Google

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project

to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the

publisher to a library and finally to you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web

at |http: //books .google .com/I

E~~~ — ^^^1

P

^ «-ttt*ir^-«"*-tii-*-*-»-*-*ti

S

Harvard College

Library

1

FROM THE BEQUEST OF

I

^^r

SAMUEL SHAPLEIGH

t

CLASS OF 1789

*

LiBHAHUN or Habvarh Coluce

1793-1800

■—•J

0/

.Studies in

V

\

Browning

BY

JOSIAH FLEW

Ionian
CHARLES H. KELLY

9 CASTLE ST., CITY RD., AND a6 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

if'-:^ \

c^Jy-^jc^L;

X ( , : , J

TO

MY WIFE

PREFACE

TH E general scope of this volume may
be gathered from its title, taken
together with the subjects of the several
chapters. It is not intended to be in any
sense exhaustive, but rather preparatory
to further study and profounder research
on the part of the reader.

My object has been to introduce Brown-
ing to those to whom he is little more than
a name, and to give them samples of the
intellectual wealth which that name re-
presents. And if any are led by these
Studies to interest themselves in this
greatest poet of the last century, it will
be to me a source of gratification and a
cause for sincere thankfulness.

Some of the chapters appeared origi-

vii

Preface

nally in Great Thoughts^ and I have pleas-
ure in acknowledging the kindness of the
Editor and Proprietors of that Journal in
allowing me to republish them.

The edition of Browning s Works, to
which the various references are made
in the footnotes, is that issued in two
volumes by Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co.,
from whom permission has been obtained
to quote from those poems, the copyright
of which has not yet expired.

J. F.

Marchy 1904.

viU

CONTENTS

CHAP.

2

(■■

INTRODUCTORY
CONCERNING GOD .
CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST

'^ III. CONCERNING MAN .

v^

k? IV. CONCERNING THE SOUL .

/v. CONCERNING FAITH .

/

' VI. CONCERNING HOPE .

VII. CONCERNING LOVE .

\

%

\VIII. CONCERNING TRUTH

IX. CONCERNING LIFE .
X. CONCERNING THE WORK OF LIFE

y :'

^ : XI. CONCERNING DEATH

-i XIL CONCERNING IMMORTALITY

INDEX •

PAGE
I

9

39
59
79
99
"3

129

IS3
167

183
205

221
239

IX

INTRODUCTORY

*♦

INTRODUCTORY

<To Browning's work I may apply, with-
out conscious impertinence, the noble words
spoken of the Apollo Belvidere : '' Go and
study it ; and if you see nothing to captivate
yoUy go again ; go until you find it, for be
assured it is there." '

Dawson in < The Makers of Modem Eiig:U8h.'

THAT Browning is worthy of study,
that indeed he demands it, will not
be denied by any who possess even a
slight acquaintance with his writings. No
poet of our time has a greater claim upon
us in this respect than he. You do not
read him as you read some others of his
kind — though by far his inferiors — for the
sake of entertainment or amusement, or

3

Studies in Browning

simply to pass an idle hour. He is not
only a poet, but also a philosopher, and his
poetry is inseparable from his philosophy.
Other poets you may read; Browning you
must study.

It is not necessary to multiply testi-
monies which indicate the need of this,
though it would be easy to do so. Suffice
it to refer to one story only, recounted
with evident humorous appreciation by the
poet himself. On his introduction to the
Chinese ambassador, as a 'brother poet,'
he asked that dignitary what kind of poetic
expression he particularly affected. The
great man deliberated, and then replied
that his poetry might be defined as 'enig-
matic' Browning at once admitted his
fraternal kinship. That which he thus
playfully recognized has been asserted
over and over again by others, in varying
moods, and sometimes unfortunately in
language more forcible than polite.

But from the vision of the diligent

Introductory

student, in many instances at least, the
obscurity of the poet passes away, and in
its place there appear a beauty and a depth
of thought, the apprehension of which will
amply repay him for all his pains. The
following is, I venture to think, a typical
experience : * I was at first strongly re-
pelled by the apparent harshness and un-
intelligibility of Browning's poems, but
persevered — chiefly, it must be confessed,
from the dislike to be beaten — ^until I first
understood, then admired, and at last
revelled in unimagined wealth.'^

Then, not only is it true that the philo-
sophical character of Browning's poems
necessitates study in order to their com-
prehension in any adequate degree, but
the subjects of which they treat are such
as to fascinate any really studious mind.
His philosophy is not an abstract thing,
dealing only in vague generalities, spinning
theories according to the mood of the

^ Dr. Monro Gibson.

5

Studies in Browning

poet philosopher himself — theories which
have no immediate connexion with any
pressing facts. No! His philosophy is
instinct with life, luminous with a great
light, which it sheds profusely on the
problems which confront equally the re-
cluse in his retirement and ' the man in
the street,' Mrs. Sutherland Orr ex-
presses what I have in my mind when she
says : ' His treatment of visible and of
invisible realities constitutes him respec-
tively a dramatic and a metaphysical poet ;
but as the two kinds of reality are insepar-
able in human life, so are the correspon-
ding qualities inseparable in Mr. Browning's
work. The dramatic activity of his genius
always includes the metaphysical. H is
genius always shows itself as dramatic and
metaphysical at the same time." These
statements undoubtedly represent the facts,
and it is this remarkable and rare combina-
tion of qualities that gives to Browning a
unique place among his contemporaries.
6

Introductory

There is one other principal reason why
he deserves a more thorough and a more
constant attention than we are accustomed
to give to many wooers of his muse, and
it is to be found in his convictions concern-
ing God and immortality, which reveal
themselves times without number in the
course of his works. Indeed, it has been
said that 'Faith in God and Belief in
Immortality were his sources of inspira-
tion.' It is not possible to say that of all
our poets — perhaps not of any in the same
degree as of him. One other great poet
of the Victorian age, Tennyson, may, I
suppose, be very properly described as a
religious poet. He, too, * treats of the
eternal mysteries of God and the universe,
and the awful problems of life and death ' ;
but where Tennyson whispers, or speaks
with bated breath. Browning sends forth
a clear, distinct, ringing voice — where the
former 'faintly trusts,' the latter avows a
confidence which nought can disturb, and

7

r'

Studies in Browning

which inspires faith in the more timid and
halting of his fellows around him. What
Browning makes the Pope say in * The
Ring and the Book,'^ he might have said
of himself with perfect truthfulness :

Never I miss footing in the maze,

No, — I have light nor fear the dark at all.

/ This is the man whom we gladly elect
Jto be our teacher.

.^ i 3 1 Line 1,659.

8

I

CONCERNING GOD

9

I

CONCERNING GOD

* There 's heaven abovei and night by night
I look right through its gorgeous roof;

No suns and moons though e'er so bright
Avail to stop me; splendour-proof
I keep the broods of stars aloof :

For I intend to get to God,
For 'tis to God I speed so fast.

For in God's breast, my own abode.
Those shoals of dazzling glory passed,
I lay my spirit down at last/

'Johannes Ag^ricola in Meditation.'

IN these words we have set forth one
of the chief tendencies of Browning's
poetry, one of its supreme aims — to bring
the human soul into the presence of God.
With this end in view, he would fain give

II

Studies in Browning

to us some true conception of the nature
and attributes of the Divine Being. Not
that he does this in any formal, systematic
way : that would be inconsistent with the
genius of the poetic art. He is not, in
any technical sense, a theologian. He
does not paint a perfect picture, carefully
filling in the lights and shades (if one may
speak of 'shades' in the portrayal of Him
in whom ' there is no darkness at all '), and
then, having completed it, say, ' This is
He ! " No. He shows us here and there
glimpses of Him whom ' he calls God, and
fools call Nature,' until, having looked at
every phase of His being and character,
we feel that we have seen enough, and
more than enough, to rest our hearts.

The theistic teaching of our poet is
based upon the needs that reveal them-
selves in man's nature. Principal Caird
affirms that ' the religious impulse, the
aspiration after God and after union with
Him as the soul's true life, is grounded in

^H

Concerning God

the very nature of man as a rational and
spiritual being. Something more than the
mediation of nature and of other finite
minds is needed in order to the unfolding
of the latent content of my spiritual nature.
My life as a rational and spiritual being
would be impossible, and my relations to
nature and society would be baseless, save
on the presupposition of an infinite and
absolute intelligence on which all finite
thought and being rest'

And so Browning does not set himself
in any sense to prove that God is. He
proceeds on the assumption that He must
be, Man is incomplete without Him. He
is the necessary complement of our being.
The poet discerns the naturalness of the
longing expressed by the Psalmist : * As
the hart panteth after the water brooks, so
panteth my soul after Thee, O God.'

So convinced is he of the need of God
to supplement the imperfection of man's
nature, to fill up the measure of his

13

Studies in Browning

capacity, that even in his earliest poem he
gives us a terrible picture of one who is
God-forsaken :

My powers were greater : as some temple seemed
My soul, where nought is changed and incense rolls
Around the altar, only God is gone
And some dark spirit sitteth in His seat.'

How God is apprehended, and how
much of Him is known to men, the poet
does not say, because he cannot. But of
the fact itself — the fact of God's knowable-
ness — he has no doubt at all. Agnosti-
cism, in the sense in which some of our
modern philosophers rejoice to use the
word, has no place in his theory of the
unseen. It is true that you cannot apply
material methods to the cognition of the
spiritual, that you cannot know God in
the same way as you know the solid
earth on which you tread, and yet the
knowledge may be equally real and
certain :

' ' Pauline,' vol. i. 8.
14

Concerning God

I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed,
Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,
But somehow felt and known in every shift
And change in the spirit, — nay, in every pore
Of the body, even,) — what God is, what we are,
What life is — how God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite ways — one everlasting bliss.
From whom all being emanates, all power
Proceeds

1

Nowhere, perhaps, are man's knowledge
of God and God's incomprehensibility by
man (for, in the spiritual realm, these two
are not exclusives — the paradox does
exist and represent the actual truth) more
clearly indicated than in the following
beautiful passage :

O Thou, — as represented here to me

In such conception as my soul allows, —

Under Thy measureless, my atom width ! —

Man's mind, what is it but a convex glass

Wherein are gathered all the scattered points

Picked out of the immensity of sky.

To reunite there, be our heaven for earth,

Our known unknown, our God revealed to man?

Existent somewhere, somehow, as a whole ;

Here, as a whole proportioned to our sense, —

^ * Paracelsus,' vol. i. 69.

15

Studies in Browning

There, (which is nowhere, speech must babble thus !)

In the absolute immensity, the whole

Appreciable solely by Thyself, —

Here, by the little mind of man, reduced

To littleness that suits his faculty.

Id the degree appreciable too . , .'

Professor Henry Jones, in discussing
'Browning's Place in English Poetry,' at
the same time compares and contrasts
him with Shelley and Wordsworth. The
earlier poets, he says, were ' the poets of
Nature." Browning was 'the poet of the
human soul.' That is true. ' And yet he
does not break away from his predecessors.
His kinship with them, in that he recog-
nizes the presence of God in nature, is
everywhere evident.' In proof of this,
Professor Jones quotes one passage,
'scarcely to be surpassed by any of our
poets, as indicative of his power of dealing
with the supernaturalism of nature' — the
passage which closes with these suggestive
words :
1 ' The Ring and the Book ' (' The Pope '), vol. ii. 334-
16

Concerning God

Thus He dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at last
To man — the consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life.i

The point that is here emphasized, and
which appears again and again as an
article of the poet's creed, is the imma-
nence of God in all His works. He is not
transcendent merely, an uncreated essence
apart altogether from His creatures, but *in
Him we,' and all things else, *live and
move and have our being.' * His presence
fills our earth : '

He glows above
With scarce an intervention, presses close
And palpitatingly. His soul o'er ours :
We feel Him, nor by painful reason know I
The everlasting minute of creation
Is felt there ; now it is, as it was then ;
All changes at His instantaneous will.
Not by the operation of a law
Whose maker is elsewhere at other work.
His hand is still engaged upon His world —
Man^s praise can forward it, man's prayer suspend.
For is not God all-mighty? To recast

^ * Paracelsus,* vol. i. 69.

17 B

Studies in Browning

The world, erase old things and make them new,
What costs it Him? So, man breathes nobly there.^

The same truth is expressed by Fust as
he ' pours forth his soul in an impassioned
utterance, half soliloquy, half prayer,' which
is ' a tribute of adoration to that Absolute
of Creative Knowledge, the law of which
he has obeyed ' :

O Thou, the one force in the whole variation

Of visible nature, — at work — do I doubt? —
From Thy first to our last, in perpetual creation —

A film hides us from Thee — 'twixt inside and out,
A film, on this earth where Thou bringest about
New marvels, new forms of the glorious, the gracious,

We bow to, we bless for: no star bursts heaven's
dome
But Thy finger impels it, no weed peeps audacious

Earth's clay-fioor from out, but Thy finger makes
room
For one world*s-want the more in Thy Cosmos.^

Even so, invariably,

We find great things are made of little things,
And little things go lessening till at last
Comes God behind them.'

^ ' Luria,' vol. i. 463.

* * Fust and his Friends,' vol. ii. 740.

» ' Mr. Sludge, "the Medium,"' vol. i. 618.

18

Concerning God

But besides this general teaching in
reference to the revelation of God in His
works, there are, in Brownings poetry,
many sidelights on the Divine Character
as it is in itself and in its relationship to
the world of men and things. * Taken
as a whole,' says Dr. Edward Berdoe,
* Browning's conception of God does not
, differ from that of the great teachers
of Christianity and the apologists of
theism, like Kant' If this be true,
there cannot be the slightest doubt
that Browning believed in a personal
God, in the sense in which that phrase
is understood by the most exact philo-
sophical thinkers. And consequently,
here and there throughout the poems,
we have suggestions of those attributes
which are essentially inherent in such a
Being.

For example, without discussing what
is meant precisely by the Omnipotence of
God, what could more tersely indicate for

19

Studies in Browning

us the vastness of His might than the
words in *Pompilia'? —

Reflect that God, who makes the storm desist,
Can make an angry violent heart subside.^

Or, if we take the attribute of Omnisciencey
how much significance is packed into the
phrases with which Caponsacchi, the priest,
asseverated his freedom from any moral
blameworthiness when he held himself
'bound to help weak innocence'! His
action was performed in the clearest
light :

With the midday blaze of truth above,
The unlidded eye of God awake, aware ; *

that Eye of which it is said elsewhere,
that it is

over all.
And each, to mark the minute's deed, word, thought.
As worthy of reward or punishment.'

1 *The Ring and the Book' (* Pompilia'), vol. ii. i6i.

« Ibid. (* The Other Half-Rome \ vol. ii. 59.

« ' Ferishtah's Fancies ' (* Plot-Culture \ vol. ii. 673.

20

Concerning God

Lotze, in his Outlines of the Philosophy
of Religion^ has a very helpful section on
Unchangeableness as an attribute of the
Deity. * A God/ he says, * who should be
without changeable inner states, for ever
perfectly self- identical, would answer to
no religious need . . . and, therefore, by
His ** unchangeableness " nothing further
is meant than the consistency with which
all these inner states proceed from a nature
that remains the same.' In the light of such
words as these, we see the meaning and
the beauty of the lines of * Abt Vogler,' the
musician, after he has uttered his lament :

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared ;
Gone ! and the good tears start, the praises that come
too slow;

• •••••a.

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable
Name?
Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with
hands !
What, have fear of change from Thee, who art ever
the same?
Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy
power expands?

21

Studies in Browning

1/

There shall never be one lost good I What was, shall
live as before ;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ;
1 What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much

good more ;
On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect
round.^

Closely akin to this is the Eternity of the
Divine Being, so quaintly set forth in
' Fifine at the Fair,' in the picture of
* Ignorance surmising, in the mouth of
peasant lad or lass ' :

I heard my father say he understood it was
A building, people built as soon as earth was made
Almost, because they might forget (they were afraid)
Earth did not make itself, but came of Somebody.
They laboured that their work might last, and show

thereby
He stays, while we and earth and all things come

and go.
Come whence? Go whither? That, when come and

gone, we know
Perhaps, but not while earth and all things need our

best
Attention : we must wait and die to know the rest.
Ask, if that 's true, what use in setting up the pile ?
To make one fear and hope : remind us, all the while
We come and go, outside there 's Somebody that stays.*

1 Vol. i. 579. * Vol. ii. 364.

22

Concerning God

There is, however, another attribute of
God upon which Browning seemed always
to delight to dwell — though, possibly, one
should not call that an attribute which is
of the very essence of His existence — for,
*if He were to cease to lovCy He would
cease to be.' The two sublimest affirma-
tions concerning the Deity in the inspired
Word are these — 'God is Light,' *God is
Love.' It is the latter of these two which,
apparently, had so taken hold of the mind
and the heart of the poet that he never
wearies of reiterating the statement of
the fact in numerous connexions and in
various forms. In * Paracelsus ' he de-
clares unhesitatingly :

God ! Thou art Love ! I build my faith on that.

And presently, praying for one who
has erred, and for himself, he says :

Save him, dear God ; it will be like Thee : bathe him
In light and life ! Thou art not made like us ;
We should be wroth in such a case ; but Thou
Forgivest — so, forgive these passionate thoughts

23 .

Studies in Browning

Which come unsought and wiH not pass away !
1 know Thee, who hast kept my path, and made
Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow
So that it reached me like a solemn joy ;
It were too strange that I should doubt Thy love.'

How natural, again, is the comparison,
which almost suggests a contrast, between
the purest types of earthly love and His !

If I only knew
Wha.t was my mother's face — my father, too I

Nay, if you come to that, best love of all
Is God's ; then why not have God's love befall
Myself as, in the palace by the Dome,
Monsignor ? '

It is, indeed, a favourite method of
Browning's to reason from the character
of God's noblest creature up to the char-
acter of the Creator. He will not believe
that there is in man that sublime spirit of
unselfishness unless it be also in Him from
whom it first came.

Do I find love so full in my

gift.
That I doubt His own love (

Here, the paits shift?

, God's ultimate

compete with it?

1 Vol. i. 6i.

' ' Pippa Passes," vol. i. 198.
24

Concerning God

Here, the creature surpass the Creator, — ^the end, what

Began?
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for

this man.
And dare doubt He alone shall not help him, who

yet alone can?^

So profoundly convinced is the poet of
the fact that God's nature must be Love,
that he does not hesitate to use such bold
words as these :

In youth I looked to these very skies.

And, probing their immensities,

I found God there. His visible power;

Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense

Of the power, an equal evidence
That His love, there too, was the nobler dower.
For the loving worm within its clod.
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.'

But it is not merely as a principle in
the Divine Being that Browning conceives
of Love, but as a principle in action in
relation to man — not the ideal man only,
not the noblest type of man, but also man
at his worst! What infinite suggestive-

^ * Saul,' vol. i. 279. * * Christmas Eve,* vol. i. 483.

25

Studies in Browning

ness there is in the descriptive phrase,
* He who is Pity/ and especially when
it is taken in conjunction with the refer-
ence to temptation which immediately
follows it! —

Was the trial sore?
Temptation sharp ? Thank God a second time !
Why comes temptation but for man to meet
And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
And so be pedestalled in triumph?^

Yes ! even in the sorest straits in which
a frail man may find himself, though he
may have to fight hard for the mastery
over his enemy, and — may we not say ? —
even if he be sometimes defeated by that
enemy, God is still * Pity ' — then, indeed,
more than at any time else.

In harmony with this, there are two
fragments in *A Blot in the 'Scutcheon,'
full of the deepest insight into God's
attitude towards man defiled by sin. One
runs thus :

For God
We're good enough, though the world casts us out.

1 * The Ring and the Book ' (* The Pope '), vol. ii. 232.

26

Concerning God

The other, in the turn of its thought,
reminds us of Shakespeare at his best,
in his most religious mood :

I dare approach that Heaven
Which has not bade a living thing despair.
Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain,
But bids the vilest worm that turns on it
Desist and be forgiven.^

I will quote but one other passage to
illustrate this particular point — and here
is indicated how God's estimate of us
differs from that of men ; how He sees,
not what we are merely, but what we may
become, the possibilities of our lives, the
unrealized ideals, and waits not till we have
become our best before lavishing His love
upon us, but gives us credit for what we
would be, and values us accordingly :

All instincts immature.
All purposes unsure,
• ■ • •

All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me.
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the
pitcher shaped.^

1 Vol. i. 348, 351. » ' Rabbi Ben Ezra,' vol. i. 582.

27

Studies in Browning

Then, following naturally from this, we
have the conception of God seeking the
fulfilment of His purpose in man. His
love is in no sense passive, it means
essentially working, striving, sacrificing
to realize His own ideal in the object
that calls it forth. That is to say, God
the Worker is the necessary complement
of God the Lover. Power is joined with
Pity, and that Power actually in exercise
too. Compassion, sympathy, tender re-
gard — these are incomplete in Him with-
out the putting forth of His hand to bless
and save, for He

Before and after, with a work to do
Which no man helps ror hinders.'

What I mean is suggested in bold
metaphorical language in ' Balaustion's
Adventure,' where the poet says :

I think this is the authentic sign and seal

Of Godship, that it ever waxes glad,

And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts

' 'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwaagau,' vol. ii. 311.

Concerning God

Into a rage to suffer for mankind.

And recommence at sorrow : drops like seed

After the blossom, ultimate of alL

Say, does the seed scorn earth and seek the sun?

Surely it has no other end and aim

Than to drop, once more die into the ground,

Taste cold and darkness and oblivfon there :

And thence rise, tree-like grow through pain to joy.

