Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 23

I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!

This chamber for example--turn your head-- All that's behind us! You don't understand Nor care to understand about my art, But you can hear at least when people speak: And that cartoon, the second from the door --It is the thing, Love! so such things should be-- Behold Madonna!--I am bold to say.

I can do with my pencil what I know, What I see, what at bottom of my heart I wish for, if I ever wish so deep-- Do easily, too--when I say, perfectly, I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge, Who listened to the Legate's talk last week, And just as much they used to say in France.

At any rate 'tis easy, all of it!

No sketches first, no studies, that's long past: I do what many dream of, all their lives, --Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, And fail in doing. I could count twenty such On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, Who strive--you don't know how the others strive To paint a little thing like that you smeared Carelessly pa.s.sing with your robes afloat,-- Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, (I know his name, no matter)--so much less!

Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.

There burns a truer light of G.o.d in them, In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.

Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, Though they come back and cannot tell the world.

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.

The sudden blood of these men! at a word-- Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.

I, painting from myself and to myself, Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?

Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!

I know both what I want and what might gain, And yet how profitless to know, to sigh "Had I been two, another and myself, Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.

Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth The Urbinate who died five years ago.

('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and through his art--for it gives way; That arm is wrongly put--and there again-- A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, He means right--that, a child may understand.

Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: But all the play, the insight and the stretch-- Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?

Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!

Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think-- More than I merit, yes, by many times.

But had you--oh, with the same perfect brow, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare-- Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged "G.o.d and the glory! never care for gain, The present by the future, what is that?

Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!

Rafael is waiting: up to G.o.d, all three!"

I might have done it for you. So it seems: Perhaps not. All is as G.o.d over-rules.

Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; The rest avail not. Why do I need you?

What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?

In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power-- And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, G.o.d, I conclude, compensates, punishes.

'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict, That I am something underrated here, Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.

I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.

The best is when they pa.s.s and look aside; But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.

Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time, And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!

I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, In that humane great monarch's golden look,-- One finger in his beard or twisted curl Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile, One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, I painting proudly with his breath on me, All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,-- And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, This in the background, waiting on my work, To crown the issue with a last reward!

A good time, was it not, my kingly days?

And had you not grown restless ... but I know-- "Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said; Too live the life grew, golden and not grey, And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.

How could it end in any other way?

You called me, and I came home to your heart.

The triumph was--to reach and stay there; since I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?

Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!

Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; The Roman's is the better when you pray, But still the other's Virgin was his wife--"

Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows My better fortune, I resolve to think.

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as G.o.d lives, Said one day Agnolo, his very self, To Rafael ... I have known it all these years ...

(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, Too lifted up in heart because of it) "Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how, Who, were he set to plan and execute As you are, p.r.i.c.ked on by your popes and kings, Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"

To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong.

I hardly dare ... yet, only you to see, Give the chalk here--quick, thus the line should go!

Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!

Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, (What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?

Do you forget already words like those?) If really there was such a chance, so lost,-- Is, whether you're--not grateful--but more pleased.

Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!

This hour has been an hour! Another smile?

If you would sit thus by me every night I should work better, do you comprehend?

I mean that I should earn more, give you more.

See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.

Come from the window, love,--come in, at last, Inside the melancholy little house We built to be so gay with. G.o.d is just.

King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, The walls become illumined, brick from brick Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, That gold of his I did cement them with!

Let us but love each other. Must you go?

That Cousin here again? he waits outside?

Must see you--you, and not with me? Those loans?

More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?

Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?

While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?

I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit The grey remainder of the evening out, Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly How I could paint, were I but back in France, One picture, just one more--the Virgin's face, Not yours this time! I want you at my side To hear them--that is, Michel Agnolo-- Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.

Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.

I take the subjects for his corridor, Finish the portrait out of hand--there, there, And throw him in another thing or two If he demurs; the whole should prove enough To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, What's better and what's all I care about, Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!

Love, does that please, you? Ah, but what does he, The Cousin! what does he to please you more?

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.

I regret little, I would change still less.

Since there my past life lies, why alter it?

The very wrong to Francis!--it is true I took his coin, was tempted and complied, And built this house and sinned, and all is said.

My father and my mother died of want.

Well, had I riches of my own? you see How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.

They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: And I have laboured somewhat in my time And not been paid profusely. Some good son Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try!

No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.

This must suffice me here. What would one have?

In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance-- Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me To cover--the three first without a wife, While I have mine! So--still they overcome Because there's still Lucrezia,--as I choose.

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

_Karshish_ and _Cleon_ are studies of the early days of Christianity. Each man writes a letter--one to a professor, one to a king--which reveals both his own nature and the steady advance of the kingdom of G.o.d. The contrast between the scientist and the man of letters is not favorable to the latter. Karshish is an ideal scientist, with a naturally skeptical mind, yet wide open, willing to learn from any and every source, thankful for every new fact; Cleon is an intellectual sn.o.b. His mind is closed by its own culture, and he regards it as absurd that any man in humble circ.u.mstances can teach him anything. Learning, which has made the scientist modest, has made Cleon arrogant. Such is the difference between the ideal man of science, and the typical man of culture.

