Young Karshish was the best student in his department at the university; he has won a travelling fellowship, and writes letters home to Professor Abib, the Dean of the Graduate School. This is the twenty-second letter, and although we have not seen the others, we may easily conjecture their style and contents. They resemble Darwin's method of composition describing his tour around the world—one fact is noted accurately and then another. This particular letter is entrusted to a messenger who had the pink-eye; the young doctor easily cured him, and the man having no money, begged to give some service. He winks his eyes gladly in the strong sunlight which had hurt him so cruelly until the doctor came to his relief. Very well! he shall run with an epistle.
Karshish has met Lazarus: and it is significant of Browning's method that it is not the resurrection from the grave which interests him, nor what happened to Lazarus in the tomb; it is the profound spiritual change in the man. Lazarus does not act like a faker; he is not sensational, does not care whether you believe his story or not, is a thoroughly quiet, intelligent, sensible man. Only his conduct has ceased to be swayed by any selfish interest, and there is some tremendous force working in his life that puzzles the physician. It is amusing how the latter tries to shake off his obsession, how he tries to persuade himself that Lazarus had a prolonged epileptic fit, or that he is now mad; how he tries to interest himself once more in the fauna and flora of the country. Impossible! the story of Lazarus dominates him.
His letter is naturally full of apologies for writing to the great Abib on such a theme. He is afraid Abib will be disgusted with him, will call him home, as a disgrace to the university he represents. What! my favorite student, carefully trained in science, to swallow the story of the first madman or swindler he meets? A man raised from the dead? Such cases are diurnal. What would a modern professor think if one of his travelling fellows wrote home from South America that he had met a man raised from the dead, and was really impressed by his story? His fellowship would be instantly taken away from him.
He anticipates Abib's suggestions. If you think there is really anything interesting in the yarn, why don't you seek out the magician who brought him back to life? Oh, naturally, I thought of that the first thing. But I discovered that the doctor who wrought the cure of Lazarus is dead, lost his life in some obscure tumult.
It is with the utmost difficulty that Karshish finally brings himself to write what will seem much worse even than the acceptance of the story of Lazarus. But something impels him to out with it. Lazarus says—God forgive me for uttering such nonsensical blasphemy—that the doctor who cured him was no doctor at all—was … was … was Almighty God Himself! He says God appeared on the earth in human form, that Lazarus knew Him personally, spoke with Him, ate meals with Him—and then suddenly in a revulsion of feeling at his daring to write such trash to Abib, he tries to force his mind back to report on scientific observations.
He thinks indeed he has ended his letter; when the stupendous idea of Jesus Christ rushes over his mind like a flood, and he adds a postscript. Would it not be wonderful, Professor, if Lazarus were right? If the Supreme Force we recognise were really a God of Love, who died to save us? The madman saith He said so: it is strange, … it is strange …
And so we leave Karshish in a muse: but surely he is not far from the Kingdom of God.
As this poem indicates the manner in which Christianity in the early days spread from man to man, while many are amazed and many doubt, soCleongives us the picture of the Gospel as carried over the world by Paul, Cleon in his own distinguished person sums up the last word of Greek culture, in its intellectual prowess, its serene beauty, its many-sided charm, and its total inability to save the world. Cleon is an absolute pessimist. He is sincere; such cant as the "choir invisible" means nothing to him, for death will turn his splendid mind into a pinch of dust. Death is far more horrible to poets and artists than to the ignorant, he assures the king, who had thought just the opposite: is it not dreadful to think that after my death people will be singing the songs that I have written, while all that remains of me is in a little urn? He does not deceive himself with phrases. Death is the end of us, and therefore self-consciousness is a mistake. The animals without it are happier and better than we. How terrible it is to think that a man like me who has developed steadily throughout my whole life should now face the blank wall of annihilation just when my mind is at its best, when my senses are most keen to profit by the richness and wonder of life! The thought that individual development is thus meaningless is so repugnant not merely to his heart's desire but to his mental sense of the fitness of things, that it has sometimes seemed as if there must be a future life where the soul can pursue its natural course ahead. But he dismisses this thought as impossible; for if there were a future life, I should be the first to know of it. It would certainly have been revealed to a splendid mind like mine. It is the mountain peak that catches the first flush of the dawn, not the valley: it is the topmost branch of the great tree that gets the first whisper of the coming breeze. It is a pity that Cleon had not heard the Gospel. I thank thee, O Father, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight. It was not through men like Cleon that the Gospel made its first advance.
His postscript, like that of Karshish, is interesting, though strikingly different. The king had enclosed a letter to Paul, but as he did not know Paul's address, he wondered if Cleon would not be kind enough to see that the evangelist obtained the letter. Cleon was decidedly vexed. I neither know nor care where Paul may be. You don't suppose for a moment that Paul knows anything I don't know? You don't suppose anything Paul could say would have any weight for men like me? Oh, I have heard of him; I was taking a constitutional one day, and I saw a little group of persons listening to an orator. I touched a man on the shoulder, and I said, What is that idiot talking about? And he replied that the man said that a person named Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, and could save all those who believed on Him from death. What crazy nonsense people swallow! So Cleon smiled in his wisdom and went on his way. But through the lines of his speech we feel the rising tide of Christianity, where
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
1855
Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs,The not-incurious in God's handiwork(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made,Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,To coop up and keep down on earth a spaceThat puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul)—To Abib, all-sagacious in our art,Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast;Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracksBefall the flesh through too much stress and strain,Whereby the wily vapour fain would slipBack and rejoin its source before the term,—And aptest in contrivance (under God)To baffle it by deftly stopping such:—The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at homeSends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace)Three samples of true snake-stone—rarer still,One of the other sort, the melon-shaped,(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs)And writeth now the twenty-second time.
