{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38874/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38874","id":"gutenberg_38874","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38874","summary":null,"tags":["Browning, Robert, 1812-1889","Category: History - British","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Poetry","Nineteenth century","Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography"],"text":"Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttps://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\ngenerously made available by The Internet Archive.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBROWNING AND HIS CENTURY\n\n\n\n\nBY THE SAME AUTHOR\n\n  BROWNING'S ITALY\n  BROWNING'S ENGLAND\n  A GUIDE TO MYTHOLOGY\n  ANCIENT MYTHS IN MODERN POETS\n  LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY\n  HAWTHORNE'S COUNTRY\n  THE POETS' NEW ENGLAND\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: BROWNING AT 23 (LONDON 1835)]\n\n\n\n\n  Browning and His Century\n\n\n  BY HELEN ARCHIBALD CLARKE\n  Author of \"_Browning's Italy_,\"\n  \"_Browning's England_,\" etc.\n\n\n  ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS\n\n\n  GARDEN CITY      NEW YORK\n  DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY\n  1912\n\n\n\n\n  _Copyright, 1912, by_\n  DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.\n\n  _All rights reserved, including that of\n  translation into foreign languages,\n  including the Scandinavian_\n\n\n\n\n  To\n  THE BOSTON BROWNING SOCIETY\n  IN COMMEMORATION OF THE\n  BROWNING CENTENARY--1812-1912\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                    PAGE\n\n  CHAPTER I\n    THE BATTLE OF MIND AND SPIRIT                      3\n\n  CHAPTER II\n    THE CENTURY'S END: PROMISE OF PEACE               77\n\n  CHAPTER III\n    POLITICAL TENDENCIES                             118\n\n  CHAPTER IV\n    SOCIAL IDEALS                                    174\n\n  CHAPTER V\n    ART SHIBBOLETHS                                  217\n\n  CHAPTER VI\n    CLASSIC SURVIVALS                                277\n\n  CHAPTER VII\n    PROPHETIC VISIONS                                342\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n  Browning at 23 (London 1835)            _Frontispiece_\n\n                                             FACING PAGE\n\n  Paracelsus                                          38\n\n  Herbert Spencer                                     94\n\n  David Strauss                                      112\n\n  Cardinal Wiseman                                   120\n\n  William Ewart Gladstone                            160\n\n  William Morris                                     196\n\n  John Burns                                         208\n\n  Alfred Tennyson                                    250\n\n  A. C. Swinburne                                    260\n\n  Dante Gabriel Rossetti                             266\n\n  George Meredith                                    272\n\n  Euripides                                          296\n\n  Aristophanes                                       306\n\n  Walter Savage Landor                               330\n\n  Browning at 77 (1889)                              360\n\n\n\n\nBROWNING AND HIS CENTURY\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\n\nTO ROBERT BROWNING\n\n  \"Say not we know but rather that we love,\n    And so we know enough.\" Thus deeply spoke\n    The Sage; and in men's stunted hearts awoke\n  A haunting fear, for fain are they to prove\n  Their life, their God, with yeas and nays that move\n    The mind's uncertain flow. Then fierce outbroke,--\n    Knowledge, the child of pain shall we revoke?\n  The guide wherewith men climb to things above?\n  Nay, calm your fears! 'Tis but the mere mind's knowing,\n    The soul's alone the poet worthy deeming.\n    Let mind up-build its entities of seeming\n  With toil and tears! The toil is but for showing\n    How much there lacks of truth. But 'tis no dreaming\n    When sky throbs back to heart, with God's love beaming.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE BATTLE OF MIND AND SPIRIT\n\n\nDuring the nineteenth century, which has already receded far enough into\nthe perspective of the past for us to be able to take a comprehensive view\nof it, the advance guard of the human race found itself in a position\nentirely different from that ever before occupied by it. Through the\nknowledge of cosmic, animal, and social evolution gradually accumulated by\nthe laborious and careful studies of special students in every department\nof historical research and scientific experiment, a broader and higher\nstate of self-consciousness was attained. Mankind, on its most perceptive\nplane, no longer pinned its faith to inherited traditions, whether of\nreligion, art, or morals. Every conceivable fact and every conceivable\nmyth was to be tested in the laboratory of the intellect, even the\nintellect itself was to undergo dissection, with the result that, once for\nall, it has been decided what particular range of human knowledge lies\nwithin the reach of mental perception, and what particular range of human\nknowledge can be grasped only through spiritual perception.\n\nSuch a momentous decision as this in the history of thought has not been\nreached without a long and protracted struggle extending back into the\nearly days of Christianity, nor, it may be said, is the harmony as yet\ncomplete, for there are to-day, and perhaps always will be, human beings\nwhose consciousness is not fully orbed and who either seek their point of\nequilibrium too entirely in the plane of mind or too entirely in the plane\nof spirit.\n\nIn the early days, before Christianity came to bring its \"sword upon\nearth,\" there seems to have been little or no consciousness of such a\nstruggle. The ancient Hindu, observing Nature and meditating upon the\nuniverse, arrived intuitively at a perception of life and its processes\nwonderfully akin to that later experimentally proved by the nineteenth\ncentury scientist, nor did he have a suspicion that such truth was in any\nway antagonistic to religious truth. On the contrary, he considered that,\nby it, the beauty and mystery of religion was immeasurably enhanced, and,\nletting his imagination play upon his intuition, he brought forth a theory\nof spiritual evolution in which the world to-day is bound to recognize\nmany elements of beauty and power necessary to any complete conception of\nreligion in the future.