More joy and most joy, — do man good again. ^

It is true that we cannot always discern
God's working — true that He seems some-
times to leave us in our distress, as if He
were not Love, as if He were not at all ;
but, though He come not to His terrified
children till the 'fourth watch of the
night,' He does come then, and His
moment of relief and help proves itself
always the most opportune possible, and
we see that He is still

God the strong, God the beneficent,
God ever mindful in all strife and strait,
Who, for our own good, makes the need extreme,
Till at the last He puts forth might and saves.^

And, when He does at last manifest Him-

1 Vol. i. 654.

« *The Ring and the Book' (* Pompilia '), vol. ii. 166.

29

Studies in Browning

self, His wisdom as well as His might
is vindicated, and He 'perfects that which
concerneth His servants.'

But, in the accomplishment of this great
purpose in man, there will necessarily be
much opposition, and Browning recognizes
this in all its dread reality and in all its
tremendous might! He is an optimist,
but he is not one who closes his eyes to
pain and death and sin. He discerns all
the ills of life, and yet he faces them
unflinchingly, because 'the soul and God
stand sure.' In one of his very early
poems he gives us the keynote of that
wonderful optimism of his :

Why should I be sad or lorn of hope ?

Why ever make man's good distinct from God's,

Or, finding they are one, why dare n "

Professor Henry Jones, in his book

from which I have previously quoted,

points out how, in the feature to which

I am now referring. Browning differs

' ' Paracelsus,' vol. i. 27.

30

I

Concerning God

from two others of his great contem-
poraries — Emerson and Carlyle. Speak-
ing of Emerson's always rose-coloured
view of things, he says : ' Such an optim-
ism, such a plunge into the pure blue
and away from facts, was Emerson's.
Caroline Fox tells a story of him and
Carlyle which reveals this very pointedly.
It seems that Carlyle once led the serene
philosopher through the abominations of
the streets of London at midnight, asking
him with grim humour, at every few steps,
" Do you believe in the devil now ? "
Emerson replied that the more he saw of
the English people the greater and better
he thought them. This little incident
lays bare the limits of both these great
men. Where the one saw, the other
was blind. To the one there was the
misery and the universal murk ; to the
other the pure white beam was scarcely
broken. Carlyle believed in the good,
beyond all doubt: he fought his great
31

Studies in Browning

battle in its strength, and won ; but " he
was sorely wounded." Emerson was Sir
Galahad, blind to all but the Holy
Grail; his armour spotless - white, his
virtue cloistered and unbreathed, his
race won without the dust and heat.
But his optimism was too easy to be
satisfactory.'

Now, in opposition to the pessimism of
Carlyle on the one hand, and the 'too easy'
optimism of Emerson on the other, Brown-
ing — seeing the worst, as Carlyle saw it,
and seeing also the best beyond, as Emer-
son saw it — reveals a true, unfailing, and
glorious optimism, which grounds itself
upon the only sure, immovable basis — a
conviction resulting from the vision of the
loving, powerful, regnant God ! Evil may
exist, does exist — paint it, if you will, in
its blackest colours ; but good exists too,
and good will triumph at last, because God
and good are one. And so our poet
declares ;

32

Concerning God

Oh, thought's absurd! — as with some monstrous fact

Which, when ill thoughts beset us, seems to give

Merciful God that made the sun and stars,

The waters and the green delights of earth,

The lie ! I apprehend the monstrous fact —

Yet know the maker of all worlds is good.

And yield my reason up, inadequate

To reconcile what yet I do behold —

Blasting my sense ! There 's cheerful day outside.^

It is not necessary that we stay to
inquire whether Browning believed in the
personality of the devil, or, what precisely
was in his mind when he referred to this
evil power by name. Whatever it was,
in his view it was a power destined to be
vanquished :

I felt quite sure that God had set
Himself to Satan ; who would spend
A minute's mistrust on the end?*

Delayed victory does not mean defeat
Evil, seemingly triumphant, may flaunt
itself, and its devotees may imagine that
this is its destiny, but

^ * A Blot in the 'Scutcheon,' vol. i. 340.
^ * Count Gismond,' vol. i. 386.

33 c

Studies in Browning

God, who seems acquiescent in the main
With those who add *So will He ever sleep'—
Flutters their foolishness from time to time,
Puts forth His right hand recognizably;
Even as, to fools who deem He needs must right
Wrong on the instant, as if earth were heaven,
He wakes remonstrance — 'Passive, Lord, how
longp'i

Suddenly, without warning, mysteriously.
He interposes, and His work is revealed:

When ye find . . .

One wave of the hand of God amid the worlds

Bid vapour vanish, darkness fiee away.

And let the vexed star culminate in peace

Approachable no more by earthly mist.*

It is the conviction which the poet
cherishes, that this is the issue of all the
struggle and tumult and anguish occa-
sioned by the conflict of right and wrong,
light and darkness, which accounts for the
oft-quoted lines of the song in 'Pippa
Passes,' as the expression of his noble
faith and hope and prophetic vision :

1 * The Ring and the Book ' (* The Book and the Ring 0,
vol. ii. 286.

* Ibid., vol. ii. 287.

34

Concerning God

The year's at the spring
And day's at the mom ;
Morning *s at seven ;
The hillside 's dew-pearled ;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail 's on the thorn :
God's in His heaven —
All's right with the world.^

Such, then, are some of the thoughts of
God which are to be discovered in the
works of this great poet. Like all rever-
ent thinkers, he recognizes his own limita-
tions, and the possibility of errors, espe-
cially in his conception of the supernatural.
Hence the scathing satire of Paracelsus
in his reply to the flippant speech of
Festus, concerning the will of God :

Now, 'tis this I most admire —
The constant talk men of your stamp keep up
Of God's will, as they style it ; one would swear
Man had but merely to uplift his eye.
And see the will in question charactered
On the heaven's vault.*

And hence, too, the suggestive lines in
* The Ring and the Book ' :

1 Vol. i. 202. * * Paracelsus,' vol. i. 43.

35

Studies in Browning

Correct the portrait by the h^rmg &ce,

Man's Gody by God's God in the mind of man.^

But, whatever the mistakes made in
portrayal, whatever the imperfect views
acquired of Him, God, Le. * God's God,'
is always not simply an article in the
poet s creed, but (as we intimated above)
an Element to be reckoned with in his
philosophy, and the greatest, the most
potent Force in his life. Is it, then, a vain
wish, is it not rather a natural, universal
longing that is expressed in connexion
with the story of Ren6 Gentilhomme, one
of * The Two Poets of Croisic ' ? —

I care — intimately care to have
Experience how a human creature felt

In after-life, who bore the burden grave
Of certainly believing God had dealt

For once directly with him : did not rave
— A maniac, did not find his reason melt

— ^An idiot, but went on, in peace or strife,

The world's way, lived an ordinary life.*

And though that longing may not be

1 * The Pope,' vol. ii. 242.

* * The Two Poets of Croisic,' vol. ii. 563.

36

Concerning God

fulfilled in the way desired, though a direct
revelation, such as is sometimes sought,
may be * forbidden by the laws of life,'
yet that life is full of indirect messages
from the unseen world ; all our * simulated
thunder- claps,' all our * counterfeited truths,'
all those glimpses of beauty which startle
while they elude the soul, are messages
of this kind— darts shot from the spirit
world, which rebound as they touch,
yet sting us to the consciousness of its
existence.^

This, Browning clearly perceived. He,
a man of affairs, finding pleasure in the
society of other human beings, a man to
whom this world and all its concerns were
intensely real, nevertheless understood the
meaning, as perhaps few have done, of
the words of the seer of long ago, * The
tabernacle of God is with men' — that
tabernacle concealing, even while it pro-
claims. His sacred presence; and so to

1 Vide Mrs. Sutherland Orr's Handbook^ p. 268.

37

Studies in Browning

himself might his own confident saying
concerning another be most aptly ap-
plied :

He at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God.^

^ * La Saisiaz/ vol. ii. 555.

38

II

CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST

39

II

CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST

* These general truths [as to the Person of
Christ] were anciently summed up as follows :
Christ is truly God, perfectly Man, uncon-
fusedly in two Natures, indivisibly in one
Person. Later developments of dogma pur-
sue the subject into a multitude of subtleties
which have made no real advancement to-
wards the solution of what remains The
Mystery op God, even Christ.'

Dr. W. B. Pope.

AT first sight it may seem wholly
inappropriate to place such words
as these at the head of this chapter, espe-
cially when it is remembered that they
are the words of a professor of theology,

41

Studies in Browning

from whom one would naturally expect
the greatest possible precision of speech in
relation to any branch of the science which
it was his business to teach. Surely there
can be nothing in the poet to correspond
with this !

And yet I will dare to say that no
unbiassed reader ot Browning can peruse
his poems, in quest of his teaching concern-
ing the Founder of the Christian religion,
without discovering that the poet has
said, in his own way, exactly what the
theological professor has said in his.

1 do not propose to analyse the defini-
tion or description given above, to divide
its phrases one from another, and then to
show how there is that in the poet's pro-
ductions which harmonizes with every
separate phrase. My object is rather to
set forth in outline what the poet evidently
believed in regard to this 'mystery,'
and then to allow his faith as a whole
to make its own impression. Of the
4a

Concerning Jesus Christ

nature of that impression I have no
doubt at all.

It is noteworthy that Browning does
not ask for the acceptance of the Bible
doctrine of the Incarnate God, on the
ground of authority only. He saw that
that doctrine is not antagonistic to, or
inharmonious with, any faculty of man's
mind. In the recent past, numerous
attempts have been made . to prove that
the Incarnation is in accord with the most
up - to - date teachings of science ; and so,
advanced theologians tell us of * two views
held as regards the divine motive behind
the Incarnation, which may be briefly
termed (i) the Evolutionary, and (2) the
Redemptive or Soteriological.' These are
not, of course, mutually exclusive, though
the school of thought to which a man
belongs will determine on which of the
two he will place the greater emphasis.
Shall we be wrong if we say that Brown-
ing emphasized both equally? He could

43

Studies in Browning

write, on the one hand, such familiar lines
as these :

I say, ihe acknowledgement of God in Christ
Accepted by tky reason,* sotves for thee
All questions in the earth and out of it,
And has so far advanced thee to be wise,'

And, on the other hand, as Dr. Berdoe

rightly says: 'The poems "ChristmasEve"

and "Easter Day" are meaningless if they

do not express their author's belief in the

divinity of our Lord attd His atoning

sacrifice.^ Christ Is no fable or myth to

Browning : for the Gottingen professor

who taught that doctrine he prays :

But, to be a little more explicit, there
are several points involved in what we
have already said, which may be roughly
classified under the following headings : —

1. First, the absolute deity of Christ—

' The italics are mine.

* ' A Death in the Desert,' vol. i. 590.

' ' Christmas Eve,' vol. i. 495.

Concerning Jesus Christ

* the illimitable God.' So the postscript
to *A Death in the Desert' describes
Him ; and in this poem, perhaps more
clearly than in any other, the poet's faith
in this distinctive doctrine of Christianity
is revealed. Of course it may be true,
as Mr. Nettleship has said, *that "A
Death in the Desert " goes no single step ^
in the direction of proving Christ's divinity
as a dogma ' ; but the poem itself is void
of all meaning, unless, in spite of its
dramatic form, it can be regarded as
setting forth the deepest conviction of the
poet's own sout. Hence the verdict of
the man who adds the final note is this :

If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men

Mere man, the first and best but nothing more, — <

Account Him, for reward of what He was.

Now and for ever, wretchedest of all.^

And when he puts the inevitable alterna-
tive,

Call Christ, then, the illimitable God,
Or lost !

^ * A Death in the Desert,' voL i. 593.

45

Studies in Browning

he significantly adds concerning the op-
ponent of the loftier faith :

But 'twas CeriBthus that is lost.'

In the body of the poem, too, there
is one striking scene, the suggestiveness
of which cannot be overlooked or mis-
taken. St. John is dying in the desert.
He has lapsed into unconsciousness.
Four grown disciples and a boy are with
him. They use restoratives, they chafe
his hands, one of them prays— all with
the view of bringing him back again to
conscious life, but all in vain.

Then the Boy sprang up from his knees, and ran,
Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.
And fetched the seventh plate of graven lead
Out of the secret chamber, found a place,
Pressing with finger on the deeper dints,
And spoke, as 'twere his mouth proclaiming first,
' I am the Resurrection and the Life.'
Whereat he opened his eyes wide at once.
And sat up of himself, and looked at us.'

That word of the Master had done for

^ ' A Death in the Desert,' vol. i. 593.
' Ibid., vol. i. 584.

46

, Concerning Jesus Christ

him what nothing else could, and disclosed
the power that dwelt in Him alone.

In view of this scene, it is not surprising
to read of Browning, in Mrs. Sutherland
Orr s Life^ such words as these : * He
has repeatedly written or declared, in
the words of Charles Lamb, **If Christ
entered the room, I should fall on my
knees " ; and again, in those of Napoleon,
*' I am an understander of men, and He
was no man."' Referring to the former
saying, Mrs. Orr adds, in a footnote,
' These words have more significance
when taken with their context : "If
. Shakespeare was to come into the room,
we should all rise up to meet him ; but
if that Person [meaning Christ] was to
come into the room, we should all fall
down to try to kiss the hem of His
garment ! " '

With so lofty a conception of Christ's
supremacy, it follows that men must

1 P. 318.
47

Studies in Browning

recognize it, or else neglect to do so
at their own terrible cost. And this is
intimated twice over in almost identical
language, in ' The Ring and the Book ' :

Our Lord Himself . . .

Sealing the sum of sufferance up, received

Opprobrium, contumely and buffeting

Without complaint : but when He found Himself

Touched in His honoar never so little for once,

Then outbroke indignation pent before —

' Honore?n meum nemint dabo !' 'No,

My honour I to nobody will give!''

2. But the complementary truth to that
we have just been considering is found
also in Browning's poems, namely, Christ's
ceal manhood, or, as it has been called,
in what seems to me a better phrase,
because more adequately expressing the
actual fact — the human life of God.

It would be altogether beside our pur-
pose in this volume to enter upon any
discussion as to the nature and properties
of the humanity of Jesus Christ. Sufifice

' ' Dominus Hyacinthus,' vol. ii. i8i ; ■vide also vol. ii.
243-

48

Concerning Jesus Christ

it to say, that on no other hypothesis can
you satisfactorily explain His life and its
results than on this — that He was as truly
man as we ourselves are men :

who trod . . .
This earth in weakness, shame and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursed tree.*

That is evidently implied in the very
form of speech which the poet puts into
the mouth of * The Critic,' who has done
his best to pulverize faith in the historical
Christ. When those who had come under
his influence looked for the monition that
their * faith, reduced to such condition, be
swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole,'
said he :

Go home and venerate the myth i

I thus have experimented with — \^^^i^ «r«*
This many continue to adore Him
Rather than all who went before Him,
And all who ever followed after I '

^ ' Christmas Eve,' vol. i. 487.
* Ibid., vol. i. 493.

49 i>

Studies in Browning

The italics are mine, and the point I
would have us observe is this, that the
mylk is a man ! The sceptical professor
can make him nothing else. In spite of
himself, he recognizes the reality of His
manhood, and places Him at the head
of His race.

But in no place do I find a truer, more
faithful, embodiment of the Scripture
teaching concerning this than in the
magnificent poem ' Saul.' ' It begins with
the expression of an exalted human ten-
derness, and ends in a prophetic vision
of divine love as manifested in Christ.'
David is the speaker. He has come into
Saul's presence to call him forth from
the depression and agony into which he
has fallen. He sings and plays to him

but all to no purpose. His musical

skill avails not to achieve its object.
Then music and harp are laid aside. He
speaks, he prays, and this is what he
says:

50

Concerning Jesus Christ

Would I siiifer for him that I love ? So wouldst thou —

so wilt thou !
So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost

crown —
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor

down
One spot for the creature to stand in I

Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for I my flesh,

that I seek
In the Godhead I I seek and I find it. O Saul, it

shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to / ^

me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever : a Hand ^

like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life' to ', thee I See

the Christ stand ! ^

3. Following from this, something must
be said as to the actual or possible i;ela::^
tionship sustained by the divine-human
Christ to man.

That there is an essential relationship
of one sort or other cannot for a moment
be doubted. Explain it as we may, no
one, having once heard of Jesus, can
ever be independent of Him, can ever

1 * SauV vol. i. 280.
51

Studies in Browning

be the same after as he was before. Is
not that truth embodied, in part at least,
in the speech of Caponsacchl, the priest
who assisted Pompiiia in her flight to
Rome, when he says? —

You are Christians ; somehow, no one ever plucked
A rag, even, from the body of the Lord,
To wear and mock with, but, despite himself,
He looked the greater and was the belter.'

Similarly, the influence of the Incarnate
Son of God is implicitly suggested in
another part of this great poem {'The
Ring and the Book ') in a single line
that fell from the lips of one of the
lawyers, Arcangeli, ' the jolly learned
man of middle age.' Preoccupied as
he is for the most part with his Latin
phrases, he yet now and again breaks
away from them, and then his speech
becomes terse and forceful and direct.
What could be finer than this ques-
tion of his? How one may see in it
* ' The Ring and the Book,' vol. ii. 1 19.
52

Concerning Jesus Christ

meanings far beyond the original in-
tention :

Doubt ye the force of Christmas on the soul?^

* The force of Christmas/ Surely here
is a text for a sermon, which might con-
tain divisions and subdivisions almost
innumerable.

The designed effect of the Incarnation
of Christ and all that that involves is
indicated to us in * words that burn ' at the
close of the * Epistle of Karshish.' This
epistle is avowedly written from Bethany
by an Arab physician to a certain Abib,
the writer's master in the science of
medicine, and in it he tells, with utmost
caution, from a medical point of view, the
story of Lazarus after his alleged resur-
rection. As he — the physician — relates it,
Lazarus ' has been the subject of a pro-
longed epileptic trance, and his reason has
been impaired by a too sudden awakening

1 *The Ring and the Book,* vol. ii. 178.

53

Studies in Browning

from it' But the ' madman ' himself
labours under the fixed idea that he was
raised from the dead, and there is some-
thing in him and in his recital of events
which haunts and fascinates the doctor,
and from which he finds it impossible to
break away, until at last his pent - up
feeling finds vent for itself in this agitated

The very God ! think, Abib ; dost thou think ?
So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too —
So, through the thunder comes a human voice
Saying, ' heart I made, a heart beats here 1
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.'

That should be ' the force of Christmas '
— and all that follows what Christmas
represents — 'on the soul.' The God-man
humbling Himself and becoming 'obedient
unto death ' ought to enkindle in the soul
a passionate, responsive love to Him and
1 'An Epistle,' vol. i. 515,

54

Concerning Jesus Christ

to all men. And yet, in its place, too
frequently, there is callous indifference
towards Him, and bickering and strife in
relation to others ; and His

Sad face on the cross sees only this
After the passion of a thousand years.^

Over against that, however, one is glad
to put an experience, realized in unnum-
bered instances, and portrayed for us in
simple but exquisitely beautiful lines in
* Pauline ^ :

O Thou pale form . . .

... oft have I stood by Thee —
Have I been keeping lonely watch with Thee
In the damp night by weeping Olivet,
Or leaning on Thy bosom, proudly less,
Or dying with Thee on the lonely cross.
Or witnessing Thine outburst from the tomb.'

*The words of genius,* George Eliot
has said, * bear a wider meaning than the
thought that prompted them.' Might not
that saying be rightly applied to the words

1 * Fra Lippo Lippi,* vol. i. 520.
« Vol. i. 13.

55

Studies in Browning

just quoted? May not such words be
taken as referring not only to the intense
interest and devoted love awakened in the
soul by the contemplation of the atoning
work of Jesus Christ, but also as expressing
that union with Him in all His experi-
ences, into which the truly devout soul
inevitably enters? This is the consum-
mation of Christian experience in this
world — to be 'joined unto the Lord,' and
to become 'one spirit' with Him.

We cannot more appropriately close this
chapter than by a brief reference to the
teaching of the Epilogue to ' Dramatis
Personae ' — 'a comprehensive and sugges-
tive vision of the religious life of humanity.'
There are three speakers here. The first
is David, representing ' the Old Testament
theism, with its solemn celebrations, its
pompous worship, and the strong material
faith which bowed down the thousands as
one man, before the visible glory of the
Lord.' The second speaker is Renan,

56

Concerning Jesus Christ

who represents nineteenth-century scepti-
cism, and the longing of the heart for the
old belief which scientific reason has dis-
pelled. This belief is symbolized by a
'Face' which once looked down from
heights of glory upon men, 'by a star
which shone down upon . them in respon-
sive light and love. The face has vanished
into darkness. The star, gradually reced-
ing, has lost itself in the multitude of the
lesser lights of heaven.* The third speaker
is Browning himself, and he * corrects both
the material faith of the Old Testament,
and the scientific doubt of the nineteenth
century, by the idea of a more mystical
and individual intercourse between God
and man.'^ For him — the poet — the
divine glory has not been lost. It has
been revealed more clearly than in Old
Testament times, in 'the Face of Jesus
Christ,' and no form of scepticism has been
able to blot it out or to obscure it from

^ Vide Mrs. Git's Handbook^ pp. 240-1.

57

Studies in Browning

his vision. To him Jesus is the everlast-
ing Christ — 'the same yesterday, and
to-day, and for ever.'

That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows.

Or decomposes but to recompose,

Become my universe . that feels and knows.^

^ ' Dramatis Personisle ' Q Epilogue ')i vol. i. 626.

58

Ill

CONCERNING MAN

59

Ill

CONCERNING MAN

' The proper study of mankind is man.^

Pope.

AS has been noticed by all Browning
students, and as we shall have
occasion to observe further in a subsequent
chapter, our poet is linked essentially, not
with the quiet life of the country, but with / ^X
the restless activity of the town. ' Born
a Londoner, and proud to own himself a
citizen of the greatest city upon earth, it
is with London, Florence, and Venice that
his name is imperishably interwoven : not
the Lake district of Wordsworth, nor the
Geneva of Byron, nor the Spezzia of

6i

Studies in Browning

Shelley.' And this being so, k is not
surprising that he should write of ' men
and women,' dissecting human character,
analysing h uman motives and aims, as
no other poet — except the great Bard of
Avon — has ever done.

For though one may depict man as he
is. with some degree of truthfulness and
propriety, by simply following the advice
contained in Sidney's maxim, ' Look in
thy heart and write,' yet the delineation
which results from introspection alone can-
not be so accurate, so comprehensive, or
so convincing as that which is the outcome
of constant association with, and close
observation of, other human beings. Be-
I cause Browning knew men, he could depict
t V I man — at his best, and at his worst too.

His conception of the inherent dignity
of man is magnificent. He sees him as he
came forth from the hand of his Creator,
and as bearing still the marks of his
origin, and therefore of his ultimate des-
62

I

Concerning Man

tiny also. There is nothing in his philo-
sophy which tends to demean, or in any
way to belittle, any of his kind. For
every man as a man he has a genuine
respect.

In this he certainly gives us a far
worthier and nobler lead than Carlyle.
Every one knows how the Sage of Chelsea
felt towards ordinary average human
beings, the manner in which he charac-
terized the undistinguished millions of
the English people, and how he spoke of
the Americans also as so many millions of
the greatest bores ever seen in this world.
Carlyle believed in great men, in heroes
and hero-worship, and in that sense it may
be said, of course, that even he reverenced
humanity ; but side by side with that there
was in him a 'disdainful indifference' to
all who in his view did not answer to that
description. Browning, on the contrary,
believed in man as such, saw in him the
lineaments of the divine character, and
63

Studies in Browning

exulted in his own kinship with a race of
such descent :

m tell you : all the more 1 know mankind,

The more I thank God, like my grandmother,

For making itie a little lower than

The angels, honour-clothed and glory-crowned ;

This is the honour,^that no thing I know,

Feel, or conceive, but I can make ray own

Somehow, by use of hand or head or heart :

This is the glory,^lhat In all conceived,

Or felt, or known, 1 recognize a mind

Not mine but like mine, — for the double joy,^

Making all things for me and me for Him.'

It is possible, I suppose, to maintain
that, in some respects, Browning ' held a
view of descent and development not very
different from Darwin's.' Certainly he was
not unaffected by the trend of the scientific
thinking of his time in regard to evolution.
It reveals itself again and again. But it is not
man's relation to the brute creation that im-
presses him most, it is rather this— that he is

for aye removed
From the developed brute ; a god though in the germ.*

•'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau : Saviour of Society,'
vol. ii. 299.
* ' Rabbi Ben Ezra,' vol. i. 581.

Concerning Man

Luthardt very finely says : * The earthly
creation is man analysed, and man is
creation synthetised. Such is the view
of Scripture, as laid down in those words
which precede the creation of man and
succeed that of all the other creatures,
" Let us make man." But the word of
God continues, " In our image." God
designs to be imaged in man. The whole
world is a mirror of God, of His power
and wisdom ; but His most special nature
will give itself a creature image in man.* ^
God sustains to him a relationship which
he bears to no other, and therefore what
higher ambition could one cherish than
to fulfil His purpose in this relationship .»*
Is there not that which appeals to the
heart of every true man in these noble
lines from 'Paracelsus*.**

But if delusions trouble me, and Thou,
Not seldom felt with rapture in Thy help
Throughout my toils and wanderings, dost intend
To work man's welfare through my weak endeavour,

^ Moral Truths of Christianity^ p. 29.

65 E

Studies in Browning

To crown my mortal forehead with a beam

From Thine own blinding crown, to smile, and guide

This puny hand and let the work so wrought

Be styled my work, — hear me ! I covet not

An influx of new power, an angel's soul ;

It were no marvel then^but 1 have reached

Thus far, a man ; let me conclude, a man I '

But the dignity of man is implied not
only in his origin and in his allotted tasks,
but also in his capacity to apprehend and
com7nune with the Infinite, and in his
efforts to realize this ideal. Man's per-
sonality, be it observed, is entirely distinct
from that of the Divine Being :

I know that Me i:

i there a

■ I -

Live, think, do human work here-
His will moves, but a being by myself.
His, and not He who made me for a work.
Watches my working, judges its effect,
But docs not interpose.

This is illustrated by the supposed
relationship of a courier to one who
commands him. He takes a long jour-
ney, fulfilling the behests of his lord
and master :

> Vol. i, 31.
66

ft

Concerning Man

I bid hicn, since I have the right to bid,
And, my part done so far, his part begins.

. , , Exactly thus men stand to God ;
I with my courier, God with me. Just so
I have His bidding to perform ; but mind
And body, all of me, though made and meant
For that sole service, must consult, concert
With my own self and nobody beside.
How to effect the same : Cod helps not else.'

But though the two — God and man —
are quite distinct one from another, it can
never be said that the one is independent
of the other in any sense at all. And
that is, to man, no humiHation, but a sign
and evidence of highest glory. ' God
and man,' the theologian tells us, 'cannot
remain apart from each other, cannot
maintain indifference towards each other :
they struggle towards each other from an
intrinsic necessity, they exist for each
other ; for God will be the God of man,
and man is to be a man of God. There
is in God an inward tendency towards

' ' Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau ; Saviour of Society,*
vol. ii. 294-

67

Studies in Browning

man ; for He willed that man should
exist : man is the first and last thought
of God, the resolution of His will, the
beloved of His heart. There is in man
an inward tendency towards God ; for he
proceeded from the will of God, he was
made by and for God. The will of God,
as it is the reason of his existence, is also
the law of his life and the aim of his
efforts. God is the deepest need of man,
his highest aim, and that for which he is
incessantly striving.'^

Is not that what Browning is saying to
us over and over again ? I quote one
passage only, typical of many :

You own your instincts? why, what else do 1,
Who want, am made for, and must have a God
Ere I can be aught, do aught? — no mere name
Want, but the true thing mth what proves its truth.
To wit, a relation from that thing to me,
Touching from head to foot — whicb touch I feel.
And with it take the rest, this life of ours ! '

No wonder that, with such a view of

' Luthardt, Fundamental Truths, p. 149.
' ' Bishop Blougram's Apology," vol. i. 539.

68

Concerning Man

man's nature, the contrast between him
and all beneath him, over which he should
have dominion, is asserted in the most
emphatic terms! No wonder that the
thought of his dignity never leaves him,
and saves him from a descent to which
too often he is tempted ! —

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the
scale.^

• ••••••*

I am
A man yet : I need never humble me.
I would have been — something, I know not what ;
But though I cannot soar, I do not crawl.^

• •••••••

Meditate on a man's immense mistake

Who, fashioned to use feet and walk, deigns crawl —

Takes the immanly means.^

Even the wretched Guido, after the
commission and detection of his horrible
crime, feigns and simulates a spirit, which,
alas ! he had lost, as he says :

I lived and died a man, and take man's chance,
Honest and bold : right will be done to such.^

* * Rabbi Ben Ezra,' vol. i. 581, * * Paracelsus,' vol. i. 47.
» * The Ring and the Book ' (* the Pope '), vol. ii. 226.

* Ibid. (* Guido '), vol. ii. 279.

69

Studies in Browning

f The possible counterpart of all this,
I Browning does not hide from us. The
being who is of such noble descent, so
richly endowed, of such unmeasured
capabilities for that which is purest,
highest, best, may so mar his nature
and so thwart the purposes of his Maker,
that the resemblance between what he
might have been and what he has become
shall hardly be discerned. He who was
made 'a little lower than God' may be-
come a devil ; he who should be ' crowned
with glory and honour' may be over-
whelmed, through his own folly and sin,
with shame and contempt.

So Paracelsus speaks of one whom he
* helped to die ' thus :

He left untried, and truly welliiigh woiined
All traces of God's finger out of him :
Then died, grown old,'

And the Pope, in ' The Ring and the

' Vol. i. 38.
70

Concerning Man

Book/ gives a picture of Guido as he
really was, in which he spares him not
for an instant, laying bare the unutterable
baseness of his nature, in terms about
which there can be no mistake :

The best, he knew and feigned, the worst he took.
Not one permissible impulse moves the man,
From the mere liking of the eye and ear,
To the true longing of the heart that loves,
No trace of these : but all to instigate,
Is what sinks man past level of the brute
Whose appetite if brutish is a truth.
All is the lust for money : to get gold, —
Why, lie, rob, if it must be, murder ! Make
Body and soul wring gold out, lured within
The clutch of hate by love, the trap's pretence !
What good else get from bodies and from souls?
This got, there were some life to lead thereby,
— ^What, where or how, appreciate those who tell
How the toad lives : it lives, — enough for me !
To get this good, — with but a groan or so.
Then, silence of the victims, — were the feat.^

But this — the terrible lapse into flagrant
moral evil, and the degradation conse-
quent thereupon — is not the only peril
to which man, with his God-like nature,
is exposed. There are other means by

* Vol. ii. 223-4.

71

Studies in Browning

which his true manhood may be lost or
obscured. What a perversion of char-
acter, for example, is implied in such a
couplet as this ! —

Lapo, there 's one thing plain and positive ;

Man seeks his own good at the whole world's cost.^

Or in that terse description of 'The
Medium ' :

However sad the truth may seem,
Sludge is of all-importance to himself.^

The perversion is most clearly seen
when, side by side with //, you look upon
that from which it has departed — the
picture of one whose nobility is preserved
untarnished :

For I, a man, with men am linked
And not a brute with brutes ; no gain
That I experience, must remain
Unshared.^

There is another phase of the same
danger — the descent of man to something

^ * Luria,' vol. i. 441. * Vol. i. 616.

^ * Christmas Eve, &c./ vol. i. 494.

72

Concerning Man

inferior to himself — ^which was not un-
recognized by Browning, namely, that of
losing his manhood in his trade or pro-
fession, that indicated in the familiar,
almost proverbial, description of a lapsus
— * He was a man, he died a grocer/
And in these days of intense and acute
commercialism the danger is certainly
an imminent one. Hence the pathetic
appropriateness of the closing lines of
the poem entitled 'Shop,' which poem,
strangely enough, is followed by * Pisgah-
Sights ' :

Shop each day and all day long I
Friend, your good angel slept, your star

Suffered eclipse, fate did you wrong 1
From where these sorts of treasures are.
There should our hearts be — Christ, how far ! ^

Somewhat similar to this in character
are the words which depict Sordello :

And lo, Sordello vanished utterly.
Sundered in twain ; each spectral part at strife
With each ; one jarred against another life ;
The Poet thwarting hopelessly the Man.*

1 Vol. ii. 481. » Vol. i. 136.

Studies in Browning

Who does not know from his own ex-
perience how easily one may be victimized
thus — thwarted, vanquished, enslaved by
his surroundings, his daily calling, his
worse self? or, how one has continually
to struggle to prevent this most terrible
calamity from falling upon him ?

And here, again, Browning comes to our
help with this inspiring thought :

By which I understand him to mean that
a man must be judged as lo his manhood,
not alone by his achievements but by his
cherished ideals, for the realization of
which he unceasingly, though sometimes
unsuccessfully, strives. It is the poet's
own setting of the truth (expressed else-
where in his poems, notably in 'Rabbi Ben
Ezra') indicated in the words of Holy
Scripture, and spoken to one whose
great ideal remained unrealized by him
' ' Saul,' vol. i. 279.

;4

Concerning Man

— *Thou didst well that it was in thine
heart'

There is one fact clearly brought out
by Browning — additional to those which
have already been noticed — which shows
unmistakably the worth of man, of the
individual man, and that is, his possible
relationship to the great mass of mankind.
Of the solidarity of the human race there
can be no question at all, and thus :

Each of the Many helps to recruit

The life of the race by a general plan ;
Each living his own, to boot.^

And:

The sense within me that I owe a debt
Assures me — somewhere must be somebody
Ready to take his due.^

But it is not this general relationship of
each to all others to which I specially call
attention, but rather the fact, emphasized
by the poet — that, in such mutual relation-
ships, power and privilege frequently fall

^ * By the Fire-side,' vol. i. 284.
* * A Bean-Stripe, &c.,* vol. ii. 682.

75

Studies in Browning

to the lot of some, who therefore, of
necessity, lead, and influence, and advance
the interests of their fellows. Grades of
ability we are bound to recognize :

The office of ourselves, — nor blind nor dumb.
And seeing somewhat of man's slale,^has been.
For the worst of us, to say they so have seen ;
For the better, what it was they saw ; the best
Impart the gift of seeing to the rest.^

Who shall say who those are that ' impart
the gift of seeing to the rest ' ? Sometimes
the most unlikely find themselves, through
their fidelity to truth and duty and convic-
tion, in the van of the progressive march
of their kind. But, however that may be,
there is the fact that

'Tis in the advance of individtml minds

Tha.t the slow crowd should ground their expeclalion

£%'entua!Iy to follow ; as the sea

Waits ages in its bed till some one wave

Out of the multitudinous mass, extends

The empire of the whole, some feet perhaps,

Over the strip of sand which could confine

Its fellows so long time : thenceforth the rest,

' ' Sordello,' vol. i. 153.

76

Concerning Man

Even to the meanest, hurry in at once,
And so much is clear gained.^

And so to Luria^ Tiburzio speaks in the
same strain :

A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one ;
And those who live as models for the mass
Are singly of more value than they all.
Such man are you, and such a time is this,
That your sole fate concerns a nation more
Than much apparent welfare : that to prove
Your rectitude, and duly crown the same,
Imports us far beyond to-day's event,
A battle's loss or gain : man's mass remains, —
Keep but God's model safe, new men will rise
To take its mould, and other days to prove
How great a good was Luria's glory.'

None of us knows at the outset his own
destiny, the limitless possibilities of his
own life. We may be called to lead, or it
may be left us simply to follow a stronger
and braver than we. But, be that as it
may, there is one ideal for us all which we
must ever seek to realize — the Best ; and
it must be ours to scorn anything less

^ * Paracelsus,' vol. i. 48. ' * Luria,' vol. i. 464.

77

Studies in Browning

worthy, anything that detracts from the

achievement of our truest manhood.

What had I on earth to do ^^.

With the slothful, wth the mawkish, the unmaiilv?'
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did 1 drivel —

Being— who ?
One who never turned his back but marched breast'
forward.
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong

would triumph.
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.'

And, even when we have reached that
stage of perfection, it must be ours still to
say, ' Not that I have already obtained, or
am already made perfect: but I press on.'
For certainly in this life man never comes
to himself There are always other possi-
bilities beyond him. And, in harmony with
this, our poet declares, striking still that
same note of the essential dignity of human
nature with which in this chapter we set out :

' Asolando ' (' Epilogue '), vol. ii. 773,
' Andrea Del Sarto,' vol. i. 514.

IV

CONCERNING THE SOUL

79

IV

CONCERNING THE SOUL

* The historical decoration was purposely
of no more importance than a background
requires ; and my stress lay on the incidents
in the development of a soul : little else is
worth study. I, at least, always thought so.'

< Preface to Sordello/

THESE words, if there were no others
like them in his poems, would make
it perfectly clear that Browning was not in
any sense a materialist. Indeed, his whole
work, rightly viewed, was an emphatic
protest against materialism, whether it be
of the most vulgar or of the most refined
type. Not without reason has he been

8i F

Studies in Browning

called the ' subtlest assertor of the soul in
song.'

But his teaching, though subtle, is
unmistakable in its significance. He
' believed in Soul^ — in his own soul — as he
was very sure of God.' ^ As Joubert said
of the Divine Being : ' It is not difficult
to believe in God, if one does not worry
oneself to define Him ' — so Browning felt
of that ' Spark within us of the Immortal
Fire.' Hence he does not seek to define
the soul, does not even endeavour to prove
its existence. That existence he takes for
granted :

Goil . . . Soul . . . the only facts for me.

Prove them facts P that Ihey o'erpass my power of

proving, proves them such :
Fact it is I know 1 know not something which is fact

Very scathingly does he deal with those
who profess to know all things about that
which is so largely hidden :

' ' La Saisiai,' vol, ii. 555. * Ibid., 547-

82

f

Concerning the Soul

* You are sick, that *s sure * — they say :

*Sick of what?' — ^they disagree.
*'Tis the brain' — thinks Doctor A;
'Tis the heart'— holds Doctor B ;

* The liver— my life I'd lay ! '

*The lungs!' *The lights I'

Ah me !
So ignorant of man's whole
Of bodily organs plain to see —
So sage and certain, frank and free,
About what's under lock and key — i
Man's soul ! ^

He — the poet — will not lay claim to
such power to analyse the immaterial part
of man's being, or to diagnose any disease
to which it may be subject; and yet by
self-communion he has gained knowledge
enough to enable him to speak with no
uncertain sound concerning its possibilities
of purity and bliss or of sin and woe.

I have gone inside my soul
And shut its door behind me : 'tis your torch
Makes the place dark : the darkness let alone
Grows tolerable twilight : one may grope
And get to guess at length and breadth and depth.^

This ' tolerable twilight ' revealed to

^ ' Dramatic Idylls,' 2nd series, vol. ii. 604.

« * The Ring and the Book ' (* Guido 'X vol. ii. 277.

83

Studies In Browning

him, among other things, the unutterable
worth, the grandeur, the glory of the soul.
It showed him, for example, its superiority
to the body, which is simply 'the Machine
for Acting Will ' ' — words that forcibly
remind us of Shakespeare's :

Thine evcrmoi'e, most dear lady, whilst this machine
is to him [HatnUt).

Not that the body is by him despised or
ignored. He is far removed from that
ancient school of philosophers who held
that all matter is essentially evil, that the
body must be placed in this category, and
that it is of necessity an enemy of the soul,
a hindrance to the soul's highest life.

When Archbishop Whately was dying,
his chaplain read to him the eighth chapter
of the Epistle to the Romans, and then
quoted the words from the Epistle to the
Philippians (iii. 20~i) : 'We look for the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall change 07ir vile body, &c.' The
' 'Sordeiio,' vol. i. 141.

84

Concerning the Soul

dying man was pained, and asked for * the
right thing' to be read to him. The
chaplain then repeated it again, with the
rendering, with which we are now familiar
in the Revised Version : ' Who shall
fashion anew iAe body of our humiliation'
' That is right,' said the Archbishop ; ' there
is nothing vile which God has made.'

Such, I think, was Robert Browning's
view of the material body. Under some
conditions he does not hesitate to give it
precedence over the soul. Thus :

* Not bread alone ' but bread "before all else
For these : the bodily want serve first, said I ;
If earth-space and the life-time help not here,
Where is the good of body having been ?
But, helping body, if we somewhat baulk
The soul of finer fare, such food's to find
Elsewhere and afterward.' ^

Nor does he scruple to say, in * Rabbi
Ben Ezra ' :

Let us not always say
* Spite of this fiesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole ! '

^ * Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau,' vol. ii. 304.

85

Studies in Browning

As the bird wings and sings,
Lei us cry 'All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh
helps soul ! ' '

Still, while fairly recognizing the claims
of the body — its value, its sacredness — it
is the spiritual part of man on which the
poet mainly fastens his gaze, as being
to him incomparably the more important
of the two. 'Your business,' he says to
the painters in ' Fra Lippo Lippi ' —

Your business is not to catch men with show,

With homage to the perishable clay,

But lift them over it, ignore it all,

Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh.

Vour business is to paint the souls of men^

2 of body than shows soul ! '

Some have accused Browning of teach-
ing the dogma of the transmigration of
souls, and perhaps there are a few lines
scattered through his poems which would
seem to countenance and support such an
accusation ; but the evidence for this is, in
' Vol. i. sSi. a Vol. i. 520.

86

Concerning the Soul

my judgement, so slight as not to demand
our serious consideration. On the other
hand, the souVs personal relationship to
God, its origin in Him, its longing for
communion with Him, its revelation of
Him — all these are suggested to us by
the poet, beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Thus, for instance, how much significance
there is in a single phrase in *The Ring
and the Book ' :

My poor spark had for its source, the sun.^

Again, there could scarcely be anything
finer, as indicating the poet's estimate of
the immaterial in man, than this, from his
very earliest poem :

And what is that I hunger for but God?

My God, my God, let me for once look on Thee

As though nought else existed, we alone I

And as creation cnmibles, my soul's spark

Expands till I can say, — Even from myself

I need Thee and I feel Thee and I love Thee.^

^ *The Pope,' vol. ii. 234. » « Pauline,' vol. i. 12.

87

Studies in Browning

And yet, again, what must that be which
can interpret God Himself to others? —

Do out the duty ! Through such souls alone
God stooping shows sufficient of His light
For us i* the dark to rise by. And 1 rise.'

Victor Hugo, in his great romance,'
says: 'The mind's eye can nowhere find
anything more dazzling nor more dark
than in man ; it can fix itself upon nothing
which is more awful, more complex, more
mysterious, or more infinite. There is
one spectacle grander than the sea — that
is the sky ; there is one spectacle grander
than the sky — that is the interior of the
soul.'

That is the impression which Browning
gives to every thoughtful reader of his
poetry, and in harmony therewith he
actually says, as if he were summing up
his own conceptions — not otherwise to be
expressed :

' "The Ring and the Boolt' (' Pompilia'}, vol. ii. 171-
* Lii MittraMtSt vol. i. Bo.

Concerning the Soul

What a world for each
Must somehow be i'the soul.^

With such a view of the soul — its won-
drousness, its unmeasured capabilities —
it is not surprising that the poet should
recognize how sometimes it chafes at its
environment, feels itself hemmed in, and
though it may uplift the body, being ' the
only bird which sustains its cage,' yet
nevertheless longs for freedom from the
body, and asserts its independent exist-
ence — an existence which defies even death
itself. So in * Pauline ' we hear intima-
tions of its immortality in these suggestive
lines :

I cannot chain my soul : it will not rest
In its clay prison, this most narrow sphere :
It has strange impulse, tendency, desire.
Which nowise I account for nor explain.
But cannot stifle, being bound to trust
All feelings equally, to hear all sides :
How can my life indulge them? yet they live.
Referring to some state of life unknown.^

1 * Fifine at the Fair,' vol. ii. 338. » Vol. L 9.

89

Studies in Browning

Similarly, Paracelsus strikes the same
note when he says :

See this soul of ours I
How it sirives weakly in the child, is loosed
Id manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled
By age and waste, set free at last by death.'

And later :

Now, do you know,
I can reveal a secret which shall comfort
Even you. J have no julep, as men think.
To cheat the grave ; but a far better secret.
Know, then, you did not ill to trust your love
To the cold earth : I have thought much of it :
For I believe we do not wholly die.

Nay, do not laugh ; there is a reason
For what I say : I think the soul can never
Taste death.'

And in wliat has been described as ' one of
the daintiest, most musical, most witching
and haunting of Mr. Browning's poems,'
there is this positive assertion :

The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a sou) can be

discerned.
Yours for instance : you know physics, something of

geology,

Concerning the Soul

Mathematics are your pastime

degree ;
Butterflies may dread

'The great revelation which man now
needs,' said Dr. Channing, in the first half
of the last century, ' is a revelation of man
to himself. The faith which is most
wanted is a faith in what we and our
fellow beings may become, a faith in the
divine germ or principle in every soul.
In regard to most of what are called the
mysteries of religion we may Innocently
be ignorant. But the mystery within
ourselves, the mystery of our spiritual,
accountable, immortal nature, it behoves
us to explore. Happy are they who have
begun to penetrate it, and in whom it has
awakened feelings of awe towards them-
selves, and of deep interest and honour
towards their fellow creatures.'

That ' revelation ' Browning saw, that
' faith ' he possessed, that ' mystery ' he
^ ' A Toccata of Galuppi's,' vol. i. 267.
91

Studies in Browning

had very largely ' explored," and hence
his 'deep interest' in everything per-
taining thereto, his anxiety that the
soul should receive the right treatment,
his indignation when it was treated
wrongly.

'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls,
' And matter enough to save one's own.'

It was bad enough to feed the spiritual
nature with inferior, unworthy food —
'stifling soul in mediocrities.' It was
worse — far, far worse — to have its white-
ness stained by wrongdoing, and its peace
destroyed by the pangs consequent thereon.
What a picture is that of

A soul made weak by its pathetic want

Of just the first apprenticeship to sin

Which thenceforth makes the sinning soul secure

From al! foes save itself, souls' truliest foe, —

Since egg turned snake needs fear no serpentry.*

' ' A Light Woman,' vol. i. 406,

' 'The Ring and the Book' ('The Book and the Ring'),
vol. ii. 387.

Concerning the Soul

And how terribly true to life is that
other picture in another section of the
same great poem :

A wound i' the flesh no doubt wants prompt redress ;
It smarts a little to-day, well in a week,
Forgotten in a month ; or never, or now, revenge !
But a wound to the soul? That rankles worse and
worse. ^

Yes ! whether the wound be deliberately
inflicted by another, or by one's own hand
in a moment of folly and weakness. Closely
akin to the sentiment here embodied is
that expressed in the lines of another poet
— ^more vivid still :

Wounds of the soul, though healed, will ache,
The reddening scars remain and make confession ;
Lost innocence returns no more ;
We are not what we were before transgression.

And yet, Browning sees how even the
most deeply stained soul may get back
again its purity, if not its 'innocence.'
It may have to suffer for its sin, the
suffering may abide, but the sin itself

* * Tertium Quid,' vol, ii. 85,

93

Studies in Browning

may be effaced, completely purged

away :

Here the blot is blanched
By God's gift of a purity of soul
That will not take pollution, ermine-like
Anned from dishonour hy its own soft snow.
Such was this gift of God who showed for once
How He would have the world go white.'

The character which the soul bears
will, in some way or other, disclose itself.
Not always and invariably, for

God be thanked, the meanest of His

Boasts two soul-sides, one lo face the world with,

One to show a woman when he loves her ! '

Still, as Emerson says, 'dreadful limits
are set in nature to the power of dis-
simulation.' There are times when, all
unconsciously to itself, the soul declares
what it really is, what is its true nature —
its love or hate, esteem or scorn. Perhaps
it is some articulate utterance that is the
medium of revelation, as when our poet
says :

Concerning the Soul

He replied —
The first word I heard ever from his lips,
All himself in it, — an eternity
Of speech, to match the inmieasurable depth
O' the soul that then broke silence — *I am
yours.' ^

Or, perhaps, the silence remains un-
broken, but the disclosure is made, never-
theless, with

Each soul a-strain
Some one way through the flesh — the face, an evidence
O' the soul at work inside.^

When a man has * base ends and speaks
falsely, the eye is muddy and sometimes
a-squint' But when his soul is true and
pure, * his eye is as clear as the heavens,'
and his face grows *one luminosity,' —
though, in the former case, he may never
suspect that the question will be put to
him, 'Why is thy countenance fallen?'
And in the latter also it might truthfully
be said, * He wist not that the skin of
his face shone.'

* *The Ring and the Book' (* Pompilia '), vol. ii. 167.

* * Fifine at the Fair,' vol. ii. 356.

95

Studies in Browning

Finally, let it be remembered that the
purified soul grows in goodness and in
strength in spite of all the forces that
antagonize it ; or, let us rather say, because
of those very antagonizing forces. Its
victories are its own for ever. The effort
of conflict results only in increased power
to itself. It transmutes 'human clay to
divine gold.' It finds the best in the
worst, and appropriates it, and so is the
gainer everlastingly.

What purpose s

r world i

Conclusions with, unless the fruit (
Stay, one and all, stored up and ^aranteed its own
For ever, by some mode whereby shall be made known
The gain of every life. Death reads the title dear —
What each soul for itself conquered from out things

Since, in the seeing soul, all worth lies, I assert, —
And nought i' the world, which, save for soul that sees,

Was, i!

ind would be ever, — stuff for trans muting, -

And void until man's breath evoke the beautiful —
But, touched aright, prompt yields each particle its

Concerning the Soul

Of elemental flamejj— no matter whence flame sprung
From gums and spice, or else from straw and rotten-
ness,
So long as soul has power to make them bum, express
What lights and warms henceforth, leaves only ash

behind,
However the chance : if soul be privileged to find
Food so soon that, by first snatch of eye, suck of

breath.
It can absorb pure life : or, rather, meeting death
I* the shape of ugliness, by fortunate recoil
So put on its resource, it find therein a foil
For a new birth of life, the challenged soul's response
To ugliness and death, — creation for the nonce.
I gather heart through just such conquests of the soul.^

^ * Fifine at the Fair,' vol. ii. 338.

I

97

V

CONCERNING FAITH

99

V

CONCERNING FAITH
* I believe in God and truth and love.*

'Pauline.'

^I trust in Nature ... in God ... in

my own soul.* *A Soul's Tngtdj.'

IN these two fragments we have the
suggestion of the significance of the
term Faith, It is not simply the 'belief
of the intellect, but also the * trust ' of the
heart. The two do not always coexist.
A man may assent to certain truths, and
there pause. He may acknowledge the
reality of certain spiritual entities, without
giving to that which is involved in their

lOI

Studies In Browning

existence the whole confidence of his
manhood. With Browning, however, it
is not so. In his view the two go to-
gether. Their relationship is that of a
natural sequence. He believes, and be-
cause he believes, he trusts. Indeed, to
be absolutely accurate, perhaps it should
rather be said that Browning's faith was
an indivisible unity, that belief with him
meant the consent of his entire nature,
the agreement and harmony of all its
powers in relation to that on which his
faith was fixed. If definition be possible
here, faith, for him, might be defined
as being 'the sense of the unseen
which detects, recognizes, loves, and
trusts the goodness existing in numerous
forms and persons in the world, and
rises to its height in trusting Him who
is its source and sum.'' Hence such
lines as these in ' Bishop Blougram's
Apology ' :

' yidt Wulson's Mindofthe Master, p. 142.
102

Concerning Faith

Believe — and our whole argument breaks up.
Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat;
Only, we can't command it; fire and life
Are all, dead matter's nothing, tt-e agree:
And he it a mad dream or God's very breath.
The fact 's the 3ame,^helief 's fire, once in us.
Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself.'

To believe or disbelieve, then, is not
a matter of indifference. It is a matter
of life or death. There is a flippancy in
relation to faith in certain quarters to-day,
which can only end disastrously to those
who are guilty of it. Men cast off the
beliefs of their fathers as so many ' worn-
out creeds and discredited dogmas,' ap-
parently with more ease than they exhibit
when throwing aside their old garments.
and this, even if they have no substitute
for that with which they so lightly part.
There is no deep sense of responsibility,
no recognition of the tremendous issues
involved in the acceptance or rejection
of the demands which the unseen makes
upon them. With such a spirit Browning
' Vol. i. 535-
103

Studies in Browning

has no sympathy at all. The trifler would
receive from him no mercy. He does sym-
pathize with the serious, honest doubter,
the victim of circumstances or the slave
of a morbid temperament. One of the
ablest exponents of his poetry^ tells us
how he himself was brought back from
the dreary wastes of Agnosticism to the
fertile places of the Christian faith by
his study of these wonderful poems. But
this surely is the result of the poet's own
conception of the seriousness of belief or
unbelief. I cannot but think that his per-
sonal attitude reveals itself when he says :

If once we choose belief, on

We can't be too decisive in our faith,

Conclusive and exclusive in its terms.

To suit the world which gives us the good things.

In every man's career are certain points

Whereon he dares not be indifferent i

The world detects him clearly, if he dare.

As baffled at the game, and losing life.'

And yet, again, what solemnity and

■ Dr. Berdoe.

' ' Bishop Blougrani's Apology,' vol. i. 532.
104

Concerning Faith

what strength are revealed in presence
of the suggestion to 'eliminate' or *de-
crassify' his faith! —

Experimentalize on sacred things !
I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain
To stop betimes : they all get drunk alike.
The first step, I am master not to take.^

To discuss all the objects of Browning's
faith would carry us far beyond the limits
of a single chapter, and in some other
parts of this volume these objects fre-
quently and necessarily appear. But I
cannot omit in this place a reference to
a passage which takes us to the very heart
of the Christian religion, and is so com-
prehensive that we can afford to let it
stand here alone :

What is the point where Himself [i.e. Christ] lays stress ?

Does the precept run * Believe in good,

In justice, truth, now understood

For the first time ' ? — or, * Believe in Me,

Who lived and died, yet essentially

Am Lord of Life'? Whoever can take

The same to his heart and for mere love's sake

^ * Bishop Blougram's Apology,' vol. i. 538.

105

Studies in Browning

Conceive of the love, — that man obtains
A new truth ; no conviction gains
Of an old one only, made intense
By a &esb appeal to his faded sense.'

In ' Bishop Blougram's Apology,' a
poem which ' shows how lenient the poet
could be to the honest half- believer,' there
is more than a suggestion that the diffi-
culties which beset both Faith and Un-
belief may find their solution when into
the range of the soul's vision there comes
the form of the Son of God. The picture
is that of a man shaken ' by fits ' with
belief and doubt, ever and anon thus
disturbed, recognizing the apparent in-
congruities of human life, restless in the
recognition, and looking for some solid
rock on which to plant his feet amid the
shifting sand. The only secure place that
is indicated is the Rock of Ages. Here
man's spirit may rest, here Faith may find
its one satisfying object, and the clamour
of Unbelief may be silenced:

^ ' Christmas Eve and Easter Day,' vol. i. 492.
106

Concerning Faith

And now what are we? unbelievers both,
Calm and complete, determinately fixed
To-day, to-morrow and for ever, pray?
You'll guarantee me that ? Not so, I think !
In no wise ! all weVe gained is, that belief,
As unbelief before, shakes us by fits.
Confounds us like its predecessor. Where's
The gain? how can we guard our unbelief,
Make it bear fruit to us? — the problem here.
Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides, —
And that 's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as nature's self.
To rap and knock and enter in our soul.
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring.
Round the ancient idol, on his base again, —
The grand Perhaps 1 We look on helplessly.
There the old misgivings, crooked questions are —
This good God, — what He could do, if He would,
Would, if He could — then must have done long since :
If so, when, where and how ? some way must be, —
Once feel about, and soon or late you hit
Some sense, in which it might be, after all.
Why not, ' The Way, the Truth, the Life ' ? ^

The effect of Faith (in the sense in
which Browning uses the word) upon
character and life will not for a moment
be questioned. ' Belief or unbelief,' he
says, * bears upon life, determines its whole

^ Vol. i. 531.
107

Studies In Browning

course. ' The philosophy which encour-
ages an opposite view reveals only its
own shallowness. It fails either to dis-
cern the meaning of the terms it employs,
or to take proper account of the facts
with which it professes to deal. It is
true, of course, that ' some of our beliefs
— poetical, mythological, speculative —
little influence us in matters of conduct,
but here we have to do with fancy rather
than with faith : whatever a man really
believes, whatever theory of the world he
finds himself constrained to accept, what-
ever interpretation he gives to human life
whatever type of character secures his
sanction and admiration, whatever may
be his ultimate hope or fear, inevitably
fashions his character and colours his
action day by day and hour by hour.
What we believe with our whole heart is
of the highest consequence to us, and to
teach the contrary is to divest thought
and conviction of reality and serious sig-
io6

Concerning Faith

nificance — is indeed to avow the utter
irrationality of life.'

So writes the Rev, W. L. Watkinson in
the introduction to a volume,' in which he
seeks to show how debasing in many ways
are the effects of unbelief upon those who
have avowed it, He supports his conten-
tion by reference to history, to the current
treatment of morals in sceptical schools, and
to several representative modern sceptics.
The principle thus laid down and amply
sustained and illustrated is but the elabora-
tion of the teaching of Browning in these
striking lines :

See the world

Such as it is, — you made it not, nor I j

I mean to take it as it is, — and you,

Not so you'll take it, — though you get nought else.

I know the special kind of life I like,

What suits the most my idiosyncrasy.

Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit

In power, peace, pleasantness and length of days.

I find that positive behef does this

For me, and unbelief, no whit of this.

— For you, it does, however? — that, we'll try!*

' The Influence of Scepticism on Character.

* ' Bishop Blougram's Apology,' vol. i. 531.

109

Studies in Browning

And the trial, as may be imagined, has
but one result.

The conflict of a life of faith is inevit-
able. ' A scientific faith 's absurd ' :

You must mix some uncertainty

With faith, if you would have faith be.'

Hence it comes to pass that all along
through our mortal existence there must
be struggle. We are accustomed to speak
of the repose of faith. There is such a
thing, but even that is the outcome of
strife. It is the peace of victory. Still,
no victory here is final. ' Each victory
will help you some other to win.' That
is the purpose of all struggle, of all con-
quest. Let it not be supposed that un-
belief is more restful than faith — it is
not :

All we have gained then by our unbelief

Is a life of doubt diversified by faith,

For one of faith diversified by doubt;

We called the chess-lroard white,— we call it black.'

' ' Chrislmas Eve and Easter Day,' vol. i. 497,
• ' Bishop Blougram's Apology,' vol. i. 531.

Concerning Faith

But let the strife proceed ; and if a man
be true to the best he knows, doubt will
not injure him — it will prove a blessing
in disguise, for it will eventually confirm
and strengthen him in the faith to which
he has held fast :

The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,
If faith overcomes doubt*^

And all this, be it observed, is con-
sistent with the highest blessedness.
Faith predominant in the soul, in spite
of the assaults of unbelief, will mean for
that soul the possession of a good to
which the faithless ^re totally strange.
Unbelief brings no real advantage any-
where :

What can I gain on the den)dng side?

Ice makes no conflagration . . .

Strauss may be wrong. And so a risk is run —

For what gain? Not for Luther's, who secured

A real heaven in his heart throughout his life,

Supposing death a little altered things.'

* * Bishop Blougram's Apology,* vol. i. 536.

* Ibid., vol. i. 536.

lU

Studies in Browning

* Doubt is all very well if it serve the
purpose of leading us to faith ; but a life
of doubt is a miserable, starved, and
deranged existence/ So Dr. Berdoe,
taught unquestionably by his great
master. Thus :

Friends,
I absolutely and peremptorily
Believe ! — I say, faith is my waking life :
One sleeps, indeed, and dreams at intervals,
We know, but waking's the main point with us,
And my provision's for life's waking part.
Accordingly, I use heart, head and hand
All day, I build, scheme, study, and make friends ;
And when night overtakes me, down I lie.
Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it,
The sooner the better, to begin afresh.
What 's midnight doubt before the dayspring's faith ? ^

1 <

Bishop Blougram's Apology,' vol. i. 532.

112

VI

CONCERNING HOPE

113 H

VI

CONCERNING HOPE

<We are saved by hope: but hope that
is seen is not hope : for what a man seeth,
why doth he yet hope for ? ' St. Paul.

* Hope to the end * (Gr. * perfectly ').

St. Peter.

THERE is one poem, 'At the Mer-
maid/ in which Browning de-
nounces two views, which some people
persist in holding. One is, that an author,
even in his dramatic productions, neces-
sarily reveals himself; and the other, with
which at the moment we are chiefly con-
cerned, is that a poet is essentially a man
of melancholy and gloom !

115

Studies in Browning

In regard to this latter, he tells us he
can only speak for himself. Others may
have found their life distasteful, their joys
growing less with the on-coming of the
years, the whole aspect of things wearing
for them a sombre hue, which gradu-
ally deepens until the light has quite
passed away from them, and nothing but
darkness remains : but ' I,' he says,

1 find earth not grey but rosy,
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.

Do I stoop ? I pluck a. posy.
Do 1 stand and stare? All's blue.^

It was not necessary for our poet to tell
us that in so many words. The whole
spirit of his writings assures us that that
was the atmosphere in which he lived.
So true, indeed, is this, that Dr. Bruce, in
his fine series of lectures on T/ie Moral
Order of the World in Ancient and Modern
Thought, selects Browning as his English
expounder of optimism, ' the greatest
' Vol. ii. 478.

116

Concerning Hope

modern apostle of that buoyant, hope-
inspiring creed.'

Hopefulness with him was the normal
condition of life. He could sympathize
with despondency, he could depict it in all
its terrible effects ; but he himself, even if
he fell under its power for a brief space of
time, could not by any possibility remain
its victim. His nature rebelled against
the creed of despair, and asserted its
allegiance to the Angel of Hope.

When a man avows himself a pessimist.
Browning would seem to question his ab-
solute sincerity. That, I think, is hinted
at in one of the stanzas in ' The Worst of
It' — a poem in which we have the cry
of anguish of a man whose wife has been
false to him. That falseness has shaken
his faith in all truth and purity and beauty,
until he feels that he has entered into an
alliance with the devil, and can wish for
nothing better for all that lives than —
death! But, even in the expression of
117

Studies in Browning

that wish, he thinks he may be uttering
a lie, he doubts himself, he is sceptical as
to the very pessimism into which, by his
sad experiences, he has been plunged.'

In ' Paracelsus,' again, we have another
illustration of the hopefulness which, in
the poet's view, is inherent in man's nature.
He falls ever and anon into the Slough of
Despond in the course of his pilgrimage,
but he will surely escape therefrom, and
will bear within him the conviction, never
quite quenched, that at the end of the
journey lies the celestial city, though it may
not yet appear in sight. What depths of
depression are revealed in the lines :

I give the fight up : let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me.
1 want to be forgotten even by God ! '

But that is not the true self of Para-
celsus. That is a momentary lapse from
which he will recover, and presently dis-
close his real character. So, even at the

> Vide vol. 1. S73. * Vol. i. 65.

Concerning Hope

end of his disappointing life, we have this
superb utterance :

If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time ; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast ; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom : I shall emerge one day.^

There are just four points which are
worthy of notice in regard to this great
principle or emotion of the soul.

I. The first is — Hope in relation to
one's own future. Nowhere, perhaps, is
that more beautifully illustrated than in the
noontide scene in * Pippa Passes/ Phene,
a Greek girl, has become the wife of Jules,
a French sculptor. The union is the
result of a cruel joke practised upon him
by some students who owed him a grudge ;
and the sculptor finds, when it is too
late, * that the refined woman by whom he
fancied himself loved is but an ignorant
girl of the lowest class, of whom also his
enemies have made a tool. Her remorse

1 Vol. i. 72.
119

Studies in Browning

at seeing what man she had deceived dis-
arms his anger, and marks the dawning
of a moral sense in her.'' And this is
what she says :

You cteatnre with die eyes !
If i could look for ever up to them.
As now you let me, — I believe, all sin.
All memory of wrong done, sufiFering bome,
Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth
Whence all that's low romes, and there touch and stay
— Never to overtake the rest of me,
All that, unspotted, reaches up to you.
Drawn by those eyes ! What rises is myself.
Not me the shame and suffering ; but they sink,
Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so,
Above the world ! '

Both he and she are saved.

It is characteristic of Browning to depict
the unworthy, the evil, as being left behind
in the onward march of life, and in pursuit
of an ideal, so that at last only the good,
the best, survives ; it is equally character-
istic for him to inspire men by showing to
them the prospect for themselves, in their
own individual lives. The goal, however,

I Mrt. On. s Vol. i. 207.

Concerning Hope

is not reached in a day, neither is it at-
tained without much struggle or many falls.
The path to the realization of the object of
hope is never a smooth one. But, for the
earnest soul, the hope itself cannot be de-
stroyed, cannot be wholly blotted out. It
springs eternal in the breast :

All men hope, and see their hopes
Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew.^

2. Then a second phase of this same
theme is — Hope in relation to the worlds
even under its most sinful and repellent
aspect. Dr. Westcott has told us — what
those who are acquainted with the poet's
works will recognize as a statement of fact
— that Browning * has dared to look on the
darkest and meanest forms of action and
passion, from which we commonly and
rightly turn our eyes, and he has brought
back for us, from this universal survey, a
conviction of hope.' As a single specimen
of this, we may refer to the scene described

* * A Blot in the 'Scutcheon,* voL i. 346.

121

Studies in Browning

in the brief poem bearing the tide, 'Ap-
parent Failure.' It is a picture of the
Morgue in Paris, into which the poet
entered to gaze upon the ghastly spec-
tacles that there presented themselves—
the bodies of men who hated life, or whose
ideals were shattered, or whose hearts
were broken. And, after plucking up
courage to look fearlessly upon them all,
trying to conceive what such a sight re-
presented, how each victim came to meet
with his terrible fate, he sums up his re-
flections thus :

My own hope is, a sun wJU pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ;

That, after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;

That what began best, can't end worst.
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.'

It is possible, of course, to interpret such
words as these as revealing a special
theological bias in relation to the future
life, but that, I think, would be unfair. In

1 Vol. i. 625-

r

I

Concerning Hope

such a case we should surely be guilty of
an injustice in regard to the poet's thought
and feeUng.

It would not be difficult to show that he
believed in the punishment of sin in a
very real and terrible sense, in the mys-
terious Beyond. So that it is enough to
say here, that, in the lines above quoted,
there is no theological creed, but simply
the expression of a divinely imparted
thought and desire, prompted by the love
which 'hopeth all things.'

3. And this leads me to say, that the
poet's persistent optimism had, for its
source and unfailing inspiration, the cer-
tainty that God is, and that 'God is love."
He would have us say to ourselves, what
scarcely seemed necessary for him to say
to himself, ' Why art thou cast down, O
my soul .'' and why art thou disquieted
within me? /lofie i/iou in God!' {Ps. xlii. \i).

It is not without significance that
Pompilia tells us how in her distress she
123

Studies in Browning

was thus sustained, how she held by her
prayer to God, and the hope that came
in answer to her prayer — a' hope that was
fulfilled beyond her most sanguine ex-
pectation.' Similarly, as we have pointed
out in an earlier chapter, Abt Vogler, the
musician, when all his earthly dreams
have vanished, and the palace of music
he had reared had been overthrown, is
yet saved from despair by the remem-
brance of the ' house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens,' 'whose builder
and maker is God.'^

Mildred, in ' A Blot in the 'Scutcheon,'
crushed beneath the load of her 'guilt,' stilt
finds one prop on which she can lean, and
which saves her from sinking down utterly:

God seems indulgent, and I dare
Trust Him my soul in sleep.^

In 'Old Pictures in Florence' there are
two lines full of suggestiveness, in con-

* Vttie Vine 617, vol. ii. 155. = F;rfe voi. i. 579.

»Vol.i.34S-

124

Concerning Hope

nexion with that part of the subject with
which we are now dealing. The poet
tells us of the happiness of those who
labour

With upturned eye while the hand is busy ;
and then he goes on to say,

'Tis logking downward that makes one diziy.'

Is there not in these lines a whole
philosophy of life, from the Christian
point of view? Let a man's gaze be
diverted from that which is above him,
and be turned to that which is beneath
or even that which is around him, and
it will mean, not dizziness only, but
stumbling and falling. Let him, on the
other hand, fasten his attention on the
Master, whose he is and whom he serves,
and to whom all power is given in heaven
and on earth, and, in the face of the
greatest obstacles, in the darkest, cloudiest
day, he will never lose heart or hope, but

' Vol. L 268.

"5

Studies in Browning

move steadily forward in the fulfilment
of his allotted task. He will endure ' as
seeing Him who Is invisible.'

4, And so we come to glance for a
moment at the effect of the possession of
Hope upon character. That effect is
manifold, but there is only one feature
resulting therefrom that I mention, which
nevertheless includes many others in itself
— and that Is, courage.

It would not, perhaps, be true to say
that fearlessness is always the product of
hope ; it is true to say that, where hope
is, fear cannot be. Hope, in the deepest,
truest sense of the word, ' casteth out fear,
because fear hath torment.'

Bunyan, in his great classic, makes this
clear to us, in his delineation of the
man whom he names Hopeful. In the
dungeon of Giant Despair, with his
companion, Christian, it is the younger
pilgrim who consoles and enheartens the
older. And when the two enter together
126

Concerning Hope

the last river, and Christian cries out, * I
sink in deep waters ; the billows go over
my head,* Hopeful calmly replies, *Be
of good cheer, my brother; I feel the
bottom, and it is good.'

The despondent man will always see
lions in the way, real or imaginary, and be
correspondingly terrified. The man who
sees things as they are, and so discerns
the forces that conspire to help him as
well as those that are against him, will
face all adversity in the spirit of a
conqueror. Hence the wisdom contained
in this couplet from * Herakles ' :

That man's bravest, therefore, who hopes on,
Hopes ever : to despair is coward-like.^

It is sometimes said that one reason
why St. Paul, when naming the three
graces, declares that the 'greatest' of
them is love, is that love is eternal, and
faith and hope are not. I am not pre-

^VoL i. 715.
127

Studies in Browning

pared to admit that. There may be a
sense, of course, in which

Faith is swallowed up in sight,
And hope in full supreme delight,

but that certainly does not mean that
there will no longer be any room or any
need for the exercise of these faculties of
the soul! Is there not for the Christian
a true Biblical doctrine of eternal hope ?
Not only when he is growing old, but
also when he has entered upon the life of
perpetual youth, he may still, as we think,
and always, unhesitatingly affirm :

The best is yet to be.^
* * Rabbi Ben Ezra,* vol. i. 581.

128

VII

CONCERNING LOVE

129

VII

CONCERNING LOVE

* Browning nowhere shows his native
strength more clearly than in his treatment
of love. He has touched this world-old
theme — which almost every poet has
handled, and handled in his highest
manner — ^with that freshness and insight
which is possible only to the inborn
originality of genius.'

Jones.

ST. PAUL, in a well-known passage,
says of Jesus Christ, He Moved me,
and gave Himself up for me.' The two
parts of that sentence are not distinct and
separable. Where the first is, the second
must be also. Love always means the

131

Studies in Browning

giving up of self. ' Love is not a matter
merely of the feeling, nor certainly merely
of the imagination. True love dwells in
the deepest roots of the will.' So writes
the German apologist, Luthardt, and he
continues thus : ' To love is, first of all,
not to seek self. Love is self-denial, and
is in virtue thereof the opposite of self-
ishness. '

Tennyson also, in familiar lines, follows
in the wake of the apostle and the
theologian, when he tells us that

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on alt

the chords with might ;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling,

pass'd in music out of sight.

Unfortunately the word ' love ' has been
prostituted from this, its high and true
significance, and too frequently has been
applied, to a passing whim or fancy, or a
transient emotion of the soul. Even the
poets have not been wholly guiltless here.
Indeed, it may perhaps be due in some
133

Concerning Love

measure to them that the ideals of love
have sometimes been so low, and that the
word itself has been so loosely and care-
lessly employed. Such a charge, how-
ever, can never be truthfully made against
Browning. However unworthily others
may have treated this great theme, he
has always discerned its lofty character.
Professor Jones has dared to say that
*in one thing Browning stands alone.
He has given to love a moral significance,
a place and power amongst those sub-
stantial elements, on which rest the
dignity of man's being and the greatness
of his destiny, in a way which is, I
believe, without example in any other
poet.* ^

Our first illustration of that is to be found
in * A Blot in the 'Scutcheon' — 'the simplest
and perhaps the deepest and finest of Mr.
Browning's plays.' The speaker, in the

^ Browning as a Philosaphiced and Religious Teacher^
p. 150.

133

Studies in Browning

passage that follows, is Earl Tresham, the
head of a great house, proud of his name
and his ancestry, tender and devoted to
his sister, who shares his home. It is to
her that he speaks, revealing the depths
of his own heart, all unconscious of any
seeming egotism. They have conversed
together of the love of father, mother,
husband, and he says :

Mildred, I do believe a brother's love
For a sole sister must exceed them all.
For see now, only see I there 's no alloy
Of earth that creeps into the perfecl'st gold
Of other loves — no gratitude to claim ;
Von never gave her life, not even aught
That keeps life — never tended her, instructed.
Enriched her— so, your love can claim no right
O'er her save pure love's claim ; that's what 1 call
Freedom from earthliness. . . .
I think such love, {apart from yours and mine),
Contented with its little term of life,
Intending to retire betimes, aware
How soon the background must be place for it,
— I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds
All the world's love in its unworfdiiness.'

What is especially noticeable here, in
addition to the general thought embodied

134

Concerning Love

in these exquisite lines, is the attitude
assumed by the speaker. He seeks to
detach himself and all thought of himself
from the theme with which he deals — as
evidenced by that parenthetical clause,
'apart from yours and mine' — and so
heightens the effect of the picture of the
unselfishness of the love which he por-
trays. It is the same conception that we
have in a couplet in * Pippa Passes * :

Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their wives,
And only parents' love can last our lives ; ^

though one must not accept as a literal
statement of fact the assertion of the first
of these two lines. The purpose of the
sharp and rugged contrast is simply to
extol that principle from which all con-
sideration of self has vanished.

The supremacy of love, its differentia-
tion from many other things which men
rightly count dear, is finely taught in the

1 Vol. i. 197.
135

Studies in Browning

drama entitled ' Colombe's Birthday.' The
point on which the action of the play turns
is this. Colombe of Ravenstein is osten-
sibly Duchess of Juliers and Cleves. On
the first anniversary of her accession to
the duchy— which is also her birthday —
a rival claimant appears in the person of
Prince Berthold, who proves to be the
rightful heir. To save complications, how-
ever, he offers to marry her — that offer
conveying with it the promise of all the
wealth and honour that will eventually be
his. 'You love me, then?' queries the
Duchess, and the Prince answers :

Your lineaee I revere.
Honour your virtue, in your truth believe.
Do homage to your intellect, and bow
Before your peerless beauty.
The Duchess. But, for love—

Berthold. A further love 1 do not understand^

And, in saying that, he revealed the in-
feriority of his nature, a spirit in which

> Vol. i. 378.
136 .

y^

Concerning Love

self held the uppermost place, and carried
complete and uninterrupted sway.

As a set-off against the cold, unworthy
heartlessness disclosed by the Prince, there
is a picture in ' Sordello ' of the genuine
passion of the soul when it is free from all
the sordid elements that would debase it.
See in this the modesty and humility, and
at the same time the magnificent ideals, of
the love which seeketh not its own ! Every
phrase tells :

Love is whole
And true ; if sure of nought beside, most sure
Of its own truth at least ; nor may endure
A crowd to see its face, that cannot know
How hot the pulses throb its heart below :
While its own helplessness and utier want
Of means to worthily be ministrant
To what it worships, do but fan the more
Its flame, exalt the idol far before
Itself as it would have it ever be.'

We have been made familiar with the - "■
phrase, 'the greatest thing in the world,'
as applied to the subject of this chapter.
Browning is not satisfied with that. He

137

Studies in Browning

does not say simply that love is the sum-
mum donum. He goes farther and declares,
through one of his characters, that it is
■ the an/y good in the world.' And is there
not a sense in which even that is profoundly
true? Are not all other desirable things
relatively worthless if this be wanting ?
Can any other thing be entirely satis-
factory, can it be really 'good,' without
this? So, when the Queen addresses her
cousin and dependant in the poem entitled
' In a Balcony,' she is not speaking merely
for women, as she says, but for all human
beings. Her heart has been starved and
withered, she has grown old and unattrac-
tive, but when, as she supposes, this soli-
tary career of hers is to end, she cries :

There is no good of life but love^but love !

What else looks good, is some shade flung from love ;

Love gilds it, gives it worth. Be warned by me.

Never you cheat yourself one instant 1 Love,

Give love, aak only love, and leave the rest ! '

This is further illustrated and enforced

> Vol. i. 555.

138

Concerning Love

in twa suggestive fragments of * Colombe's
Birthday/ 'to which we have referred
above. A second suitor for the hand of
the Duchess of Juliers was one Valence,
a poor advocate of Cleves, the Prince
Berthold being the first. The choice of
the Duchess lay, therefore, between the
wealthy duchy and lovelessness, on the one
hand, and comparative poverty and true
affection on the other. And, when it seemed
that she inclined to the former, the ardent
and noble Valence soliloquized thus :

Her first and last decision ! — me, she leaves.

Takes him ; a simple heart is fiung aside.

The ermine o'er a heartless breast embraced.

O Heaven, this mockery has been played too oft !

Once, to surprise the angels — twice, that fiends

Recording, might be proud they chose not so —

Thrice, many thousand times, to teach the world

All men should pause, misdoubt their strength, since

men
Can have such chance yet fail so signally,
— But ever, ever this farewell to Heaven,
Welcome to earth — this taking death for life —
This spuming love and kneeling to the world —
O Heaven, it is too often and too old ! ^

1 Vol. i. 380.

Studies in Browning
But he was mistaken. That was not ' her
first and last decision.' What the decision
was, was registered in these words :

I lake him [Valence] — give up Juliers and the world.
This is my Birthday.'

Yes ! her birthday, indeed — the real be-
ginning of her nobler life. For, until true
love reveals itself in the soul and domi-
nates all things else, that soul is a blank :

He looked ai
She looked a
The past wa:

one who awakes : ~^

I sleep, and her life began,*
It is worth while to spend a moment
or two in looking at the poet's conception
of Mis relation of love to faith. We have,
perhaps, been accustomed to think of faith
as taking the precedence of love — I mean
in point of time. I will not say that that
does not represent the fact in any sense
at all. But I do say that the converse is
distinctly true, namely, that faith follows

' Vol. i, 38t.

' 'The Statue and Che Bust,' vol. i. 431.

140

Concerning Love

love, and makes its presence known as it
could not do if love were wanting. The
more we dwell upon it, the more clearly
shall we see that St. Peter was right when
he said, 'Above all things have fervent
love among yourselves.' for the simple
reason that it cannot stand alone, that in
its train will follow all other qualities which
adorn and make life beautiful :

Is a short word ihat says so very much I
It says Ihat you confide in me.'

And confidence — that means quietness,
repose, patience, gentleness, and a host of
virtues almost too numerous to mention.

Browning will not admit that love is
blind, and therefore confiding. There may
be a sense in which it is ' neighbourly to all
unreasonableness,' but that is not because
it sees less, but rather more, than the un-
loving soul. The vision of love and the
vision of faith are one, or, more accurately,

' 'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon,' vol. i. 34S-
141

Studies in Browning

the latter is included in the former, the

former being always broader and more

penetrating than the other :

Nought blinds you !ess than admiration, friend!

Whether it be that all love renders wise

In its degree ; from love which blends with love —

Heart answering heart — to love which spends itself

In silent mad idolatry of some

Pre-eminent mortal, some great soul of souls.

Which ne'er will know how well it is adored.

I say, such love is never blind ; but rather

Alive lo every the minutest spot

Which mars its object, and which hate (supposed

So vigilant and searching) dreams not of.'

The relation of love to knowledge is also
a noteworthy theme in the work of our
poet. This is dealt with at considerable
length in ' Paracelsus,' one main purpose
of which was to show the failure of know-
ledge alone to satisfy the soul. Browning
does not hesitate to affirm that a man,
whatever his intellectual acquisitions, is
not truly a man, but a monster, if those
stores of knowledge represent the sum of
his life :

' ' Paracelsus,' vol. i. 47-8.
142

Concerning Love

I can no longer seek
To overlook the truth, that there would be
A monstrous spectacle upon the earth,
Beneath the pleasant sun, among the trees :
— A being knowing not what love is.^

Not that love excludes knowledge in any
true human life. That also were a most
lamentable defect.

The two elements must coexist, each
the essential complement of the other.
Paracelsus has aspired to know. Aprile,
another poet introduced into the poem, has
refused to know. He has loved — blindly,
immoderately, and, when he is dying,
Paracelsus addresses to him these words :

Die not, Aprile ! We must never part.
Are we not halves of one dissevered world.
Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part?

never !
Till thou the lover, know; and I, the knower,
Love — until both are saved.*

The same theme reappears in * A Pillar
at Sebzevar,' one of the twelve sections
comprised under the general title of * Fer-
1 Vol i. 25. « Vol. i. 36.

143

Studies in Browning

ishtah's P'ancies.' It is acknowledged that
Ferishtah represents Browning himself,
and in this particular section of the poem
he lays down the proposition that the
value of knowledge is uncertain, and its
pursuit disappointing, while love is always,
and apart from anything else, a sure gain.
When he was a boy, he says, his curls
were crowned with knowledge, but one
crown was displaced by another, less
knowledge by greater, and this process
went on continually, so that what he
thought knowledge at a given stage was
presently discovered to be ignorance.
Love, on the contrary, once possessed, is
always possessed. Nothing can supersede
it, nothing can lessen its value. It is not,
as knowledge may be, the assurance of
victory, sometime, somewhere ; it is vic-
tory ; it is not a pressing toward the goal
for the prize ; it is the goal and the prize
in one.^

' yide vol. ii. 674.

144

Concerning Love

The great quest of life, the secret of
eternal life, is to know God. This is the
summit of all knowledge. This is the
Alpine peak which towers above all the
little hills on every side. To scale its
lofty heights is the deepest longing of
the noblest souls, and an achievement
that is felt to be worthy of the aspira-
tion of the keenest minds. But to reach
that goal is never a feat of the intellect
merely. It will grow weary, if it be
alone, in its fruitless search for the
Invisible, in its toilsome journey up
those rugged steeps that lead to God,
and eventually it will abandon its task
in despair of ever accomplishing it. The
path of the intellect is not the path
that brings the soul into that Sacred
Presence which it seeks. He is reached
by another means altogether. What is it ?
Let the soul take to itself the ' wings of
love," and the distance between it and
Him will be covered in a moment. The
145 K

Studies in Browning

mountain will become a plain, and He who
seemed to be afar oiT will be found to be
nigh at hand. Or, to use the figure which
the poet actually employs, love is the
single 'leap' that gains Him, which leap
the mere intellectual faculty is powerless
to take.'

And if that be true, can there be a
moment's hesitation in subscribing to the
dictum of St. Paul : 'Though I understand
all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have
not love, I am nothing ' ?

There is one other comparison or con-
trast, in some sense linked with that which
we have just been considering, to which
we should give a little attention — and it is
the comparison or contrast between love
and power. Paracelsus believed that
knowledge is power, and it was that that
kindled and kept alive for a time his tran-
scendent ambition. And when he was
defeated, when his mistake had become
1 Vide vol. ii. 676.
146

Concerning Love

clear to him, it was natural that he should
say :

What wonder if I saw no way to shun
Despair? The power I sought for man, seemed
God's.

But he had learned a deeper lesson than
that He had come to see that there
is a force surpassing in its majesty and
might any that could possibly accrue
from the acquisition of boundless stores of
learning :

I saw Aprile — my Aprile there !

And as the poor melodious wretch disburthened

His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear,

I learned my own deep error; love's undoing

Taught me the worth of love in man's estate,

And what proportion love should hold with power

In his right constitution ; love preceding

Power, and with much power, always much more

love ;
Love still too straitened in his present means.
And earnest for new power to set love free.^

That lesson is for most of us a difficult
one to learn. It is acquired, as a rule,

^ * Paracelsus,' vol. i. 71.

147

Studies in Browning

only after much experience. Sometimes
it is not learned at all in this world. The
child, the youth, the man, are all impressed
by the power, manifestations of which are
to be seen on every hand. It does not
present itself at each stage in life under
the same aspect, or in the same guise, but
it is there all the time. In our earlier
years we are most fascinated by physical
power, later on by the power of the in-
tellect or the power of public opinion, or
perchance by the power of some one out-
standing, gifted man — but it is still power !
The day will come, however, if our higher
development be not arrested, when an-
other vision will fill our souls, and all
the things that are will be discerned in
their true proportions. And then it will
be seen that love is equally real, equally
persistent, equally strong with power
— of any kind whatsoever ; that it is
indeed, and always has been, in itself,
and when all 'the facts are taken into
148

Concerning Love

account, the mightiest force accessible to

man/ ^

And this leads us to the last point to be
considered, namely, the Eternity of Love.
The thought which this phrase embodies
is suggested and elaborated from three
different points of view in the poems,
* Cristina,' * Evelyn Hope,* and * The Last
Ride Together.' Perhaps we may say
that there is also one point of view com-
mon to all these poems ; and it is this, that
in the present life love can never be fully
realized. It may be thwarted quickly,
almost at its beginning, by circumstances
or by death, or it may run its course for a
while with partial success, in the mingling
of soul with soul, but, in any case, its
sphere of action is limited, and because it
is so divine a thing — a heaven -born
principle— this cannot represent the whole
term of its existence. In the two latter
poems, above mentioned, this is most

^ Vide * Reverie,' vol. ii. 772.

149

Studies in Browning

clearly brought out. Says the lover of
the dead Evelyn Hope :

God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make.
And creates the love to reward the love :
1 claim you still, for my own love's sake !

So hush,— I will give you this leaf to keep :
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand 1

There, that is our secret : go to sleep !
You will wake, and remember, and uDdersiand.*

And, in ' The Last Ride Together,' the
lover cherishes the same hope concerning
himself and his beloved, that the lives un-
fulfilled here will find their completion
hereafter :

And Heaven just prove that 1 and she
Ride, ride together, for ever ride.''

But the most beautiful setting of this
glorious thought is to be found in 'Christ-
mas Eve,' in lines replete with the noblest
sentiment and the most profoundly re-
ligious spirit :

Love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,
Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it.

Concerning Love

The love, ever growing th^re, spite of the strife in it,
Shall arise, made perfect, from death's repose of it.
And I shall behold Thee, face to face,

God, and in Thy light retrace

How in all I lovied here, still wast Thou !
Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,

1 shall find as able to satiate

The love. Thy gift, as my spirit's wonder
Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,

With this sky of Thine, that I now walk under,
And glory in Thee for, as I gaze
Thus, thus ! Oh, let men keep their ways
Of seeking Thee in a narrow shrine —
Be this my way ! And this is mine ! ^

So I summed up my new resolves :
Too much love there can never be.*

1 * Christmas Eve,' vol. i. 484. * Ibid., vol. i. 488.

151

VIII
CONCERNING TRUTH

153

VIII

CONCERNING TRUTH

^Well, now; there's nothing in nor out o'
the world good except truth.'

'The Ring and the Book.'

'Least, largest, there's one law for all the

minds,
Here or above : be true at any price 1 '

'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau.'

FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON,
in discoursing on the words of
Jesus, *To this end was I born, and for
this cause came I into the world, that I
should bear witness unto the truth,' says :
* Truth is here used in a sense equivalent
to reality — for "truth" substitute reality,
and it will become more intelligible. For

155

Studies in Browning

''the truth'' is an ambiguous expression,
limited in its application, meaning often
nothing more than a theological creed, or
a few dogmas of a creed which this or that
party have agreed to call "the truth." It
would indeed fritter down the majesty of
the Redeemers life, to say that He was
a witness for the truth of any number of
theological dogmas. Himself, His life,
were a witness to Truth in the sense of
Reality. The realities of life — the realities
of the universe — to these His every act
and word bore testimony. He was as
much a witness to the truth of the purity
of domestic life as to the truth of the
doctrine of the Incarnation ; to the truth
of Goodness being identical with Great-
ness as much as to the doctrine of the
Trinity — and, more — H is mind corre-
sponded with Reality as the dial with the
sun.*^

Ruskin, also, in his Seven Lamps of

^ ' Sermons,' ist series, p. 280.

156

Concerning Truth

Architecture^ in the chapter on 'The
Lamp of Truth,' has this illustrative
sentence : ' To cover brick with cement,
and to divide this cement with joints that
it may look like stone, is to tell a false-
hood/ ^

These quotations will throw some light
upon Browning's conception of this great
theme. Truthfulness is for him not merely
synonymous with veracity, 'a correspon-
dence between words and thoughts.' It is
not simply concerned with speech as ex-
pressive of beliefs or convictions — it goes
deeper ; it is a thing that affects the whole
life, 'a correspondence between thoughts
and realities.'

In this large sense, there is in man the
instinctive perception or recognition of the
truth. Truth is not something alien to
his nature, something altogether apart
from him, and which he must struggle
incessantly to reach :

1 p. 82.
157

Studies in Browning

Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may beheve.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness ; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception — which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error : and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape.
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly
The demonstration of a truth, its birth.
And you trace back the effluence to its spring
And source within us ; where broods radiance vast,
To be elicited ray by ray, as chance
Shall favour.'

The explanation of this — the philosophy
of it. if you will so call it — is found in
another poem :

Take all in a word : the truth in God's breast
Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed :
Though He is so bright and we so dim,
We are made in His image to witness Him.*

Herein we find, too, the secret of the
universal longing of the noblest hearts :

I cannot feed on beauty for the sake
Of beauty only, nor can drink in balm

^ ' Paracelsus,' vol, i. 36. ' ' Christmas Eve,' vol. i, 492.

■ 58

Concerning Truth

From lovely objects for their loveliness ;

My nature cannot lose her first imprint ;

I still must hoard and heap and class all truths

With one ulterior purpose : I must know ! ^

But the knowledge, be it observed, is
not for its own sake alone. It must lead
to corresponding action. It is inimical
to all mere semblance, all unreality. Fol-
lowing its guidance, the enlightened
soul will abhor a 'lie' in any shape or
form :

Let us do so — ^aspire to live as these
In harmony with truth, ourselves being

true ! «

And yet, such is the subtlety, the com-
plexity, or perhaps one ought rather to
say the perverseness, of human nature,
that though it bears the image of truth,
never altogether effaced, too often that
image is marred and spoiled by falsehood
and error until it is scarcely possible to

^ * Paracelsus,* vol. i. 46.
* * In a Balcony,* vol. i. 553.

159

Studies in Browning

determine which are the real and essential
characteristics of the man concerned.
Victor Hugo says of Jean Valjean, in
Les MiserabUs, that he ' had this
peculiarity : that he might be said to
carry two knapsacks ; in one he had the
thoughts of a saint, in the other the
formidable talents of a convict ' ; and that
' he helped himself from one or the other
as occasion required.' It may be a
peculiarity to have a saint's 'thoughts'
side by side with a convict's ' talents ' in
one and the same person, but the two
kinds of character, the highest and the
lowest, are more or less mingled in us all.
Is not that the teaching of the poet, where
he says ? —

To truth a pretty homage thus we pay
By testifying— what we dally with,
Falsehood, (which, never fear we take for

truth 1)
We may enjoy, but then— how we despise ! '

' Red Cotton Night-Cap Country," vol ii. 389.
160

Concerning Truth

Or again :

Truth I say, truth I mean : this love was true,
And the rest happened by due consequence.
By which we are to learn that there exists
A falsish false, for truth's inside the same.
And truth that's only half true, falsish truth.^

And because this is so, it comes to pass
that a man must wrestle and work for the
truth, must win it by strenuous, persistent
effort, inspired by the assurance thfeit ' o'er
falsehood truth is surely sphered, o'er ugli-
ness beams beauty,' and that always * truth
shines athwart the lies.* Thus we have
the picture in ' Paracelsus ' :

Night is come.
And I betake myself to study again.
Till patient searchings after hidden lore
Half wring sonie bright truth from its prison ; my frame
Trembles, my forehead's veins swell out, my hair
Tingles for triumph.*

Following from these facts — that truth
is so often mingled with falsehood, and
that it must be wrought for if it is to be
obtained — there is the advocacy of toler-

^ * Red Cotton Night-Cap Country,* vol. ii. 390.
« Vol. i. 56.

161 L

Studies in Browning

ance, of a large-souled charity in dealing

with the earnest truth-seeker :

Lied is a roagh phmse : say he fell from tniih
In climb'mg towards it I •

And then, how insistence on this spirit,
side by side with the most rigid and un-
bending antagonism to falsehood, comes
out in the fine lines in the same poem :

Dost thou blame
A soul that strives but to see plain, speak tiue.
Truth at all hazards? Oh, this false for real.
This emptiness which feigns solidity, —
Ever sorae grey that's white, and dun that's black, —
When shall we rest upon the thing itself
Not on its semblance? — Soul — too weak, forsooth.
To cope with fact^wants fiction everyivhere !
Mine tires of falsehood : truth at any cost I'

If man were infinite in capacity, if his
vision were unlimited in its range, and if
he saw all things with absolute clearness,
no allowance could be made for any want
of truth. It is our limitations that lead us
into error, and that call forth in others the
exercise of the spirit of forbearance. That

' 'A Boan-Stripe, &c.,' vol. ii. 6S0. " Ibid.

163

Concerning Truth

which is to some men perfectly clear and
plain may be to their fellows altogether
misty and obscure. By all of us the
truth is but gradually perceived; some-
times, indeed, with painful slowness it
dawns upon us, and in the process of its
apprehension we differ one from another
beyond all calculation. We are moving,
maybe, to the same goal, but not by the
same path, and certainly hand passibus
acquis. This the poet recognizes to the
full. For example, he * seems to say that
proud as are the artist and the poet of
their possession of and power of expressing
so much truth, the musician is still closer
to the divine ' :

God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear ;
The rest may reason and welcome : 'tis we musicians
know.^

And as to the general method by which
truth is apprehended and acquired, what
could be more suggestive than one of the

i*AbtVogler,'vol.i. 580.
163

Studies in Browning

short poems in 'Asolando,' in which the
speaker marks the different stages by
which he passed to his mature knowledge
and understanding of things, receiving his
first lessons from his father? —

Who knew better than turn straight
Learning's full flare on weak-eyed ignorance.
Or, worse yel, leave weak eyes to grow sand-blind.
Content with darkness and vacuity ; '

words which remind us of the dictum of
the philosopher who is reported to have
said, ' If I held all truth in my right hand,
I would let forth only a ray at a time lest
I should blind the world,' or of that other
saying of the greatest Teacher of all, ' 1
have yet many things to say unto you, but
ye cannot bear them now,"

As to the means by which one may
convey truth to another, the poet asserts
that for him 'Art' (using the word, I
suppose, in its most comprehensive sense)
' remains the one way possible of speaking
' ' Development,' vol, ii, 766.
164

Concerning Truth

truth.' Common speech — intended to
express facts, realities — often defeats its
own object. The truth, reaching another
thus, 'looks false, seems to be just the
thing it would supplant ' :

But Art, — wherein man nowise speaks to men,
Only to mankind, — Art may tell a truth
Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought.
Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word.^

The highest truth, however, is not con-
veyed to a man by any other human being,
even though that other be an 'Artist.'
The soul longs for something more than
the most wealthy or the most gifted of its
fellows can impart. The 'broken lights'
of earth may make some revelation to him
who is in darkness, but he will not be con-
tent unless he sees the Sun himself! —

I thirst for truth.
But shall not drink it till I reach the source.*

1 * The Ring and the Book ' (* The Book and the Ring '),
vol. ii. 291.
* Ibid. (* Giuseppe Caponsacchi '), vol. ii. 146.

165

Studies In Browning

There alone will the souls thirst be
quenched. In fellowship with Him, in
contemplation of His character and His
relationship to man, can we really come to
know *the truth,' and so to understand the
full significance of the words of another
great teacher of the last century, when he
says, 'The first lesson of Christian life is
this. Be true ; and the second this. Be true ;
and the third this, — Be true.'

1 66

IX

CONCERNING LIFE

167

CONCERNING LIFE

' The lesson that Browning taught us was
to live this life bravely and nobly ; to live
human and not supernatural lives, because
we were born men, and not angels ; to live
good and not wicked lives, because we were
men, and not demons ; not sensual lives,
because we were men, and not beasts ; to
live bravely and nobly each day the life of
to-day — to-day's life, and not to-morrow's,
lest we should be visionaries ; not yester-
day's, lest we should be murmurers ; to live
the life of a good to-day, unwounded by the
Parthian arrows of yesterday, and confident
in the blessed hopes of to-morrow.'

Farrar,

IN Dawson's Makers of Modem
English ' there is an interesting
contrast drawn between Wordsworth and
' Vide pp. 279-80.
169

Studies in Browning

Tennyson on the one hand, and Browning
on the other. The two former poets, says
the author, dissimilar as they are in many
respects, are alike in this, that ' they
breathe the air of silence and seclusion.
With the one, it is the silence of the
mountains ; with the other, the ordered
calm of E nglish rural life. ' But with
Browning it is entirely different. He
' has no touch of the recluse about him ;
he is the child of cities, not of solitudes.
, . . He does not shun the crowd : he
seeks and loves it. The sense of numbers
quickens his imagination. The great
drama of human life absorbs him. ... It
is life everywhere that moves him to utter-
ance ; and in the crowd of men, and in the
tangled motives of men, and the constant
dramas and tragedies bred by the passions
and instincts of the human heart, Browning
has found the food upon which his genius
has thriven.'

In harmony with this, we are told by
170

Concerning Life

Mrs, Sutherland Orr,^ that ' when a friend
once said to the poet, " You have not a
great love for nature, have you?" he had
replied, " Yes, I have, but I love men
and women better " ; and the admission
(Mrs. Orr continues), which conveyed more
than it literally expressed, would have
been true, I believe, at any, up to the
present, period of his history' {1877).

This being so, any student who seeks
to discover Browning's detailed teaching
concerning life in its numberless phases
and aspects must needs go carefully
through the whole of his poetry, learning
each separate lesson as it is presented by
the many characters whose motives and
actions the poet so vividly portrays. Our
object here, however, is not to enter into
minute particulars, but rather to obtain a
general view of his philosophy of life, to
grasp a few great principles of which
endless illustrations might easily be given.
' Life and Letters of Robert Browning, p. 316.

Studies in Browning

Browning's basal conception of life is
set forth with admirable precision by
Professor Henry Jones/ where, classing
him with Carlyle, he says, 'They were
both witnesses to the presence of God in
the spirit of man, and looked at this life in
the light of another and a higher \^ or
rather they penetrated through the husk
of time, and saw that eternity is even here
a tranquil element underlying the noisy
antagonisms of man's earthly life ' :

Be assured, come what come will,
What once lives never dies — what here attains
To a beginning, has no end, still gains
And never loses aught.*

• ••••••

Never dream
That what once lived shall ever die 1 *

Such a view as this determines the
whole of the poet's thought in relation to
the present, the life that is ours to-day,

^ Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher^
p. 46.

* The italics are mine,

* * Parleyings with certain People,' vol. ii. 723.

* Ibid., vol. ii. 729.

172

Concerning Life

And if we ask what that thought is, the
answer will be at least threefold.

I. He conceives of the present life as
a period of probation, during which man's
powers may be tested, and his future
destiny shaped. Thus, in the words of
the Pope:

I Life is probation and the earth no goal

But starting-point of man : compel him strive,
Which means, in man, as good as reach the goal.^

Not that the goal of which he speaks, or
any goal, is final — not that any point is
ever reached beyond which the soul that
has been tried and proved cannot go.

Tennyson, at the age of eighty years, in
lines whose personal note is surely of pro-
foundest interest, exulting in what he has
attained, nevertheless indicates what he
still hopes for :

I have climb'd to the snows of Age, and I gaze at

a field in the Past,
Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs

of a low desire,

^ * The Ring and the Book,' vol. ii. 235,

Studies in Browning

But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is

quiet at last
As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse

of a height that is higher.^

Even so, Browning, in the beautiful
poem, * One Word More,' addressed to his
wife, sees no limit to the possible develop-
ment of his life :

I shall never, in the years remaining,

Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues.

Make you music that should all-express me ;

So it seems : I stand on my attainment.

This of verse alone, one life allows me ;

Verse and nothing else have I to give you.

Other heights in other liveSy God willing : *

All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!*

Still, the fact remains that in his view
the present life is probationary in its char-
acter, and by it the character of the future
will be determined :

Life's business being just the terrible choice.*

If we accept Dr. Westcott s characteri-
zation of ' Rabbi Ben Ezra,* when he says

^ * By an Evolutionist.* * The italics are mine,

^ * Men and Women ' (* One Word More'), vol. i. 548.
* * The Ring and the Book,* vol. ii. 233.

174

Concerning Life

that it is 'in epitome, a philosophy of life/
we shall see how Mrs. Sutherland Orr's
description of this particular poem harmon-
izes with that conception of the poet with
which we are now dealing. 'The most
striking feature/ she says, 'of Rabbi Ben
Ezra's philosophy is his estimate of age.
According to him the soul is eternal, but
it completes the first stage of its experience
in the earthly life ; and the climax of the
earthly life is attained, not in the middle
of it but at its close.* ^

Precisely ; and therefore we may ap-
propriately apply one line of the poem
itself to the retrospect and the prospect,
when the close of the earthly existence is
reached :

The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.*

II. A second aspect under which this
life presented itself to Browning was that
of a period of education — not in any

1 Handbook y 6r*c.^ p. 203. * Vol. i. 582.

175

Studies in Browning

narrow sense of the word, of course, but
with its widest possible significance.

When John Ruskin is writing on Educa-
tion, one of the principal things that he
demands 'should imperatively be taught'
our boys and girls is this — -'habits of gentle-
ness and justice ' ; and, in supporting that
demand, he says truthfully : ' Public schools,
in which the aim was to form character
faithfully, would return the children in due
time to their parents worth more than
their weight in gold.'

That was the lofty, comprehensive view
of education which Browning cherished
when he thought of the whole of man's
career in this world under this particular
aspect. ' Life means learning,' he says ;
but learning what .■* This :

The false, and love the t

by snatch.
Waifs counted at their worth. And when with strays

they match
r the parti -coloured world, — when, under foul, shines

176

Concerning Life

And truth, displayed i* the point, flashes forth every-
where
V the circle, manifest to soul, though hid from sense.
And no obstruction more affects this confidence, —
When faith is ripe for sight, — why, reasonably, then
Comes the great clearing-up. Wait threescore years
and ten ! ^

Or again :

Life, with all it yields of joy and woe.

And hope and fear, — believe the aged friend, —

Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love.

How love might be, hath been indeed, and is ;

And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost

Such prize despite the envy of the world.

And, having gained truth, keep truth : that is all.*

In Cardinal Newman's Apologia there
occurs this strange but suggestive sen-
tence : * There will ever be a number of
persons . . . too intellectual to be humble.'
Such persons, Browning would have said,
have, so far, frustrated the purpose of their
life. And yet the words indicate to us a
very common mistake and a very imminent
peril. They remind us of a phrase of the
poet himself, ' cultured, therefore sceptical.'

^ * Fifine at the Fair,' vol. ii. 352.
* 'A Death in the Desert,' voL i. 587.

177 M

Studies in Browning

Not that he ever depreciated or under-
estimated intellectuality or culture, reveal-
ing as he did one of the master-intellects
of the nineteenth century, and all his poetry
in itself tending to the highest mental
culture. He saw rather—and it is this
that he emphasizes — the mischief that
must ever accrue from exalting any one
part of man's nature at the expense of
another ; saw, too, that ' the greatest men
that ever lived are those in whom you
cannotseparate the mental and moral lives';
and so education meant for him the ' draw-
ing out," the cultivation, of all the powers,
in the true etymological sense of the word :

To try the soul';
Who keeps one

I count life just a stuff
strength on, educe the man.
:nd in view makes all things serve.^

III. But the third conception of life dis-
coverable in Browning's poems, and per-
haps more frequently seen than any other
there, is that of a period of conflict, a time
* ' In a Balcony,' vol. i. 559.

.78

Concerning Life

of constant, unceasing struggle against
adverse powers :

As I looked on life,
Still everywhere I tracked this, though it hid
And shifted, lay so silent as it thought.
Changed shape and hue yet ever was the same.
Why, 'twas all fighting, all their nobler life !
All work was fighting, every harm — defeat,
And every joy obtained — a victory 1 ^

The poet discerns the inevitableness of
this, on two grounds. First, man is out
of harmony with his surroundings. A life
free from strife would be a mean, ignoble
thing — the life of a brute ; and no true
man desires that. He must antagonize the
forces that are against him, must assert
the dignity of his manhood in opposition
to all that would rob him of it :

And so I live, you see.
Go through the world, try, prove, reject,
Prefer, still struggling to effect
My warfare; happy that I can
Be crossed and thwarted as a man.
Not left in God's contempt apart.
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart.
Tame in earth's paddock as her prize.'

* * Luria,' voL i. 457. * 'Easter Day,' vol. i. 507.

179

Studies in Browning

Then, further, man is out of harmony
with himself. The elements of his nature
contend one with another. Right and
wrong find their chief battle-ground in
his own heart ; and, in the best lives,
the struggle between the two is often the
most intense :

When the fight begins within himself,
A man 's worth something. God stoops o'er his head,
Satan looks up between his feet — bodi tug —
He *s left, himself, i' the middle ; the soul wakes
And grows. Prolong that battle through his life I ^

Dr. Martineau gives us what he calls
'an exact definition of Right and Wrong,'
in this form : * Every action is Right,
which, in presence of a lower principle,
follows a higher : every action is Wrong,
which, in presence of a higher principle,
follows a lower/ ^

It is impossible, I think, to take ex-
ception to that statement, and, if so, the

^ * Bishop Blougram's Apology,* vol. i. 537.
^ Types of Ethical Theory, vol. ii. 270.

180

Concerning Life

battle must of necessity be prolonged
through life, inasmuch as that day will
never dawn when the two principles, the
higher and the lower, will not present
themselves, in their essential antagonism,
before the mind. And because Brown-
ing saw this so clearly, we can under-
stand the spirit of exultation which
reveals itself in his ' Prospice,* where we
are shown how fear — the fear of death
— is heroically met and vanquished and
cast out of the soul by perfect love —
love of truth and goodness, and of her
who had gone before him into the silent
land :

I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more,

The best and the last !
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and for-
bore.

And bade me creep past.
No I let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old.
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears

Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave.

The black minute's at end,

i8i

Studies in Browning

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices tbat rave.

Shall dwindle, shall blend.
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,

Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again,

And with God be the rest!^

* VoL i. 599.

182

X

CONCERNING THE WORK

OF LIFE

183

X

CONCERNING THE WORK

OF LIFE

'The common problem, yours, mine, every

one's.
Is — not to fancy what were fair in life
Provided it could be, — but, finding first
What may be, then find how to make it

fair
Up to our means : a very different thing ! '

'Bishop Blougram's Apology/

TO solve that problem and to realize
the ideal which it brings before us
will demand the exercise of all the thought
and all the energy of which we are cap-
able. The idle man will leave it without
solution, and thus frustrate one of the

185

Studies in Browning

great purposes of his being. For it is
not necessary, in order to defeat the main
objects of life, that a man should be violent
or even active in any measure in opposing
the best that he knows. Neglect, indif-
ference, a persistent pursuit of the policy
of laissez-faire t will achieve the same end,
and prevent the success, the goodness, the
beauty, that are within the reach of the
meanest and most obscure. And there-
fore it comes to pass that those who have
seen most clearly the demands of the world
and of the world's Maker, and at the same
time have understood the tendencies and
the temptations of human nature to turn
aside from those demands, have preached
most earnestly what has been called the
Gospel of Work. Ruskin, for example,
urges the necessity of strenuous effort
upon all classes of the community. Re-
pudiating the too common idea that the
meaning of the word ' gentleman ' is that
of a man living in idleness on other
1 86

Concerning the Work of Life

people's labour, he says : ' Gentlemen have
to learn that it is no part of their duty or
privilege to live on other people's toil.
They have to learn that there is no de-
gradation in the hardest manual or the
humblest servile labour, when it is honest.
But that there is degradation, and that
deep, in extravagance, in bribery, in in-
dolence, in pride, in taking places they are
not fit for, or in coining places for which
there is no need. . . . By far the greater
part of the suffering and crime which exists
at this moment in civilized Europe, arises
simply from people not understanding this
truism — not knowing that produce or wealth
is eternally connected by the laws of heaven
and earth with resolute labour ; but hoping
in some way to cheat or abrogate this
everlasting law of life, and to feed where
they have not furrowed, and be warm
where they have not woven.'

Carlyle, too, in his own rugged fashion,
and in words about which there can be

.87

Studies in Browning

no mistake, drives home the same truth :
' And who art thou that braggest of thy
life of idleness ; complacently showest thy
bright gilt equipages ; sumptuous cushions ;
appliances for folding of the hands to mere
sleep ? Looking up, looking down, around,
behind, or before, discernest thou, if it be
not in Mayfair alone, any idle hero, saint,
god, or even devii ? Not a vestige of one.
In the Heavens, in the Earth, in the
Waters under the Earth, is none like unto
thee. Thou art an original figure in this
Creation ; a denizen in Mayfair alone, in
this extraordinary Century or Half-Cen-
tury alone ! One monster there is in the
world : the idle man.'

It is impossible ever to think of these
two together — Ruskin and Carlyle — as
among the leading teachers of the last
century, without associating with them in
our minds our own poet also ; and so, in
regard to the work of life, its necessity,
its value, the spirit in which it is to be

Concerning the Work of Life

performed and the motives by which the
worker should be actuated. Browning is
not one whit behind his compeers. It is
true that he may not present his views in
precisely the same way as the others, for
the simple reason that the sphere in which
his genius operated would not admit of
this ; but it can never be said of him, as
perhaps of some poets, that he was a
visionary or a mere idealist, conjuring up
before his readers the pictures fashioned
by his own imagination, and nothing more.
No. Whether it be paradoxical to say it
or not, I have no hesitation in affirming
that his poetry is intensely practical, and
that in it suggestions (I had almost said
rules) for life and for the work of Hfe may
easily be discovered.

Browning will not excuse an idle man
anywhere. He is an anomaly- He is
out of harmony with nature. The reason
for his idleness is to be found in himself,
in the poverty of his manhood — not in
189

Studies in Browning

his surroundings. Making due allowance
for exceptional conditions, and speaking
broadly — for the man who is willing to
work the sphere is always open, there
is always something to be achieved, ready
to his hand :

Wherever 'swill
To do, there's plenty to be done, or ill
Or good>

The work itself may vary in its char-
acter, just as do the workers ; but there
is room for all, and all should strive to-
gether for the best ends, without envy
or friction or jealousy. ' The eye cannot
say to the hand, I have no need of thee ;
or, again, the hand to the feet, I have
no need of you.' Foolish and futile dis-
cussion is sometimes carried on as to the
relative value and importance of the work
achieved by the mind and that performed
by the body. If the brain workers some-
times look pitifully, not to say contemptu-

^ 'Sordclio,' voL i, 193.
190

Concerning the Work of Life

ously, on the great mass of those who toil
with their hands, these toilers again some-
times retaliate by sneering at those who,
in their judgement, contribute little or
nothing that is worthy to the common
good. Such an attitude and such esti-
mates of these different classes have, ac-
cording to Browning, no solid basis in
fact. Incidentally, in ' The Ring and the
Book,' he sweeps them aside with a few
strong words, brings together the facul-
ties of the mind and the body as being
both equally real, and attributing to the
former in their exercise a possible in-
tensity and strenuousness noi /ess than
can ever be revealed in the latter :

I have thought sometimes, and thought long and hard.
I have stood before, gone round a serious thing,
Tasked my whole mind to touch and clasp it close.
As 1 stretch forth my arm to touch this bar.*

And therefore, whether we find our
task chiefly in the region of thought or
' 'Giuseppe Caponsacchi,' vol. ii. 139.
191

Studies in Browning

of matter, it must be done by us without
hesitation, forthwith. We may not always
have the power to choose our work ;
frequently it comes to us unsought, per-
haps undesired. Inclination would some-
times lead us to refuse and spurn that
which demands imperatively our attention
and our effort. The artist, for instance,
who is fascinated by ideals which he would
fain realize, is sometimes, alas ! compelled
to paint pictures which to him are un-
worthy, and possibly to turn aside from
his art altogether to fulfil some more
pressing and urgent duty. Did not Carlyle
say, ' Do the duty that is nearest thee
— that first and that well ; all the rest
will disclose themselves with increasing
clearness and make their successive de-
mands ' ? And did not the Preacher of the
Old Testament offer this sound advice :
' Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do
it with thy might'; adding, as a reason
for its practical acceptance, 'for there is
192

Concerning the Work of Life

no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor
wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest'?
Even so. Browning, catching the spirit
of both the modern and the ancient sage,
says :

Listen !
Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great,
Our time so brief, 'tis clear if we refuse
The means so limited, the tools so rude
To execute our purpose, life will fleet,
And we shall fade, and leave our task undone.
We will be wise in time : what though our work
Be fashioned in despite of their ill-service,
Be crippled every way? 'Twere little praise
Did ftdl resources wait on our goodwill
At every turn. Let all be as it is.*

As to the character which our work
should bear, Browning's teaching is clear
beyond the shadow of a doubt However
menial the work itself may be, it must
be done with the utmost possible effi-
ciency. He will not countenance any
shuffling, any inferior expedients for
completing the task allotted, simply with
a view to getting through it.

* * Paracelsus,' vol. i. 34.

193 N

Studies in Browning

Our best is bad, nor bears Thy test ;
Slill, it should be our very best.*

If it be not, then not only will that
which is wrought be so far defective, but
the possibilities of the future will be
marred and spoiled. Our life is a unity.
One flaw makes its influence felt every-
where, prevents the perfection of the
whole- — aye, more than that, hinders any
true advancement towards perfection :

If one step's awry, one bulg«
Calls for correction by a step we thought
Got over long since, why, till that is wrought.
No progress ! '

And, therefore, into every task one
must put his whole soul. He must have
a mind to work. Nothing must be done
half-heartedly. The motto must ever be :
'With both hands earnestly.' The secret
of success or failure is often explained by
the presence or absence of this spirit, but,
whatever be the possible issue of the

' 'Christmas Eve and Easter Day,' vol. i. 485.
■ 'Sordello,' vol. i. 172-

Concerning the Work of Life

work, the spirit itself must be there all
the way through :

Stake your counter as boldly every whit,

Venture as warily, use the same skill,

Do your best, whether winning or losing it,

If you choose to play ! — is my principle.

Let a man contend to the uttermost

For his life's set prize, be it what it will ! ^

There is one truth in relation to life's
work upon which Browning insists again
and again, and which surely should be
an infinite comfort to those whose powers
are most limited and whose sphere is most
circumscribed. It is suggested in many
forms, but perhaps finds its best ex-
pression in one of the songs in *Pippa
Passes ' :

All service ranks the same with God :

If now, as formerly He trod

Paradise, His presence fills

Our earth, each only as God wills

Can work — God's puppets, best and worst.

Are we ; there is no last nor first.

Say not *a sm^l event!* Why 'small'?

^ * The Statue and the Bust,' vol. i. 434.

195

Studies in Browning

Costs it more pain that this, ye call

A 'great event,' should come to pass,

Than that? Untwine me from the mass

Of deeds which make up life, one deed

Power shall fall short in or exceed I ^ I

There are two reasons, at least, why
one should hesitate to call his work
'great' or 'small' — why, especially, he
should not be depressed by its seeming
insignificance or poverty. One is that
his proximity to his task and the effort
of fulfilling it deprive him of the power
to form a correct estimate of it : ,

It must oft fall out
That one whose labour perfects any work.
Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he
Of all men least can measure the extent
Of what he has accomplished.'

And the other reason why work — and
here especially the work of others— cannot
be truly characterized and appraised by
us, is this — that the whole of the effort
involved in it does not, cannot appear.
' Vol. i. 198. ' ' Paracelsus,' voL i. 41.

196

Concerning the Work of Life

What of the impulse from which the effort
grew, which may have been true or false,
but which is always completely hidden
away ? How many unfair estimates of
work are made, simply because we deal
only with the visible product, without
taking any account of its invisible origin
and of the process by which it came to
be ! When we contemplate external phe-
nomena and manifestations only, when
we critically sort out the aspects of human
character as objects of natural history,
we find ourselves involved in endless
intricacies of classification.^ There are
men who, as our poet says, 'serve God
at the devil's bidding,' — what can you
say of their service ? Therefore

Seek
You virtuous people, motives ! *

And, until you have found them, cease
to fasten your epithets upon human

^ Vide Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, vol. ii. 66.
' ' King Victor and King Charles,' vol. i. 235.

197

Studies in Browning

achievements, professing to determine
their moral — that is, their real — value.
It is beyond you. 'Judge nothing before
the time until the Lord come, who will
both bring to light the hidden things of
darkness and make manifest the counsels
of the heart : and then shall each man
have his praise from God."

In George Eliot's Stradivarius there
occur the following suggestive lines :

Stradivari speaks. The masters only know whose
work is good :

They will choose mine ; and, while God gives
them skill,

I give them instnimenls to play upon,

God choosing me to help Him.
Naldo, What ! were God

At fault for violins, ihou absent ?
Stradivari. Yes ;

He were at fault for Stradivari's work.

That is one view of the work of life in
its relation to God — He needing us, de-
manding that we become 'workers together
with Him.' Another view — the comple-
mentary one — is that which recognizes

Concerning the Work of Life

our need of Him. And, while both are
undoubtedly acknowledged by Browning,
it is the latter on which I think he lays
the greater emphasis; as, for example, in
the closing lines of ' Rabbi Ben Ezra ' :

So, take and use Thy work :

Amend whai flaws may lurk.
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim !

My times be in Thy hand t

Perfect the cup as planned I
Let age approve of youth, a.nd death complete the

There is a test of worth, to be applied
rather to the worker than to the work,
upon which the poet rightly lays much
stress. It is this: the power of continuance.
Men generally are often cheated by some
meteoric blaze of light thrown over some
spasmodic effort, which blaze soon dies
away into deeper darkness than before.
Frequently, a great short-lived luminosity
is preferred to a lesser steady, enduring
light, that shines more and more unto the
1 Vol. i. 583.
199

Studies in Browning

perfect day. Not so is it with him who
sees beneath the surface, penetrating to
the very heart of things. He is not thus
deceived by appearances :

Now, observe,
Sustaining is no brilliant self-display
Like knocking down or even setting up :
Much bustle these necessitate ; and still
To vulgar eye, the mightier of the myth
Is Hercules, who substitutes his own
For Atlas' shoulder and supports the globe
A whole day, — not the passive and obscure
Atlas who bore, ere Hercules was bom,
And is to go on bearing that same load
When Hercules turns ash on CEta's top.
Tis the transition -stage, the tug and strain.
That strike men : standing still is stupid-like.^

And then the work of such men — *men
of continuance ' — abides :

* No work begun shall ever pause for death ! * *

Even when it is superseded by other
work, its effects endure. Without it that
other work would have been impossible.
The building, if it be really of 'gold,

^ * Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau : Saviour of Society,'
vol. ii. 301.
^ *The Ring and the Book' (* Pompilia'), vol. ii. 172.

200

Concerning the Work of Life

silver, and precious stones,' is not de-
stroyed. It becomes rather in due course
the foundation on which the new super-
structure is reared. Is not that the
meaning of the somewhat difficult lines
in 'Aristophanes' Apology '.>—

And what's my teaching but — accept the old,
Contest the strange I acknowledge work that 's done,
Misdoubt men who have still their work to do !
Religions, laws and customs, poetries.
Are old ? So much achieved victorious truth !
Each work was product of a lifetime, wrung
From each man by an adverse world : for why ?
He worked, destroying other older work
Which the world loved and so was loth to lose.
Whom the world beat in battle — dust and ash !
Who beat the world, left work in evidence,
And wears its crown till new men live new lives.
And fight new fights, and triumph in their tum.^

That for the work, and for the worker
this :

Still you pursue
The ungracious path as though 't were rosy-strewn.
Tis well : and your reward, or soon or late,
Will come from Him whom no man serves in vain.'

The substance of all that has been said
in this chapter is given us in two fine

^ VoL i. 702. * * Paracelsus,' vol. i, 44.

201

Studies in Browning

1 poems widely separated in
point of time, but each passage embodying
the same noble thoughts and sentiments.
One is in ' Paracelsus' :

1 have performed my share of the task :
The rest is God's concern ; mine, merely this,
To know that 1 have obstinately held
By my own work. The mortal whose brave foot
Has trod, unscathed, the lemple-court so far
That he descries at length the shrine of shrines,
Must let no sneering of the demons' eyes.
Whom he could pass unquailing, fasten now
Upon him, fairly past their power ; no, no —
He must not stagger, faint, fall down at last.
Having a charm to baffie them ; behold.
He bares his front : a mortal ventures thus
Serene amid the echoes, beams and glooms I
If he be priest henceforth, if he wake up
The god of the place to ban and blast him there,
Both well 1 What 's failure or success to me ?
I have subdued my life to the one purpose
Whereto I ordained it ; there alone 1 spy,
No doubt, that way I may be satisfied.'

And the other is in ' Prince Hohenstiel-

Schwangau,' where he says he used his

* special slock of power ' ;

All regulated by the single care
I r the last resort— that I made thoroughly serve

' Vol. i. 29.
202

Concerning the Work of Life

The when and how, toiled where was need, reposed

As resolutely at the proper point,

Braved sorrow, courted joy, to just one end :

Namely, that just the creature I was bound

To be, I should become, nor thwart at all

God's purpose in creation. I conceive

No other duty possible to man, —

Highest mind, lowest mind, no other law

By which to judge life failure or success :

What folk call being saved or cast away.

Such was my rule of life : I worked my best

Subject to ultimate judgement, God's not man's.^

^ Vol. ii. 295.

203

XI

CONCERNING DEATH

205

I

.^

ii

\ ■

XI

CONCERNING DEATH

'If death is only death, life is a cruelty,
and hope but irony/ Luthardt.

* The face of death is toward the Sun of Life,
His shadow darkens earth : his truer name
Is Onward.' Tennyson.

IT is impossible for any one to say
that Browning was morbid either
in his tastes or in his views of men and
things. All that we know of him gives
us the impression of a wonderful health-
fulness of mind. Carlyle was so struck
with this that he regarded it as *a very
strange and curious spectacle to behold a
man in these days so confidently cheerful.'
The reason for that is not to be found

207

Studies in Browning

in the suggestion that the poet must have
ignored some of the essential facts of Ufe,
for, indeed, such a suggestion has in it
no element of truth. On the contrary, it
was the comprehensiveness of his vision
that accounted for the buoyancy of his
spirit. He saw the worst, but he saw
it always in conjunction with the best.
The shadows which fell across his path-
way only made him more certain of the
light without which they could not have
been. For him there was no such thing
as unrelieved darkness. And this being
so, we are not able to study his view
of death — the valley of deepest shadow —
apart from the light which shines on the
hills on the other side.

Glimpses of that light we shall see in
the next chapter ; and what I propose to
do in this is simply to bring before the
reader a few fragmentary thoughts con-
cerning death itself, couched in such lan-
guage as only a poet like Browning could
3oS

Concerning Death

use. Take these half-dozen lines from
' Balaustion's Adventure * by way of illus-
tration :

Here comes Death
Close on us of a sudden ! who, pale priest
Of the mute people, means to bear his prey
To the house of Hades. The symmetric step !
How he treads true to time and place and Uiing,
Dogging day, hour and minute, for death's due ! ^

The inevitableness of the 'priests'
coming ; the silence of the people in his
dread presence— reminding one of the
Psalmist s words, * I was dumb, I opened
not my mouth ' ; the penalty which all
mortals have thus to pay, that penalty
ever threatening, and then exacted in due
course as if it were a mere piece of
business and no pain could be occasioned
thereby, — all these things are here hinted
at or explicitly stated, in words appro-
priate to the terrible theme.

Death Universal.
Of the universality of death, the words

1 Vol. i. 632.

209 o

Studies in Browning

which Browning puts into the mouth of
the murderer. Guide, give us a picture
which, in its vividness and its intensity,
has perhaps never been surpassed. It
is true that the wretched criminal as he
draws near the end, and as the mask is
torn from his face, tells us that in all he
had said he had 'laughed and mocked,'
but even in his laughter and mockery
he has uttered in a weird fashion an
indisputable truth. Addressing all who
would hear him, in his fury, he says, as
if he and they alike were bound by a
fate from which there was no escape :

I see you all reel to the rock, you waves —
Some forthright, some describe a sinuous track,
Some, crested brilliantly, with heads above,
Some in a strangled swirl sunk who knows how,
But a!I bound whither the main-current sets,
Rockward, an end in foam for all of you !
What if I be o'ertaken, pushed to the front
By all you crowding smoother souls behind,
And reach, a minute sooner than was meant, |

The boundary whereon I break to mist?
Go to ! the smoothest safest of you all,
Most perfect and compact wave in my train.
Spite of the blue tranquillity above,
2IO

Concerning Death

spite of the breadth before of lapsing peace,
Where broods the halcyon and the fish leaps free,
Will presently begin to feel the prick
At lazy heart, the push at torpid brain.
Will rock vertiginously in turn, and reel,
And, emulative, rush to death like me.^

There have been, and still are, two
types of men who recognize that, under
certain conditions, death is preferable to
continued life in this world. The one
is a coward, or perchance a maniac, who
under pressure of great trouble, which has
proved too much for his brain or his
heart, has had recourse to suicide as the
best method of deliverance from his ills.
The other is the Christian thinker, who,
seeing that life is a sacred trust to be
jealously guarded and used for the noblest
ends, nevertheless believes that death
itself would be easier to bear than some
oppressive loads which might be laid
upon him. It is needless to say that
the latter type is one which our poet

1 * The Ring and the Book,' vol. ii. 278.

211

Studies in Browning

understood and appreciated to the full.
Though to him life was replete with
charm and hope, he could sympathize
with those who were weighted and weary
with woes which crushed them down ta
earth. Is not that evident in the pathetic
linei? in * A Soul'^ Tragedy/ where Eula-
lia, one of the subordinate characters in
the drama, $peaks?--^

We are to die ; but even I perceive

Tis not a very hard thing so to die.

My cousin of the pale-blue tearful eyes,

Poor Cesca, suffers more from one day's life

With the stem husband; Tisbe's heart goes forth

Each evening after that wild son of hers,

To track his thoughtless footstep through the street^ :

How easy for them both to die like this 1

I am not sure that I could live as they,^

Death a Leveller.

Perhaps there is nothing that so brings
home to us the oneness of the human
race as the common fate of all men. In

^ Vol. i. 470.
2X2

Concerning Death

life, try as we may to efface distinctions
between one grade of society and another,
those distinctions will persist, and will
declare themselves in spite of our efforts
to get rid of them. In Church life, in
the presence of God Himself, before
whom all are equal, the inequalities un-
fortunately often make themselves felt ;
in experiences of sorrow, even if occa-
sioned by the same means, the peer and
the peasant manage to keep themselves
apart, though under such circumstances
it might be thought there would be
some sort of commingling. Between the
brilliant genius and the feeble intellect,
between the leaders and the followers,
between masters and servants (even when
they congregate in one place and share
many of the same privileges), there are,
as it seems, great gulfs fixed. But, when
the end comes, who can resist the con-
viction that there, as never before, ' the
rich and poor meet together,' and that

Studies in Browning

many of the disdncdons previously main-
tained were not only ephemeral but super-
ficial and acddental also, and therefore
destined to pass away? And because <^
this, no words are needed to point out
the intense humanness of the words of
Paracelsus:

Dear Festtis, lay me,
When I shall die, within s<mie narrow grave,
Not by itself— for that would be too proud--^
But where such graves are thickest ; let it look
Nowise distinguished fiom the hillocks round,
So that the peasant at his brother's bed
May tread upon my own and know it not;
And we shall all be equal at the last,
Or classed according to life's natural ranks,
Fathers, sons, brothers, friends — not rich, nor wise.
Nor gifted : lay me thus, then say . . .
... * So here at least he is a man.' ^

Is it not the sense of all this that leads
us tacitly to assent to the maxim that
nothing but good is to be spoken of the
dead? * I, too, shall come to that at last.
Let me act towards him as I would that
others should act towards me in like case.'

