Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 2

Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu Climbed and saw the very G.o.d, the Highest, Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.

Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, When they ate and drank and saw G.o.d also!

XVII

What were seen? None knows, none ever shall know.

Only this is sure--the sight were other, Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, Dying now impoverished here in London.

G.o.d be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her!

XVIII

This I say of me, but think of you, Love!

This to you--yourself my moon of poets!

Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder, Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!

There, in turn I stand with them and praise you-- Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.

But the best is when I glide from out them, Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, Where I hush and bless myself with silence.

XIX

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it, Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom!

R. B.

The Brownings travelled a good deal: they visited many places in Italy, Venice, Ancona, Fano, Siena, and spent several winters in Rome.

The winter of 1851-52 was pa.s.sed at Paris, where on the third of January Browning wrote one of his most notable poems, _Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came_. One memorable evening at London in 1855 there were gathered together in an upper room Mr. and Mrs. Browning, Mr. and Mrs. Tennyson, Dante and William Rossetti. Tennyson had just published _Maud_ and Browning the two volumes called _Men and Women_.

Each poet was invited to read from his new work. Tennyson, with one leg curled under him on the sofa, chanted _Maud_, the tears running down his cheeks; and then Browning read in a conversational manner his characteristic poem, _Fra Lippo Lippi_. Rossetti made a pen-and-ink sketch of the Laureate while he was intoning. On one of the journeys made by the Brownings from London to Paris they were accompanied by Thomas Carlyle, who wrote a vivid and charming account of the transit. The poet was the practical member of the party: the "brave Browning" struggled with the baggage, and the customs, and the train arrangements; while the Scot philosopher smoked infinite tobacco.

The best account of the domestic life of the Brownings at Casa Guidi in Florence was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and published in his _Italian Note-Books_. On a June evening, Mr. and Mrs. Browning, William Cullen Bryant, and Nathaniel Hawthorne ate strawberries and talked spiritualism. Hawthorne and Browning stood on the little balcony overlooking the street, and heard the priests chanting in the church of San Felice, the chant heard only in June, which Browning was to hear again on the night of the June day when he found the old yellow book. Both chant and terrace were to be immortalised in Browning's epic. Hawthorne said that Browning had an elfin wife and an elf child. "I wonder whether he will ever grow up, whether it is desirable that he should." Like all visitors at Casa Guidi, the American was impressed by the extraordinary sweetness, gentleness, and charity of Elizabeth Browning, and by the energy, vivacity, and conversational powers of her husband. Hawthorne said he seemed to be in all parts of the room at once.

Mr. Barrett Browning told me in 1904 that he remembered his mother, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as clearly as though he had seen her yesterday. He was eleven years old at the time of her death. He would have it that her ill health had been greatly exaggerated. She was an invalid, but did not give the impression of being one. She was able to do many things, and had considerable power of endurance.

One day in Florence she walked from her home out through the Porta Romana, clear up on the heights, and back to Casa Guidi. "That was pretty good, wasn't it?" said he. She was of course the idol of the household, and everything revolved about her. She was "intensely loved" by all her friends. Her father was a "very peculiar man." The son's account of her health differs radically from that written by the mother of E. C. Stedman, who said that Mrs. Browning was kept alive only by opium, which she had to take daily. This writer added, however, that in spite of Mrs. Browning's wretched health, she had never heard her speak ill of any one, though she talked with her many times.

After the death of his wife, Browning never saw Florence again. He lived in London, and after a few years was constantly seen in society, Tennyson, who hated society, said that Browning would die in a dress suit. His real fame did not begin until the year 1864, with the publication of _Dramatis Personae_. During the first thirty years of his career, from the publication of _Pauline_ in 1833 to the appearance of _Dramatis Personae_, he received always tribute from the few, and neglect, seasoned with ridicule, from the many. _Pauline, Paracelsus, Pippa Pa.s.ses, A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, Christmas-Eve, Men and Women_--each of these volumes was greeted enthusiastically by men and women whose own literary fame is permanent. But the world knew him not. How utterly obscure he was may be seen by the fact that so late as 1860, when the publisher's statement came in for _Men and Women_, it appeared that during the preceding six months not a single copy had been sold! The best was yet to be. _The Dramatis Personae_ was the first of his books to go into a genuine second edition. Then four years later came _The Ring and the Book_, which a contemporary review p.r.o.nounced to be the "most precious and profound spiritual treasure which England has received since the days of Shakespeare."

