Browning and Dogma Part 12

This is not the place to discuss the question of the probationary character of life and its educative purpose; it is sufficient to recognize that in Nature is discoverable no definite and final answer to the questionings of doubt. Hence, with Section VI, the second speaker s.h.i.+fts his ground; and admitting that this suggested "scientific faith," is impracticable, declares himself none the more prepared, therefore, to yield such faith as may yet be possible to him. All he would ask is that the greater probability may rest upon the side of that creed which he professes. His belief, such as it is, affords him satisfaction, and will continue, so he holds, sufficient for his needs until its "curtain is furled away by death." And he would at once meet the arguments which he sees his companion prepared to advance in favour of asceticism. To give up the world for Eternity is surely an act sufficiently easy of accomplishment, since the renunciation is daily effected for causes of small moment. Whilst the would-be Christian shrinks at prospect of the hards.h.i.+ps involved in self-denial, his worldly neighbour is adopting that self-same life of abstention that he may attain an object no more important than that of acquiring a record collection of beetles or of snuff-boxes. In short, in the speaker's own words, by subduing the demands of the flesh, he would be

Doing that alone, To gain a palm-branch and a throne, Which fifty people undertake To do, and gladly, for the sake Of giving a Semitic guess, Or playing p.a.w.ns at blindfold chess. (ll. 165-170.)

(4) The second speaker then, having declared himself satisfied with a minimum of evidence as to the truth of his creed, a balance, merely, in favour of its probability, there follows the scornful comment of the man who would take nothing upon trust, investigation of which is possible--

As is your sort of mind, So is your sort of search: you'll find What you desire, and that's to be A Christian. (ll. 173-176.)

To such a nature belief is easy where belief is desirable; the very reason which would hinder faith on the part of his opponent. The search made either for intellectual or emotional satisfaction will meet with equal result. Whether for historical confirmation of the Scriptural narrative, or in a philosophic attempt to adapt the Christian creed to the wants of the human heart. Where, indeed, this satisfaction is found for spiritual cravings, the intellectual may be disregarded; when

Faith plucks such substantial fruit

She little needs to look beyond. (ll. 190-192.)

So Bishop Blougram in a somewhat different connection--

If you desire faith--then you've faith enough: What else seeks G.o.d--nay, what else seek ourselves?

(_B. B. A._, ll. 634-635.)

In the concluding lines of Section VII and in Section VIII is presented the contrast between the two opposing views. On the one hand, that of the man who is glad to accept the Christian faith as that best calculated for his advantage both in this world and in that to which he looks in the future. On the other hand, the view of the man who will take nothing on trust, who is "ever a fighter," and who, having fought, and partially, though by no means wholly, vanquished his doubts, is prepared "to mount hardly to eternal life," at whatever cost of sacrifice and self-denial may be demanded of him. The criticism of the second speaker touching this proposed life of asceticism is that it is to be deprecated, not on account of the self-denial involved, but because such life ignores the bountiful provision of the Creator as evidenced in Nature. To abstain from the enjoyment of the gifts offered is an act of ingrat.i.tude towards the Provider. On the contrary, the Christian, whilst discerning love in every gift, should seek from his creed intensification rather than diminution of the joys of life: and in time of adversity when

Sorrows and privations take The place of joy,

the truths of Christianity shall throw upon the darkness the light of revelation, and

The thing that seems Mere misery, under human schemes, Becomes, regarded by the light Of love, as very near, or quite As good a gift as joy before. (ll. 216-221.)

(5) The arguments of this and the Section following are of special importance, since on them are based the charges of a too great asceticism which have been urged against the poem. Here, too, the dramatic element is more p.r.o.nounced than elsewhere. The life of ease, physical and spiritual, to the second speaker a source of supreme gratification and happiness, to the man of sterner mould presents itself as an impossibility. "The all-stupendous tale" of the Gospel leaves him "pale and heartstruck." The belief that the sufferings there recorded were undergone for the purpose of intensifying the joys of life and affording consolation for its ills, is to him an explanation so inadequate as to approach the verge of profanity. This being so he would demand of the advocate of the life of ease,

How do you counsel in the case?

The answer is characteristic:

I'd take, by all means, in your place, The _safe_ side, since it so appears: Deny myself, a few brief years, The natural pleasure. (ll. 267-271.)

That the eternal reward will outweigh the temporal suffering to the exclusion even of recollection, the testimony of the martyr of the catacombs affords ample proof.

For me, I have forgot it all. (l. 288.)

(6) _If_ this be so, then indeed there remains a direct and certain means of escape from sin, of fulfilment of the purposes of life--self-denial, renunciation. But, as the reply of Section X points out, the argument has been conducted in a circle, and the starting-point on the circ.u.mference has now been reached. The original statement has never been satisfactorily controverted. "How hard it is to be a Christian"; hard on account of the uncertainty bound to be attendant on all matters in which faith is requisite. It is hard to be a Christian since the difficulty but s.h.i.+fts its ground and is not actually removed by any venture of faith. After all argument, all reasoning, the possibility remains that the Christian's hope is a mistaken one; that death is not the gateway to fuller life but the annihilation of life; in short that the Christian has renounced life

For the sake Of death and nothing else. (ll. 296-297.)

In which case his gain is less than that of the worldling, since he has, at least, temporarily possessed the object towards the acquisition of which his self-denial was directed. Beetles and snuff-boxes may be but small gains, but gains they are to whomso desires them: and "gain is gain, however small." Nevertheless, in the spirit of Browning, the wrestler with his doubts would rather risk all for the vaguest spiritual hope, than rest satisfied with a life limited to material gratification: rather be the gra.s.shopper

That spends itself in leaps all day To reach the sun, (ll. 310-311.)

than the mole groping "amid its veritable muck." When Bishop Blougram makes the same decision--in favour of faith as opposed to scepticism--the motive he alleges is one which might well be ascribed to the second speaker of _Easter Day_. The choice is influenced, not by aspirations which refuse to be checked, but by considerations of prudence touching a possible future.

Doubt may be wrong--there's judgment, life to come!

With just that chance, I dare not [_i.e._ relinquish faith].

(ll. 477-478.)

The att.i.tude of the second speaker towards life generally recalls, indeed, not infrequently the professed opportunism of the Bishop. With Blougram also he fears the effects upon the stability of his faith of a critical investigation of its tenets. Hence, the reproach of Section XI, addressed to the first speaker, whose questionings threaten to disturb the earlier condition of "trusting ease." The reply of Section XII points out that, the eyes having been once opened, to close them wilfully, living in a determined reliance on hopes proved only too probably fallacious, is to adopt a pagan rather than a Christian conception of life.

II. Section XIII const.i.tutes the introduction to the second part of the poem in which is given the history of the revelation to which the narrator ascribes his realization of the momentous nature of the faith which he and his companion alike profess; and of the life which should be lived upon the lines of that faith. Vivid as the account of the Vision in _Christmas Eve_ is the description by the first speaker of the experiences of the night preceding the dawn of Easter Day, three years ago; when, into the midst of his reflections touching the possibility of a near approach of a Day of Judgment, there broke that tremendous conflagration marking the crisis when man shall awaken to realities from

That insane dream we take For waking now, because it seems. (ll. 480-481.)

And the portrayal of the Judgment which follows is, in character, just that which we should expect from the pen of the writer who held that "the development of a soul, little else is worth study." How far the conception is indeed Browning's own will be best considered in estimating the extent of the dramatic element--in Lecture VI. To trace the history of this particular soul awaiting judgment is our immediate object. In a position of personal isolation from his kind, face to face with his Creator, to that lonely soul "began the Judgment Day." The sentence from without was unnecessary to him who should pa.s.s judgment upon himself.

The intuition burned away All darkness from [his] spirit too; (ll. 550-551.)

and he recognized in that moment of revelation that, whatever the uncertainty of his position before "the utmost walls of time" should "tumble in" to "end the world," in that moment was no uncertainty; his choice of life was fixed irrevocably. Hitherto he had loved the world too well to relinquish its joys wholly, whilst yet looking for a time when the renunciation, in which he believed to discern the highest course, should become possible: when he would at last "reconcile those lips"

To letting the dear remnant pa.s.s ... some drops of earthly good Untasted! (ll. 583-585.)

In the light of that flash of intuition, it at once became clear that such an att.i.tude of compromise had meant, in fact, a decision in favour of the world; a choice of things temporal to the virtual exclusion of things eternal. That he, too, had been doing that which he to-night reproaches the Christian of placid a.s.surance for doing: he had been but using his faith "as a condiment" wherewith to "heighten the flavours" of life. The final issue being a.s.sured, the true relations of life and faith became manifest. The sentence of the voice beside him was unessential to the revelation

Life is done, Time ends, Eternity's begun, And thou art judged for evermore. (ll. 594-596.)

And yet "the shows of things" remain. No longer fire that

Would shrink And wither off the blasted face Of heaven, (ll. 524-526.)

but the common yet visible around, and the sky which above

Stretched drear and emptily of life. (l. 601.)

In that vast stillness of earth and heaven, judgment is as emphatically p.r.o.nounced as if read from "the opened book," in the presence of "the small and great," following "the rising of the quick and dead" which all prior conceptions of the Day of Judgment had led the spectator to antic.i.p.ate. But he whose sentence had been pa.s.sed was not of those whom

Bold and blind, Terror must burn the truth into. (ll. 659-660.)

For these, _their_ fate: such fate as the old Pope trusted should awaken the criminal Franceschini to a realization of the horror and brutality of a deed which he sought to justify to himself and to the world, as an act of self-defence. Sentence is there pa.s.sed in lines recalling, though with intensified force, the description of Section XV. Thus, the result of the papal reflections--

For the main criminal I have no hope Except in such a suddenness of fate.

I stood at Naples once, a night so dark I could have scarce conjectured there was earth Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all: But the night's black was burst through by a blaze-- Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, Through her whole length of mountain visible: There lay the city thick and plain with spires, And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.

So may the truth be flashed out by one blow, And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.[66]

No such violence of retribution is here necessary. To the more finely tempered nature another fate. The choice between flesh and spirit having been decided, henceforth for the flesh the things of the flesh; for the spirit those of the spirit. The line of demarcation remains unalterable.

For him who has chosen "the spirit's fugitive brief gleams," yearning for fuller light and life, for him shall those transitory gleams expand into complete and enduring radiance, and he shall "live indeed." For him who has but employed the spirit as an aid to the gratification of the flesh, using it to

Star the dome Of sky, that flesh may miss no peak, No nook of earth. (ll. 693-695.)

For him, as the inevitable outcome of the choice, shall the heaven of spirit be shut; the material world delivered over for the full gratification of the senses. No sudden revelation of terror, no judgment by fire, but the permission--

Glut Thy sense upon the world: 'tis thine For ever--take it. (ll. 697-699.)