1 Vol. i. 65.

214

Concerning Death

The dead man is praised on his journey — 'Bear, bear

him along
With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets.'^

Death gives Significance to Life.

From the thought above expressed, it
is easy to pass to the reflection that death,
in itself, is not wholly an evil. From the
Christian standpoint, that is of course
readily acknowledged. Mors janua vitae
est. It is not the end of existence, but the
entrance to a higher existence still.

But, apart altogether from this, the fact
that death lies before us invests this life
with a meaning which it could not other-
wise possess. Here, again, the wild ex-
cited criminal, Guido, uttering profound
truths, in spite of his 'madness,' and in
face of his doom, may be our teacher :

You never know what lite means till you die:
Even throughout life, 'tis death that makes life live,
Gives it whatever the significance.
For see, on your own ground and argiunent,

^ * Saul,' vol. i, 274.

Studies in Browning .

Suppose life had no death to fear, how find

A possibility of nobleness

In man, prevented daring any more?

What's love, what's faith without a worst to dread?

Lack-lustre jewelry ! but faith and love

With death behind them bidding do or die —

Put such a foil at back, the sparkle 's bom ! ^

*The Soul's Awakening/

Many of my readers have doubtless
seen either the original picture, or a copy
of it, bearing this title. They will
remember its salient features. A girl
face, pure and beautiful, with eyes up-
turned, with no rapturous gaze, but with
a look of intensity, indicative partly of
wonder, partly of a profound peace,
because into the spirit which looks out
through those lustrous eyes there has
come for the first time a just conception of
the true meaning of life. That is one
awakening of the human soul.

Browning, as we saw in a previous
chapter, has depicted another. It is that

^ * The Ring and the Book,' vol. ii. 278.

216

Concerfling Death

which is suggested incidentally in these
lines from * The Inn Album ' :

In every love, or soon or late

Soul must awake and seek out soul for soul.^

If a Christian minister, or any teacher
of the Christian religion, were asked what
Ae understood by the soul's awakening,
he would probably answer in one word —
Conversion. And, strikingly enough, one
of the most recent writers on Browning
has gone so far as to say : * I regard
Browning's teaching on conversion as his
supreme message to our time.* This
teaching he elaborates in a chapter bear-
ing the significant title, * The Soul's Leap
to God.'*

But, beyond all these, there is another
awakening of the human spirit to which
our poet has directed attention. In one
of his romantic poems, *The Flight of

^ Vol. ii. 456.

* Vide Guidance from Robert Browning in Matters of
Faithy by J. A. Hutton, p. 49.

217

Studies in Browning

the Duchess,' tibeie is recounted the
story of a young girl who was brought
out of a convent to marry a certain Duke,
and who aftoivards fled from him and fell
imder the influence of a gipsy. The gipsy
tells her how good a thing love is, how
beautiful an existence b tiheirs whom it
has welded together, and how restful
their old age may be with its 'hoarded
memories':

And thien as, 'mid die dark, a gleam
Of yet another morning breaks.
And like the hand which ends a dream,
Death, with the might of his sunbeam,
Touches the flesh and the soul awakes.^

Nothing more needed to be said, and
the voice was lost in music.

A kindred thought to this, which may
well serve as a connecting link between
the present chapter and the next, is to be
found in the poem, *Red Cotton Night-
Cap Country, or Turf and Towers/ This
is a real -life drama, with the poet's own

^ Vol. i. 421.

218

Concerning Death

reflections and interpretations of possible
mental states. One of the chief actors in
it is Clara Muhlhausen, the wife-mistress
of L^once Miranda, and when, after his
death, she has established her right to the
usufruct of Clairvaux, Browning says of
her:

She was lady there for life :
And, after life — I hope, a white success
Of some sort, wheresoever life resume
School interrupted by vacation — death.^

Does death end all? Yes and No!
The education here is terminated, but
after the vacation — a pretty fancy — it
begins again in another sphere.

^ Vol. ii. 424.

2IQ

XII

CONCERNING IMMORTALITY

221

CONCERNING IMMORTALITY

' If I were asked — What is the central
and controlling idea in Mr. Browning's
system of thought ? . . . my answer would
be this — That man here on earth, in a state
of preparation for other lives, and sur-
rounded by wondrous spiritual influences,
is too great for the sphere that contains
him, while, at the same time, he can exist
only by submitting for the present to the
conditions it imposes, never without fatal
loss becoming content with such submission,
or regarding those conditions as final. Our
nature here is unfinished, imperfect, but its
glory, its peculiarity, that which makes us
men — not God and not brutes — lies in this
very character of imperfection, giving scope,
223

Studies in Browning

as it does, for indefinite growth and pro-
gress— ^ y

Pfosms, maii^ distiticti«tf muk atooe, '

Not God*te and nofc tlie brntis' ; God is, ihej are,
Maa paitif is, and wliol^ hopes to be.'

Eo. DOWDBN.

THE continuation of life — after death
->^is a subject of perennial inter-
est to us all. It is true that there are
some periods and some circumstances in
which that interest is intensified until it
may be said to be abnormal In the dark
hour of bereavement, and at the prospect
of his own decease, it becomes of infinite
moment to any man to know whether
or not death ends all. In hmieVs Journal
he tells how he went to hear Ernest
Naville lecture on Tke Eternal Life.
*The great room of the Casino was full
to the doors, and one saw a fairly large
number of white heads'^ Is not that
profoundly suggestive.^

^ The italics are mine.
224

Concerning Immortality

But, apart altogether from special rea-
sons which compel attention to this im-
portant theme, man's nature and his
general surroundings lead him always
to look with absorbing concern to the
secret which Death holds in his unre-
lenting grasp. One of the most popular
poems of the last century — which, in-
deed, has not lost, nor is likely to
lose, its popularity — despite the vein of
melancholy that runs through it, was
Tennyson's * In Memoriam.' Why?
Not because of the elegance of its dic-
tion, not because of the exquisite beauty
of many of the figures it contains, not
because there are in it so many quotable
lines, not even because of the personal
note which constantly reveals itself and
which is always attractive to the reader.
No. The reason for the hold which that
magnificent outburst of song had, and still
has, on the public mind and heart is to
be found in its discussion, from so many

225 p

1^

^B Studies in Browning

^H points of view, of life and death in their

^^m relation to the great hereafter.

^^M And what has just been said of Tenny-

^H son's immortal poem is true also, as ac-

^H counting for the popularity, in a very

^H much lesser degree, of Wordsworth's 'Ode '

^H having reference to the same momentous

^H theme.

^1 It was not possible, therefore, that

^H Browning should ignore such a subject as

^H this — not possible that it should have only

^H a small place in his writings. All Brown-

^H ing students will know how his own belief

^* in the continuance of life — untouched by

death — pervades his works, and makes
itself felt in the most unmistakable fashion.
The phrase which occurs in the wonderful
description of Death, put into the lips of
the dying Paracelsus, is significant of the
poet's whole conception of the future :

1 Vol. i. 67.
236

Concerning Immortality

The theory of annihilation or of natural
extinction has no place here. It is not for
one moment taken into account as worthy
of serious thought. It is an article of his
faith, that

Life
Being done with here, begins i' the world away.^

It would not, I think, be difficult to
show that the basis of Browning's belief
in immortality was the Scriptures, and
especially the revelation of the future by
Jesus Christ. He would subscribe to the
pregnant saying of St. Paul : * If Christ
hath not been raised, then is our preaching
vain, your faith also is vain ' ( i Cor. xv.
14, R.V.). But premising that, taking it
for granted, we may also affirm that he
found his chief argument for life hereafter
in the imperfection of man's life here.

Emerson, as readers of his Essays * will
remember, tells us that * we must infer our

^ * The Ring and the Book,' vol. ii. 252.
* The Works of Emerson^ p. 501.

227

Studies in Browning

destiny from the preparation,' and that
'the implanting of a desire indicates that
the gratification of that desire is in the
constitution of the creature that feels it.'
His strong point is, that man's longing for
immortality is God's voice in the soul, and
' the Creator keeps His word with us.'

Browning's position, though somewhat
akin to this, is, at the same time, quite
distinct from it. Both reason from man's
nature, but, in the one case, it is from
what is present in it, in the other from
what is absent from it. Emerson says
that we carry the pledge of the continu-
ance of our being in our own breast.
Browning says that because there is so
much wanting in this life, therefore there
must be another life to supply the defect.

It is our trust
That there is yet another world to mend
All eiTOr and mischance.*

Truly there needs another life t'

' Paracelsus,' vol. i. 50.
228

Concerning Immortality

If this be all— (I must tell Festus that)
And other life await us not — for one,
I say 'tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle,
A wretched failure. I, for one, protest
Against it, and I hurl it back with scom.^

In the year 1877, Browning, with his
sister and a lady friend, spent part of the
summer in a villa among the mountains
of Geneva. On the night of the 14th ot
September the friend died suddenly of
heart disease. In November of that year
the poet produced * La Saisiaz,' a poem
inspired by the tragic occurrence ; and in
it the question is dealt with: Is death the
Anal termination of life ? Was he cleaving
to a 'fact* or cherishing a 'fancy' when
he anticipated meeting his departed friend
again, and meeting also her who was to
him dearest of all ? And, in order to
solve the problem thus presented, in order
to answer the question satisfactorily, he
postulates two facts — two only — God and
the Soul, and from these proceeds to build

^ * Paracelsus,' vol. i. 64.
229

y

Studies in Browning

up his conception of the present life as
merely a state of probation for a future, in
which, as he trusts, things will be unper-
plexed, and the right and wrong now
Wangled will be unravelled. 'Fancy' —
that is, the instinct of the soul — and
' Reason ' argue together in relation to
the subject. One ' thrusts, and the other
'parries' those thrusts, but the Soul
takes the prize of the contest, which is the
hope, the belief, amounting to a certainty,
that itself can never be quenched by
'deathly mists,' and that on the character
of this life depends gain or loss for the
next — heaven or hell.

In 'Old Pictures in Florence' the same
truth is expressed under an entirely dif-
ferent form. While the poem contains
a combination of humorous and serious
reflections on the old masters and their
works, the first purpose of it would seem
to be to show the progressiveness of Art,
the impossibility of ever reaching a final
a3Q

Concerning Immortality

stage in the revelation of mind and soul
which the greatest pictures contain. And
then the poet in his monologue, advancing
from one stage to another, looks away
beyond the present, and gives us a sugges-
tion of his own view, in the line :

Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven.^

There is, however, another aspect of
the future of which he is enamoured, and
which he would fain portray, namely,
that of cessation from the toils of earth.
Hence, in the following verses, both
phases are put before us side by side:

There *s a fancy some lean to and others hate —

That when this life is ended, begins
New work for the soul in another state,

Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins :
Where the strong and the weak, this world's con-
geries.

Repeat in large what they practised in small,
Through life after life in unlimited series ;

Only the scale's to be changed, that's all.
Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen

By the means of Evil that Good is best,

^ Vol. i. 269.
231

And, .duoagii eatOi and itt lUHae, wbax is heaven'i

When oar fiudi in die Bame hu stood Qte test —
Why, ttte diild gmiti man, ym bum the rod,
Hm nws of laboor «e stuely dcme ;
. Tlwre leauunetb a test fiv the people cf God :
And I have had troubles enoogX ^ one.*

But are diese two views entirely in-
harmonious or incongruous? Are they
mutually exclusive? May there not be
a sense in which the living dead 'rest
from their labours' — the excessive and
exhausting efforts of earth — while 'their
works follow with them,' to be continued
and perfected in that other sphere? But,
whether that be so or not, what the poet
in either case would iiave us see is that
the future is a continuation of the present
— -on a higher level, in an ampler
air, and surely with less to fetter or
restrain.

Browning does not hesitate to tell us

that it is this faith in immortality that

gives to man his true glory. Without it

' ' Old Pictures in Florence,' vol, i. 270.

232

Concerning Immortality

he would be little better than the beasts
that perish. With it he is raised above
them, and separated from them by a gulf
which no bridge can ever span. It is
worth while to contrast our poet's teach-
ing with that of a leading Continental
scientist, whose philosophy, we may say
in passing, is so hopelessly illogical and
absurd that it is scarcely worth a moment's
attention, but who is quoted by some as
if he were an indubitable authority on
the deepest facts of the spiritual world.
These are the words of Haeckel : * The
best we can desire after a courageous life,
spent in doing good according to our
light, is the eternal peace of the grave.' ^
What would Browning say of this?
' A Grammarian's Funeral ' is, I think, the
best answer to the question :

This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it

1 The Riddle of the Universe^ p. 74.

Studies in Browning

And is that the end of him ? —

Others mistrust and say, * But time escapes :

Live now or never I '
He said, * What's time? Leave Now for d<^ afi4
apes !

Man lias Forever.'^

If Haeckel is content to be as a dog or
an ape, there is nothing to prevent him ;
but for ourselves we prefer to be men,
with all that our manhood involves, not
only in this world but also in the world
to come.

From what has been already said, it
follows that the life beyond is as real as
— or more real than — the life here. The
question raised by Milton : ^

What if earth
Be but the shadow of heav'n ; and things therein
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?

Browning does not hesitate to answer
in the most positive, affirmative fashion :

^ Vol. i. 425.

2 Paradise Lost^ p. 192 (Chandos Classics).

234

Concerning Immortality

* There is Heaven,' he says, 'since there
is Heaven's simulation — earth.' ^

Readers of Shakespeare will recall the
familiar lines in which he makes Prospero
say, in The Tempest :

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

In Browning's 'Easter Day' that same
metaphor is used with a somewhat dif-
ferent application, and with even a truer
and more extended significance :

From repose
We shall start up, at last awake
From life, that insane dream we take
For waking now, because it seems.'

There is yet one other illustration of
the higher character of the life immortal
to which I will refer. It is from ' Sordello.'
But there the superiority of that life is
suggested to us under an altogether

different figure, namely, that of climate.

1 *The Inn Album,' vol. ii. 451. * Vol. i. 501.

Studies in Browning

Dwellers in this life are depicted as doing
their work in depressing surroundings, in
unwholesome fog and damp : those who
have passed hence have resumed their
toil in the brightness, and amid the balmy
air, of a. cloudless and unending day :

We die : which means to say, the whole's removed.

Dismounted wheel by wheel, this complex gin, —

To be set up anew elsewhere, begin

A task indeed, but with a dearer clime

Than the murk lodgement of our building-time.'

That, then, is the poet's prospect, and
sometimes it is wellnigh overwhelming
in its radiance, and baffles even his
loftiest thought. In one of the dramatic
love-poems, ' By the Fireside,' that is
indicated to us with beautiful simplicity
and naturalness. This poem, notwith-
standing its dramatic form, has running
through it a deep personal note, and we
can hardly be wrong in declaring that it
enshrines the memory of Mrs. Browning.
' Vol. i. IS2-3.
236

Concerning Immortality

The lover who speaks goes back from
middle age to youth, recalls the first con-
fession of his love, dwells fondly on his
* perfect wife,' lingers over the years of
happiness they had spent together — in
comparison with which even youth had
seemed a waste — and then anticipates the
time when the two souls, that for so long
had been one, will see the vision of the
day of God :

Think, when our one soul understands
The great Word which makes all things new,

When earth breaks up and heaven expands.
How will the change strike me and you

In the house not made with hands ?^

That, of course, is suggestive of
mystery, and, when all is said of the
life within the veil, the mystery must in
greater or less degree remain. But mys-
tery does not mean darkness. It may
mean only excess of light. That the
light is, we are sure, but we cannot see

1 Vol. i. 283.

237

Studies in Browning

all that the lig^t will by-and-by reveal.
It is our own limitatiois that prevent us
fioni knowing as we are known, that
cause us to see through a glass, darkly.

But, in spite of this, what exuberant
confidence in the future there is in the
poet's soul! How he rejoices in a sure
and certain hope of a resurrection to ever-
lasting life — a hope which for him gilds
the present wiA its glory, and makes all
earthly joys tenfold greater than they
could otherwise be! — ' Jm

Have you found your life distastefdl?

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, 111 complain.
Must in death your daylight finish ?

My sun sets to rise again.'

> ' At the Mermaid,' vol. ii. 478,

=38

INDEX

' Abt Vogler,' ai, 22. 124, 163.
Amiel, Journal^ 224.

* Andrea Del Sarto/ 78.

' Apparent Failure/ 122.
'Aristophanes' Apology,' 201.
' Asolando ' ( ' Epilogue ' ), 78.
'At the Mermaid/ 1x5, 116, 238.

' Balaustion's Adventure/ 28, 29,

209.
Berdoe, Dr. £., 19, 44, 104, no.
' Bishop Blougram's Apology/ 68,

103-107, 109-112, 180, 185,
' Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A,' 26,

27, 33, 121. 124, 133, 134, 141.
Bruce, Dr., The Moral Order of

the World, ^c, 116.
Bunjran, PilgrinCs Progress, 126,

127.

* By the Fireside/ 75, 236, 237.

Caird, Principal, 12.

Carlyle, 31, 32, 63, 187, 188, 192,

207.
Channing, Dr., 91.
'Christmas Eve,' 25, 44, 49, 72,

106, 150, 151, 158, 194.

* Colombe's Birthday,' 1315, 139,

140.
' Count Gismond,' 33.
' Cristina,' 149.

Dawson, Makers oj Modem

English, 3, 169.
' Death in the Desert, A,' 44-46,

'Development,' 164.

Dowden, Ed., 223, 224.

' Dramatic Idylls ' (2nd series), 83.

'Dramatis Personac' ('Epi-
logue'), 56-58.

' Easter Day,' 44, no, 179, 235.
Eliot, George, 55, 198.
Emerson, 31, 32, 94, 227, 228.
' Epistle, An,' 53, 55.
' Evelyn Hope,' 149, 150.

Farrar, Dean, 169.

' Ferishtah's Fancies ' —

' Bean-Stripe, A,' 75, 162.

' Pillar at Sebzevar, A/ 143-146.

' Plot Culture,' 20.
' Fifine at the Fair,' 22, 89, 95-97,
176, 177.

• Flight of the Duchess, The,' 217,

218.

• Fra Lippo Lippi,' 55, 86,
' Fust and his Friends,' 18.

Gibson, Dr. Monro, 5.
'Grammarian's Funeral, A,' 233,
234.

Haeckel, The RiddU tf the

Universe, 233,
'Herakles' ('Aristophanes'

Apology'), 127.
Hugo, Victor, Les Miserables, 88,

160.
Hutton, J. A., Guidance from

Robert Browning, 6*^., 217.

' In a Balcony,' 138, 159, 178.
' Inn Album, The,' 217, 235.

'Johannes Agricola in Medita-
tion,' zz.

239

x\ s

Index

Jooes, Proteasor HtaTj.BrminiH/i
as a Philaiophieal and Ri-
ligiOBS Teachir. 16, 30, 131,
133. "72.

' King Victor and King Charles,

' Lost Ride Togelher, The,' 149,

150.
' Light Woman, A, 93.
tjMie, PhUeiefhy o/XeligioH, 31.
• Lurk,' 17, iB, 72, 77, 179.
Lulharft, 65, 67, 68. 13a. jkj7-

177.

■Old Pictures in Florence," 114,

lac, ajo-aaa.
'One Word More.' 94, 174.
Orr. Mrs. Sutherland, 6, 37. 47,

57, 119, 130,171, 17s.

' Paracelsus,' 15, 17, 33. 24, 30,
35, 65, 66. 69, 70, 76, 77, 90,
118, 119, H3, 143. '46, "47.
158, 159, 161, 193, 196, aoi,
202, ai4, aa6, a 38, aag.

■ Parleyings wilb certain People ' —
' Cbarh^ AvisOD, ' 173.
' Gerard de Lairesse,' 17a.

' Paulioe,' 14, 5s, 87, 89. loi.

'PIppa Passes.' 34. 34, 35. 119,

I30. 13s, 195, 196.

Pope, AleiandCT, 6i.
Pope, Dr. W. B., 41,

■Prince HohenBtiel-Schwangau.
ftc'aS, 64, 66, 67. 85, 155,

Rabbi Ben Ezra,' 37. 64, 69,
74, 85, 86, ia8, 174, 17s. 199.

Red Cotton Nighl-Cap Country,'
160, 161, aiS. 319.

Ring and the Book, The*—
' Ring and Ihe Book. The,' 155.
'The Other Hail-Rome,' ao,
'TeniuraQuid,'93.
'Giuseppe Caponsacchi,' 53,

■ Porapilia,' 30, 19. B8, 95, 133.

■ Dominus H vacinthus, '48 , 5a, 53.
'The Pope. 8. 16, 36, 36, 69-

71, 87, 94, 173, 174,
' Goido,' 69, 83. aio, an. 315,

' The Book and the Ring,' 34.

'Sludge, Mt.. "the Medium,"

18, 7a,
Sordello,' 73, 76, 81. 84, 137, 190,

•94. 33s. '36-
'SouJs Tragedy, A. toi, aia
■SwtQB and the Bust. The,'

Tennyson. 7, 13a, 173, 174,007, I

Waikinson. Rev. W. L., 108,

Watson', Dr. John, Afiad 1^ I** \

Wesicotl, Dr., lai, 174, 175,
Wbately, Archbishop, 84.
Wordsworth. aa6.
•Worslofit, The,' 117.

k

'""28"

70 (>48S C 55 2

!S INCURRED IF THIS BOOK IS

RETURNED TO THE UBRARY ON'

BEFORE THE LAST DATE STAMPED

I'

*^ -■-

A

^^^H StudlM In Browning.

■ iimiriiii

^H 3 2044 086 846 334

1