Fame, which had shunned him for thirty years, came to him in extraordinary measure during the last part of his life: another exact parallel between him and the great pessimist Schopenhauer. It was naturally sweet, its sweetness lessened only by the thought that his wife had not lived to see it. Each had always believed in the superiority of the other: and the only cloud in Mrs. Browning's mind was the (to her) incomprehensible neglect of her husband by the public. At the time of the marriage, it was commonly said that a young literary man had eloped with a great poetess: during their married life, her books went invariably into many editions, while his did not sell at all. And even to the last day of Browning's earthly existence, her poems far outsold his, to his unspeakable delight. "The demand for my poems is nothing like so large," he wrote cheerfully, in correcting a contrary opinion that had been printed. Even so late as 1885, I found this pa.s.sage in an account of Mrs. Browning's life, published that year, It appears that "she was married in 1846 to Robert Browning, who was also a poet and dramatic writer of some note, though his fame seems to have been almost totally eclipsed by the superior endowments of his gifted wife." This reminds us of the time when Mr. and Mrs. Schumann were presented to a Scandinavian King: Mrs. Schumann played on the piano, and His Majesty, turning graciously to the silent husband, enquired "Are you also musical?"

The last summer of Browning's life, the summer of 1889, was pa.s.sed at Asolo: in the autumn he moved into his beautiful house in Venice, the Palazzo Rezzonico, which had the finest situation of all Venetian residences, built at an angle in the Grand Ca.n.a.l. Although seventy-seven years old, he was apparently as vigorous as ever: no change had taken place in his appearance, manner or habits. One day he caught a bad cold walking on the Lido in a bitter wind; and with his usual vehement energy declined to take any proper care of his throat. Instead of staying in, he set out for long tramps with friends, constantly talking in the raw autumn air. In order to prove to his son that nothing was the matter with him, he ran rapidly up three flights of stairs, the son vainly trying to restrain him.

Nothing is more characteristic of the youthful folly of aged folk than their impatient resentment of proffered hygienic advice. When we are children, we reject with scorn the suggestions of our parents; when we are old, we reject with equal scorn the advice of our children. Man is apparently an animal more fit to give advice than to take it. Browning's impulsive rashness proved fatal. Bronchitis with heart trouble finally sent him to bed, though on the last afternoon of his life he rose and walked about the room. During the last few days he told many good stories and talked with his accustomed eagerness. He died at ten o'clock in the evening of the twelfth of December, 1889, A few moments before his death came a cablegram from London announcing that his last volume of poems had been published that day, and that the evening papers were speaking in high terms of its contents. "That is very gratifying," said he.

Browning's life was healthy, comfortable, and happy. With the exception of frequent headaches in his earlier years, he never knew sickness or physical distress. His son said that he had never seen him in bed in the daytime until the last illness. He had a truly wonderful digestion; it was his firm belief that one should eat only what one really enjoyed, desire being the infallible sign that the food was healthful. "My father was a man of _bonne fourchette_" said Barrett Browning to me; "he was not very fond of meat, but liked all kinds of Italian dishes, especially with rich sauces. He always ate freely of rich and delicate things. He could make a whole meal off mayonnaise." It is pleasant to remember that Emerson, the other great optimist of the century, used to eat pie for breakfast. Unlike Carlyle and Tennyson, who smoked constantly, Browning never used tobacco; he drank wine with his meals, but sparingly, and never more than one kind of wine at a dinner. While physically robust, fond of riding and walking, never using a cab or public conveyance if he could help it, he was like most first-cla.s.s literary men in caring nothing whatever for compet.i.tive sports. He did not learn to swim until late in life; his son taught him at p.o.r.nic, in Brittany. He was venturesome for a man well on in years, swimming far out with boyish delight, as he has himself described it in the _Prologue to Fifine at the Fair_.