Young Karshish was the best student in his department at the university; he has won a travelling fellowship, and writes letters home to Professor Abib, the Dean of the Graduate School. This is the twenty-second letter, and although we have not seen the others, we may easily conjecture their style and contents. They resemble Darwin's method of composition describing his tour around the world--one fact is noted accurately and then another. This particular letter is entrusted to a messenger who had the pink-eye; the young doctor easily cured him, and the man having no money, begged to give some service. He winks his eyes gladly in the strong sunlight which had hurt him so cruelly until the doctor came to his relief. Very well! he shall run with an epistle.

Karshish has met Lazarus: and it is significant of Browning's method that it is not the resurrection from the grave which interests him, nor what happened to Lazarus in the tomb; it is the profound spiritual change in the man. Lazarus does not act like a faker; he is not sensational, does not care whether you believe his story or not, is a thoroughly quiet, intelligent, sensible man. Only his conduct has ceased to be swayed by any selfish interest, and there is some tremendous force working in his life that puzzles the physician. It is amusing how the latter tries to shake off his obsession, how he tries to persuade himself that Lazarus had a prolonged epileptic fit, or that he is now mad; how he tries to interest himself once more in the fauna and flora of the country.

Impossible! the story of Lazarus dominates him.

His letter is naturally full of apologies for writing to the great Abib on such a theme. He is afraid Abib will be disgusted with him, will call him home, as a disgrace to the university he represents.

What! my favorite student, carefully trained in science, to swallow the story of the first madman or swindler he meets? A man raised from the dead? Such cases are diurnal. What would a modern professor think if one of his travelling fellows wrote home from South America that he had met a man raised from the dead, and was really impressed by his story? His fellowship would be instantly taken away from him.

He antic.i.p.ates Abib's suggestions. If you think there is really anything interesting in the yarn, why don't you seek out the magician who brought him back to life? Oh, naturally, I thought of that the first thing. But I discovered that the doctor who wrought the cure of Lazarus is dead, lost his life in some obscure tumult.

It is with the utmost difficulty that Karshish finally brings himself to write what will seem much worse even than the acceptance of the story of Lazarus. But something impels him to out with it.

Lazarus says--G.o.d forgive me for uttering such nonsensical blasphemy--that the doctor who cured him was no doctor at all--was ...

was ... was Almighty G.o.d Himself! He says G.o.d appeared on the earth in human form, that Lazarus knew Him personally, spoke with Him, ate meals with Him--and then suddenly in a revulsion of feeling at his daring to write such trash to Abib, he tries to force his mind back to report on scientific observations.

He thinks indeed he has ended his letter; when the stupendous idea of Jesus Christ rushes over his mind like a flood, and he adds a postscript. Would it not be wonderful, Professor, if Lazarus were right? If the Supreme Force we recognise were really a G.o.d of Love, who died to save us? The madman saith He said so: it is strange, ...

it is strange ...

And so we leave Karshish in a muse: but surely he is not far from the Kingdom of G.o.d.

As this poem indicates the manner in which Christianity in the early days spread from man to man, while many are amazed and many doubt, so _Cleon_ gives us the picture of the Gospel as carried over the world by Paul, Cleon in his own distinguished person sums up the last word of Greek culture, in its intellectual prowess, its serene beauty, its many-sided charm, and its total inability to save the world. Cleon is an absolute pessimist. He is sincere; such cant as the "choir invisible" means nothing to him, for death will turn his splendid mind into a pinch of dust. Death is far more horrible to poets and artists than to the ignorant, he a.s.sures the king, who had thought just the opposite: is it not dreadful to think that after my death people will be singing the songs that I have written, while all that remains of me is in a little urn? He does not deceive himself with phrases. Death is the end of us, and therefore self-consciousness is a mistake. The animals without it are happier and better than we. How terrible it is to think that a man like me who has developed steadily throughout my whole life should now face the blank wall of annihilation just when my mind is at its best, when my senses are most keen to profit by the richness and wonder of life! The thought that individual development is thus meaningless is so repugnant not merely to his heart's desire but to his mental sense of the fitness of things, that it has sometimes seemed as if there must be a future life where the soul can pursue its natural course ahead. But he dismisses this thought as impossible; for if there were a future life, I should be the first to know of it. It would certainly have been revealed to a splendid mind like mine. It is the mountain peak that catches the first flush of the dawn, not the valley: it is the topmost branch of the great tree that gets the first whisper of the coming breeze. It is a pity that Cleon had not heard the Gospel. I thank thee, O Father, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.