represented as having married an old country parson, who sought a wife simply as a helpmeet in his work. By thus complicating the situations, room has been given for subtle psychic development. The action is all concentrated into one morning in the parlor of the old inn, reminding one much of the method of Ibsen in his plays of grouping his action about a final catastrophe. At the inn one is introduced first to the two gamblers in talk, the young man having won his ten thousand pounds from the older man, who had intended to fleece him. The inn alb.u.m plays an important part in the action, innocent as its first appearance upon the scene seems to be. The description of this and the inn parlor opens the poem.

THE INN ALb.u.m

I

"That oblong book's the Alb.u.m; hand it here!

Exactly! page on page of grat.i.tude For breakfast, dinner, supper, and the view!

I praise these poets: they leave margin-s.p.a.ce; Each stanza seems to gather skirts around, And primly, trimly, keep the foot's confine, Modest and maidlike; lubber prose o'er-sprawls And straddling stops the path from left to right.

Since I want s.p.a.ce to do my cipher-work, Which poem spares a corner? What comes first?

'_Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!_'

(Open the window, we burn daylight, boy!) Or see--succincter beauty, brief and bold-- '_If a fellow can dine On rumpsteaks and port wine, He needs not despair Of dining well here_--'

'_Here!_' I myself could find a better rhyme!

That bard's a Browning; he neglects the form: But ah, the sense, ye G.o.ds, the weighty sense!

Still, I prefer this cla.s.sic. Ay, throw wide!

I'll quench the bits of candle yet unburnt.

A minute's fresh air, then to cipher-work!

Three little columns hold the whole account: _Ecarte_, after which Blind Hookey, then Cutting-the-Pack, five hundred pounds the cut.

'Tis easy reckoning: I have lost, I think."