Modern English Books of Power Part 5

This outline sketch of Ruskin's life would be incomplete without mention of the great sorrows that darkened his days but gave eloquence to his writings. The first was the desertion of his wife, who married the painter Millais, and the second was the loss by death of Rose La Touche, a beautiful Irish girl whom he had known from childhood. She refused to marry him because of their differences of religion; even refused to see him in her fatal illness unless he could say that he loved G.o.d better than he loved her. Her death brought bitter despair to Ruskin, but the world profited by it, for grief gave his work maturity and force. The last ten years of Ruskin's life were spent at his beautiful home at Brantwood, surrounded by the pictures that he loved and served faithfully by devoted relatives.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN RUSKIN FROM THE SEMI-ROMANTIC PORTRAIT OF SIR JOHN E. MILLAIS]

Ruskin's books are not to be read continuously. Many dreary pa.s.sages may be found in all of them, which the judicious reader skips. But his best works are more full of intellectual stimulus than those of any writer of his time with the single exception of Carlyle. _Modern Painters_ overflows with the enthusiasm of a lover of art and of nature who preaches the gospel of sincerity and truth. It is marked, like all his work, by eloquent digressions on human life and conduct, for Ruskin held that the finest art was simply the flowering of a great soul nurtured on all that was highest and best. _The Seven Lamps_ does for architecture what his first work did for painting. The book is written in more ornate style than any other, but he who loves impa.s.sioned prose will find many specimens here that can only by equaled in De Quincey's best work. Read the peroration of the "Lamp of Sacrifice" and you will not need to be told that this is the finest tribute to the work of the builders of the mediaeval cathedral. Here is a part of this eloquent pa.s.sage:

It is to far happier, far higher exaltation that we owe those fair fronts of variegated mosaic, charged with wild fancies and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and quainter than ever filled the depth of midsummer dream; those vaulted gates, trellised with close leaves; those window labyrinths of twisted tracery and starry light; those misty ma.s.ses of mult.i.tudinous pinnacle and diademed tower; the only witnesses, perhaps, that remain to us of the faith and fear of nations.

All else for which the builders sacrificed has pa.s.sed away.

* * * But of them and their life and their toil upon earth, one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those great heaps of deep-wrought stone. They have taken with them to the grave their powers, their honors and their errors; but they have left us their adoration.

No s.p.a.ce is left here to mention in detail Ruskin's other works, but _Unto This Last_, _The Stones of Venice_, _Sesame and Lilies_ and _The Crown of Wild Olive_ may be commended as well worth careful reading.

Also _Preterita_ is alive with n.o.ble pa.s.sages, such as the pen-picture of the view from the Dale in the Alps, or of the Rhone below Geneva.

Read also Ruskin's description of Turner's "Slave Ship" or the impressive pa.s.sage on the mental slavery of the modern workman in the sixth chapter of the second volume of _The Stones of Venice_. Read these things and you will have no doubt of the genius of Ruskin or of his command of the finest impa.s.sioned prose in the English language.

TENNYSON LEADS THE VICTORIAN WRITERS

THE POET WHO VOICED THE ASPIRATIONS OF HIS AGE--"LOCKSLEY HALL," "IN MEMORIAM" AND "THE IDYLLS OF THE KING" AMONG HIS BEST WORKS.

Of all the great English writers of the Victorian age it is probable that the next century will give the foremost place to Tennyson. Better than any other poet of his day, he stands as a type of the English people in obedience to law, in strong religious faith, in splendid imaginative force and in a certain unyielding cast of mind that made him bide his time during the dark years when he was bitterly criticized or coldly neglected. Tennyson had to the full the poet's temperament, but he had also a superb physique, which carried him into his eighty-fourth year. From a boy he was a lover of nature, and in nearly every poem that he wrote are found many proofs of his close observation in English woods and fields. Through a period of general skepticism he kept unimpaired his strong faith in G.o.d and in immortality that lends so much force to his best verse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON AFTER AN ENGRAVING BY G.J.

STODART FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY J. MAYALL]

Tennyson's genius found its natural expression in verse, and it is his distinction that while he explored many realms of thought he was always clear and always musical. Browning had more pa.s.sion, but it was the misfortune of the author of _The Ring and the Book_ that he could not refrain from a cramped and obscure style of verse that makes much of his work very hard reading. Many Browning societies have been formed to study the works of the poet whom they are proud to call master; but Tennyson needs no societies, as the man in the street and the woman whose soul is troubled can understand every line he has written. Nor is Tennyson lacking in pa.s.sion, as any one may see by reading _Locksley Hall_ or _Maud_.

