Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 27

She went out 'mid hooting and laughter; Clement Marot stayed; I followed after, And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?

If she wished not the rash deed's recalment?

"For I"--so I spoke--"am a poet: Human nature,--behoves that I know it!"

She told me, "Too long had I heard Of the deed proved alone by the word: For my love--what De Lorge would not dare!

With my scorn--what De Lorge could compare!

And the endless descriptions of death He would brave when my lip formed a breath, I must reckon as braved, or, of course, Doubt his word--and moreover, perforce, For such gifts as no lady could spurn, Must offer my love in return.

When I looked on your lion, it brought All the dangers at once to my thought, Encountered by all sorts of men, Before he was lodged in his den,-- From the poor slave whose club or bare hands Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands, With no King and no Court to applaud, By no shame, should he shrink, overawed, Yet to capture the creature made shift, That his rude boys might laugh at the gift, --To the page who last leaped o'er the fence Of the pit, on no greater pretence Than to get back the bonnet he dropped, Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.

So, wiser I judged it to make One trial what 'death for my sake'

Really meant, while the power was yet mine, Than to wait until time should define Such a phrase not so simply as I, Who took it to mean just 'to die.'

The blow a glove gives is but weak: Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?

But when the heart suffers a blow, Will the pain pa.s.s so soon, do you know?"

I looked, as away she was sweeping, And saw a youth eagerly keeping As close as he dared to the doorway.

No doubt that a n.o.ble should more weigh His life than befits a plebeian; And yet, had our brute been Nemean-- (I judge by a certain calm fervour The youth stepped with, forward to serve her) --He'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn If you whispered "Friend, what you'd get, first earn!"

And when, shortly after, she carried Her shame from the Court, and they married, To that marriage some happiness, maugre The voice of the Court, I dared augur.

For De Lorge, he made women with men vie, Those in wonder and praise, these in envy; And in short stood so plain a head taller That he wooed and won ... how do you call her?

The beauty, that rose in the sequel To the King's love, who loved her a week well.

And 'twas noticed he never would honour De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her) With the easy commission of stretching His legs in the service, and fetching His wife, from her chamber, those straying Sad gloves she was always mislaying, While the King took the closet to chat in,-- But of course this adventure came pat in.

And never the King told the story, How bringing a glove brought such glory, But the wife smiled--"His nerves are grown firmer: Mine he brings now and utters no murmur."

_Venienti occurrite morbo!_ With which moral I drop my theorbo.

Browning wrote two poems on pedantry; the former, in _Garden Fancies_, takes the conventional view. How can a man with any blood in him pore over miserable books, when life is so sweet? The other, _A Grammarian's Funeral_, is the apotheosis of the scholar. The paradox here is that Browning has made a hero out of what seems at first blush impossible material. It is easy to make a hero out of a n.o.ble character; it is equally easy to make a hero out of a thorough scoundrel, a train-robber, or a murderer. Milton made a splendid hero out of the Devil, But a hero out of a nincomp.o.o.p? A hero out of a dull, s.e.xless pedant?

But this is exactly what Browning has done, nay, he has made this grammarian exactly the same kind of hero as a dashing cavalry officer leading a forlorn hope.

Observe that Browning has purposely made his task as difficult as possible. Had the scholar been a great discoverer in science, a great master in philosophical thought, a great interpreter in literature--then we might all take off our hats: but this hero was a grammarian. He spent his life not on Greek drama or Greek philosophy, but on Greek Grammar. He is dead: his pupils carry his body up the mountain, as the native disciples of Stevenson carried their beloved Tusitala to the summit of the island peak. These students are not weeping; they sing and shout as they march, for they are carrying their idol on their shoulders. His life and his death were magnificent, an inspiration to all humanity. Hurrah! Hurrah!

The swinging movement of the young men is in exact accord with the splendid advance of the thought. They tell us the history of their Teacher from his youth to his last breath:

This is our master, famous calm and dead, Borne on our shoulders.

It is a common error to suppose that missionaries, nuns, and scholars follow their chosen callings because they are unfit for anything else. The judgment of the wise world is not always correct.

It a.s.sumes that these strange folk never hear the call of the blood.

