Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 4

Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate?

When altogether old B. disappeared And young C. got his mistress,--was't our friend, His letter to the King, that did it all?

What paid the bloodless man for so much pains?

Our Lord the King has favourites manifold, And shifts his ministry some once a month; Our city gets new governors at whiles,-- But never word or sign, that I could hear, Notified to this man about the streets The King's approval of those letters conned The last thing duly at the dead of night.

Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord, Exhorting when none heard--"Beseech me not!

Too far above my people,--beneath me!

I set the watch,--how should the people know?

Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!"

Was some such understanding 'twixt the two?

I found no truth in one report at least-- That if you tracked him to his home, down lanes Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace, You found he ate his supper in a room Blazing with lights, four t.i.tians on the wall, And twenty naked girls to change his plate!

Poor man, he lived another kind of life In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge, Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise!

The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat, Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back, Playing a decent cribbage with his maid (Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheese And fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears, Or treat of radishes in April. Nine, Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he.

My father, like the man of sense he was, Would point him out to me a dozen times; "'St--'St," he'd whisper, "the Corregidor!"

I had been used to think that personage Was one with lacquered breeches, l.u.s.trous belt, And feathers like a forest in his hat, Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news, Announced the bull-fights, gave each church its turn, And memorized the miracle in vogue!

He had a great observance from us boys; We were in error; that was not the man.

I'd like now, yet had haply been afraid, To have just looked, when this man came to die, And seen who lined the clean gay garret-sides And stood about the neat low truckle-bed, With the heavenly manner of relieving guard.

Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief, Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death, Doing the King's work all the dim day long, In his old coat and up to knees in mud, Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust,-- And, now the day was won, relieved at once!

No further show or need for that old coat, You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the while How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I!

A second, and the angels alter that.

Well, I could never write a verse,--could you?

Let's to the Prado and make the most of time.

In common with all English poets--there is no exception--Browning loved nature. But he loved human nature so much more that when he contemplates natural objects he thinks of them _in terms of humanity_.

This is exactly contrary to the conventional method. Most poets and novelists describe human faces in terms of outdoor nature: the heroine has "stormy eyes," "rainy eyes," her face is swept by "gusts of pa.s.sion," and so on, _ad infinitum_. I do not say that Browning's is the better way; I say it is his way, because he was obsessed by humanity. To take instances only from his first poem:

Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter Crept aged from the earth, and spring's first breath Blew soft from the moist hills; the blackthorn boughs, So dark in the bare wood, when glistening In the sunshine were white with coming buds, Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks Had violets opening from sleep like eyes.

Autumn has come like Spring returned to us Won from her girlishness.

... the trees bend O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl.

So, when Spring comes With sunshine back again like an old smile.

I am to sing whilst ebbing day dies soft, As a lean scholar dies worn o'er his book, And in the heaven stars steal out one by one As hunted men steal to their mountain watch.

Browning's love for the dramatic was so intense that he carried it into every kind of poetry that he wrote. Various cla.s.ses of his works he called _Dramas, Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Romances, Dramatic Idyls, Dramatis Personae_. In one of her prefaces, Elizabeth Barrett had employed--for the first time in English literature, I think--the term _Dramatic Lyric_. This naturally appealed to Browning, and he gave the t.i.tle in 1842 to his first published collection of short poems. At first blush "dramatic lyric"

sounds like a contradiction in terms, like "non-mathematical algebra."

Drama is the most objective branch of poetry, and the lyric the most subjective: but Browning was so intent upon the chronicling of all stages of life that he carried the methods of the drama into the lyric form, of which _Meeting at Night_ may serve as an excellent example. Many of his short poems have the lyrical beauty of Sh.e.l.ley and Heine; but they all represent the soul of some historical or imaginary person.

At the very end of _The Ring and the Book_, Browning declared that human testimony was false, a statement that will be supported by any lawyer or judge of much court experience. Human testimony being worthless, there remains but one way for the poet to tell the truth about humanity, and that is through his art. The poet should use his skill not primarily with the idea of creating something beautiful, but with the main purpose of expressing the actual truth concerning human life and character. The highest art is the highest veracity, and this conforms to Browning's theory of poetry. This was his ideal, and by adhering to this he hoped to save his soul. Browning believed that by living up to our best capacity we attained unto salvation.

The man who hid his talent in the earth was really a lost soul. Like many truly great artists, Browning felt deeply the responsibility of his splendid endowment. In one of his letters to Miss Barrett, he said, "I must write poetry and save my soul." In the last lines of _The Ring and the Book_ we find this thought repeated:

So, British public, who may like me yet, (Marry and amen!) learn one lesson hence Of many which whatever lives should teach: This lesson, that our human speech is naught, Our human testimony false, our fame And human estimation words and wind.

Why take the artistic way to prove so much?

Because, it is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to minds like mine at least....

But Art,--wherein man nowise speaks to men, Only to mankind,--Art may tell a truth Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word.

So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, Beyond mere imagery on the wall,-- So, note by note, bring music from your mind, Deeper than ever e'en Beethoven dived,-- So write a book shall mean beyond the facts, Suffice the eye and save the soul beside.

And save the soul!

From first to last Browning understood the prevailing criticism of his poetry, directed against its so-called lack of musical rhythm.

He commented on it more than once. But he answered it always in the same way, in _Pippa Pa.s.ses_, in the last stanzas of _Pacchiarotto_, and in the _Epilogue_ to the same volume. He insisted that what the critics meant by melody was a childish jingle of rimes like Mother Goose. Referring to _Sordello_, he makes the Second Student in _Pippa Pa.s.ses_ remark, "Instead of cramp couplets, each like a knife in your entrails, he should write, says Bluphocks, both cla.s.sically and intelligibly.... One strip Cools your lip.... One bottle Clears your throttle." In _Pacchiarotto_, he calls to critics:

And, what with your rattling and tinkling, Who knows but you give me an inkling How music sounds, thanks to the jangle Of regular drum and triangle?

Whereby, tap-tap, c.h.i.n.k-c.h.i.n.k, 'tis proven I break rule as bad as Beethoven.

"That chord now--a groan or a grunt is't?

Schumann's self was no worse contrapuntist.

No ear! or if ear, so tough-gristled-- He thought that he sung while he whistled!"

Browning felt that there was at times a certain virtue in mere roughness: that there were ideas, which, if expressed in harsh phrase, would make a deeper impression, and so be longer remembered. The opening stanza of _The Twins_ was meant to emphasise this point:

Grand rough old Martin Luther Bloomed fables--flowers on furze, The better the uncouther: Do roses stick like burrs?

Such a theory may help to explain the powerful line in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_:

Irks care the cropfull bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Of course Browning's theory of poetry does not justify or explain all the unmusical pa.s.sages in his works. He felt, as every poet must, the difficulty of articulation--the disparity between his ideas and the verbal form he was able to give them. Browning had his trials in composition, and he placed in the mouth of the Pope his own ardent hope that in the next world there will be some means of communication better than language:

Expect nor question nor reply At what we figure as G.o.d's judgment bar!

None of this vile way by the barren words Which, more than any deed, characterise Man as made subject to a curse: no speech.

Over and over again, however, Browning declared that poetry should not be all sweetness. Flowers growing naturally here and there in a pasture are much more attractive than cut and gathered into a nosegay.

As Luther's long disquisitions are adorned with pretty fables, that bloom like flowers on furze, so, in the _Epilogue to Pacchiarotto_, Browning insisted that the wide fields of his verse are not without cowslips:

And, friends, beyond dispute I too have the cowslips dewy and dear.

Punctual as Springtide forth peep they: But I ought to pluck and impound them, eh?

Not let them alone, but deftly shear And shred and reduce to--what may suit Children, beyond dispute?