Tennyson summed up in his poetry all the spiritual aspiration and the eager search for knowledge of his time. He explored all domains of thought, and he enriched his verse with the fruit of his studies. All the great elemental forces are found in his poems: he is the laureate of love and sorrow, of grief and aspiration. Throughout his verse runs the great natural law that the man who is not pure in heart can never see the glory of the poet's vision.

The purity of his own life was reflected in his verse, just as the mad license and the furious self-indulgence of Byron are mirrored in _Don Juan_, _Manfred_ and _Cain_. Even to extreme old age Tennyson preserved that high poetic faculty which he manifested in early youth.

One of his latest poems, _Crossing the Bar_, is also one of the finest in the language, breathing the old man's a.s.surance of a life beyond the grave and a reunion with the dear friend of his youth, whom he mourned and immortalized in _In Memoriam_.

Alfred Tennyson had one of the finest lives in the roll of English authors. He was born in 1809 and lived to 1892. He spent his early years in one of the most beautiful parts of Lincolnshire. He enjoyed the personal training of his father, a very accomplished clergyman, and much of his boyhood and youth was spent in the open air. In this way he absorbed that knowledge of birds and animals, trees and flowers and all the aspects of nature which is reflected in his verse. As a youth he experimented in many styles of verse, and when only eighteen he issued, with his brother Charles, _Poems by Two Brothers_. The next year he and Charles entered Trinity College, Cambridge. There they received the greatest impulse toward culture in a society of undergraduates known as the "Apostles." Its membership included Thackeray, Trench, Spedding, Monckton Milnes and Alfred and Arthur Henry Hallam, sons of the famous author of _The Middle Ages_.

In his second year at college Tennyson won the Chancellor's gold medal with his prize poem, _Timbuctoo_, and in the following year he published his first volume, _Poems, Chiefly Lyrical_. He left college without a degree, and in 1833 he issued another volume of poems which contained some of his best work--_The Lady of Shalott_, _The Lotos Eaters_, _The Palace of Art_ and _A Dream of Fair Women_. Any one of these poems if issued to-day would make the reputation of a poet, but this book made little impression on the Victorian public which had lost its taste for poetry and was devoted mainly to prose fiction. The world has yet to catch the note of this master singer.

In 1837 Arthur Hallam, Tennyson's friend and other self, the one man who predicted that he would be the greatest poet of his age, died suddenly in Vienna while traveling abroad. The shock made a profound impression on Tennyson. For ten years he put forth no work. Finally, in 1842, he issued two volumes of poems that at once caught the public fancy. Among the poems that brought him fame were _Locksley Hall_, _Lady G.o.diva_, _Ulysses_, _The Two Voices_ and _Morte d' Arthur_. The latter was the seed of the splendid _Idylls of the King_. Five years later he published _The Princess_, with its beautiful songs, and three years after _In Memoriam_ the greatest elegiac poem in the language, in which he lamented the fate of Arthur Hallam and poured forth his own grief over this irreparable loss. In the same year he married Miss Emily Sellwood, who made his home a haven of rest and of whom he once said that with her "the peace of G.o.d came into my life."

_Maud_, his most dramatic poem, was issued in 1855. As early as 1859 he published the first part of _The Idylls of the King_, but it was not until 1872 that the complete sequence of the _Idylls_ was given to the public. These Arthurian legends are cast by Tennyson in his most musical blank verse, and he has given to them a tinge of mysticism that seems to lift them above the everyday world into a realm of pure romance and chivalry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE OF TENNYSON'S ORIGINAL Ma.n.u.sCRIPT OF "CROSSING THE BAR" COPYRIGHT BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY]

_Enoch Arden_, a domestic idyll, written in 1864, made a great hit. It was followed by several plays--_Queen Mary_, _Harold_, _Becket_ and others--all finely written, but none appealing to the great public. Up to his last years Tennyson remained the real laureate of his people, his words always tinged with the fire of inspiration. Only three years before his death he wrote _Crossing the Bar_, a poem which met with instant response from the English-speaking world because of its signs of courage in the face of death and its proofs of steadfast faith in the life beyond the grave.