\n\nEven the Babylonians made their guesses at an evolutionary theory of the\nuniverse. Greek philosophy, later, was permeated with the idea, it having\nbeen derived by them perhaps from the Chaldeans through the Phoenicians,\nor if the theories of Aryan migrations be correct, perhaps through\ninheritance from a remote Aryan ancestry.\n\nWhen Christian thought gained its hold upon the world, the account of\ncreation given in Genesis became so thoroughly impressed upon the minds of\nmen that it was regarded as the orthodox view, rooted in divine\nrevelation, and to question it was to incur the danger of being called an\natheist, with its possibly uncomfortable consequences of being martyred.\n\nStrangely enough, the early Church adopted into its fold many pagan\nsuperstitions, such as a belief in witchcraft and in signs and wonders, as\nwell as some myths, but this great truth upon which the pagan mind had\nstumbled, it would have none of.\n\nThese two circumstances--the adoption on the part of Christianity of pagan\nsuperstitions and its utter repudiation of the pagan guesses upon\nevolution, carrying within it the germs of truth, later to be unearthed by\nscientific research--furnished exactly the right conditions for the\nthrowing down of the gauntlet between the mind and the spirit. The former,\nfollowing intellectual guidance, found itself coming more and more into\nantagonism with the spirit, not yet freed from the trammels of\nimagination. The latter, guided by imagination, continued to exercise a\nmythopoeic faculty, which not only brought it more and more into\nantagonism with the mind, but set up within its own realm an internecine\nwarfare which has blackened the pages of religious history with crimes and\nmartyrdoms so terrible as to force the conviction that the true devil in\nantagonism to spiritual development has been the imagination of mankind,\nmasquerading as verity, and not yet having found its true function in art.\n\nRegarded from the point of view of the student of intellectual\ndevelopment, this conflict of two thousand years has the fascination of a\ngreat drama of which the protagonist is the mind struggling to free the\nspirit from its subjection to the evil aspects of the imagination. Great\nthinkers in the field of science, philosophy, and religion are the\n_dramatis personae_, and in the onward rush of this world-drama the\nsufferings of those who have fallen by the way seem insignificant.\n\nBut when the student of history takes his more intimate survey of the\npurely human aspects of the struggle, heartrending, indeed, become the\ntragedies resulting from the exercise of human bigotry and stupidity.\n\nIndignation and sorrow take possession of us when we think upon such a\nspectacle as that of Roger Bacon, making ready to perform a few scientific\nexperiments before a small audience at Oxford, confronted by an uproar in\nwhich monks, fellows, and students rushed about, their garments streaming\nin the wind, crying out, \"Down with the magician!\" And this was only the\nbeginning of a persecution which ended in his teaching being solemnly\ncondemned by the authorities of the Franciscan order and himself thrown\nfor fourteen years into prison, whence he issued an old and broken man of\neighty.\n\nMore barbarous still was the treatment of Giordano Bruno, a strange sort\nof man who developed his philosophy in about twenty-five works, some\nprose, some poetry, some dialogues, some comedies, with such enticing\ntitles as \"The Book of the Great Key,\" \"The Explanation of the Thirty\nSeals,\" \"The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast,\" \"The Threefold\nMinimum,\" \"The Composition of Images,\" \"The Innumerable, the Immense and\nthe Unfigurable.\" His utterances were vague, especially to the intellects\nof his time, yet not so vague that theology, whether Catholic or\nCalvinistic, did not at once take fright.\n\nHe held that the investigation of nature in the unbiased light of reason\nis our only guide to truth. He rejected antiquity, tradition, faith, and\nauthority; he exclaimed, \"Let us begin by doubt. Let us doubt till we\nknow.\" Acting upon these principles, he began to unfold again that current\nof Greek thought which the system imposed by the Church had intercepted\nfor more than a thousand years, and arrived at a conception of evolution\nprefiguring the modern theories.\n\nHe conceived the law of the universe to be unceasing change. \"Each\nindividual,\" he declared, \"is the resultant of innumerable individuals;\neach species is the starting point for the next.\" Furthermore, he\nmaintained that the perfecting of the individual soul is the aim of all\nprogress.\n\nTenets so opposite to the orthodox view of special creation and the fall\nof man could not be allowed to go unchallenged. It is to be remembered\nthat he was a priest in holy orders in the Convent of St. Dominic, and in\nthe year 1576 he was accused by the Provincial of his order of heresy on\none hundred and thirty counts. He did not await his trial, but fled to\nRome, thence to northern Italy, and became for some years a wanderer. He\nwas imprisoned at Geneva; at Toulouse he spent a year lecturing on\nAristotle; in Paris, two years as professor extraordinary in the Sorbonne;\nthree years in London, where he became the friend of Sir Philip Sidney,\nand influenced the philosophy of both Bacon and Shakespeare. Oxford,\nhowever, was unfriendly to his teachings and he was obliged to flee from\nEngland also. Then he wandered for five years from city to city in\nGermany--at one time warned to leave the town, at another excommunicated,\nat another not even permitted to lodge within the gates. Finally, he\naccepted the invitation of a noble Venetian, Zuane Mocenigo, to visit\nVenice and teach him the higher and secret learning. The two men soon\nquarreled, and Bruno was betrayed by the count into the hands of the\nInquisition. He was convicted of heresy in Venice and delivered to the\nInquisition in Rome. He spent seven years in its dungeons, and was again\ntried and convicted, and called upon to recant, which he stoutly refused\nto do. Sentence of death was then passed upon him and he was burned at the\nstake on February 17, 1600, on the Campo de' Fiori, where there now stands\na statue erected by Progressive Italy in his honor.