Browning's eyes were peculiar, one having a long focus, the other very short. He had the unusual accomplishment (try it and prove) of closing either eye without "squinching," and without any apparent effort, though sometimes on the street in strong sunshine his face would be a bit distorted. He did all his reading and writing with one eye, closing the long one as he sat down at his desk. He never wore gla.s.ses, and was proud of his microscopic eye. He often wrote minutely, to show off his powers. When he left the house to go for a walk, he shut the short eye and opened the long one, with which he could see an immense distance. He never suffered with any pain in his eyes except once, when a boy, he was trying to be a vegetarian in imitation of his youthful idol, Sh.e.l.ley.

Contrary to the oft-repeated statement, Browning was not a really fine pianist. As a very young man, he used to play several instruments, and once he had been able to play all of Beethoven's sonatas on the piano. In later life he became ambitious to improve his skill with this instrument, and had much trouble, for his fingers were clumsy and stiff. He therefore used to rise at six, and practise finger-exercises for an hour!

He loved first-cla.s.s music ardently, had a profound knowledge of it, and was a good judge. If the performance was fine, he would express his praise with the utmost enthusiasm; but bad work caused him acute pain. Sometimes at a concert he would put his fingers in his ears, his suffering being apparently uncontrollable.

The salient feature of his character was his boyish vivacity and enthusiasm. If he looked out of the window and saw a friend coming along the street to call, he would often rush out and embrace him.

In conversation he was extraordinarily eager and impulsive, with a great flow of talk on an enormous range of subjects. If he liked anything, he spoke of it in the heartiest manner, laughing aloud with delight. He was very generous in his appreciation and praise of other men's work, being beautifully free from that jealousy which is one of the besetting sins of artists. He always tried to see what was good. Occasionally he was enraged at reading a particularly hostile criticism of himself, but on the whole he stood abuse very well, and had abundant opportunity to exercise the gift of patience. A great admirer of Tennyson's poetry and of Tennyson's character--they were dear and intimate friends--he never liked the stock comparison. "Tennyson and I are totally unlike," he used to say.

No letter from one rival to another was ever more beautiful than the letter Browning wrote to Tennyson on the occasion of the Laureate's eightieth birthday:

"My DEAR TENNYSON--To-morrow is your birthday--indeed, a memorable one. Let me say I a.s.sociate myself with the universal pride of our country in your glory, and in its hope that for many and many a year we may have your very self among us--secure that your poetry will be a wonder and delight to all those appointed to come after. And for my own part, let me further say, I have loved you dearly. May G.o.d bless you and yours.

"At no moment from first to last of my acquaintance with your works, or friendship with yourself, have I had any other feeling, expressed or kept silent, than this which an opportunity allows me to utter--that I am and ever shall be, my dear Tennyson, admiringly and affectionately yours,

"ROBERT BROWNING."

What I have said of Browning's impulsiveness is borne out not only by the universal testimony of those who knew him well, but particularly by a letter of Mrs. Browning to Mrs. Jameson. The ma.n.u.script of this letter was bought in London by an American, and went down with the _t.i.tanic_ in 1912. An extract from it appeared in a bookseller's catalogue--"You must learn Robert--he is made of moods--chequered like a chess-board; and the colour goes for too much--till you learn to treat it as a game."

No man--little or great--was ever more free from pose. His appearance, in clothes and in hair, was studiously normal. No one in his later years would ever have guessed that he was a poet, either in seeing him on the street, or in meeting him at dinner. He was interested in mult.i.tudinous things, but never spoke of poetry--either in general or in his own particular--if he could avoid doing so. The fact that strangers who were presented to him and talked with him did not guess that he was _the_ Mr. Browning, gave rise to numberless humorous situations.

Perhaps the best thing that can be said of his personal character is the truthful statement that he stood in the finest manner two searching tests of manhood--long neglect and sudden popularity, The long years of oblivion, during which he was producing much of his best work, made him neither angry nor sour, though he must have suffered deeply. On the other hand, when his fame reached prodigious proportions, he was neither conceited nor affected. He thoroughly believed in himself, and in his work; and he cared more about it than he did for its reception.

The crushing grief that came to him in the death of his wife he bore with that Christian resignation of which we hear more often than perhaps we see in experience. For Browning was a Christian, not only in faith but in conduct; it was the mainspring of his art and of his life. There are so many writers whose lives show so painful a contrast with the ideal tone of their written work, that it is refreshing and inspiring to be so certain of Browning; to know that the author of the poems which thrill us was as great in character as he was in genius.