No adequate estimate of Tennyson's work can be made in the small s.p.a.ce allotted to this article. All that can be done is to mention a few of his best works and to quote a few of his stirring lines. If the reader will study these poems he will be pretty sure to read more of Tennyson. To my mind, _Locksley Hall_ is Tennyson's finest poem, as true to-day as when it was written seventy years ago. The long, rolling, trochaic verse, like the billows on the coast that it pictures, suits the thought. The poem is the pa.s.sionate lament of a returned soldier from India over the mercenary marriage of the cousin whom he loved. Here are a few of the lines that will never die:

Many a night I saw the Pleiades, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pa.s.s'd in music out of sight.

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of a fool!

Comfort? Comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?

I the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time.

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward, let us range, Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

It would be difficult among the poets of the last century to parallel these pa.s.sages for their imaginative sweep and magnetic appeal to the reader. The new criticism that disparages Tennyson and raises Browning to the seventh heaven calls _Locksley Hall_ old-fashioned and sentimental, but to me it is the greatest poem of its age. Next to this I would place _In Memoriam_, which has never received its just recognition. Readers of Taine will recall his flippant Gaelic comment on Tennyson's conventional but cold words of lament. Nothing, it seems to me, is further from the truth. The many beautiful lines in the poem depict the changing moods of the man who mourned for his dead and finally found comfort in the words of the Bible--the only source of comfort in this world for the sorely wounded heart. The whole poem, as his son Hallam says, emphasizes the poet's belief "in an omnipotent and all-loving G.o.d, who has revealed himself through the highest self-sacrificing love in the freedom of the human will and in the immortality of the soul."

The meter of _In Memoriam_ serves to fix the poem in the memory. It seems to fit the thought with perfect naturalness. It is not strange that Queen Victoria should have placed this poem next to the Bible as a means of comfort after the loss of her husband, whom she loved so dearly that all the attractions of power and wealth never made her forget him a single day.

_The Idylls of the King_ are also unappreciated in these days, yet they contain a body of splendid poetry that cannot be duplicated. They represent the author's dreams from early youth, when his imagination was first fired by old Malory's chronicle of the good King Arthur.

They breathe a chivalry as lofty as Sidney's, and they teach many ethical lessons that it would do the present-day world good to take to heart. These n.o.ble poems, cast in the most musical blank verse in our literature, were the work of thirty years, written only when the poet felt genuine inspiration. They represent, as the poet told his son, "the dream of a man coming into practical life and ruined by one sin.

It is not the history of one man or of one generation, but of a whole cycle of generations." And the old poet added these fine words: "Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing colors. Every reader must find his own interpretation according to his ability and according to his sympathy with the poet."

Other fine poems of Tennyson which one should read are the n.o.ble _Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington_, _Break, Break, Break_, the perfect songs in _The Princess_, and _Crossing the Bar_. If you read these aright you will wish to know more of Tennyson, the poet who reconciled science and religion and kept his old faith strong to the end.

BROWNING GREATEST POET SINCE SHAKESPEARE

HOW TO GET THE BEST OF BROWNING'S POEMS--READ THE LYRICS FIRST AND THEN TAKE UP THE LONGER AND THE MORE DIFFICULT WORKS.

The greatest of English poets since Shakespeare, is the t.i.tle given to Robert Browning by many admirers of recognized ability as critics. For his dramatic force and his insight into human nature there is no question that Browning deserves this high rank. In these two qualities he stands above Tennyson. But a large part of his work is written in a style so crabbed that it acts as a bar to one's enjoyment of many fine poems. Only the most resolute reader can go through _Sordello_ or _The Ring and the Book_, the latter, with its interminable discussions of motive and its curious descriptions of half-forgotten legal and church methods of the seventeenth century. If one-half this long poem of over twenty thousand lines had been cut out, it would have been vastly improved.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBERT BROWNING FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HOLLYER AFTER THE PORTRAIT BY G.F. WATTS, R.A.]

The advocates of Browning hold that the study of the poet's obscurities is good mental discipline, but I am of the belief that poetry, like music, should not demand too great exertion of the mind to appreciate its beauty. Wagner's "Seigfried" and "Parsifal" are altogether too long to be enjoyed thoroughly. The composer would have done well to eliminate a third of each, for as they are produced they strain the attention to the point of fatigue, and no work of art should ever tire its admirers.