Now, there are many law-abiding and transparently honest persons who prefer anthologies to "works," who love to read tiny volumes prettily bound, called "Beauties of Ruskin," and who have subst.i.tuted for the out-of-fashion "Daily Food" books, painted bits of cardboard with sweet sayings culled from popular idols of the day, with which they embellish the walls of their offices and bedrooms, in the hope that they may hoist themselves into a more hallowed frame of mind. This is the cla.s.s--always with us, though more prosperous than the poor--who prefer a cut bouquet to the natural flowers in wood and meadow, and for whose comfort and convenience Browning declined to work. His poetry is too stiff for these readers, partly because they start with a preconceived notion of the function of poetry. Instead of being charmed, their first sensation is a shock. They honestly believe that the att.i.tude of the mind in apprehending poetry should be pa.s.sive, not active: is not the poet a public entertainer? Did we not buy the book with the expectation of receiving immediate pleasure?

The antic.i.p.ated delight of many persons when they open a volume of poems is almost physical, as it is when they settle themselves to hear certain kinds of music. They feel presumably as a comfortable cat does when her fur is fittingly stroked. The torture that many listeners suffered when they heard Wagner for the first time was not imaginary, it was real; "Oh, if somebody would only play a tune!" Yet Wagner converted thousands of these quondam sufferers, and conquered them without making any compromises. He simply enlarged their conception of what opera-music might mean. He gave them new sources of happiness without robbing them of the old. For my part, although I prefer Wagner's to all other operas, I keenly enjoy Mozart's _Don Giovanni_, Charpentier's _Louise_, Gounod's _Faust_, Strauss's _Salome_, Verdi's _Aida_, and I never miss an opportunity to hear Gilbert and Sullivan. Almost all famous operas have something good in them except the works of Meyerbeer.

We all have moods when the mind wishes to be lulled, soothed, charmed, hypnotised with agreeable melody, and in English literature we fortunately have many great poets who can perform this service.

That strain again! it had a dying fall.

Tennyson was a veritable magician, who charmed with his genius hundreds and thousands of people. No arduous mental effort is necessary for the enjoyment of his verse, which is one reason why he is and will remain a popular poet. Browning can not be taken in just that way, any more than a man completely exhausted with the day's work can enjoy _Siegfried_ or _Hedda Gabler_. Active, constant cerebration on the part of the listener or the reader is essential.

This excludes at once a considerable number to whom the effort of real thinking is as strange as it is oppressive. Browning is a stimulus, not a sedative; his poetry is like an electric current which naturally fails to affect those who are non-conductors of poetry. As one of my undergraduate students tersely expressed it, "Tennyson soothes our senses: Browning stimulates our thoughts."

Poetry is in some ways like medicine. Tennyson quiets the nerves: Browning is a tonic: some have found Thomson's _Seasons_ invaluable for insomnia: the poetry of Swift is an excellent emetic.

I do not quite understand the intense anger of many critics and readers over the eternal question of Browning's obscurity. They have been harping on this theme for eighty years and show no more sign of exhaustion than a dog barking in the night. Why do the heathen rage?

Why do they not let Browning alone, and read somebody they can understand? Browning is still gravely rebuked by many critics for having written _Sordello_. Over and over again we have been informed that the publication of this poem shattered his reputation for twenty-five years. Well, what of it? what difference does it make now?

He seems to have successfully survived it. This huge work, which William Sharp called "that colossal derelict upon the ocean of poetry,"

is destined to have an immortality all its own. From one point of view, we ought to be grateful for its publication. It has aroused inextinguishable laughter among the blessed G.o.ds. It is not witty in itself, but it is the cause of wit in many. Douglas Jerrold and Carlyle commented delightfully on it; even Tennyson succeeded for once in saying something funny. One critic called it a fine house in which the architect had forgotten to put any stairs. Another called it a huge boil in which all the impurities in Browning's system came to an impressive head, after which the patient, pure from poison, succeeded in writing the clear and beautiful _Pippa Pa.s.ses_. Besides innumerable parodies that have been forgotten, Browning's obscurity was the impenetrable flint that struck two mental flashes that belong to literature, Calverley's _c.o.c.k and the Bull_, and Swinburne's _John Jones_, a brilliant exposition of the perversities in that tedious poem, _James Lee's Wife_. Not long ago, a young man sat by the lamplight, studying a thick volume with evident discomfort.

To the friend who asked what he was doing, he replied, "I'm studying Browning."

"Why, no, you idiot, that isn't Browning: you are reading the index of first lines to the works of Wordsworth."