When John C. Calhoun was a student at Yale, his comrades, returning at midnight from a wild time, found him at his books. "Why don't you come out, John, and be a man? You'll never be young again."

"I regard my work as more important," said John quietly. Milton's bitter cry

Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?

shows that it was not the absence of temptation, but a tremendously powerful will, that kept him at his desk. When a spineless milksop becomes a missionary, when a gawk sticks to his books, when an ugly woman becomes a nun, the world makes no objection; but when a socially prominent man goes in for missions or scholarship, when a lovely girl takes the veil, the wise world says, "Ah, what a pity!"

Browning's Grammarian did not take up scholarship as a last resort.

He could have done anything he liked.

He was a man born with thy face and throat, Lyric Apollo!

He might have been an athlete, a social leader, a man of pleasure.

He chose Greek Grammar. In the pursuit of this prize, he squandered his time and youth and health as recklessly as men squander these treasures on wine and women. When a young man throws away his youth and health in gambling, drink, and debauchery, the world expresses no surprise; he is known as a "splendid fellow," and is often much admired. But when a man spends all his gifts in scholarship, scientific discovery, or altruistic aims, he is regarded as an eccentric, lacking both blood and judgment.

I say that Browning has given his Grammarian not only courage and heroism, but the reckless, dashing, magnificent bravery of a cavalry leader. In the march for learning, this man lost his youth and health, and acquired painful diseases. Finally he comes to the end. When an officer in battle falls, and his friends bend over him to catch his last breath, he does not say, "I commend my soul to G.o.d," or "Give my love to my wife,"--he says, "_Did we win_?" and we applaud this pa.s.sion in the last agony. So our Grammarian, full of diseases, paralysed from the waist down, the death rattle in his throat--what does he say to the faithful watchers? What are his last words?

_He dictates Greek Grammar_.

The solitary student may be a paragon of courage, headstrong, reckless, tenacious as a bulldog, with a resolution entirely beyond the range of the children of this world.

SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS

1844

Plague take all your pedants, say I!

He who wrote what I hold in my hand, Centuries back was so good as to die, Leaving this rubbish to c.u.mber the land; This, that was a book in its time, Printed on paper and bound in leather, Last month in the white of a matin-prime, Just when the birds sang all together.

Into the garden I brought it to read, And under the arbute and laurustine Read it, so help me grace in my need, From t.i.tle-page to closing line.

Chapter on chapter did I count, As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge; Added up the mortal amount; And then proceeded to my revenge.

Yonder's a plum-tree with a crevice An owl would build in, were he but sage; For a lap of moss, like a fine pont-levis In a castle of the Middle Age, Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber; When he'd be private, there might he spend Hours alone in his lady's chamber: Into this crevice I dropped our friend.

Splash, went he, as under he ducked, --At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stagnate; Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate; Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf, Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis; Lay on the gra.s.s and forgot the oaf Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.

Now, this morning, betwixt the moss And gum that locked our friend in limbo, A spider had spun his web across, And sat in the midst with arms akimbo: So, I took pity, for learning's sake, And, _de profundis, accentibus laetis, Cantate_! quoth I, as I got a rake; And up I fished his delectable treatise.

Here you have it, dry in the sun, With all the binding all of a blister, And great blue spots where the ink has run, And reddish streaks that wink and glister O'er the page so beautifully yellow: Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks!

Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow?

Here's one stuck in his chapter six!

How did he like it when the live creatures Tickled and toused and browsed him all over, And worm, slug, eft, with serious features, Came in, each one, for his right of trover?

--When the water-beetle with great blind deaf face Made of her eggs the stately deposit, And the newt borrowed just so much of the preface As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet?

All that life and fun and romping, All that frisking and twisting and coupling, While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swamping And clasps were cracking and covers suppling!

As if you had carried sour John Knox To the play-house at Paris, Vienna or Munich, Fastened him into a front-row box, And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic.

Come, old martyr! What, torment enough is it?

Back to my room shall you take your sweet self.

Good-bye, mother-beetle; husband-eft, _sufficit_!

See the snug niche I have made on my shelf!

A's book shall prop you up, B's shall cover you, Here's C to be grave with, or D to be gay, And with E on each side, and F right over you, Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day!

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL