Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 32

I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more.

The Marquise insists that her lover must be a man who has done something. He must not only be a man inspired by religious and patriotic motives, but must have actually suffered in her service.

He has received wounds in combat, he is pointed out everywhere as the man who has accomplished great deeds. I can not love him unless I can be proud of his record.

The Comtesse says that her ideal lover must love her first: he must love her more than he loves G.o.d, more than he loves his country, more than he loves his life--yes, more than he loves his own honor.

He must be willing, if necessary, not only to sacrifice his health and life in her behalf, indeed, any true knight would do that: he must be willing to sacrifice his good name, be false to his religion and a traitor to his country. What do I care whether he be a coward, a craven, a scoundrel, a hissing and a byword, so long as he loves me most of all?

This is a difficult position for the Abbe, the man of G.o.d: but he does not flinch. His decision is that the third lover is the one of whom Almighty G.o.d would approve.

One thing is certain: the third man really loved his Lady. We do not know whether the other two loved or not. When a man talks a great deal about his honor, his self-respect, it is just possible that he loves himself more than he loves any one else. But the man who would go through h.e.l.l to win a woman really loves that woman. Browning abhors selfishness. He detests a man who is kept from a certain course of action by thoughts of its possible results to his reputation. Ibsen has given us the standard example of what the first and second lover in this poem might sink to in a real moral crisis. In _A Doll's House_, the husband curses his wife because she has committed forgery, and his good name will suffer. She replied that she committed the crime to save his life--her motive was Love: and she had hoped that when the truth came out the miracle would happen: her husband would step forward and take the blame all on himself. "What fools you women are," said he, angrily: "you know nothing of business. I would work my fingers to the bone for you: I would give up my life for you: but you can't expect a man to sacrifice his _honor_ for a woman." Her retort is one of the greatest in literature. "Millions of women have done it."

WHICH?

1889

So, the three Court-ladies began Their trial of who judged best In esteeming the love of a man: Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed Boy-Cupid's exemplary catcher and cager; An Abbe crossed legs to decide on the wager.

First the d.u.c.h.esse: "Mine for me-- Who were it but G.o.d's for Him, And the King's for--who but he?

Both faithful and loyal, one grace more shall brim His cup with perfection: a lady's true lover, He holds--save his G.o.d and his king--none above her."

"I require"--outspoke the Marquise-- "Pure thoughts, ay, but also fine deeds: Play the paladin must he, to please My whim, and--to prove my knight's service exceeds Your saint's and your loyalist's praying and kneeling-- Show wounds, each wide mouth to my mercy appealing."

Then the Comtesse: "My choice be a wretch, Mere losel in body and soul, Thrice accurst! What care I, so he stretch Arms to me his sole saviour, love's ultimate goal, Out of earth and men's noise--names of 'infidel,' 'traitor,'

Cast up at him? Crown me, crown's adjudicator!"

And the Abbe uncrossed his legs, Took snuff, a reflective pinch, Broke silence: "The question begs Much pondering ere I p.r.o.nounce. Shall I flinch?

The love which to one and one only has reference Seems terribly like what perhaps gains G.o.d's preference."

VII

BROWNING'S OPTIMISM

Among all modern thinkers and writers, Browning is the foremost optimist. He has left not the slightest doubt on this point; his belief is stated over and over again, running like a vein of gold through all his poems from _Pauline_ to _Asolando_. The shattered man in _Pauline_ cries at the very last,

I believe in G.o.d and Truth and Love.

This staunch affirmation, "I believe!" is the common chord in Browning's music. His optimism is in striking contrast to the att.i.tude of his contemporaries, for the general tone of nineteenth century literature is pessimistic. Amidst the wails and lamentations of the poets, the clear, triumphant voice of Browning is refres.h.i.+ng even to those who are not convinced.

Browning suffered for his optimism. It is generally thought that the optimist must be shallow and superficial; whilst pessimism is a.s.sociated with profound and sincere thinking. Browning felt this criticism, and replied to it with a scriptural insult in his poem _At the Mermaid_. I cannot possibly be a great poet, he said sneeringly, because I have never said I longed for death; I have enjoyed life and loved it, and have never a.s.sumed a peevish att.i.tude.

In another poem he declared that pessimists were liars, because they really loved life while pretending it was all suffering.