\n\nHis last words were, \"I die a martyr, and willingly.\" Then they cast his\nashes into the Tiber and placed his name among the accused on the rolls of\nthe Church. And there it probably still remains, for no longer ago than\n1889, when his statue was unveiled on the ninth of June, on the site of\nhis burning, in full view of the Vatican, Pope Leo XIII, it is said,\nrefused food and spent hours in an agony of prayer at the foot of the\nstatue of St. Peter. Catholic, and even Protestant, denunciation of Bruno\nat this time showed that the smoke from this particular battle in the war\nof mind with spirit was still far from being laid.\n\nWith the fate of Giordano Bruno still fresh in his mind, Galileo succumbed\nto the demands of the Inquisition and recanted, saying that he no longer\nbelieved what he, himself, with his telescope had proved to be true.\n\n    \"I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a prisoner and on my\n    knees, and before your Eminences, having before my eyes the Holy\n    Gospel, which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse, and detest the\n    error and the heresy of the movement of the earth.\"\n\nIf this recantation had brought any comfort or peace into his life it\nmight have been hard to forgive Galileo's perjury of himself. His\npersecution, however, continued to the end. He was exiled from his family\nand friends, and, even when he had become blind and wasted by sorrow and\ndisease, he was still closely watched lest he might utter the awful heresy\nthat the earth moved.\n\nA hundred years later than this, when Buffon attempted to teach the simple\ntruths of geology, he was deposed from his high position and made to\nrecant by the theological faculty of the Sorbonne. The man who promulgated\ngeological principles, as firmly established to-day as that of the\nrotation of the earth upon its axis, was forced to write: \"I declare that\nI had no intention to contradict the text of Scripture; that I believe\nmost firmly all therein related about the creation, both as to order of\ntime and matter of fact. I abandon everything in my book respecting the\nformation of the earth, and generally all which may be contrary to the\nnarrative of Moses.\"\n\nSuch are the more heinous examples of the persecution of the men who\ndiscovered the truths of science. To these should be added the wholesale\npersecution of witches and magicians, for unusual knowledge of any sort\nran the chance of being regarded as contrary to biblical teaching and of\nbeing attributed to the machinations of the Prince of Darkness.\n\nEvery new step made in the direction of scientific truth has had thus to\nface the most determined opposition. Persecution by torture and death died\nout, but up to the nineteenth century, and well on through it,\ndenunciation, excommunication, suppression, the loss of honorable\npositions have all been used as weapons by church or university in the\nattempt to stamp out whatever it considered dangerous and subverting\ndoctrines of science.\n\nThe decisive battle was not to be inaugurated until the latter half of the\nnineteenth century, with the advent in the field of such names in science\nas Spencer, Darwin, Tyndall and Huxley, and such names in biblical\ncriticism as Strauss and Renan.\n\nThe outposts, it is true, had been won by advancing scientific thought,\nfor step by step the Church had compromised, and had admitted one\nscientific doctrine after another as not incompatible with biblical truth.\nBut now, not only theology, the imperfect armor in which the spirit had\nbeen clothed, was attacked, but the very existence of spirit itself was to\nbe questioned. The thinking world was to be divided into materialists and\nsupernaturalists. Now, at last, mind and spirit, who in the ages long gone\nhad been brothers, were to stand face to face as enemies. Was this mortal\ncombat to end in the annihilation of either, or would this, too, end in a\ncompromise leading to harmony?\n\nAt the dawn of this century, in 1812, came into the world its master\npoetic mind. I say this to-day without hesitation, for no other English\npoet of the century has been so thoroughly aware of the intellectual\ntendencies of his century, and has so emotionalized them and brought them\nbefore us under the humanly real conditions of dramatic utterance.\n\nIt is not surprising, considering this fact, that in his second poem,\nwritten in 1835, Browning ventures into the arena and at once tackles the\nsupreme problem of the age, what is to be the relation of mind and spirit?\n\nIt is characteristic of the poetic methods, which dominated his work, that\nhe should have presented this problem through the personality of a\nhistorical figure who played no inconsiderable part in the intellectual\ndevelopment of his time, though not a man to whom general historians have\nbeen in the habit of assigning much space in their pages. Browning,\nhowever, as Hall Griffin informs us, had been familiar with the name of\nParacelsus from his childhood, of whom he had read anecdotes in a queer\nbook, Wanley's \"Wonders of the Little World.\" Besides, his father's\nlibrary, wherein as a boy he was wont to browse constantly, contained the\n_Opera Omnia_ of Paracelsus.\n\nWith the confidence of youth and of genius the poet attempts in this poem\na solution of the problem. To mind he gives the attribute of knowledge, to\nspirit the attribute of love.\n\nThe poem as a whole does not concern us here except as a background for\nits final thoughts. In order, however, to put the situation clearly before\nreaders not already familiar with it, I venture to transcribe a portion of\na former analysis of my own.\n\nParacelsus aspires to the acquisition of absolute knowledge and feels born\nwithin him the capabilities for attaining this end, and, when attained, it\nis to be devoted to enlarging the possibilities of man's life. The whole\nrace is to be elevated at once. Man may not be doomed to cope with\nseraphs, yet by the exercise of human strength alone he hopes man may one\nday beat God's angels.\n\nHe is a revolter, however, against the magical and alchemistic methods of\nhis age, which seek for the welfare of men through the elixir of youth or\nthe philosopher's stone. He especially disclaims such puerile schemes in\nthe passionate moment when he has realized how futile all his lifelong\nefforts have been. He stands, indeed, at the threshold of a new world. He\nhas a glimmering of the true scientific methods which would discover first\nthe secrets of life's laws, and then use these natural laws to bring about\nlife's betterment, instead of hoping for salvation through the discovery\nof some magic secret by means of which life's laws might be overcome. Yet\nhe is sufficiently of his own superstitious age to desire and expect\nfairly magical results from the laws he hopes to discover. The creed which\nspurs him to his quest is his belief that truth is inborn in the soul, but\nto set this truth free and make it of use to mankind correspondences in\nouter nature must be found. An intuitive mind like Paracelsus's will\nrecognize these natural corollaries of the intuition wherever it finds\nthem; and these are what Paracelsus goes forth over the earth to seek\nand find, sure he will \"arrive.\" One illustration of the results so\nobtained is seen in the doctrine of the signatures of plants according to\nwhich the flowers, leaves, and fruits of plants indicate by their color or\nmarkings, etc., the particular diseases they are intended to cure. The\nreal Paracelsus practised medicine upon this theory.\n\nThough such methods are a long distance from those of the modern\nscientist, who deduces his laws from careful and patient observation of\nnature, they go a step toward his in seeking laws in nature to correspond\nto hypotheses born of intuition.\n\nBrowning's presentation of the attitude of mind and the place held by\nParacelsus in the development of science is exactly in line with the most\nrecent criticisms of this extraordinary man's life. According to these he\nfluctuated between the systems of magic then prevalent and scientific\nobservation, but always finally threw in the balance of his opinion on the\nside of scientific ways of working; and above all made the great step from\na belief in the influence of nature upon man to that of the existence of\nparallelisms between nature processes and human processes.\n\nThough he thus opened up new vistas for the benefit of man, he must\nnecessarily be a failure, from his own point of view, with his \"India\" not\nfound, his absolute truth unattained; and it is upon this side that the\npoet dwells. For a moment he is somewhat reassured by the apparition of\nAprile, scarcely a creature of flesh and blood, more the spirit of art who\naspires to love infinitely and has found the attainment of such love as\nimpossible as Paracelsus has found the attainment of knowledge. Both have\ndesired to help men, but Paracelsus has desired to help them rather\nthrough the perfecting, even immortalizing, of their physical being;\nAprile, through giving man, as he is, infinite sympathy and through\ncreating forms of beauty which would show him his own thoughts and hopes\nglorified by the all-seeing touch of the artist.\n\nParacelsus recognizes his deficient sympathy for mankind, and tries to\nmake up for it in his own way by giving out of the fulness of his\nknowledge to men. The scornful and proud reformer has not, however, truly\nlearned the lesson of love, and verily has his reward when he is turned\nagainst by those whom he would teach. Then the old ideal seizes upon him\nagain, and still under the influence of Aprile he seeks in human\nexperience the loves and passions of mankind which he learns through\nAprile he had neglected for the ever-illusive secret, but neither does\nsuccess attend him here, and only on his deathbed does his vision clear\nup, and he is made to indulge in a prophetic utterance quite beyond the\nreach of the original Paracelsus.\n\nIn this passage is to be found Browning's first contribution to a solution\nof the great problem. That it is instinct with the idea of evolution has\nbecome a commonplace of Browning criticism, a fact which was at least\nindependently or, as far as I know, first pointed out by myself in an\nearly essay upon Browning. At the time, I was reading both Browning and\nSpencer, and could not but be impressed by the parallelisms in thought\nbetween the two, especially those in this seer-like passage and \"The Data\nof Ethics.\"\n\nWriters whose appreciation of a poet is in direct ratio to the number of\nexact historical facts to be found in a poem like to emphasize this fact\nthat the doctrine of evolution can be found in the works of Paracelsus.\nWhy not? Since, as we have seen it had been floating about in\nphilosophical thought in one form or another for some thousands of years.\n\nIndeed, it has been stated upon good authority that the idea of a gradual\nevolution according to law and of a God from whom all being emanates,\nfrom whom all power proceeds, is an inherent necessity of the Aryan mind\nas opposed to the Semitic idea of an outdwelling God and of\nsupernaturalism. Thus, all down the ages the Aryan mind has revolted from\ntime to time against the religious ideas superimposed upon it by the\nSemitic mind. This accounts for the numerous heresies within the bosom of\nthe Church as well as for the scientific advance against the superstitions\nof the Church.\n\nGeneralizations of this sweeping order are apt to contain only partial\ntruth. It would probably be nearer the whole truth, as we are enabled\nto-day to trace historical development, to say that, starting with\nopposite conceptions, these two orders of mind have worked toward each\nother and the harmonization of their respective points of view, and,\nfurthermore, that this difference in mind belongs to a period prior even\nto the emergence of the Aryan or the Semitic. Researches in mythology and\nfolklore seem to indicate that no matter how far back one may go in the\nrecords of human thought there will be found these two orders of mind--one\nwhich naturally thinks of the universe as the outcome of law, and one\nwhich naturally thinks of it as the outcome of creation. There are\nprimitive myths in which mankind is supposed to be descended from a\nprimitive ancestor, which may range all the way from a serpent to an oak\ntree, or, as in a certain Zulu myth, a bed of reeds growing on the back of\na small animal. And there are equally primitive myths in which mankind is\ncreated out of the trees or the earth by an external agent, varying in\nimportance from a grasshopper to a more or less spiritual being.