II

BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY

With one exception, the economic law of supply and demand governs the production of literature exactly as it determines the price of wheat. For many years the Novel has been the chief channel of literary expression, the dominant literary form: in the days of Queen Elizabeth, the Drama was supreme. During the early part of the eighteenth century, theological poetry enjoyed a great vogue; Pope's _Essay on Man_ circulated with the rapidity of a modern detective story. Consider the history of the English sonnet. This form of verse was exceedingly popular in 1600, By 1660 it had vanished, and remained obsolete for nearly a hundred years; about the middle of the eighteenth century it was revived by Thomas Edwards and others; in the nineteenth century it became fashionable, and still holds its place, as one may see by opening current magazines. Why is it that writers put their ideas on G.o.d, Nature, and Woman in the form of a drama in 1600, and in the form of a novel in 1900? Why is it that an inspired man should make poems of exactly fourteen lines in 1580 and in 1880, and not do it in 1680? If we do not attempt an ultimate metaphysical a.n.a.lysis, the answer is clear. The bookseller supplies the public, the publisher supplies the bookseller, the author supplies the publisher. A bookseller has in his window what the people want, and the publisher furnishes material in response to the same desire; just as a farmer plants in his fields some foodstuffs for which there is a sharp demand. Authors are compelled to write for the market, whether they like it or not, otherwise their work can not appear in print. The reason why the modern novel, with all its shortcomings, is the mirror of ideas on every conceivable topic in religious, educational, economic, and sociological thought, is because the vast majority of writers are at this moment compelled by the market to put their reflections into the form of novels, just as Marlowe and Chapman were forced to write plays. With one exception, the law of supply and demand determines the metrical shape of the poet's frenzy, and the prose mould of the philosopher's ideas.

The exception is so rare that it establishes the rule. The exception is Genius--next to radium the scarcest article on earth. And even Genius often follows the market--it takes the prevailing literary fashion, and adapts itself to the form in vogue in a more excellent way. Such genius--the Genius for Adaptation--never has to wait long for recognition, simply because it supplies a keen popular demand.

Such a genius was Shakespeare: such a genius was Pope: such a genius was Scott: such a genius was Byron: such a genius was Tennyson. But the true exception to the great economic law is seen in the Man of Original Genius, who cares not at all for the fashion except perhaps to destroy it. This man is outside the law of supply and demand, because he supplies no demand, and there exists no demand for him.

He therefore has to create the demand as well as the supply. Such a man in Music was Wagner: such a man in Drama was Ibsen: such a man in Poetry was Browning.

These three men were fortunate in all reaching the age of seventy, for had they died midway in their careers, even after accomplishing much of their best work, they would have died in obscurity. They had to wait long for recognition, because n.o.body was looking for them, n.o.body wanted them. There was no demand for Wagner's music--but there is now, and he made it. There was no demand for plays like those of Ibsen; and there was not the slightest demand for poetry like _Pauline_ and the _Dramatic Lyrics_. The reason why the public does not immediately recognise the greatness of a work of original genius, is because the public at first--if it notices the thing at all--apprehends not its greatness, but its strangeness. It is so unlike the thing the public is seeking, that it seems grotesque or absurd--many indeed declare that it is exactly the opposite of what it professes to be. Thus, many insisted that Ibsen's so-called dramas were not really plays: they were merely conversations on serious and unpleasant themes. In like manner, the critics said that Wagner, whatever he composed, did not compose music; for instead of making melodies, he made harsh and discordant sounds. For eighty years, many men of learning and culture have been loudly proclaiming that Browning, whatever he was, was not a poet; he was ingenious, he was thoughtful, a philosopher, if you like, but surely no poet. When _The Ring and the Book_ was published, a thoroughly respectable British critic wrote, "Music does not exist for him any more than for the deaf." On the other hand, the accomplished poet, musician, and critic, Sidney Lanier, remarked:

"Have you seen Browning's _The Ring and the Book_? I am confident that at the birth of this man, among all the good fairies who showered him with magnificent endowments, one bad one--as in the old tale--crept in by stealth and gave him a const.i.tutional twist i' the neck, whereby his windpipe became, and has ever since remained, a marvellous tortuous pa.s.sage. Out of this glottis-labyrinth his words won't, and can't, come straight. A hitch and a sharp crook in every sentence bring you up with a shock. But what a shock it is! Did you ever see a picture of a la.s.so, in the act of being flung? In a thousand coils and turns, inextricably crooked and involved and whirled, yet, if you mark the noose at the end, you see that it is directly in front of the bison's head, there, and is bound to catch him! That is the way Robert Browning catches you. The first sixty or seventy pages of _The Ring and the Book_ are altogether the most doleful reading, in point either of idea or of music, in the English language; and yet the monologue of Giuseppe Caponsacchi, that of Pompilia Comparini, and the two of Guido Franceschini, are unapproachable, in their kind, by any living or dead poet, _me judice_.

Here Browning's jerkiness comes in with inevitable effect. You get lightning glimpses--and, as one naturally expects from lightning, zigzag glimpses--into the intense night of the pa.s.sion of these souls.

It is entirely wonderful and without precedent." [1]

One of the most admirable things about Browning's admirable career as poet and man is that he wrote not to please the critics, as Tennyson often did, not to please the crowd, as the vast horde of ephemeral writers do, but to please himself. The critics and the crowd professed that they could not understand him; but he had no difficulty in understanding them. He knew exactly what they wanted, and declined to supply it. Instead of giving them what he thought they wanted, he gave them what he thought they needed. That ill.u.s.trates the difference between the literary caterer and the literary master. Some poets, critics, dramatists, and novelists are born to be followers of the public taste; they have their reward.

Only a few, and one at a time, are leaders. This is entirely as it should be, for, with followers, the more the merrier; with leaders it is quite otherwise.

In the case of a man of original genius, the first evidence of approaching fame is seen in the dust raised by contempt, scorn, ridicule, and various forms of angry resistance from those who will ultimately be converts. People resist him as they resist the Gospel.

He comes unto his own, and his own receive him not. The so-called reading public have the stupid cruelty of schoolboys, who will not tolerate on the part of any newcomer the slightest divergence in dress, manners, or conversation from the established standard.

Conformity is king; for schoolboys are the most conservative ma.s.s of inertia that can be found anywhere on earth. And they are thorough masters of ridicule--the most powerful weapon known to humanity. But as in schoolboy circles the ostracising laughter is sometimes a sign that a really original boy has made his appearance, so the unthinking opposition of the conventional army of readers is occasionally a proof that the new man has made a powerful impression which can not be shaken off.

[Footnote 1: Life of Sidney Lanier, by Professor Edwin Mims.]

This is what Browning did with his "la.s.so" style. It was suitably adapted to his purposes, and the public behaved somewhat like the buffalo. They writhed, kicked, struggled, plunged, and the greater the uproar, the more evident it was that they were caught. Shortly before his death, Professor F.J. Child, a scholar of international fame, told me angrily that Wagner was no musician at all; that he was a colossal fraud; that the growing enthusiasm for him was mere affectation, which would soon pa.s.s away. He spoke with extraordinary pa.s.sion. I wondered at his rage, but I understand it now. It was the rage of a king against the incoming and inexorable tide.

Nothing is more singular to contemplate than the variations in form of what the public calls melody, both in notation and in language.

What delights the ears of one generation distresses or wearies the ears of another. Elizabethan audiences listened with rapture to long harangues in bombastic blank verse: a modern audience can not endure this. The senses of Queen Anne Englishmen were charmed by what they called the melody of Pope's verse--by its even regularity and steady flow. To us Pope's verse is full of wit and cerebration, but we find the measure intolerably monotonous. Indeed, by a curious irony of fate, Pope, who regarded himself as a supreme poet, has since frequently been declared to be no poet at all. Keats wrote _Endymion_ in the heroic couplet--the very measure employed by Pope. But his use of it was so different that this poem would have seemed utterly lacking in melody to Augustan ears--Pope would have attempted to "versify" it. And yet we enjoy it. It seems ridiculous to say that the man who wrote _Der fliegende Hollander and Tannhauser_ could not write melody, and yet it was almost universally said. It seems strange that critics should have declared that the man who wrote _Love Among the Ruins_ could not write rhythmical verse, yet such was once almost the general opinion. Still, the rebellious instinct of the public that condemned Wagner in music and Browning in poetry was founded on something genuine; for Wagner was unlike other musicians, and Browning was unlike other poets.