Chapter 8

"Ay, still my fragments wander, music-fraught,Sighs of the soul, mine once, mine now, and mineFor ever! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct,Alive with tremors in the shaggy growthOf wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs thereImparting exultation to the hills!Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walkAnd waft my words above the grassy seaUnder the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome—Hear ye not still—'Be Italy again?'And ye, what strikes the panic to your heart?Decrepit council-chambers,—where some lampDrives the unbroken black three paces offFrom where the greybeards huddle in debate,Dim cowls and capes, and midmost glimmers oneLike tarnished gold, and what they say is doubt,And what they think is fear, and what suspendsThe breath in them is not the plaster-patchTime disengages from the painted wallWhere Rafael moulderingly bids adieu,Nor tick of the insect turning tapestryTo dust, which a queen's finger traced of old;But some word, resonant, redoubtable,Of who once felt upon his head a handWhereof the head now apprehends his foot."

"Ay, still my fragments wander, music-fraught,

Sighs of the soul, mine once, mine now, and mine

For ever! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct,

Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth

Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there

Imparting exultation to the hills!

Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walk

And waft my words above the grassy sea

Under the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome—

Hear ye not still—'Be Italy again?'

And ye, what strikes the panic to your heart?

Decrepit council-chambers,—where some lamp

Drives the unbroken black three paces off

From where the greybeards huddle in debate,

Dim cowls and capes, and midmost glimmers one

Like tarnished gold, and what they say is doubt,

And what they think is fear, and what suspends

The breath in them is not the plaster-patch

Time disengages from the painted wall

Where Rafael moulderingly bids adieu,

Nor tick of the insect turning tapestry

To dust, which a queen's finger traced of old;

But some word, resonant, redoubtable,

Of who once felt upon his head a hand

Whereof the head now apprehends his foot."

FOOTNOTES:

[44]

The nameHohenstiel-Schwangauis formed from Hohen Schwangau, one of the castles of the late king of Bavaria.

[45]

James Thomson onThe Ring and the Book.

[46]

I find in a letter of Browning, which Mrs Orr has printed in herLife and Letters of Browning(1891), a reference to "what the editor of theEdinburghcalls my eulogium on the Second Empire—which it is not, any more than what another wiseacre affirms it to be—'a scandalous attack on the old constant friend of England'—it is just what I imagine the man might, if he pleased, say for himself."

20. FIFINE AT THE FAIR.

[Published in 1872 (Poetical Works, Vol. XI. pp. 211-343).]

Fifine at the Fairis a monologue at once dramatic and philosophical. Its arguments, like those ofPrince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, are part truth, part sophistry. The poem is prefaced by a motto from Molière'sDon Juan, in which Donna Elvira suggests to her husband, with a bitter irony, the defence he ought to make for himself. Don Juan did not take the hint. Browning has done so. The genesis of the poem and the special form it has assumed are further explained by the following passage from Mrs. Orr:—

"Mr. Browning was, with his family, at Pornic, many years ago, and there saw the gypsy who is the original of Fifine. His fancy was evidently set roaming by her audacity, her strength—the contrast which she presented to the more spiritual types of womanhood; and this contrast eventually found expression in a poetic theory of life, in which theseopposite types and their corresponding modes of attraction became the necessary complement of each other. As he laid down the theory, Mr. Browning would be speaking in his own person. But he would turn into someone else in the act of working it out—for it insensibly carried with it a plea for yielding to those opposite attractions, not only successively, but at the same time; and a modified Don Juan would grow up under his pen."[47]

This modified Don Juan is the spokesman of the poem: not the "splendid devil" of Tirso de Molina, but a modern gentleman, living at Pornic, a refined, cultured, musical, artistic and philosophical person, "of high attainments, lofty aspirations, strong emotions, and capricious will." Strolling through the fair with his wife, he expatiates on the charm of a Bohemian existence, and, more particularly, on the charms of one Fifine, a rope-dancer, whose performance he has witnessed. Urged by the troubled look of his wife, he launches forth into an elaborate defence of inconstancy in love, and consequently of the character of his admiration for Fifine.

He starts by arguing:—

"That bodies show me minds,That, through the outward sign, the inward grace allures,And sparks from heaven transpierce earth's coarsest covertures,—All by demonstrating the value of Fifine!"

"That bodies show me minds,

That, through the outward sign, the inward grace allures,

And sparks from heaven transpierce earth's coarsest covertures,—

All by demonstrating the value of Fifine!"

He then applies his method to the whole of earthly life, finally resolving it into the principle:—

"All's change, but permanence as well.Truth inside, and outside, truth also; and betweenEach, falsehood that is change, as truth is permanence.The individual soul works through the shows of sense,(Which, ever proving false, still promise to be true)Up to an outer soul as individual too;And, through the fleeting, lives to die into the fixed,And reach at length 'God, man, or both together mixed.'"

"All's change, but permanence as well.

Truth inside, and outside, truth also; and betweenEach, falsehood that is change, as truth is permanence.The individual soul works through the shows of sense,(Which, ever proving false, still promise to be true)Up to an outer soul as individual too;And, through the fleeting, lives to die into the fixed,And reach at length 'God, man, or both together mixed.'"

Truth inside, and outside, truth also; and between

Each, falsehood that is change, as truth is permanence.

The individual soul works through the shows of sense,

(Which, ever proving false, still promise to be true)

Up to an outer soul as individual too;

And, through the fleeting, lives to die into the fixed,

And reach at length 'God, man, or both together mixed.'"

Last of all, just as his speculations have come to an end in an earnest profession of entire love to his wife, and they pause for a moment on the threshold of the villa, he receives a note from Fifine.

"Oh, threaten no farewell! five minutes shall sufficeTo clear the matter up. I go, and in a triceReturn; five minutes past, expect me! If in vain—Why, slip from flesh and blood, and play the ghost again!"

"Oh, threaten no farewell! five minutes shall suffice

To clear the matter up. I go, and in a trice

Return; five minutes past, expect me! If in vain—

Why, slip from flesh and blood, and play the ghost again!"

He exceeds the allotted five minutes. Elvire takes him at his word; and, as we seem to be told in the epilogue, husband and wife are reconciled only in death.

Such is the barest outline of the structure and purport of the poem. But no outline can convey much notion of the wide range, profound significance and infinite ingenuity of the arguments; of the splendour and vigour of the poetry; or of the subtle consistency and exquisite truth of the character-painting. Small in amount as is this last in proportion to the philosophy, it is of very notable kind and quality. Not only the speaker, but Fifine, and still more Elvire, are quickened into life by graphic and delicate touches. If we except Lucrezia inAndrea del Sarto, in no other monologue is the presence and personality of the silent or seldom-speaking listener so vividly felt. We see the wronged wife Elvire, we know her, and we trace the very progress of her moods, the very changes in her face, as she listens to the fluent talk of her husband. Don Juan (if we may so call him)is a distinct addition to Browning's portrait-gallery. Let no one suppose him to be a mere mouthpiece for dialectical disquisitions. He is this certainly, but his utterances are tinged with individual colour. This fact which, from the artistic point of view, is an inestimable advantage, is apt to prove, as in the case of Prince Hohenstiel, somewhat of a practical difficulty. "The clearest way of showing where he uses (1) Truth, (2) Sophism, (3) a mixture of both—is to say that wherever he speaks of Fifine (whether as type or not) in relation to himself and his own desire for truth, or right living with his wife, he is sophistical: wherever he speaks directly of his wife's value to him he speaks truth with an alloy of sophism; and wherever he speaks impersonally he speaks the truth.[48]" Keeping this in mind, we can easily separate the grain from the chaff; and the grain is emphatically worth storing. Perhaps no poem of Browning's contains so much deep and acute comment on life and conduct: few, such superabounding wealth of thought and imagery. Browning is famed for his elaborate and original similes; but I doubt if he has conceived any with more originality, or worked them out with richer elaboration, than those of the Swimmer, of the Carnival, of the Druid Monument, of Fifine herself. Nor has he often written more original poetry than some of the more passionate or imaginative passages of the poem. The following lines, describing an imaginary face representing Horror, have all the vivid sharpness of an actual vision or revelation:—

"Observe how brow recedes,Head shudders back on spine, as if one haled the hair,Would have the full-face front what pin-point eye's sharp stareAnnounces; mouth agape to drink the flowing fate,While chin protrudes to meet the burst o' the wave; elateAlmost, spurred on to brave necessity, expendAll life left, in one flash, as fire does at its end."

"Observe how brow recedes,

Head shudders back on spine, as if one haled the hair,

Would have the full-face front what pin-point eye's sharp stare

Announces; mouth agape to drink the flowing fate,

While chin protrudes to meet the burst o' the wave; elate

Almost, spurred on to brave necessity, expend

All life left, in one flash, as fire does at its end."

Just as good in a different style, is this quaint and quiet landscape:—

"For, arm in arm, we two have reached, nay, passed, you see,The village-precinct; sun sets mild on Saint-Marie—We only catch the spire, and yet I seem to knowWhat's hid i' the turn o' the hill: how all the graves must glowSoberly, as each warms its little iron cross,Flourished about with gold, and graced (if private lossBe fresh) with stiff rope-wreath of yellow, crisp bead-bloomsWhich tempt down birds to pay their supper, mid the tombs,With prattle good as song, amuse the dead awhile,If couched they hear beneath the matted camomile."

"For, arm in arm, we two have reached, nay, passed, you see,

The village-precinct; sun sets mild on Saint-Marie—

We only catch the spire, and yet I seem to know

What's hid i' the turn o' the hill: how all the graves must glow

Soberly, as each warms its little iron cross,

Flourished about with gold, and graced (if private loss

Be fresh) with stiff rope-wreath of yellow, crisp bead-blooms

Which tempt down birds to pay their supper, mid the tombs,

With prattle good as song, amuse the dead awhile,

If couched they hear beneath the matted camomile."

The poem is written in Alexandrine couplets, and is, I believe, the only English poem of any length written in this metre since Drayton'sPolyolbion. Browning's metre has scarcely the flexibility of the best French verse, but he allows himself occasionally two licenses not used in French since the time of Marot: (1) the addition of an unaccented syllable at the end of the first half of the verse, as:—

"'Twas not for every Gawain to gaze upon the Grail!"—

(2) the addition of two syllables, making seven instead of six beats.

"What good were else i' the drum and fife? O pleasant land of France!"

FOOTNOTES:

[47]

Handbook, p. 148.

[48]

J.T. Nettleship on "Fifine at the Fair" (Browning Society's Papers, Part II. p. 223). Mr. Nettleship's elaborate analysis of the poem is a most helpful and admirable piece of work.

21. RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY; OR, TURF AND TOWERS.

[Published in 1873 (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol XII. pp. 1-177).]

Red Cotton Night-Cap Countryis a story of real life, true in all its facts, and studied at the place where it had occurred a few years before: St. Aubin, in Normandy (the St. Rambert of the poem). It is the story of the life of Antoine Mellerio, the Paris jeweller, whose tragic death occurred at St. Aubin on the 13th April 1870. A suit concerning his will, decided only in the summer of 1872, supplied Browning with the materials of his tragedy. In the first proof of the poem the real names of persons and places were given; but they were changed before publication, and are now in every case fictitious. The second edition of Mrs. Orr'sHandbookcontains a list of the real names, which I subjoin.[49]

The book is dedicated to Miss Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie), and the whole story is supposed to be told to her (as in substance it was) by Browning, who has thus given to the poem a tone of pleasant colloquialism. Told as it is, it becomes in part a dramatic monologue of which thedramatis personais Robert Browning. It is full of quiet, sometimes grim, humour; of picturesque and witty touches; of pungency and irony. Its manner, the humorous telling of a tragic tale, is a little after the pattern of Carlyle. In such a setting the tragic episodes, sometimes all but heroic, sometimes almost grotesque, have all the impressiveness of contrast.

The story itself, in the main, is a sordid enough tragedy: like several of Browning's later books, it is a study in evil. The two characters who fill the stage of this little history are tragic comedians; they, too, are "real creatures, exquisitely fantastical, strangely exposed to the world by a lurid catastrophe, who teach us that fiction, if it can imagine events and persons more agreeable to the taste it has educated, can read us no such furrowing lesson in life." The character of Miranda, the sinner who would reconcile sin with salvation, is drawn with special subtlety; analysed, dissected rather, with the unerring scalpel of the experienced operator.Miranda is swayed through life by two opposing tendencies, for he is of mixed Castilian and French blood. He is mastered at once by two passions, earthly and religious, illicit love and Catholic devotion: he cannot let go the one and he will not let go the other; he would enjoy himself on the "Turf" without abandoning the shelter of the "Towers." His life is spent in trying to effect a compromise between the two antagonistic powers which finally pull down his house of life. Clara, his mistress-wife, is a mirror of himself; she humours him, manages him, perhaps on his own lines of inclination.

"'But—loved him?' Friend, I do not praise her love!True love works never for the loved one so,Nor spares skin-surface, smoothening truth away,Love bids touch truth, endure truth, and embraceTruth, though, embracing truth, love crush itself.'Worship not me, but God!' the angels urge!"

"'But—loved him?' Friend, I do not praise her love!

True love works never for the loved one so,

Nor spares skin-surface, smoothening truth away,

Love bids touch truth, endure truth, and embrace

Truth, though, embracing truth, love crush itself.

'Worship not me, but God!' the angels urge!"

This man and woman are analysed with exquisite skill; but they are not in the strict sense inventions, creations: we understand rather than see them. Only towards the end, where the facts leave freer play for the poetic impulse, do they rise into sharp vividness of dramatic life and speech. Nothing in the poem equals in intensity the great soliloquy of Miranda before his strange and suicidal leap, and the speech of Clara to the "Cousinry." Here we pass at a bound from chronicling to creation. As a narrative,Red Cotton Night-Cap Countryhas all the interest of a novel, with the concentration and higher pitch of poetry. Less ingenious and philosophical thanPrince Hohenstiel-SchwangauandFifine at the Fair, it is far more intimately human, more closelyconcerned with "man's thoughts and loves and hates," with the manifestations of his eager and uneasy spirit, in strange shapes, on miry roads, in dubious twilights. Of all Browning's works it is perhaps the easiest to read; no tale could be more straightforward, no language more lucid, no verse more free from harshness or irregularity, The versification, indeed, is exceptionally smooth and measured, seldom rising into strong passion, but never running into volubility. Here and there are short passages, which I can scarcely detach for quotation, with a singular charm of vague remote music. The final summary of Clara and Miranda, excellent and convenient alike, may be severed without much damage from the context.

"Clara, I hold the happier specimen,—It may be, through that artist-preferenceFor work complete, inferiorly proposed,To incompletion, though it aim aright.Morally, no! Aspire, break bounds! I say,Endeavour to be good, and better still,And best! Success is nought, endeavour's all.But intellect adjusts the means to ends,Tries the low thing, and leaves it done, at least;No prejudice to high thing, intellectWould do and will do, only give the means.Miranda, in my picture-gallery,Presents a Blake; be Clara—Meissonnier!Merely considered so, by artist, mind!For, break through Art and rise to poetry,Bring Art to tremble nearer, touch enoughThe verge of vastness to inform our soulWhat orb makes transit through the dark above,And there's the triumph!—there the incomplete,More than completion, matches the immense,—Then, Michelagnolo against the world!"

"Clara, I hold the happier specimen,—

It may be, through that artist-preference

For work complete, inferiorly proposed,

To incompletion, though it aim aright.

Morally, no! Aspire, break bounds! I say,

Endeavour to be good, and better still,

And best! Success is nought, endeavour's all.

But intellect adjusts the means to ends,

Tries the low thing, and leaves it done, at least;

No prejudice to high thing, intellect

Would do and will do, only give the means.

Miranda, in my picture-gallery,

Presents a Blake; be Clara—Meissonnier!

Merely considered so, by artist, mind!

For, break through Art and rise to poetry,

Bring Art to tremble nearer, touch enough

The verge of vastness to inform our soul

What orb makes transit through the dark above,

And there's the triumph!—there the incomplete,

More than completion, matches the immense,—

Then, Michelagnolo against the world!"

FOOTNOTES:

[49]

Page 2.The Firm Miranda—Mellerio Brothers. Page 4.St. Rambert—St Aubin;Joyeux, Joyous Gard—Lion, Lionesse. Page 6.Vire—Caen. Page 25.St. Rambertese—St. Aubinese. Page 29.Londres—Douvres;London—Dover;La Roche—Courcelle;Monlieu—Bernières;Villeneuve—Langrune;Pons—Luc;La Ravissante—La Délivrande. Page 33.Raimbaux—Bayeux. Page 34.Morillon—Hugonin;Mirecourt—Bonnechose;Miranda—Mellerio. Page 35.New York—Madrid. Page 41.Clairvaux—Tailleville. Page 42.Madrilene—Turinese. Page 43.Gonthier—Bény;Rousseau—Voltaire;Léonce—Antoine. Page 52.Of "Firm Miranda, London and New York"—"Mellerio Brothers"—Meller, people say. Page 79.Rare Vissante—Del Yvrande;Aldabert—Regnobert. Page 80.Eldobert—Ragnebert;Mailleville—Beaudoin. Page 81.Chaumont—Quelen;Vertgalant—Talleyrand. Page 89.Ravissantish—Délivrandish. Page 101.Clara de Millefleurs—Anna de Beaupré;Coliseum Street—Miromesnil Street. Page 110.Steiner—Mayer;Commercy—Larocy;Sierck—Metz. Page 111.Muhlhausen—Debacker. Page 112,Carlino Centofanti—Miranda di Mongino. Page 121.Portugal—Italy. Page 125. "Gustave"—"Alfred." Page 135.Vaillant—Mériel. Page 149.Thirty-three—Twenty-five. 152.Beaumont—Pasquier. Page 167.Sceaux—Garges. Page 203.Luc de la Maison Rouge—Jean de la Becquetière;Claise—Vire;Maude—Anne. Page 204.Dionysius—Eliezer;Scolastica—Elizabeth. Page 214.Twentieth—Thirteenth. Page 241.Fricquot—"Picot."—Mrs. Orr'sHandbook, Second Edition, pp. 261-2.

22. ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY: including a Transcript from Euripides; being the Last Adventure of Balaustion.

[Published in April, 1875. (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol. XIII. pp. 1-258).]

Aristophanes' Apology, as its sub-title indicates, is a kind of sequel toBalaustion's Adventure. It is the record, in Balaustion's words, of an adventure which happened to her after her marriage with Euthukles. On the day when the news of Euripides' death reached Athens, as Balaustion and her husband were sitting at home, toward nightfall, Aristophanes, coming home with his revellers from the banquet which followed his triumph in the play ofThesmophoriazousai, burst in upon them.

"There stood in person Aristophanes.And no ignoble presence! On the bulgeOf the clear baldness,—all his head one brow,—True, the veins swelled, blue net-work, and there surgedA red from cheek to temple, then retiredAs if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame,—Was never nursed by temperance or health.But huge the eyeballs rolled black native fire,Imperiously triumphant: nostrils wideWaited their incense; while the pursed mouth's poutAggressive, while the beak supreme above,While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back,Beard whitening under like a vinous foam,These made a glory, of such insolence—I thought,—such domineering deityHephaistos might have carved to cut the brineFor his gay brother's prow, imbrue that pathWhich, purpling, recognized the conqueror.Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps,But that's religion; sense too plainly snuffed:Still, sensuality was grown a rite."

"There stood in person Aristophanes.

And no ignoble presence! On the bulge

Of the clear baldness,—all his head one brow,—

True, the veins swelled, blue net-work, and there surged

A red from cheek to temple, then retired

As if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame,—

Was never nursed by temperance or health.

But huge the eyeballs rolled black native fire,

Imperiously triumphant: nostrils wide

Waited their incense; while the pursed mouth's pout

Aggressive, while the beak supreme above,

While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back,

Beard whitening under like a vinous foam,

These made a glory, of such insolence—

I thought,—such domineering deity

Hephaistos might have carved to cut the brine

For his gay brother's prow, imbrue that path

Which, purpling, recognized the conqueror.

Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps,

But that's religion; sense too plainly snuffed:

Still, sensuality was grown a rite."

He, too, has just heard of Euripides' death, and an impulse, part sympathy, part mockery, has brought him to the "house friendly to Euripides." The revellers retire abashed before Balaustion; he alone remains. From the extraordinary and only too natural gabble and garbage of his opening words, he quickly passes to a more or less serious explanation and defence of his conduct toward the dead poet; to an exposition, in fact, of his aims and doings as a writer of comedy. When his "apology" is ended, Balaustion replies, censuring him pretty severely, making adroit use of the licence of a "stranger" and a woman, and defending Euripides against him. For a further (and the best) defence, she reads the whole of theHerakles, which Browning here translates. Aristophanes, naturally, is not convinced; impressed he must have been, to have borne so long a reading without demur: he flings them a snatch of song, finding in his impromptu a hint for a new play, theFrogs, and is gone. And now, a year after, as the couple return to Rhodes from a disgraced and dismantled Athens, Balaustion dictates to Euthukles her recollection of the "adventure," for the double purpose of putting the past events on record, and of eluding the urgency of the present sorrow.

It will thus be seen that the book consists of two distinct parts. There is, first, the apology of Aristophanes, second, the translation of the play of Euripides.Herakles, or, as it is more generally known,Hercules Furens, is rendered completely and consecutively, in blank verse and varied choric measures. It is not, as was the case withAlkestisworked into the body of the poem; not welded, but inserted. We have thus, while losing thecommentary, the advantage of a detached transcript, with a lyrical rendering of the lyrical parts of the play. These are given with a constant vigour and closeness, often with a rare beauty (as in the famous "Ode bewailing Age," and that other on the labours of Herakles). Precisely the same characteristics that we have found in the translation of theAlkestisare here again to be found, and all that I said on the former, considered apart from its setting, may be applied to the latter. We have the same literalness (again with a few apparent exceptions), the same insistence on the root-meaning of words, the same graphic force and vivifying touch, the same general clearness and charm.

The original part of the book is of far closer texture and more remarkable order than "the amber which embalmsAlkestis" the first adventure of Balaustion; but it has less human emotion, less general appeal. It is nothing less than a resuscitation of the old controversy between Aristophanes and Euripides; a resuscitation, not only of the controversy, but of the combatants. "Local colour" is laid on with an unsparing hand, though it cannot be said that the atmosphere is really Greek. There is hardly a line, there is never a page, without an allusion to some recondite thing: Athenian customs, Greek names, the plays of Euripides, above all, the plays of Aristophanes. "Every line of the poem," it has been truly said, "shows Mr. Browning as soaked and steeped in the comedies as was Bunyan in his Bible." The result is a vast, shapeless thing, splendidly and grotesquely alive, but alive with the obscure and tangled life of the jungle.

Browning's attitude towards the controversy, the sidehe takes as champion of Euripides, is distinctly shown, not merely in Balaustion's statement and defence, but in the whole conduct of the piece. Aristophanes, though on his own defence, is set in a decidedly unfavourable light; and no one, judging from Browning's work, can doubt as to his opinion of the relative qualities of the two great poets. It is possible even to say there is a partiality in the presentment. But it must be remembered on the other hand that Browning is not concerned simply with the question of art, but with the whole bearings, artistic and ethical, of the contest; and it must be remembered that the aim of Comedy is intrinsically lower and more limited than that of Tragedy, that it is destructive, disintegrating, negative, concerned with smaller issues and more temporary questions; and that Euripides may reasonably be held a better teacher, a keener, above all a more helpful, reader of the riddle of life, than his mighty assailant. This is how Aristophanes has been described, by one who should know:—

"He is an aggregate of many men, all of a certain greatness. We may build up a conception of his powers if we mount Rabelais upon Hudibras, lift him with the songfulness of Shelley, give him a vein of Heinrich Heine, and cover him with the mantle of the Anti-Jacobin, adding (that there may be some Irish in him) a dash of Grattan, before he is in motion."[50]

Now the "Titanic pamphleteer" is more recognisable in Browning's most vivid portrait than the "lyric poet of aerial delicacy" who in some strange fashion, beyond his own wildest metamorphoses, distracted and idealised the otherwise congruous figure. Not that this isoverlooked or forgotten: it is brought out admirably in several places, notably in the fine song put into the mouth of Aristophanes at the close; but it is scarcely so prominent as lovers of him could desire. It is possible, too, that Browning somewhat over-accentuates his earnestness; not his fundamental earnestness, but the extent to which he remembered and exhibited it. "My soul bade fight": yes, but "laugh," too, and laugh for laughter's as well as fight for principle's sake. This, again, is merely a matter of detail, of shading. There can be little doubt that the whole general outline of the man is right, none whatever that it is a living and breathing outline. His apology is presented in Browning's familiar manner of genuine feeling tempered with sophistry. As a piece of dramatic art it is worthy to stand beside his famous earlier apologies; and it has value too as a contribution to criticism, to a vital knowledge of the Attic drama and the work and personality of Aristophanes and Euripides, and to a better understanding of the drama as a criticism of life.

FOOTNOTES:

[50]

George Meredith,On the Idea of Comedy.

23. THE INN ALBUM.

[Published in November, 1875. (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol XII. pp. 179-311.) Translated into German in 1877: "Das Fremdenbuchvon Robert Browning. Aus dem Englischen von E. Leo. Hamburg: W. Mauke Söhne."]

The story ofThe Inn Albumis founded on fact, though it is not, likeRed Cotton Night-Cap Country, an almost literal transcript from life. The characters of the poem are four, all unnamed: a young "polished snob," animpoverished middle-aged nobleman, a woman, whom he had seduced, and who is now married to a clergyman; and a young girl, her friend, who is betrothed to the younger of the two men. Of these characters, the only one whom Browning has invented is the girl, through whom, in his telling of the story, the tragedy is brought about. But he has softened the repulsiveness of the original tale, and has also brought it to a ringing close, not supplied by the bare facts. The career of the elder man, which came to an end in 1839, did not by any means terminate with the events recorded in the poem.

The Inn Albumis a story of wrecked lives, lost hopes, of sordid and gloomy villainies; with only light enough in its darkness to make that darkness visible. It is profoundly sad; yet

"These things are life:And life, they say, is worthy of the Muse."

"These things are life:

And life, they say, is worthy of the Muse."

It would also be profoundly depressing but for the art which has wrung a grandeur out of grime, which has uplifted a story of mere vulgar evil to the height of tragedy. Out of materials that might be melodramatic, Browning has created a drama of humanity of which the impression is single, intense and overpowering. Notwithstanding the clash of physical catastrophe at the close, it is really a spiritual tragedy; and in it Browning has achieved that highest of achievements: the right, vivid and convincing presentment of human nature at its highest and lowest, at its extremes of possible action and emotion. It is not perfect: the colloquialism which truth and art alike demand sinks sometimes, though notin the great scenes, to the confines of a bastard realism. But in the main the poem is an excellent example of the higher imaginative realism, of the close, yet poetic or creative, treatment of life.

The four characters who play out the brief and fateful action of this drama in narrative (the poem is more nearly related in form to the pure drama than any other of Browning's poems not cast in the dramatic form) are creations, three of them at least, in a deeper sense than the characters inRed Cotton Night-Cap Country, or than the character inPrince Hohenstiel-Schwangau. The "good gay girl," serving her unconscious purpose in the tragic action, is properly enough a mere sketch; but the two men and the elder woman are profoundly studied characters, struck into life and revealed to themselves, to one another and to us, at the supreme moment of a complex crisis. The elder man is one of Browning's most finished studies, and, morally, one of the worst characters even he has ever investigated. He is at once bad, clever and cynical, the combination, of all others, most noxious and most hopeless. He prides himself above all things on his intellect; and it is evident that he has had the power to shape his course and to sway others. But now, at fifty, he knows himself to be a failure. The cause of it he traces mainly to a certain crisis of his life, when he won, only to abuse, the affections of a splendidly beautiful woman, whose equal splendour of soul he saw only when too late. It is significant of him that he never views his conduct as a crime, a wrong to the woman, but as a mistake on his part; and his attitude is not that of remorse, but of one who has missed a chance. When, after four years, he meets unexpectedly the woman whomhe has wronged and lost, the good and evil in him blaze out in a sudden and single flame of earnest appeal. In the fact that this passionate appeal should be only half-sincere, or, if sincere, then only for the moment, that to her who hears it, it should seem wholly insincere, lies the intensity of the situation.

The character of the woman is less complex but not less consistent and convincing. Like the man, her development has been arrested and distorted by the cause which has made him too a wreck. Her love was single-hearted and over-mastering; its very force, in recoil, turned it into hate. Yoked to a soulless husband, whom she has married half in pity, half in despair, her whole nature has frozen; so that when we see her she is, while physically the same, spiritually the ghost of her former self. The subtlety of the picture is to show what she is now while making equally plain what she was in the past. She is a figure not so much pathetic as terrible.

Pathetic, despite its outer comedy, is the figure of the young man, the great rough, foolish, rich youth, tutored in evil by his Mephistopheles, but only, we fancy, skin-deep in it, slow of thought but quick of feeling, with his one and only love, never forgotten, and now found again in the very woman whom his "friend" has wronged. His last speech, with its clumsy yet genuine chivalry, its touching, broken words, its fine feeling and faltering expression, is one of the most pathetic things I know. Such a character, in its very absence of subtlety, is a triumph of Browning's, to whom intellectual simplicity must be the hardest of all dramatic assumptions.

24. PACCHIAROTTO, and how he worked in Distemper: with other poems.

[Published in July, 1876 (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol. XIV. pp. 1-152).]

Pacchiarotto and other Poemsis the first collection of miscellaneous pieces since theDramatis Personæof 1864. It is somewhat of an exception to the general rule of Browning's work. A large proportion of it is critical rather than creative, a criticism of critics; perhaps it would be at once more correct and concise to call it "Robert Browning's Apology."Pacchiarotto,At the "Mermaid",House,ShopandEpilogue, are all more or less personal utterances on art and the artist, sometimes in a concrete and impersonal way, more often in a somewhat combative and contemptuous spirit. The most important part of the volume, however, is that which contains the two or three monodramatic poems and the splendid ballad of the fleet,Hervé Riel.

The first and longest poem,Of Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in Distemper, divides itself into two parts, the first being the humorous rendering of a true anecdote told in Vasari, of Giacomo Pacchiarotto, a Sienese painter of the sixteenth century; and the second, a still more mirthful onslaught of the poet upon his critics. The story—

"Begun with a chuckle,And throughout timed by raps of the knuckle,"—

"Begun with a chuckle,

And throughout timed by raps of the knuckle,"—

is funny enough in itself, and it points an excellent moral; but it is chiefly interesting as a whimsical freak of verse, an extravaganza in staccato. The rhyming isof its kind almost incomparable as a sustained effort in double and triple grotesque rhymes. Not even inHudibras, not even inDon Juan, is there anything like them. I think all other experiments of the kind, however successful as a whole, let you see now and then that the author has had a hard piece of work to keep up his appearance of ease. InPacchiarottothere is no evidence of the strain. The masque of critics, under the cunning disguise of May-day chimney-sweepers:—

"'We critics as sweeps out your chimbly!Much soot to remove from your flue, sir!Who spares coal in kitchen an't you, sir!And neighbours complain it's no joke, sir!You ought to consume your own smoke, sir!'"—

"'We critics as sweeps out your chimbly!

Much soot to remove from your flue, sir!

Who spares coal in kitchen an't you, sir!

And neighbours complain it's no joke, sir!

You ought to consume your own smoke, sir!'"—

this after-part, overflowing with jolly humour and comic scorn, a besom wielded by a laughing giant, is calculated to put the victims in better humour with their executioner than with themselves. Browning has had to endure more than most men at the hands of the critics, and he takes in this volume, not in this poem only, a full and a characteristically good-humoured revenge. TheEpiloguefollows up the pendant toPacchiarotto. There is the same jolly humour, the same combative self-assertiveness, the same retortTu quoque, with a yet more earnest and pungent enforcement.

"Wine, pulse in might from me!It may never emerge in must from vat,Never fill cask nor furnish can,Never end sweet, which strong began—God's gift to gladden the heart of man;But spirit's at proof, I promise that!No sparing of juice spoils what should beFit brewage—wine for me.Man's thoughts and loves and hates!Earth is my vineyard, these grow there:From grape of the ground, I made or marredMy vintage; easy the task or hard,Who set it—his praise be my reward!Earth's yield! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea'sLet them 'lay, pray, bray'[51]—the addle-pates!Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates!"

"Wine, pulse in might from me!

It may never emerge in must from vat,

Never fill cask nor furnish can,

Never end sweet, which strong began—

God's gift to gladden the heart of man;

But spirit's at proof, I promise that!

No sparing of juice spoils what should be

Fit brewage—wine for me.

Man's thoughts and loves and hates!Earth is my vineyard, these grow there:From grape of the ground, I made or marredMy vintage; easy the task or hard,Who set it—his praise be my reward!Earth's yield! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea'sLet them 'lay, pray, bray'[51]—the addle-pates!Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates!"

Man's thoughts and loves and hates!

Earth is my vineyard, these grow there:

From grape of the ground, I made or marred

My vintage; easy the task or hard,

Who set it—his praise be my reward!

Earth's yield! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea's

Let them 'lay, pray, bray'[51]—the addle-pates!

Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates!"

Despite its humorous expression, the view of poetic art contained in these verses is both serious and significant. It is a frank (if defiant) confession of faith.

At the "Mermaid", a poem of characteristic energy and directness, is a protest against the supposition or assumption that the personality and personal views and opinions of a poet are necessarily reflected in his dramatic work. It protests, at the same time, against the sham melancholy and pseudo-despair which Byron made fashionable in poetry:—

"Have you found your life distasteful?My life did and does smack sweet.Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?Mine I saved and hold complete.Do your joys with age diminish?When mine fail me, I'll complain.Must in death your daylight finish?My sun sets to rise again.I find earth not gray but rosy,Heaven not grim but fair of hue.Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.Do I stand and stare? All's blue."

"Have you found your life distasteful?My life did and does smack sweet.Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?Mine I saved and hold complete.

"Have you found your life distasteful?

My life did and does smack sweet.

Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?

Mine I saved and hold complete.

Do your joys with age diminish?When mine fail me, I'll complain.Must in death your daylight finish?My sun sets to rise again.

Do your joys with age diminish?

When mine fail me, I'll complain.

Must in death your daylight finish?

My sun sets to rise again.

I find earth not gray but rosy,Heaven not grim but fair of hue.Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.Do I stand and stare? All's blue."

I find earth not gray but rosy,

Heaven not grim but fair of hue.

Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.

Do I stand and stare? All's blue."

Houseconfirms or continues the primary contention inAt the "Mermaid": this time by the image of a House of Life, which some poets may choose to set on view: "for a ticket apply to the Publisher." Browning not merely denounces but denies the so-called self-revelations of poets. He answers Wordsworth's

"With this same keyShakespeare unlocked his heart,"

"With this same key

Shakespeare unlocked his heart,"

by the characteristic retort:—

"Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!"

InShopwe have another keen piece of criticism: a protest against poets who make their shop their home, and their song mere ware for sale.

After the personal and critical section we pass to half-a-dozen lyrics:Fears and Scruples, a covert and startling poem, a doctrine embodied in a character; then two beautiful littlePisgah-Sights, a dainty experiment in metre, and in substance the expression of Browning's favourite lesson, the worth of earth and the need of the mystery of life;Appearances, a couple of stanzas whose telling simplicity recalls the lovely earlier lilt,Misconceptions; Natural MagicandMagical Nature, two magical snatches, as perfect as the "first fine careless rapture" of the earlier lyrics. I quote the latter:—

"MAGICAL NATURE.1.Flower—I never fancied, jewel—I profess you!Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower.Save but glow inside and—jewel, I should guess you,Dim to sight and rough to touch: the glory is the dower.2.You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel—Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime!Time may fray the flower-face: kind be time or cruel,Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time!"

"MAGICAL NATURE.

Flower—I never fancied, jewel—I profess you!Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower.Save but glow inside and—jewel, I should guess you,Dim to sight and rough to touch: the glory is the dower.

Flower—I never fancied, jewel—I profess you!

Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower.

Save but glow inside and—jewel, I should guess you,

Dim to sight and rough to touch: the glory is the dower.

You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel—Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime!Time may fray the flower-face: kind be time or cruel,Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time!"

You, forsooth, a flower? Nay, my love, a jewel—

Jewel at no mercy of a moment in your prime!

Time may fray the flower-face: kind be time or cruel,

Jewel, from each facet, flash your laugh at time!"

But the finest lyric in the volume isSt. Martin's Summer, a poem fantastically tragic, hauntingly melodious, mysterious and chilling as the ghostly visitants at late love's pleasure-bower of whom it sings. I do not think Browning has written many lyrical poems of more brilliant and original quality.Bifurcation, as its name denotes, is a study of divided paths in life, the paths of Love and Duty chosen severally by two lovers whose epitaphs Browning gives. The moral problem, which is sinner, which is saint, is stated and left open. The poem is an etching, sharp, concise and suggestive.Numpholeptos(nymph-entranced) has all the mystery, the vague charm, the lovely sadness, of a picture of Burne Jones. Its delicately fantastic colouring, its dreamy passion, and the sad and quiet sweetness of its verse, have some affinity withSt. Martin's Summer, but are unlike anything else in Browning. It is the utterance of a hopeless-hoping and pathetically resigned love: the love of a merely human man for an angelically pure and unhumanly cold woman, who requires in him an unattainable union of immaculate purity and complete experience of life.

"Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile!Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile,Softening, sweetening, till sweet and softIncrease so round this heart of mine, that oftI could believe your moonbeam smile has pastThe pallid limit and, transformed at last,Lies, sunlight and salvation—warms the soulIt sweetens, softens!What means the sad slow silver smile aboveMy clay but pity, pardon?—at the best,But acquiescence that I take my rest,Contented to be clay, while in your heavenThe sun reserves love for the Spirit-SevenCompanioning God's throne they lamp before,—Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered o'erBy that pale soft sweet disempassioned moonWhich smiles me slow forgiveness! Such the boonI beg? Nay, dear ...Love, the love whole and sole without alloy!"

"Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile!

Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile,

Softening, sweetening, till sweet and soft

Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft

I could believe your moonbeam smile has past

The pallid limit and, transformed at last,

Lies, sunlight and salvation—warms the soul

It sweetens, softens!

What means the sad slow silver smile aboveMy clay but pity, pardon?—at the best,But acquiescence that I take my rest,Contented to be clay, while in your heavenThe sun reserves love for the Spirit-SevenCompanioning God's throne they lamp before,—Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered o'erBy that pale soft sweet disempassioned moonWhich smiles me slow forgiveness! Such the boonI beg? Nay, dear ...Love, the love whole and sole without alloy!"

What means the sad slow silver smile above

My clay but pity, pardon?—at the best,

But acquiescence that I take my rest,

Contented to be clay, while in your heaven

The sun reserves love for the Spirit-Seven

Companioning God's throne they lamp before,

—Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered o'er

By that pale soft sweet disempassioned moon

Which smiles me slow forgiveness! Such the boon

I beg? Nay, dear ...

Love, the love whole and sole without alloy!"

The action of this soul's tragedy takes place under "the light that never was on sea or land": it is the tragedy of a soul, but of a disembodied soul.

A Forgivenessis a drama of this world. It is the legitimate successor of the monologues ofMen and Women; it may, indeed, be most precisely compared with an earlier monologue,My Last Duchess; and it is, like these, the concentrated essence of a complete tragedy. Like all the best of Browning's poems, it is thrown into a striking situation, and developed from this central point. It is the story of a love merged in contempt, quenched in hate, and rekindled in a fatal forgiveness, told in confession to a monk by the man whom the monk has wronged. The personage who speaks is one of the most sharply-outlined characters in Browning: a clear, cold, strong-willed man, implacable in love or hate. He tells his story in a quiet, measured, utterly unemotional manner, with reflective interruptions and explanations, the acute analysis ofa merciless intellect; leading gradually up to a crisis only to be matched by the very finest crises in Browning:—

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