\n\nBrowning did not need to depend upon Paracelsus for his knowledge of\nevolution. He may not have known that the ancient Hindu in the dim mists\nof the past had an intuition of the cosmic egg from which all life had\nevolved, and that he did not know of the theory as it is developed in the\ngreat German philosophers we are certain, because he, himself, asseverated\nthat he had never read the German philosophers, but it is hardly possible\nthat he did not know something of it as it appears in the writings of the\nGreek philosophers, for Greek literature was among the earliest of his\nstudies. He might, for instance, have taken a hint from the speculations\nof that half mythical marvel of a man, Empedocles, with which the\nParacelsus theory of the universe, as it appears in the passage under\ndiscussion, has many points of contact.\n\nAccording to Empedocles, the four primal elements, earth, air, fire and\nwater, are worked upon by the forces of love and discord. By means of\nthese forces, out of the primal elements are evolved various and horrible\nmonstrosities before the final form of perfection is reached. It is true\nhe did not correctly imagine the stages in the processes of evolution, for\ninstead of a gradual development of one form from another, he describes\nthe process as a haphazard and chaotic one. \"Many heads sprouted up\nwithout necks, and naked arms went wandering forlorn of shoulders, and\nsolitary eyes were straying destitute of foreheads.\" These detached\nportions of bodies coming together by haphazard produced the earlier\nmonstrous forms. \"Many came forth with double faces and two breasts, some\nshaped like oxen with a human front, others, again, of human race with a\nbull's head.\" However, the latter part of the evolutionary process as\ndescribed by Empedocles, when Love takes command, seems especially\npertinent as a possible source of Browning's thought:\n\n    \"When strife has reached the very bottom of the seething mass, and\n    love assumes her station in the center of the ball, then everything\n    begins to come together, and to form one whole--not instantaneously,\n    but different substances come forth, according to a steady process of\n    development. Now, when these elements are mingling, countless kinds of\n    things issue from their union. Much, however, remains unmixed, in\n    opposition to the mingling elements, and these, malignant strife still\n    holds within his grasp. For he has not yet withdrawn himself\n    altogether to the extremities of the globe; but part of his limbs\n    still remain within its bounds, and part have passed beyond. As\n    strife, however, step by step retreats, mild and innocent love pursues\n    him with her force divine; things which had been immortal instantly\n    assume mortality; the simple elements become confused by interchange\n    of influences. When these are mingled, then the countless kinds of\n    mortal beings issue forth, furnished with every sort of form--a sight\n    of wonder.\"\n\nThough evolution was no new idea, it had been only a hypothesis arrived at\nintuitionally or suggested by crude observations of nature until by\nperfected methods of historical study and of scientific experimentation\nproof was furnished of its truth as a scientific verity.\n\nLet us glance at the situation at the time when Paracelsus was published.\nIn 1835 science had made great strides in the direction of proving the\ncorrectness of the hypothesis. Laplace had lived and died and had given to\nthe world in mathematical reasoning of remarkable power proof of the\nnebular hypothesis, which was later to be verified by Fraunhofer's\ndiscoveries in spectrum analysis. Lamarck had lived and died and had\ngiven to the world his theory of animal evolution. Lyall in England had\nshown that geological formations were evolutionary rather than\ncataclysmal. In fact, greater and lesser scientific lights in England and\non the continent were every day adding fresh facts to the burden of proof\nin favor of the hypothesis. It was in the air, and denunciations of it\nwere in the air.\n\nMost interesting of all, however, in connection with our present theme is\nthe fact that Herbert Spencer was still a lad of fifteen, who was\nindependently of Darwin to work out a complete philosophy of evolution,\nwhich was to be applied in every department of cosmic, geologic, plant,\nanimal and human activity, but (and this is of special interest) he was\nnot to give to the world his plan for a synthetic philosophy until 1860,\nand not to publish his \"First Principles\" until 1862, nor the first\ninstalment of the \"Data of Ethics,\" the fruit of his whole system, until\n1879.\n\nBesides being familiar with the idea as it crops out in Greek thought, it\nis impossible that the young Browning was not cognizant of the scientific\nattitude of the time. In fact, he tells us as much himself, for when\nDoctor Wonivall asked him some questions as to his attitude toward Darwin,\nBrowning responded in a letter: \"In reality all that seems proved in\nDarwin's scheme was a conception familiar to me from the beginning.\"\n\nEntirely familiar with the evolutionary idea, then, however he may have\nderived it, it is just what might be expected that he should have worked\nit into Paracelsus's final theory of life. The remarkable thing is that he\nshould have applied its principles in so masterly a fashion--namely, that\nhe should have made a complete philosophical synthesis by bringing the\nidea of evolution to bear upon all natural, human and spiritual processes\nof growth twenty-five years before Herbert Spencer, who is regarded on\nthis particular ground as the master mind of the century, gave his\nsynthetic philosophy of evolution to the world.\n\nA momentary glance at the passage in question will make this clear.\nParacelsus traces first development as illustrated in geological forms:\n\n    \"The center-fire heaves underneath the earth,\n  And the earth changes like a human face;\n  The molten one bursts up among the rocks,\n  Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright\n  In hidden mines, spots barren river beds,\n  Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask.\"\n\nNext he touches upon plant life and animal life. The grass grows bright,\nthe boughs are swollen with blooms, ants make their ado, birds fly in\nmerry flocks, the strand is purple with its tribe of nested limpets,\nsavage creatures seek their loves in wood and plain. Then he shows how in\nall this animal life are scattered attributes foreshadowing a being that\nwill combine them. Then appears primitive man, only half enlightened, who\ngains knowledge through the slow, uncertain fruit of toil, whose love is\nnot serenely pure, but strong from weakness, a love which endures and\ndoubts and is oppressed. And out of the travail of the human soul as it\nproceeds from lower to higher forms is finally evolved self-conscious\nman--man who consciously looks back upon all that has preceded him and\ninterprets nature by means of his own human perceptions. The winds are\nhenceforth voices, wailing or a shout, a querulous mutter or a quick, gay\nlaugh, never a senseless gust, now man is born.\n\nBut development does not end with the attainment of this\nself-consciousness. After this stage has been reached there continues an\nevolution which is distinctively spiritual, a tendency to God. Browning\nwas not content with the evolution of man, he was prophetic of the final\nflowering of man in the superman, although he had never heard of\nNietszche.\n\nThe corollary to this progressive theory of life, a view held by\nscientific thinkers, is that sin is not depravity, but is merely a lack of\ndevelopment. Paracelsus is therefore made wise to know even hate is but a\nmask of love, to see a good in evil, a hope in ill-success, to sympathize,\neven be proud of man's half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim struggles for\ntruth--all with a touch of nobleness despite their error, upward tending\nall, though weak.\n\nThough there are points of contact between the thought of the true\nParacelsus and of Browning, the points of contact between Spencer and\nBrowning are far more significant, for Browning seems intuitively to have\nperceived the fundamental truths of social and psychic evolution at the\nearly age of twenty-three--truths which the philosopher worked out only\nafter years of laborious study.\n\nWe, who, to-day, are familiar with the application of the theory of\nevolution to every object from a dustpan to a flying machine, can hardly\nthrow ourselves into the atmosphere of the first half of the last century\nwhen this dynamic ideal was flung into a world with static ideals. The\nChristian world knew little and cared less about the guesses of Greek\nphilosophers, whom they regarded when they did know about them as\nunregenerate pagans. German thought was caviare to the general, and what\nnew thought of a historical or scientific nature made its way into the\nstrongholds of conservatism filled people with suspicion and dread. Such a\nsweeping synthesis, therefore, as Browning gives of dawning scientific\ntheories in Paracelsus was truly phenomenal. That it did not prove a bone\nof contention and arouse controversies as hot as those which were waged\nlater around such scientific leaders as Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, and\nClifford was probably due to the circumstance that the poem was little\nread and less understood, and also to the fact that it contained other\nelements which overlaid the bare presentation of the doctrines of\nevolution.\n\nSo far I have spoken only of the form of the Paracelsus theory of life,\nbut a theory of life to be complete must have soul as well as form. Only\nin adding the soul side to his theory of life does Browning really give\nhis solution of the problem, what is to be the relation of mind and\nspirit?\n\nOne other point of resemblance is to be noted between the thought of\nBrowning's Paracelsus and Herbert Spencer. They agree that ultimate\nknowledge is beyond the grasp of the intellect. Neither was this a new\nidea; but up to the time of Spencer it was taken simply as a negative\nconclusion. Spencer, however, having found this negation makes it the body\nof his philosophy--a body so shadowy that many of his critics consider it\ntoo ghostly to stand as a substantial basis for philosophical thought. He\nregards the failure of the intellect to picture the nature of the absolute\nas the most certain proof that our intuitions of its existence are\ntrustworthy, and upon this he bases all religious aspiration. Like the\npsalmist, he exclaims, \"Who by searching can find out God?\"\n\nThe attitude of Paracelsus is identical as far as the intellect is\nconcerned. His life, spent in the search for knowledge, had proved it to\nhim. But he does not, like Spencer, make it the body of his philosophy.\nThrough the influence of Aprile he is led to a definite conception of the\nInfinite as a Being whose especial characteristic is that he feels!--feels\nunbounded joy in his own creations. This is eminently an artist's or\npoet's perception of the relation of God to his universe. As Aprile in one\nplace says, \"God is the perfect poet, who in his person acts his own\ncreations.\"\n\nAs I have already pointed out, the evil of pain, of decay, of degeneration\nis taken no account of.\n\nThere is the constant passing onward from joy to joy. All the processes of\nnature from the simplest to the most complex bring, in their turn, a\ndelight to their Creator until man appears, and is not only a joy to his\nCreator, but is the first in the order of creation to share in the joy of\nexistence, the first to arrive at the full consciousness of beauty. So\noverwhelming is this consciousness of beauty that man perceives it\nstruggling for expression in the hates and fallacies of undeveloped\nnatures.\n\nAll this is characteristic of the artistic way of looking at life. The\nartist is prone either to ignore the ugly or to transmute it by art into\nsomething possessing beauty of power if not of loveliness. What are plays\nlike \"Hamlet\" and \"Macbeth,\" \"Brand\" and \"Peer Gynt,\" music like \"Tristan\nand Isolde\" or the \"Pathetic Symphony,\" Rodin's statues, but actual,\npalpable realizations of the fact that hate is but a mask of love, or that\nhuman fallacies and human passions have within them the seeds of immense\nbeauty if only there appear the artist who can bring them forth. If this\nis true of the human artist, how much more is it true of the divine\nartist in whose shadow, as Pompilia says, even a Guido may find healing.