It is only fair to Browning to remember that his optimism has a philosophical basis, and is the logical result of a firmly-held view of the universe. Many unthinking persons declare that Browning, with his jaunty good spirits, gets on their nerves; he dodges or leaps over the real obstacles in life, and thinks he has solved difficulties when he has only forgotten them. They miss in Browning the note of sorrow, of internal struggle, of despair; and insist that he has never accurately portrayed the real bitterness of the heart's sufferings. These critics have never read attentively Browning's first poem.

The poem _Pauline_ shows that Browning had his _Sturm und Drang_, in common with all thoughtful young men. Keats' immortal preface to _Endymion_ would be equally applicable to this youthful work.

"The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a s.p.a.ce of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages." The astonis.h.i.+ng thing is, that Browning emerged from the slough of despond at just the time when most young men are entering it. He not only climbed out, but set his face resolutely toward the Celestial City.

The poem _Pauline_ shows that young Browning pa.s.sed through skepticism, atheism, pessimism, cynicism, and that particularly dark state when the mind reacts on itself; when enthusiasms, high hopes, and true faith seem childish; when wit and mockery take the place of zeal, this diabolical subst.i.tution seeming for the moment to be an intellectual advance. But although he suffered from all these diseases of the soul, he quickly became convalescent and _Paracelsus_ proves that his cure was complete.

Browning's optimism is not based on any discount of the sufferings of life, nor any attempt to overlook such gross realities as sin and pain. No pessimist has realised these facts more keenly than he. The Pope, who is the poet's mouthpiece, calls the world a dread machinery of sin and sorrow. The world is full of sin and sorrow, but it is machinery--and machinery is meant to make something; in this instance the product is human character, which can not be made without obstacles, struggles, and torment. In _Reverie_, Browning goes even farther than this in his description of terrestrial existence.

Head praises, but heart refrains From loving's acknowledgment Whole losses outweigh half-gains: Earth's good is with evil blent: Good struggles but evil reigns.

Such an appraisal of life can hardly be called a blind and jaunty optimism.

Browning declares repeatedly that the world shows clearly two attributes of G.o.d: immense force and immense intelligence. We can not wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, however, merely because He is strong and wise; He must be better than we are to win our respect and homage. The third necessary attribute, Love, is not at all clear in the spectacle furnished by science and history. Where then shall we seek it? His answer is, in the revelation of G.o.d's love through Jesus Christ.

What lacks then of perfection fit for G.o.d But just the instance which this tale supplies Of love without a limit?

Browning's philosophy therefore is purely Christian. The love of G.o.d revealed in the Incarnation and in our own ethical natures--our imperfect souls containing here and now the possibilities of infinite development--makes Browning believe that this is G.o.d's world and we are G.o.d's children. He conceives of our life as an eternal one, our existence here being merely probation. No one has ever believed more rationally and more steadfastly in the future life than our poet; and his optimism is based solidly on this faith.

The man who believes in the future life, he seems to say, may enjoy whole-heartedly and enthusiastically the positive pleasures of this world, and may endure with a firm mind its evils and its terrible sufferings. Take Christianity out of Browning, and his whole philosophy, with its cheerful outlook, falls to the ground. Of all true English poets, he is the most definitely Christian, the most sure of his ground. He wrote out his own evangelical creed in _Christmas-Eve_ and _Easter Day_; but even if we did not have these definite a.s.surances, poems like _A Death in the Desert_ and _Gold Hair_ would be sufficient.

Sequels are usually failures: the sequel to _Saul_ is a notable exception to the rule. The first part of the poem, including the first nine stanzas, was published among the _Dramatic Romances_ in 1845: in 1855, among the _Men and Women_, appeared the whole work, containing ten additional stanzas. This sequel is fully up to the standard of the original in artistic beauty, and contains a quite new climax, of even greater intensity. The ninth stanza closes with the cry "King Saul!"--he represents the last word of physical manhood, the finest specimen on earth of the athlete. The eighteenth stanza closes with the cry "See the Christ stand!"--He represents the climax of all human history, the appearance on earth of G.o.d in man. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