My journeyings were brought to Jericho:Thus I resume. Who studious in our artShall count a little labour unrepaid?I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and boneOn many a flinty furlong of this land.Also, the country-side is all on fireWith rumours of a marching hitherward:Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear;Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,And once a town declared me for a spy;But at the end, I reach Jerusalem,Since this poor covert where I pass the night,This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thenceA man with plague-sores at the third degreeRuns till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here!'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,To void the stuffing of my travel-scripAnd share with thee whatever Jewry yields.A viscid choler is observableIn tertians, I was nearly bold to say;And falling-sickness hath a happier cureThan our school wots of: there's a spider hereWeaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back;Take five and drop them,.. but who knows his mind,The Syrian runagate I trust this to?His service payeth me a sublimateBlown up his nose to help the ailing eye.Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn,There set in order my experiences,Gather what most deserves, and give thee all—Or I might add, Judaa's gum-tragacanthScales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry,In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-diseaseConfounds me, crossing so with leprosy—Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar—But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.
Yet stay: my Syrian blinketh gratefully,Protesteth his devotion is my price—Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal?I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,What set me off a-writing first of all.An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!For, be it this town's barrenness—or elseThe Man had something in the look of him—His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth.So, pardon if—(lest presently I loseIn the great press of novelty at handThe care and pains this somehow stole from me)I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind,Almost in sight—for, wilt thou have the truth?The very man is gone from me but now,Whose ailment is the subject of discourse.Thus then, and let thy better wit help all!
Tis but a case of mania—subinducedBy epilepsy, at the turning-pointOf trance prolonged unduly some three days:When, by the exhibition of some drugOr spell, exorcization, stroke of art,Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know,The evil thing out-breaking all at onceLeft the man whole and sound of body indeed,—But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide,Making a clear house of it too suddenly,The first conceit that entered might inscribeWhatever it was minded on the wallSo plainly at that vantage, as it were,(First come, first served) that nothing subsequentAttaineth to erase those fancy-scrawlsThe just-returned and new-established soulHath gotten now so thoroughly by heartThat henceforth she will read or these or none.And first—the man's own firm conviction restsThat he was dead (in fact they buried him)—That he was dead and then restored to lifeBy a Nazarene physician of his tribe:—'Sayeth, the same bade "Rise," and he did rise."Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry.Not so this figment!—not, that such a fume,Instead of giving way to time and health,Should eat itself into the life of life,As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones and all!For see, how he takes up the after-life.The man—it is one Lazarus a Jew,Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,The body's habit wholly laudable,As much, indeed, beyond the common healthAs he were made and put aside to show.Think, could we penetrate by any drugAnd bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep!Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?This grown man eyes the world now like a child.Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep,To bear my inquisition. While they spoke,Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,—He listened not except I spoke to him,But folded his two hands and let them talk,Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.And that's a sample how his years must go.Look, if a beggar, in fixed middle-life,Should find a treasure,—can he use the sameWith straitened habits and with tastes starved small,And take at once to his impoverished brainThe sudden element that changes things,That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his handAnd puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?Is he not such an one as moves to mirth—Warily parsimonious, when no need,Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times?All prudent counsel as to what befitsThe golden mean, is lost on such an one:The man's fantastic will is the man's law.So here—we call the treasure knowledge, say,Increased beyond the fleshly faculty—Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven:The man is witless of the size, the sum,The value in proportion of all things,Or whether it be little or be much.Discourse to him of prodigious armamentsAssembled to besiege his city now,And of the passing of a mule with gourds—'Tis one! Then take it on the other side,Speak of some trifling fact,—he will gaze raptWith stupour at its very littleness,(Far as I see) as if in that indeedHe caught prodigious import, whole results;And so will turn to us the bystandersIn ever the same stupour (note this point)That we too see not with his opened eyes.Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play,Preposterously, at cross purposes.Should his child sicken unto death,—why, lookFor scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,Or pretermission of the daily craft!While a word, gesture, glance from that same childAt play or in the school or laid asleepWill startle him to an agony of fear,Exasperation, just as like. DemandThe reason why—"'tis but a word," object—"A gesture"—he regards thee as our lordWho lived there in the pyramid alone,Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young,We both would unadvisedly reciteSome charm's beginning, from that book of his,Able to bid the sun throb wide and burstAll into stars, as suns grown old are wont.Thou and the child have each a veil alikeThrown o'er your heads, from under which ye bothStretch your blind hands and trifle with a matchOver a mine of Greek fire, did ye know IHe holds on firmly to some thread of life—(It is the life to lead perforcedly)Which runs across some vast distracting orbOf glory on either side that meagre thread,Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet—The spiritual life around the earthly life:The law of that is known to him as this,His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.So is the man perplext with impulsesSudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,Proclaiming what is right and wrong across,And not along, this black thread through the blaze—"It should be" balked by "here it cannot be."And oft the man's soul springs into his faceAs if he saw again and heard againHis sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise.Something, a word, a tick o' the blood withinAdmonishes: then back he sinks at onceTo ashes, who was very fire before,In sedulous recurrence to his tradeWhereby he earneth him the daily bread;And studiously the humbler for that pride,Professedly the faultier that he knowsGod's secret, while he holds the thread of life.Indeed the especial marking of the manIs prone submission to the heavenly will—Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the lastFor that same death which must restore his beingTo equilibrium, body loosening soulDivorced even now by premature full growth:He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to liveSo long as God please, and just how God please.He even seeketh not to please God more(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.Hence, I perceive not he affects to preachThe doctrine of his sect whate'er it be,Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do:How can he give his neighbour the real ground,His own conviction? Ardent as he is—Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old"Be it as God please" reassureth him.I probed the sore as thy disciple should:"How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessnessSufficeth thee, when Rome is on her marchTo stamp out like a little spark thy town,Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?"He merely looked with his large eyes on me.The man is apathetic, you deduce?Contrariwise, he loves both old and young,Able and weak, affects the very brutesAnd birds—how say I? flowers of the field—As a wise workman recognises toolsIn a master's workshop, loving what they make.Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb:Only impatient, let him do his best,At ignorance and carelessness and sin—An indignation which is promptly curbed:As when in certain travel I have feignedTo be an ignoramus in our artAccording to some preconceived design,And happed to hear the land's practitioners,Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance,Prattle fantastically on disease,Its cause and cure-and I must hold my peace!
Thou wilt object—Why have I not ere thisSought out the sage himself, the NazareneWho wrought this cure, inquiring at the source,Conferring with the frankness that befits?Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leechPerished in a tumult many years ago,Accused—our learning's fate—of wizardry,Rebellion, to the setting up a ruleAnd creed prodigious as described to me.His death, which happened when the earthquake fell(Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the lossTo occult learning in our lord the sageWho lived there in the pyramid alone)Was wrought by the mad people—that's their wont!On vain recourse, as I conjecture it,To his tried virtue, for miraculous help—How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way!The other imputations must be lies:But take one, though I loathe to give it thee,In mere respect for any good man's fame.(And after all, our patient LazarusIs stark mad; should we count on what he says?Perhaps not: though in writing to a leech'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.)This man so cured regards the curer, then,As—God forgive me! who but God himself,Creator and sustainer of the world,That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile!—'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived,Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house,Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know,And yet was … what I said nor choose repeat,And must have so avouched himself, in fact,In hearing of this very LazarusWho saith—but why all this of what he saith?Why write of trivial matters, things of priceCalling at every moment for remark?I noticed on the margin of a poolBlue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort,Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!
Thy pardon for this long and tedious case,Which, now that I review it, needs must seemUnduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth!Nor I myself discern in what is writGood cause for the peculiar interestAnd awe indeed this man has touched me with.Perhaps the journey's end, the wearinessHad wrought upon me first. I met him thus:I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hillsLike an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there cameA moon made like a face with certain spotsMultiform, manifold, and menacing:Then a wind rose behind me. So we metIn this old sleepy town at unaware,The man and I. I send thee what is writ.Regard it as a chance, a matter riskedTo this ambiguous Syrian—he may lose,Or steal, or give it thee with equal good.Jerusalem's repose shall make amendsFor time this letter wastes, thy time and mine;Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!
The very God I think, Abib; dost thou think?So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too—So, through the thunder comes a human voiceSaying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here!Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,But love I gave thee, with myself to love,And thou must love me who have died for thee!"The madman saith He said so: it is strange.
The poemChilde Rolandis unique among Browning's monologues. His poetry usually is of the noonday and the market-place; but this might have been written by Coleridge, or Maeterlinck, or Edgar Allan Poe. It has indeed the "wizard twilight Coleridge knew." The atmosphere is uncanny and ghoul-haunted: the scenery is a series of sombre and horrible imaginings. No consistent allegory can be made out of it, for which fact we should rejoice. It is a poem, not a sermon; it is intended to stimulate the imagination, rather than awaken the conscience. And as we accompany the knight on his lonely and fearful journey, we feel thrills caused only by works of genius.
The poem is an example of the power of creative imagination. Out of one line from an old ballad quoted by Shakespeare, Browning has built up a marvellous succession of vivid pictures. The twilight deepens as Childe Roland advances; one can feel the darkness coming on.
…. hands unseen Were hanging the night around us fast.
Although the poem means nothing specifically except a triumphant close to a heart-shaking experience, the close is so solemnly splendid that it is difficult to repress a shout of physical exultation. One lonely man, in the presence of all the Powers of the Air, sends out an honest blast of defiance—the individual will against the malignant forces of the whole universe.
What happened when he blew his horn? Did the awful mountains in the blood-red sunset dissolve as the walls of Jericho fell to a similar sound? Did the round, squat Tower vanish like a dream-phantom? Or was the sound of the horn the last breath of the hero? If we believe the former, then Childe Roland is telling his experience to a listener; it is the song of the man "who came whither he went." If the latter, which seems to me more dramatic, and more like Browning, then the monologue is murmured by the solitary knight as he advances on his darkening path.
Three entirely different interpretations may be made of the poem. First, the Tower is the quest, and Success is found only in the moment of Failure. Second, the Tower is the quest, and when found is worth nothing: the hero has spent his life searching something that in the end is seen to be only a round, squat, blind turret—for such things do men throw away their lives! Third, the Tower is not the quest at all—it is damnation, and when the knight turnsasidefrom the true road to seek the Tower, he is a lost soul steadily slipping through increasing darkness to hell.
Whilst I do not believe this third interpretation, for it seems to me contrary to the whole spirit of the piece, it is surprising that if one reads through the poem with that idea and none other in mind, how much support can be found for it. The hoary cripple is the devil, meant to lead us into temptation; and the third stanza seems for the moment to complete this thought.
If at his counsel I should turn asideInto that ominous tract, which, all agreeHides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescinglyI did turn as he pointed:
If all knew that the ominous tract contained the Dark Tower, why was the knight outside of it, if the Tower were his quest? He turns aside, acquiescingly: he has given up a life of noble aspiration, and now hands over his despairing heart in surrender to the powers of darkness. He goes on his way a beaten man, only hoping that the end may not be long delayed.
Much in the letter of the poem may support this view; but the whole spirit of it is opposed to such an interpretation, and the ringing close does not sound like spiritual failure. Nor do I believe in the second interpretation; for it is quite unlike Browning to write a magnificent poem with a cynical conclusion.
No, I believe that once upon a time, Roland, Giles, Cuthbert, and other knights in solemn assembly took an oath to go on the quest of the Dark Tower: to find it or perish on the way. All but these three have apparently kept their word; they have never returned, and when Roland is on the last stages of his journey, he sees why; they have died a horrible death. The quest is indeed an unspeakably perilous thing: for all but Giles and Cuthbert are dead, and these two suffered a fate worse than death—the awful fear inspired by something hideous on the march changed these splendid specimens of manhood into craven traitors. Roland remembers with cruel agony the ruddy young face of Cuthbert, glowing under its yellow hair: was there ever such a magnificent fellow? But the path to the Tower had shaken his manhood, and disgraced him forever. How well Roland remembers the morning when Giles took the oath to find the Tower! That was ten years ago. The frank, manly young knight stepped forth, and declared proudly that he dared do all that might become a man. But he had some awful experience in the course of the quest that changed him from the soul of honor to a whimpering coward. His own companions spat upon him and cursed him.
Roland alone is left. And he has experienced so many disappointments that now all hope of finding the Tower is dead in his breast. Just one spark of manhood remains. He can not succeed, but God grant that he may be fit to fail.
… just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was now—should I be fit?
As he advances, the country becomes an abomination of desolation; then appear evidences of struggle, the marks of monsters: then the awful, boiling river, with the nerve-shattering shriek from its depths as he thrust in his spear. On the other bank, fresh evidences of fearful combats, followed farther along by the appearance of engines of torture. Those of his companions who had survived the beasts had there perished in this frightful manner. Nevertheless, Roland advances, his eyes on the ground. Suddenly the wide wing of some dreadful bird of the night brushed his cap, and he looked up—to his overwhelming amazement,he sees the Tower! He sees it as the sailor sees the rocks on a dark night, only when the ship is lost. He sees it in a sudden glare of hell; the air is full of mocking laughter, the scorn of fiends mingling with the sound of the names of their victims, his peers and comrades, all lost! The ugly misshapen mountains look like sinister giants, lying chin upon hand, lazily awaiting his destruction. But this atom of humanity, in the presence of all the material forces of this world and the supernatural powers of darkness, places the horn to his lips, and sends out on the evening air a shrill blast of utter defiance. He that endureth to the end shall be saved. Not his possessions, not his happiness, not his bodily frame—they all succumb: butheshall be saved.
Thus we may take this wholly romantic poem as one more noble illustration of Browning's favorite doctrine—Success in Failure.
(See Edgar's song inLear)
1855
My first thought was, he lied in every word,That hoary cripple, with malicious eyeAskance to watch the working of his lieOn mine, and mouth scarce able to affordSuppression of the glee, that pursed and scoredIts edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnareAll travellers who might find him posted there,And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laughWould break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaphFor pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,
If at his counsel I should turn asideInto that ominous tract which, all agree,Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescinglyI did turn as he pointed: neither prideNor hope rekindling at the end descried,So much as gladness that some end might be.
For, what with thy whole world-wide wandering,What with my search drawn out through years, my hopeDwindled into a ghost not fit to copeWith that obstreperous joy success would bring,—I hardly tried now to rebuke the springMy heart made, finding failure in its scope.
As when a sick man very near to deathSeems dead indeed, and feels begin and endThe tears, and takes the farewell of each friend,And hears one bid the other go, draw breathFreelier outside, ("since all is o'er," he saith,"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;")
While some discuss if near the other gravesBe room enough for this, and when a daySuits best for carrying the corpse away,With care about the banners, scarves and staves:And still the man hears all, and only cravesHe may not shame such tender love and stay.
Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writSo many times among "The Band"—to wit,The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressedTheir steps—that just to fail as they, seemed best,And all the doubt was now—should I be fit?
So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,That hateful cripple, out of his highwayInto the path he pointed. All the dayHad been a dreary one at best, and dimWas settling to its close, yet shot one grimRed leer to see the plain catch its estray.
For mark! no sooner was I fairly foundPledged to the plain, after a pace or two,Than, pausing to throw backward a last viewO'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round:Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.I might go on; naught else remained to do.
So, on I went. I think I never sawSuch starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:For flowers—as well expect a cedar grovelBut cockle, spurge, according to their lawMight propagate their kind, with none to awe,You'd think: a burr had been a treasure trove.
No! penury, inertness and grimace,In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "SeeOr shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."
If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalkAbove its mates, the head was chopped; the bentsWere jealous else. What made those holes and rentsIn the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balkAll hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walkPashing their life out, with a brute's intents.
As for the grass, it grew as scant as hairIn leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mudWhich underneath looked kneaded up with blood,One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,Stood stupefied, however he came there:Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!
Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;I never saw a brute I hated so;He must be wicked to deserve such pain.
I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.As a man calls for wine before he fights,I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.Think first, fight afterwards—the soldier's art:One taste of the old time sets all to rights.
Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening faceBeneath its garniture of curly gold,Dear fellow, till I almost felt him foldAn arm in mine to fix me to the place,That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.
Giles then, the soul of honour—there he standsFrank as ten years ago when knighted first.What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.Good—but the scene shifts—faugh! what hangman handsPin to his breast a parchment? His own bandsRead it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!
Better this present than a past like that;Back therefore to my darkening path again!No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.Will the night send a howlet or a bat?I asked: when something on the dismal flatCame to arrest my thoughts and change their train.
A sudden little river crossed my pathAs unexpected as a serpent comes.No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;This, as it frothed by, might have been a bathFor the fiend's glowing hoof—to see the wrathOf its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.
So petty yet so spiteful! All along,Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fitOf mute despair, a suicidal throng:The river which had done them all the wrong,Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.
Which, while I forded,—good saints, how I fearedTo set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seekFor hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!—It may have been a water-rat I speared,But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.
Glad was I when I reached the other bank.Now for a better country. Vain presage!Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,Whose savage trample thus could pad the dankSoil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage—
The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?No footprint leading to that horrid mews,None out of it. Mad brewage set to workTheir brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the TurkPits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.
And more than that—a furlong on—why, there!What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,Or brake, not wheel—that harrow fit to reelMen's bodies out like silk? with all the airOf Tophet's too!, on earth left unaware,Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.
Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earthDesperate and done with: (so a fool finds mirth,Makes a thing and then mars it, till his moodChanges and off he goes!) within a rood—Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.
Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,Now patches where some leanness of the soil'sBroke into moss or substances like boils;Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in himLike a distorted mouth that splits its rimGaping at death, and dies while it recoils.
And just as far as ever from the end!Naught in the distance but the evening, naughtTo point my footstep further! At the thought,A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-pennedThat brushed my cap—perchance the guide I sought.
For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given placeAll round to mountains—with such name to graceMere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.How thus they had surprised me,—solve it, you!How to get from them was no clearer case.
Yet half I seemed to recognize some trickOf mischief happened to me, God knows when—In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,Progress this way. When, in the very nickOf giving up, one time more, came a clickAs when a trap shuts—you're inside the den!
Burningly it came on me all at once,This was the place! those two hills on the right,Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;While to the left, a tall scalped mountain … Dunce,Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,After a life spent training for the sight!
What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,Built of brown stone, without a counterpartIn the whole world. The tempest's mocking elfPoints to the shipman thus the unseen shelfHe strikes on, only when the timbers start.
Not see? because of night perhaps?—why, dayCame back again for that! before it left,The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,—"Now stab and end the creature—to the heft!"
Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolledIncreasing like a bell. Names in my ears,Of all the lost adventurers my peers,—How such a one was strong, and such was bold,And such was fortunate, yet each of oldLost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, metTo view the last of me, a living frameFor one more picture in a sheet of flameI saw them and I knew them all. And yetDauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."
The word paradox comes from two Greek words, meaning simply, "beyond belief." As every one ought to know, a paradox is something that read literally is absurd, but if taken in the spirit in which it is uttered, may contain profound truth. Paradox is simply over-emphasis: and is therefore a favorite method of teaching. By the employment of paradox the teacher wishes to stress forcibly some aspect of the truth which otherwise may not be seen at all. Fine print needs a magnifying-glass; and the deep truth hidden in a paradox can not perhaps become clear unless enlarged by powerful emphasis. All teachers know the value ofitalics.
Socrates was very fond of paradox: the works of Ibsen, Nietzsche, Shaw and Chesterton are full of paradoxes: Our Lord's utterances in the New Testament are simply one paradox after another. No wonder His disciples were often in a maze. It requires centuries for the truth in some paradoxes to become manifest.
"This was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof."
Browning loved a paradox with all his heart. The original nature of his mind, his fondness for taking the other side, his over-subtlety, all drove him toward the paradox. He would have made a wonderful criminal lawyer. He loves to put some imaginary or historical character on the stand, and permit him to speak freely in his own defence; and he particularly loves to do this, when the person has received universal condemnation. Browning seems to say, "I wonder if the world is entirely right in this judgment: what would this individual say if given an opportunity for apologetic oratory?" Browning is the greatest master of special pleading in all literature. Although he detested Count Guido, he makes him present his case in the best possible light, so that for the moment he arouses our intellectual sympathy.
The Glove story is one of the best-known anecdotes in history; besides its French source, it has been told in German by Schiller, in English by Leigh Hunt, and has received thousands of allusory comments—but always from one point of view. The hooting and laughter that followed the Lady as she left the court, have been echoed in all lands. Browning pondered over this story, and took the woman's part. This may be accounted for by two causes. He is the most chivalrous poet that ever lived, and would naturally defend the Lady. What De Lorge ought to have done when he brought the glove back was to remind the Lady that she had another, and permit him the honor of retrieving that. But Browning saw also in this incident a true paradox—the Lady was right after all! Right in throwing the glove, right in her forecast of the event.
Like a good lawyer, he first proves that the Knight's achievement was slight. In the pit the Lion was not at that moment dangerous, because he was desperately homesick. He was lost in thoughts of his wild home, in imagination driving the flocks up the mountain, and took not the slightest notice of the glove. Then a page had leaped into the pit simply to recover his hat; and he had done that because he could not afford to buy a new one. No one applauded him. Think of the man who had originally caught the lion! He went out alone and trapped a lion, simply that his rude boys might be amused at the spectacle. In our degenerate days, we give our children a Teddy Bear. But in those strenuous times, the father said to his boys, "Come out into the back yard, and see the present I've got for you!" They came eagerly, and found a live lion. That man and his children were a hardy family. How they would have laughed at De Lorge's so-called heroism!
But the real truth of the matter is that De Lorge was a liar. The Lady suspected it all the time, and was saddened to have her judgment confirmed by the result. De Lorge had been boasting of his love, and of his eagerness to prove it. He had begged the Lady to test him—he would gladly die for her. Now it is important that a woman should know before marriage rather than after whether a lover's protestations are genuine or not—in short whether he is sincere and reliable, or whether he is a liar. The reason why men lie to women and not to men is because they know that a lie to a woman can not be avenged, they can not be made to pay any penalty; but when they lie to other men—in business affairs, for example—the penalty is severe.
How could the Lady satisfy her mind? How could she know whether De Lorge was sincere or not? There was no war, there was no tournament, there was no quest. Suddenly one method presented itself. She tossed her glove into the pit. He had to go—he could never have held up his head otherwise. But when he returned, he dashed the glove in the Lady's face, ostensibly to teach her that a brave man's life should not be risked by a woman's vanity. This was even a better gallery-play than the recovery of the glove, and succeeded splendidly. But the Lady turned sadly away.
The blow a glove gives is but weak:Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?But when the heart suffers a blow,Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?
What was the pain in her heart? Her wounded vanity, her anguish at the Court's ostracism? Not in the least. It was her pain at finding her opinion of De Lorge justified. He was then, just as she thought, a liar; he never meant to be taken at his word. All his protestations of love and service were mere phrases. His anger at the first test of his boasting proves this. The pain in her heart is the pain we all feel at reading of some cowardly or disloyal act; one more man unfaithful, one more man selfish, one more who lowers the level of human nature.
The paradox teaches us the very simple lesson that if we boast of our prowess, we must not be angry when some one insists that we prove it.
1845
(PETER RONSARDloquitur)
"Heigho!" yawned one day King Francis,"Distance all value enhances!When a man's busy, why, leisureStrikes him as wonderful pleasure:'Faith, and at leisure once is he?Straightway he wants to be busy.Here we've got peace; and aghast I'mCaught thinking war the true pastime.Is there a reason in metre?Give us your speech, master Peter!"I who, if mortal dare say so,Ne'er am at loss with my Naso,"Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets:Men are the merest Ixions"—Here the King whistled aloud, "Let's—Heigho—go look at our lions!"Such are the sorrowful chancesIf you talk fine to King Francis.
And so, to the courtyard proceeding,Our company, Francis was leading,Increased by new followers tenfoldBefore he arrived at the penfold;Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizenAt sunset the western horizon.And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremostWith the dame he professed to adore most.Oh, what a face! One by fits eyedHer, and the horrible pitside;For the penfold surrounded a hollowWhich led where the eye scarce dared follow,And shelved to the chamber secludedWhere Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.The King hailed his keeper, an ArabAs glossy and black as a scarab,And bade him make sport and at once stirUp and out of his den the old monster.They opened a hole in the wire-workAcross it, and dropped there a firework,And fled: one's heart's beating redoubled;A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled,The blackness and silence so utter,By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter;Then earth in a sudden contortionGave out to our gaze her abortion.Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot(Whose experience of nature's but narrow,And whose faculties move in no small mistWhen he versifies David the Psalmist)I should study that brute to describe youIllum Juda Leonem de Tribu.One's whole blood grew curdling and creepyTo see the black mane, vast and heapy,The tail in the air stiff and straining,The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning,As over the barrier which boundedHis platform, and us who surroundedThe barrier, they reached and they restedOn space that might stand him in best stead:For who knew, he thought, what the amazement,The eruption of clatter and blaze meant,And if, in this minute of wonder,No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder,Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,The lion at last was delivered?Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead!