\n\nThe optimism of such a theory of existence is intoxicating. Not only does\nthis artist-man look backward and rejoice in all the beauty of past phases\nof creation, but he looks forward to endless progression in the enjoyment\nof fresh phases of beauty--\"a flying point of bliss remote.\" This is a\nuniverse in which the Prometheus of the old myths is indeed unbound.\nMankind is literally free to progress forever upward. If there are some\nmen in darkness, they are like plants in mines struggling to break out\ninto the sunlight they see beyond.\n\nThe interesting question arises here, was Browning, himself, entirely\nresponsible for the soul of his Paracelsus theory of life or was there\nsome source beyond him from which he drew inspiration?\n\nIt has frequently been suggested that Aprile in this poem is a sort of\nsymbolic representation of Shelley. Why not rather a composite of both\nShelley and Keats, the poet of love and the poet of beauty? An examination\nof the greatest poems of these two writers, \"Prometheus Unbound\" and\n\"Hyperion,\" will bring out the elements in both which I believe entered\ninto Browning's conception.\n\nIn the exalted symbolism of the \"Prometheus Unbound\" Shelley shows that,\nin his view, evil and suffering were not inherent in the nature of things,\nthe tyranny of evil having gained its ascendancy through the persistence\nof out-worn ideals, such as that of Power or Force symbolized in the Greek\nidea of Jupiter. Prometheus is the revolting mind of mankind, enslaved by\nthe tyranny of Jupiter, hating the tyrant, yet determined to endure all\nthe tyrant can inflict upon him rather than admit his right to rule. The\nfreeing of Prometheus and the dethronement of Jupiter come through the\nawakening in the heart of Prometheus of pity for the tyrant--that is,\nPrometheus has learned to love his enemies as he loves his friends. The\nremainder of the poem is occupied with showing the effects upon humanity\nof this universal awakening of love.\n\nIn the fine passage where the Spirit of the Earth hears the trumpet of the\nSpirit of the Hour sound in a great city, it beholds all ugly human shapes\nand visages which had caused it pain pass floating through the air, and\nfading still\n\n  \"Into the winds that scattered them, and those\n  From whom they passed seemed mild and lovely forms\n  After some foul disguise had fallen, and all\n  Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise\n  And greetings of delighted wonder, all\n  Went to their sleep again.\"\n\nAnd the Spirit of the Hour relates:\n\n  \"Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled\n  The abysses of the sky and the wide earth,\n  There was a change: the impalpable thin air\n  And the all-circling sunlight were transformed\n  As if the sense of love dissolved in them\n  Had folded itself around the sphered world.\"\n\nIn the meantime, the over-souls of humanity--Prometheus, symbolic of\nthought or knowledge, is reunited to Asia, his spouse, symbolic of Nature\nor emotion, from whom he has long been separated and together with Asia's\nsisters, Panthea and Ione--retire to the wonderful cave where they are\nhenceforth to dwell and where their occupations are inspired by the most\nchildlike and exalted moods of the soul.\n\nBefore considering the bearing of their life of love and art in the cave\nupon the character of Aprile let us turn our attention for a moment to a\nremarkable passage in \"Hyperion,\" which poem was written as far back as\n1820. Keats, like Shelley, deals with the dethronement of gods, but it\nis the older dynasty of Titans--Saturn and Hyperion usurped by Jupiter and\nApollo. Shelley's thought in the \"Prometheus\" is strongly influenced by\nChristian ideals, but Keats's is thoroughly Greek.\n\nThe passing of one series of gods and the coming into power of another\nseries of gods was a familiar idea in Greek mythology. It reflected at\nonce the literal fact that ever higher and higher forces of nature had\nbeen deified by them, beginning with crude Nature gods and ending with\nsymbols of the most ideal human attributes, and at the same time that\ntheir thought leaned in the direction of interpreting nature as an\nevolutionary process. Seizing upon this, Keats has presented in the words\nof the old Titan Oceanus a theory of the evolution of beauty quite as\nstartling as a prophecy of psychological theories upon this subject as\nBrowning's is of cosmic and social theories. Addressing Saturn, Oceanus\nsays:\n\n  \"We fall by course of Nature's law, not force\n  Of thunder, or of love....\n    ... As thou wast not the first of powers\n  So art thou not the last; it cannot be:\n  From chaos and parental darkness came\n  Light, the first fruits of that intestine broil,\n  That sullen ferment, which for wondrous ends\n  Was ripening in itself. The ripe hour came\n  And with it light, and light, engendering\n  Upon its own producer, forthwith touched,\n  The whole enormous matter into life.\n  Upon that very hour, our parentage\n  The Heavens and the Earth were manifest;\n  Then thou first-born, and we the giant-race,\n  Found ourselves ruling new and beauteous realms\n\n    *       *       *       *       *\n\n  As Heaven and Earth are fairer far\n  Than chaos and blank darkness, though once chiefs,\n  And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth\n  In form and shape compact and beautiful,\n  In will, in action free, companionship\n  And thousand other signs of purer life,\n  So on our heels a fresh perfection treads,\n  A power more strong in beauty, born of us\n  And fated to excel us, as we pass\n  In glory that old darkness: nor are we\n  Thereby more conquered than by us the rule\n  Of shapeless chaos. For 'tis the eternal law\n  That first in beauty should be first in might.\n  Yea, by that law, another race may drive\n  Our conquerors to mourn as we do now.