The Three Heron's Feathers Part 25

"To him who scorns their charities Their arms fly open wide."

But the parallelism somewhat halts. For mark: In the one case Napoleon's maxim is embodied, that G.o.d is on the side of the strongest battalions. The one who scorns the favoritisms and alms of Heaven, and yet, will he nill he, receives its aid, is really the strong G.o.d himself in mask, the n.o.ble and resolute man executing his will in time and s.p.a.ce. But in the case supposed in 'Rhea,' of husband and wife, the ones who scorn love are those not deserving of gifts at all (although Nature finds her account in them), but persons who receive gifts in charity from one altruistically n.o.bler than themselves. It is just this idea of sublime self-sacrifice that gives to 'Rhea' its strange subtlety and its uniqueness among poems on love. There is a consolatory under-thought in the palimpsest, too. By his ill.u.s.tration of the G.o.d and the mortal maid the poet wishes Rhea to divine that, if wives make moan over husbands' lost love, husbands no less often have reason to lament the cooled affection of wives.

The central idea in 'Uriel' is that there is no such thing as evil.

This thesis is put into the mouth of Uriel, one of the seven archangels, because he was the "interpreter" of G.o.d's will. So Milton says, in the _locus cla.s.sicus_ on Uriel in Book III of 'Paradise Lost.'

He also says he was

"The sharpest-sighted spirit of all in heav'n."

His station was in the all-viewing sun. Uriel, in Milton, tells how, when the universe was yet chaos,

"Or ever the wild Time coined itself Into calendar months and days,"

he saw the worlds a-forming,--earth, sun, and stars. Emerson (or "Sayd") takes Milton at his word, and leads us back into that dark backward and abysm of time, and lets us overhear a conversation between Uriel and the other seraphs. At his speech "the G.o.ds shook," because if there is no sin, if all comes round to good, even a lie, then good-bye G.o.ds, h.e.l.ls and heavens, and their punishments. But note that, though the All turns your wrong to good in the end, yet you, an individual, suffer for your wrongdoing.

In a genial paper in the _Andover Review_ for March, 1887, Dr. C. C.

Everett says that Dr. Hedge suggested to him that 'Uriel' probably took its origin in the discussions of the Boston a.s.sociation of Ministers on the theme (then rife), "There is no line in nature": all is circular, and by the law of reaction every deed returns upon the doer. At any rate, it was written in 1838, soon after his Divinity School Address.

('Emerson in Concord,' by Edward Emerson.)

The G.o.d of boundaries in ancient Rome--Terminus--gives his name to the cheeriest of monodies or anchoring songs sung by the gayest of old sailors on the sea of eternity, and at last approaching port. Terminus, like Hermes, the Greek G.o.d of bounds, was shown in his statues without hands or feet, to indicate that he never moved. Was Emerson a little rusty in his cla.s.sical lore, or did he boldly and knowingly defy cla.s.sical verities when he says the divinity came to him "in his fatal rounds"? He seems to have attributed to Terminus patrolling functions like those of his own New England village fence-viewers. Or, rather, speaking in n.o.ble and more adequate terms, has he not added to the world's mythologies a new and poetical deity,--the G.o.d of the bounds of human life, a kind of avant-courier or Death's dragoman to announce to men their approaching end? 'Terminus' was written about 1866, when Emerson was in or near his sixty-third year, and sixteen years before his death. _William Sloane Kennedy._

A DEFENCE OF BROWNING'S LATER WORK.

If a defence of Browning's work were to include all he has written since the date when Edmund Gosse said his books were chiefly valuable as keeping alive popular interest in the poet, and as leading fresh generations of readers to what he had already published, it would needs begin as far back as 1868; and considering the amount of work done since that time would require at least a volume to do the subject justice.

Fortunately it has long been admitted that Homer sometimes nods, though not with such awful effect as was said to attend the nods of Jove--Hence, in spite of Mr. Gosse's undoubted eminence as a critic, we may dare to a.s.sume that in this particular instance he fell into the ancient and distinguished trick of nodding.

If Mr. Gosse were right, it would practically put on a par with a mere advertising scheme many poems which have now become household favorites. Take, for example, 'Herve Riel.' Think of the blue-eyed Breton hero whom all the world has learned to love through Browning, tolerated as nothing more than an index finger to 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin!' Take, too, such poems, as 'Donald,' whose dastardly sportsmanship is so vividly portrayed that it has the power to arouse strong emotion in strong men, who have been known literally to break down in the middle of it through excess of feeling; 'Ivan Ivanovitch,'

in which is embodied such fear and horror that weak hearts cannot stand the strain of hearing it read; the story of the dog Tray who rescued a drowning doll with the same prompt.i.tude as he did a drowning child--at the relation of whose n.o.ble deeds the eyes of little children grow eager with excitement and sympathy. And where is there in any poet's work, a more vivid bit of tragedy than 'A Forgiveness!'