No modern Pagan has ever sung the joy of life with more gusto than Browning trolls it out in the ninth stanza. The glorious play of the muscles, the rapture of the chase, the delight of the plunge into cold water, the delicious taste of food and wine, the unique sweetness of deep sleep. No shame attaches to earthly delights: let us rejoice in our health and strength, in exercise, recreation, eating and sleeping. Saul was a cowboy before he was a King; and young David in his music takes the great monarch back to the happy carefree days on the pasture, before the responsibilities of the crown had given him melancholia. The effect of music on patients suffering from nervous depression is as well known now as it was in Saul's day; Shakespeare knew something about it. His physicians are sometimes admirable; the great nervous specialist called in on Lady Macbeth's case is a model of wisdom and discretion: the specialist that Queen Cordelia summoned to prescribe for her father, after giving him trional, or something of that nature, was careful to have his return to consciousness accompanied by suitable music. Such terrible fits of melancholy as afflicted Saul were called in the Old Testament the visitations of an evil spirit; and there is no better diagnosis today. The Russian novelist Turgenev suffered exactly in the manner in which Browning describes Saul's sickness of heart: for several days he would remain in an absolute lethargy, like the king-serpent in his winter sleep. And, as in the case of Saul, music helped him more than medicine.

When David had carried the music to its fullest extent, the spirit of prophecy came upon him, as in the Messianic Psalms, and in the eighteenth stanza, he joyfully infers from the combination of man's love and man's weakness, that G.o.d's love is equal to G.o.d's power.

Man's will is powerless to change the world of atoms: from G.o.d's will stream the stars. Yet if man's will were equal in power to his benevolence, how quickly would I, David, restore Saul to happiness!

The fact that I love my King with such intensity, whilst I am powerless to change his condition, makes me believe in the coming of Him who shall have my wish to help humanity with the accompanying power. Man is contemptible in his strength, but divine in his ideals.

'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

The last stanza of the poem has been thought by some critics to be a mistake, worse than superfluous. For my part, I am very glad that Browning added it. Up to this point, we have had exhibited the effect of the music on Saul: now we see the effect on the man who produced it, David. While it is of course impossible even to imagine how a genius must feel immediately after releasing some immortal work that has swollen his heart, we can not help making conjectures. If we are so affected by _hearing_ the Ninth Symphony, what must have been the sensations of Beethoven at its birth? When Handel wrote the Hallelujah Chorus, he declared that he saw the heavens opened, and the Son of G.o.d sitting in glory, and I think he spoke the truth.

After Thackeray had written a certain pa.s.sage in _Vanity Fair_, he rushed wildly about the room, shouting "That's Genius!"

Now no man in the history of literature has been more reticent than Browning in describing his emotions after virtue had pa.s.sed out of him. He never talked about his poetry if he could help it; and the hundreds of people who met him casually met a fluent and pleasant conversationalist, who gave not the slightest sign of ever having been on the heights. We know, for example, that on the third day of January, 1852, Browning wrote in his Paris lodgings to the accompaniment of street omnibuses the wonderful poem _Childe Roland_: what a marvellous day that must have been in his spiritual life! In what a frenzy of poetic pa.s.sion must have pa.s.sed the hours when he saw those astounding visions, and heard the blast of the horn in the horrible sunset! He must have been inspired by the very demon of poetry. And yet, so far as we know, he never told any one about that day, nor left any written record either of that or any other of the great moments in his life. In _The Ring and the Book_, he tells us of the pa.s.sion, mystery and wonder that filled his soul on the night of the day when he had found the old yellow volume: but he has said nothing of his sensations when he wrote the speech of Pompilia.

This is why I am glad he added the last stanza to _Saul_. It purports to be a picture of David's drunken rapture, when, after the inspiration had flowed through his soul, he staggered home through the night. About him were angels, powers, unuttered, unseen, alive, aware. The whole earth was awakened, h.e.l.l loosed with her crews; the stars of night beat with emotion. David is Browning himself; and the poet is trying to tell us, in the only way possible to a man like Browning, how the floods of his own genius affected him. He gives a somewhat similar picture in _Abt Vogler_. It is not in the least surprising that he could not write or talk to his friends about such marvellous experiences. Can a man who has looked on the face of G.o.d, and dwelt in the heavenly places, talk about it to others?

Furthermore this nineteenth stanza of _Saul_ contains a picture of the dawn that has never been surpa.s.sed in poetry. Only those who have spent nights in the great woods can really understand it.

SAUL

1845-1855

I

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak, Kiss my cheek, wish me well!" Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek.

And he: "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent, Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent Thou return with the joyful a.s.surance the King liveth yet, Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a s.p.a.ce of three days, Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise, To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife, And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life."