In the same way Browning offends against this primal canon of art. A man who was capable of writing the most melodious verse, as is shown in some of his lyrics, he refused to put his thoughts in simple form, and often clothed them in obscurity. The result is that the great public which would have enjoyed his studies of character and his powerful dramatic faculty is repelled at the outset by the difficulties of understanding his poems. Browning added to this obscurity by constant reference to little-known authors. This was not pedantry, any more than Milton's use of cla.s.sic mythology was pedantry. Both men possessed unusual knowledge of rare books, and both were much given to quoting authors who are unknown to the general reading public.

But with all these difficulties in the way, there still remains a body of verse in Browning's work which will richly repay any reader. The lyrics and short poems like _The Pied Piper of Hamelin_, _Pippa Pa.s.ses_, _Prospice_, _O Lyric Love_, _The Last Ride_, _One Word More_, _How They Brought the Good News_, _Herve Riel_, the epilogue to _Asolando_, _The Lost Leader_, _Men and Women_, and _A Soul's Tragedy_ will give any reader a taste of the real Browning. If you like these poems, then try the more ambitious poems like _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, _The Inn Alb.u.m_, _Fifine at the Fair_ and others.

Browning, above all other English poets, seems to have had the power of seizing upon a character at a crucial hour in life and laying bare all the impulses that impel one to high achievement or great self-sacrifice. He seems always to have worked at the highest emotional stress, so that his words are surcharged with feeling. In many of his poems this emotional element is painful in its intensity.

Character to him was the main feature, and his selections comprise some of the most picturesque in all history. That he was able to make these people live and move and impress us as real flesh-and-blood human beings shows the great creative power of the man, who ought to have written some of the world's finest plays.

Robert Browning was born in 1812 and died in 1889. His father, though a clerk in the Bank of England, was a fine cla.s.sical scholar and had dabbled in verse. His mother was an accomplished musician. Browning had every early advantage, and while still a lad he came under the spell of Byron and had his poetical faculty greatly stimulated by the "Napoleon of rhyme." Then came Sh.e.l.ley and Keats, and their influence set him upon the course which he followed for many years. His first poem was _Pauline_, which has pa.s.sages of rare beauty set among dreary commonplaces. He followed this with _Paracelsus_ and _Strafford_, which opened to him the doors of all London salons and made his reputation. _Sordello_, one of his most difficult poems, came next, but he varied these dramatic tragedies with a series of short poems called _Bells and Pomegranates_. In this the finest thing was _Pippa Pa.s.ses_, which was warmly praised by Elizabeth Barrett, who afterwards became his wife. Among the many poems that Browning produced in five years were _Colombe's Birthday_, _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ and _A Soul's Tragedy_.

Browning, in 1846, married Elizabeth Barrett, the author of _Lady Geraldine's Courtship_ and other poems, a woman who had been an invalid, confined to her room for years. Love gave her strength to arise and walk, and love also gave her the courage to defy the foolish tyranny of her father and elope with Browning. What kind of man that father was may be seen in his comment after the marriage: "I've no objection to the young man, but my daughter should have been thinking of another world." They went to Italy, where for fifteen years they made an ideal home. Mrs. Browning's story of her love is seen in _Sonnets From the Portuguese_, and some of her finest work is in _Casa Guidi Windows_. Each stimulated the other, while there was a notable absence of that jealousy which has often served to turn the love of literary men and women into the fiercest hatred.

Mrs. Browning died suddenly in 1861, and the poet for some time was stunned by this unlooked-for calamity. He spent two years in seclusion at work on poems, but then he gathered up his courage and once more took his old place in the social life of London. In _Prospice_ and _One Word More_, written in the autumn following his wife's death, he shows that he has overcome all doubts of the reality of immortality. These two poems alone would ent.i.tle Browning to the highest place among the world's great poets. In addition he wrote the memorial to his wife, _O Lyric Love_, that is the cry of the soul left here on this earth to the soul of the beloved in Paradise. To the sympathetic this poem, with its solemn rhythm, will appeal like splendid organ music.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING AFTER THE PORTRAIT BY FIELD TALFOURD]

Among Browning's other poems that are noteworthy are _Fifine at the Fair_, _Red Cotton Nightcap Country_, _The Inn Alb.u.m_ and _Dramatic Idylls_. Browning's last poem, _Asolando_, appeared in London on the same day that its author died at Venice. As the great bell of San Marco struck ten in the evening, Browning, as he lay in bed, asked his son if there were any news of the new volume. A telegram was read saying the book was well received. The aged poet smiled and breathed his last.