And would not an unfillable gap be left in the ranks of our friends of the imaginative world if Balaustion were blotted out? The exquisite lyric girl, brave, tender and with a mind in which wisdom and wit are fair playfellows.

As Carlyle might say, "Verily, verily Mr. Gosse, thou hast out-Homered Homer, and thy nod hath taken upon itself very much the semblance of a snore."

These and many others which might be mentioned as having appeared since the date when Mr. Gosse autocratically put up the bars to the poet's genius are now so universally accepted that any defence of them would be absurd.

There are again others whose tenure of fame is still hanging in the balance like 'The Red Cotton Night-cap Country,' 'The Inn Alb.u.m,'

'Aristophanes' Apology,' 'Fifine at the Fair'; but as they have had already some able defenders, I shall not attempt any defence of them further than to say, in pa.s.sing, that the longer I know them, and the more I read them, the more I am impressed with their masterly portrayal of human motives as they either reflect a given social environment or work contrary to it. Only a genius of the greatest power could have grasped and moulded into palpitating life beings of the calibre of the brilliant complex and illogical Aristophanes, or the dunderheaded, well meaning and equally illogical Miranda and set them to act out their little parts in a living historical environment--one in decadent Athens with her petty political and literary rivalries and dying religion; the other in ultramontane France where superst.i.tion and materialism were fighting for the mastery. Such art as is ill.u.s.trated in these poems on in 'Fifine at the Fair' or in 'The Inn Alb.u.m,' may not be of the kind to give one direct ideals for the conduct of life; but it represents the most splendid realism from which as from life itself deep moral lessons may be drawn. There is an actuality of realism in these poems of Browning's that puts into the shade, that of the great apostle of realism, Zola, for his realism too often presents what I venture to call obverse idealism--evil apotheosized, not evil struggling toward good as it invariably appears in life.

Among the poet's later works, 'Ferishtah's Fancies' and 'The Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their Day' have perhaps been more obscured by mists of non-appreciation than any others. I shall, therefore, confine myself for the present to making here and there a rift in these mists in the hope that some glimpses of the splendor of the giant form behind them may be gained.

Without particularizing either critics or criticism, it may be said that criticism of these poems divides itself into the usual three branches,--one which objects to their philosophy, one which objects to their art, one which finds them difficult of comprehension at all. This last criticism may easily be disposed of by admitting it as in part true. The mind whose highest reaches of poetic inspiration are ministered unto by such simple and easily understandable lyrics as 'Twinkle, twinkle little star' might not at once grasp the significance of the Parleying with George Bubb Dodington. Indeed, it may be surmised that some minds might sing upon the starry heights with Hegel and fathom the doctrine of the equivalence of being and non-being and yet be led into a slough of despond by this same cantankerous George.

But a poetical slough of despond may be transfigured in the twinkling of an eye--after a proper amount of study and hard thinking--into an elevated plateau with prospects upon every side, grand or terrible or smiling.

Are we never to feel spurred to any poetical pleasure more vigorous than dilly-dallying with Keats while we feast our eyes upon the wideness of the seas? Or lazily floating in a lotus land with Tennyson, say, among the meadows of the Musketaquid, in canoes with silken cushions? Beauty and peace is the reward of such poetical pleasures.

They fall upon the spirit like the "sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odor," but shall we never return from the land where it is always afternoon? Is it only in such a land as this that we realize the true power of emotion? Rather does it conduce to the slumber of emotion; for progress is the law of feeling as it is the law of life, and many times we feel,--yes--feel--with tremendous rushes of enthusiasm like climbing Matterhorns with great iron nails in our shoes, with historical and archaeological, and philosophical Alpen-stocks in our hands, and when we reach the summit what unsuspected beauties become ours.

Advancing a step more seriously into the subject, I may say that these two series of poems form the key-stone to Browning's whole work. They are like a final synthesis of the problems of existence which he has previously made a.n.a.lyses of from myriad points of view in his dramatic presentation of character. It has been said that in these poems his philosophy loses its intuitional and a.s.sured point of view, to become hard-headed and doubting. But does not a careful comparison with his early work disprove this a.s.sertion?

In his two early poems, 'Pauline' and 'Paracelsus,' before the poet's personality became merged in that of his characters, he presents us with his poetic creed and his theory of the universe in no mistakable terms. In 'Pauline' we get a direct glimpse of the poet's own artistic temperament, and may literally put our fingers upon those qualities which were to be a large influence in moulding his work.

As described by himself the poet of 'Pauline' was

"Made up of an intensest life Of a most clear idea of consciousness Of self, distinct from all its qualities, From all affections, pa.s.sions, feelings, powers; And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all: But linked in me to self-supremacy, Existing as a centre to all things, Most potent to create and rule and call Upon all things to minister to it."

This sense of an over-consciousness is the mark of an objective poet--one who sympathizes with all the emotions and aspirations of humanity,--interprets their actions through the light of this sympathy, and at the same time keeps his own individuality distinct. The poet of this poem discovers that he can no longer lose himself with enthusiasm in any phase of life; but what does that mean to a soul const.i.tuted as his? It means that the way has been cleared for the birth of that greater, broader love of the fully developed artist-soul which, while entering into sympathy with all phases of life, finds its true complement only in an ideal of absolute Love.

This picture of the artist aspiring toward the absolute by means of his large human sympathy may be supplemented by the theory of man's relation to the universe involved in 'Paracelsus' where it is shown that the Absolute cannot be fully realized by mankind either through knowledge or love. Aprile's doctrine has an element of fatalism in it.

He sees and loves G.o.d in imperfection, but does not seem to have much notion of progress. On the other hand, Paracelsus sees G.o.d only in perfected Mankind, until he is really made wise to know that

"Even hate is but a mask of love's To see a good in evil and a hope In ill success,"

and so is led to combine his own former standpoint with Aprile's by perceiving G.o.d and G.o.d's love in progress from lesser to ever greater good, and that evil and failure are the spurs that send man onwards to a future where joy climbs its heights "forever and forever."

From this point in his work Browning, like the Hindu Brahmah, becomes manifest not as himself, but in his creations. The poet whose portrait we get in 'Pauline' is the same poet who sympathetically presents a whole world of human experiences to us, keeping his own individuality for the most part intact, and the philosopher whose portrait is drawn in 'Paracelsus' is the same who interprets these human experiences in the light of the great life-theories therein presented.

But as the creations of Brahmah return into himself, so the human experiences Browning has entered into artistic sympathy with return to enrich his completed view of the problems of life, when like his own Rabbi Ben Ezra, he reaches the last of life for which "the first was planned" in these 'Fancies' and 'Parleyings'.

Though these two groups of poems undoubtedly express the poet's own mature conclusions, they yet preserve the dramatic form. Several things are gained in this way. First, the poems are saved from didacticism, for the poet expresses his opinion as an individual and not as a seer, trying to implant his theories in the minds of disciples. Second, variety is given and the mind is stimulated by having opposite points of view presented, while the thought is infused with a certain amount of emotional force through the heat of argument.

It has, of course, been objected that philosophical and ethical problems are not fit subjects for discussion in poetry. It should be remembered, however, that there is one point the critic of aesthetics has not yet learned to realize; namely, that the law of evolution is differentiation, in art as well as in cosmic, organic, and social life.

It is just as prejudiced and unforeseeing in these days to limit poetry to this or that subject, or say that nothing is dramatic that does not deal with immediate action, as it would have been for Homer to declare that no poem would ever be worthy the name that did not contain a catalogue of ships.

These facts exist! We have dramas dealing merely with action, dramas, in which character development is of prime importance; dramas, wherein action and character are entirely synchronous; and those in which the action means more than appears upon the surface, like Hauptmann's 'Sunken Bell,' or Ibsen's 'Master Builder,' then why not dramas of thought and dramas of mood when the brain and heart become the stage of action instead of an actual stage. Surely, such dramas are a natural development of this Nineteenth Century. As the man in 'Half Rome' says

"Facts are facts and lie not, and the question 'How came that purse i'

the poke o' you admits of no reply.'" Art has a great many forms of drama in its poke already, so we would better be careful how we make authoritative statements on the subject.

Another advantage, gained from the dramatic form and this is most important, is that the poet has been enabled by means of it to hold the mirror up to the turmoil of thought that has racked the brains and hearts of the last half of the Nineteenth Century. Victorian England in its thought phases lives just as surely in these poems as Renaissance Italy in its art phases in 'Fra Lippo Lippi,' 'Andrea del Sarto,'

'Pictor Ignotus' and 'The Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed's;' and this is true though the first series is cast in the form of Persian Fables and the second, in the form of Parleyings with worthies of past centuries.

We who have grown up under the dispensation, so to speak, of the doctrine of evolution, now acknowledged to be the guiding principle in every department of knowledge find it hard to enter into the spirit of that mid-century Sturm and Drang period which resulted upon the publication of Darwin's 'Origin of Species.' This book is the landmark of the century, and commemorates at once the triumph of knowledge, and its failure. The triumph of science in the realm of phenomena, its failure to pierce into the ultimate causes of these phenomena. What a hard fight scientific methods of investigating the phenomena of nature and life had had up to that time, in the teeth of opposition from the less instructed religious world, has been summarized for us in the fascinating pages of Andrew D. White's 'Warfare Between Theology and Science.' One by one, Science won the outposts held by prejudice and conservatism. It had to be admitted that the earth was not flat and that it did not float upon an infinite sea supported on the back of a tortoise. It had to be admitted, even, that it did not occupy the chief seat in the synagogue of the firmament, but went rolling about the sun like any common little asteroid. Finally, the great guns of science were trained upon man himself and he was forced to retire from his lofty position of Lord of Creation to the much more humble one of outcome of creation.

To a large proportion of mankind it seemed as if, should these things be admitted as truth, the whole fabric of society must fall to pieces and religion become a mockery. Those who felt so fought, as for their life, against the conclusions of science. There was a large minority, however, which, intellectually constrained to accept the conclusions of science, yet differed much in temperament and were by consequence, affected in very different ways by the new truths. There were men like Matthew Arnold who no longer believed in the revelations of the past, yet who clung to the beauty of religious forms, in despair at the thought of the wilderness life would be without them. There were others like George Eliot, who became positivists, and gained comfort only in the thought of a religion of humanity and an immortality of nothing more tangible than human influence. There were those like William Morris who accepted cheerfully this life as being all and who devoted their energies to making it as lovely as possible and working to make it more lovely for the future. There were still others, like Clifford, entirely hopeless, but who like Childe Roland put the slug horn to their lips, and lived brave, n.o.ble lives in the certainty of coming annihilation; a divine melancholy seized upon some, such as we see reflected in much of Tennyson's verse.

But there were a few who beheld the triumph of science undismayed, for they saw that her sway could not pa.s.s beyond the realm of phenomena, that the failure of the intellect to penetrate behind the mysteries of nature and life must be the saving of religion. Herbert Spencer is among scientists undoubtedly the greatest of this type of mind.

Whatever misunderstandings and vituperations he may have been subjected to, from the positivist who thinks him inconsistent for his religious tone to the religionist who dubs him an atheist, the fact still remains that his was the genius that stood out against the advancing flood of materialism saying "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther." He it was who declared that underlying phenomena was an Infinite power that transcended all human faculties of imagination, and that this fact was the most certain intuition of the human mind.

So great an upheaval of thought, changing, as it finally has, man's whole outlook upon the universe from one more or less static with fixed codes of morals and standards of art to one that is dynamic and progressive, brought in its wake the consideration of many ethical as well as philosophical problems.

Nothing bears upon the grounds of moral action more disastrously than blind fatalism, and while there have been many evil forms of this doctrine in the past there has probably been none worse than the modern form because it seems to have scientific sanction in the doctrines of the conservation of energy, the persistence of heredity and the survival of the fittest, and tends to positive atrophy of the will.

Even wise and thoughtful men now-a-days take such a philosophic view of events that they hesitate to throw in their voice on either side in the solution of a national problem because things are bound to follow the laws of development either way. This is equivalent to admitting that you are simply a heap of burnt out ashes in the furnace of life, and that you have no longer any part to play in the combustion that leads to progress. In the first of 'Ferishtah's Fancies,' a strong plea is made for those human impulses that lead to action. The will to serve the world is the true force from G.o.d. Every man, though he be the last link in a chain of causes over which he had no control, can at least have a determining influence upon the direction in which the next link shall be forged. Ferishtah appears upon the scene, himself, a fatalist, leaving himself wholly in G.o.d's hands until he is taught by the dream G.o.d sent him that man's part is to act as he saw the eagle act, succouring the helpless, not to play the part of the helpless birdlings who were taken care of. Another phase of the same thought is touched upon in 'A Camel Driver.' The discussion turns upon punishment and the point is, if, as Ferishtah declares, the sinner is not to be punished eternally, then why should man trouble himself to punish him. The answer amounts to this. Man must regard sin from the human point of view as something evil and to be got rid of and must, therefore, will to work for its annihilation. It follows then that the sinner should be punished as that is a means for teaching him to cease sinning.