And you saw by the flash on his forehead,By the hope in those eyes wide and steady,He was leagues in the desert already,Driving the flocks up the mountain,Or catlike couched hard by the fountainTo waylay the date-gathering negress:So guarded he entrance or egress."How he stands!" quoth the King: "we may well swear,(No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhereAnd so can afford the confession,)We exercise wholesome discretionIn keeping aloof from his threshold;Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,Their first would too pleasantly purloinThe visitor's brisket or sirloin:But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!"
The sentence no sooner was uttered,Than over the rails a glove fluttered,Fell close to the lion, and rested:The dame 'twas, who flung it and jestedWith life so, De Lorge had been wooingFor months past; he sat there pursuingHis suit, weighing out with nonchalanceFine speeches like gold from a balance.
Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,Walked straight to the glove,—while the lionNe'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye onThe palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,—Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,Leaped back where the lady was seated,And full in the face of its ownerFlung the glove.
"Your heart's queen, you dethrone her?""So should I!"—cried the King—"'twas mere vanity,Not love, set that task to humanity!"Lords and ladies alike turned with loathingFrom such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing.
Not so, I; for I caught an expressionIn her brow's undisturbed self-possessionAmid the Court's scoffing and merriment,—As if from no pleasing experimentShe rose, yet of pain not much heedfulSo long as the process was needful,—As if she had tried in a crucible,To what "speeches like gold" were reducible,And, finding the finest prove copper,Felt the smoke in her face was but proper;To know what she hadnotto trust to,Was worth all the ashes and dust too.She went out 'mid hooting and laughter;Clement Marot stayed; I followed after,And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?If she wished not the rash deed's recalment?"For I"—so I spoke—"am a poet:Human nature,—behoves that I know it!"
She told me, "Too long had I heardOf the deed proved alone by the word:For my love—what De Lorge would not dare!With my scorn—what De Lorge could compare!And the endless descriptions of deathHe would brave when my lip formed a breath,I must reckon as braved, or, of course,Doubt his word—and moreover, perforce,For such gifts as no lady could spurn,Must offer my love in return.When I looked on your lion, it broughtAll the dangers at once to my thought,Encountered by all sorts of men,Before he was lodged in his den,—From the poor slave whose club or bare handsDug the trap, set the snare on the sands,With no King and no Court to applaud,By no shame, should he shrink, overawed,Yet to capture the creature made shift,That his rude boys might laugh at the gift,—To the page who last leaped o'er the fenceOf the pit, on no greater pretenceThan to get back the bonnet he dropped,Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.So, wiser I judged it to makeOne trial what 'death for my sake'Really meant, while the power was yet mine,Than to wait until time should defineSuch a phrase not so simply as I,Who took it to mean just 'to die.'The blow a glove gives is but weak:Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?But when the heart suffers a blow,Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?"
I looked, as away she was sweeping,And saw a youth eagerly keepingAs close as he dared to the doorway.No doubt that a noble should more weighHis life than befits a plebeian;And yet, had our brute been Nemean—(I judge by a certain calm fervourThe youth stepped with, forward to serve her)—He'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turnIf you whispered "Friend, what you'd get, first earn!"And when, shortly after, she carriedHer shame from the Court, and they married,To that marriage some happiness, maugreThe voice of the Court, I dared augur.
For De Lorge, he made women with men vie,Those in wonder and praise, these in envy;And in short stood so plain a head tallerThat he wooed and won … how do you call her?The beauty, that rose in the sequelTo the King's love, who loved her a week well.And 'twas noticed he never would honourDe Lorge (who looked daggers upon her)With the easy commission of stretchingHis legs in the service, and fetchingHis wife, from her chamber, those strayingSad gloves she was always mislaying,While the King took the closet to chat in,—But of course this adventure came pat in.And never the King told the story,How bringing a glove brought such glory,But the wife smiled—"His nerves are grown firmer:Mine he brings now and utters no murmur."
Venienti occurrite morbo!With which moral I drop my theorbo.
Browning wrote two poems on pedantry; the former, inGarden Fancies, takes the conventional view. How can a man with any blood in him pore over miserable books, when life is so sweet? The other,A Grammarian's Funeral, is the apotheosis of the scholar. The paradox here is that Browning has made a hero out of what seems at first blush impossible material. It is easy to make a hero out of a noble character; it is equally easy to make a hero out of a thorough scoundrel, a train-robber, or a murderer. Milton made a splendid hero out of the Devil, But a hero out of a nincompoop? A hero out of a dull, sexless pedant?
But this is exactly what Browning has done, nay, he has made this grammarian exactly the same kind of hero as a dashing cavalry officer leading a forlorn hope.
Observe that Browning has purposely made his task as difficult as possible. Had the scholar been a great discoverer in science, a great master in philosophical thought, a great interpreter in literature—then we might all take off our hats: but this hero was a grammarian. He spent his life not on Greek drama or Greek philosophy, but on Greek Grammar. He is dead: his pupils carry his body up the mountain, as the native disciples of Stevenson carried their beloved Tusitala to the summit of the island peak. These students are not weeping; they sing and shout as they march, for they are carrying their idol on their shoulders. His life and his death were magnificent, an inspiration to all humanity. Hurrah! Hurrah!
The swinging movement of the young men is in exact accord with the splendid advance of the thought. They tell us the history of their Teacher from his youth to his last breath:
This is our master, famous calm and dead,Borne on our shoulders.
It is a common error to suppose that missionaries, nuns, and scholars follow their chosen callings because they are unfit for anything else. The judgment of the wise world is not always correct. It assumes that these strange folk never hear the call of the blood. When John C. Calhoun was a student at Yale, his comrades, returning at midnight from a wild time, found him at his books. "Why don't you come out, John, and be a man? You'll never be young again." "I regard my work as more important," said John quietly. Milton's bitter cry
Were it not better done, as others use,To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
shows that it was not the absence of temptation, but a tremendously powerful will, that kept him at his desk. When a spineless milksop becomes a missionary, when a gawk sticks to his books, when an ugly woman becomes a nun, the world makes no objection; but when a socially prominent man goes in for missions or scholarship, when a lovely girl takes the veil, the wise world says, "Ah, what a pity!"
Browning's Grammarian did not take up scholarship as a last resort.He could have done anything he liked.
He was a man born with thy face and throat,Lyric Apollo!
He might have been an athlete, a social leader, a man of pleasure. He chose Greek Grammar. In the pursuit of this prize, he squandered his time and youth and health as recklessly as men squander these treasures on wine and women. When a young man throws away his youth and health in gambling, drink, and debauchery, the world expresses no surprise; he is known as a "splendid fellow," and is often much admired. But when a man spends all his gifts in scholarship, scientific discovery, or altruistic aims, he is regarded as an eccentric, lacking both blood and judgment.
I say that Browning has given his Grammarian not only courage and heroism, but the reckless, dashing, magnificent bravery of a cavalry leader. In the march for learning, this man lost his youth and health, and acquired painful diseases. Finally he comes to the end. When an officer in battle falls, and his friends bend over him to catch his last breath, he does not say, "I commend my soul to God," or "Give my love to my wife,"—he says, "Did we win?" and we applaud this passion in the last agony. So our Grammarian, full of diseases, paralysed from the waist down, the death rattle in his throat—what does he say to the faithful watchers? What are his last words?He dictates Greek Grammar.
The solitary student may be a paragon of courage, headstrong, reckless, tenacious as a bulldog, with a resolution entirely beyond the range of the children of this world.
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1844
Plague take all your pedants, say I!He who wrote what I hold in my hand,Centuries back was so good as to die,Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land;This, that was a book in its time,Printed on paper and bound in leather,Last month in the white of a matin-prime,Just when the birds sang all together.
Into the garden I brought it to read,And under the arbute and laurustineRead it, so help me grace in my need,From title-page to closing line.Chapter on chapter did I count,As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge;Added up the mortal amount;And then proceeded to my revenge.
Yonder's a plum-tree with a creviceAn owl would build in, were he but sage;For a lap of moss, like a fine pont-levisIn a castle of the Middle Age,Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber;When he'd be private, there might he spendHours alone in his lady's chamber:Into this crevice I dropped our friend.
Splash, went he, as under he ducked,—At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stagnate;Next, a handful of blossoms I pluckedTo bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate;Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf,Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis;Lay on the grass and forgot the oafOver a jolly chapter of Rabelais.
Now, this morning, betwixt the mossAnd gum that locked our friend in limbo,A spider had spun his web across,And sat in the midst with arms akimbo:So, I took pity, for learning's sake,And,de profundis, accentibus lætis,Cantate! quoth I, as I got a rake;And up I fished his delectable treatise.
Here you have it, dry in the sun,With all the binding all of a blister,And great blue spots where the ink has run,And reddish streaks that wink and glisterO'er the page so beautifully yellow:Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks!Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow?Here's one stuck in his chapter six!
How did he like it when the live creaturesTickled and toused and browsed him all over,And worm, slug, eft, with serious features,Came in, each one, for his right of trover?—When the water-beetle with great blind deaf faceMade of her eggs the stately deposit,And the newt borrowed just so much of the prefaceAs tiled in the top of his black wife's closet?
All that life and fun and romping,All that frisking and twisting and coupling,While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swampingAnd clasps were cracking and covers suppling!As if you had carried sour John KnoxTo the play-house at Paris, Vienna or Munich,Fastened him into a front-row box,And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic.
Come, old martyr! What, torment enough is it?Back to my room shall you take your sweet self.Good-bye, mother-beetle; husband-eft,sufficit!See the snug niche I have made on my shelf!A's book shall prop you up, B's shall cover you,Here's C to be grave with, or D to be gay,And with E on each side, and F right over you,Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day!
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