\"\n\nThere is in the attitude of Oceanus a magnificent acceptance of this\nruthless course of nature reminding one of that taken by such men as\nHuxley and Clifford in the face of their own scientific discoveries, but\none is immediately struck by the absence of love in the idea. An Apollo,\nno matter what new beauty he may have, himself, to offer, who yet\ndisregards the beauty of Hyperion and calmly accepts the throne of the sun\nin his stead, does not satisfy us. What unreason it is that so splendid a\nbeing as Hyperion should be deposed! As a matter of fact, he was not\ndeposed. He is left standing forever in our memories in splendor like the\nmorn, for Keats did not finish the poem and no picture of the enthroned\nApollo is given. Perhaps Keats remembered his earlier utterance, \"A thing\nof beauty is a joy forever,\" and cared for his own Hyperion too much to\nbanish him for the sake of Apollo.\n\nBe that as it may, the points in relation to our subject are that\nShelley's emphasis is upon the conservation of beauty, while Keats's\nemphasis is upon the evolution of new beauty.\n\nIn the cave where Prometheus and Asia dwell--the cave of universal\nspirit--is given forth the inspiration to humanity for painting, poetry\nand arts, yet to be born, and all these arts return to delight them,\nfashioned into form by human artists. Love is the ruling principle.\nTherefore all forms of beautiful art are immortal. Aprile,[1] as he\nfirst appears, is an elaboration upon this idea. He would love all\nhumanity with such intensity that he would immortalize in all forms of\nart--painting, poetry, music--every thought and emotion of which the human\nsoul is capable, and this done he would say:\n\n                            \"His spirits created--\n  God grants to each a sphere to be its world,\n  Appointed with the various objects needed\n  To satisfy its own peculiar want;\n  So, I create a world for these my shapes\n  Fit to sustain their beauty and their strength.\"\n\nIn short, he would found a universal art museum exactly like the cave in\nwhich Prometheus dwelt. The stress is no more than it is in Shelley upon a\nsearch for new beauty, and there is not a hint that a coming beauty shall\nblot out the old until Aprile recognizes Paracelsus as his king. Then he\nawakes to the fact that his own ideal has been partial, because he has\nnot been a seeker after knowledge, or new beauty, and in much the same\nspirit as Oceanus, he exclaims:\n\n  \"Lo, I forget my ruin, and rejoice\n  In thy success, as thou! Let our God's praise\n  Go bravely through the world at last! What care\n  Through me or thee?\"\n\nBut Paracelsus had learned a lesson through Aprile which the Apollo of\nKeats had not learned. He does not accept kingship at the expense of\nAprile as Apollo would do at the expense of Hyperion. He includes in his\nfinal theory of life all that is beautiful in Aprile's or Shelley's ideal\nand adds to it all that is beautiful of the Keats ideal. The form of his\nphilosophy is evolutionary, and up to the time of his meeting with Aprile\nhad expressed itself as the search for knowledge. Through Aprile his\nphilosophy becomes imbued with soul, the attributes of which are the\nspirit of love and the spirit of beauty, one of which conserves and\nimmortalizes beauty, the other of which searches out new beauty.\n\nSo, working hand in hand, they become one, while the search for knowledge,\nthus spiritualized, becomes the search for beauty always inspired by love.\nThe aim of the evolutionary process thus becomes the unfolding of ever\nnew phases of beauty in which God takes endless delight, and to the final\nenjoyment of which mankind shall attain.\n\nTo sum up, Browning's solution of the problem in the Paracelsus theory of\nlife is reached not only through a synthesis of the doctrines of evolution\nas applied to universal activities, cosmic and human, prophetic, on the\none hand, of the most advanced scientific thought of the century, but it\nis a synthesis of these and of the art-spirit in its twofold aspect of\nlove and beauty as already expressed in the poetry of Shelley and Keats.\n\nIt is not in the least probable that Browning set to work consciously to\npiece together these ideals. That is not the method of the artist! But\nbeing familiar to him in the two best beloved poets of his youth, they had\nsunk into his very being, and welled forth from his own subconsciousness,\ncharged with personal emotion, partly dramatic, partly the expression of\nhis own true feeling at the time, and the result be it said is one of the\nmost inspiring and beautiful passages in English poetry.\n\n[Illustration: PARACELSUS]\n\nAt the end of his life and the end of the century Herbert Spencer, who had\nspent years of labor to prove the fallacies in all religious dogmas, and\nwho had insisted upon religion's being entirely relegated to\nintellectually unknowable regions of thought, spoke in his autobiography\nof the mysteries inherent in life, in the evolution of human beings, in\nconsciousness, in human destiny--mysteries that the very advance of\nscience makes more and more evident, exhibits as more and more profound\nand impenetrable, adding:\n\n    \"Thus religious creeds, which in one way or other occupy the sphere\n    that rational interpretation seeks to occupy and fails, and fails the\n    more, the more it seeks, I have come to regard with a sympathy based\n    on community of need: feeling that dissent from them results from\n    inability to accept the solutions offered, joined with the wish that\n    solutions could be found.\"\n\nLoyal to the last to his determination to accept as knowledge only what\nthe intellect could prove, he never permitted himself to come under the\nawakening influence of an Aprile, yet like Browning's ancient Greek,\nCleon, he longed for a solution of the mystery.\n\nAt the dawn of the century, and in his youth, Browning ventured upon a\nsolution. In the remainder of this and the next chapter I shall attempt to\nshow what elements in this solution the poet retained to the end of his\nlife, how his thought became modified, and what relation his final\nsolution bears to the final thought of the century.\n\nIn this first attempt at a synthesis of life in which the attributes\npeculiar to the mind and to the spirit are brought into harmonious\nrelationship, Browning is more the intuitionalist than the scientist. His\nconvictions well forth with all the force of an inborn revelation, just as\nkindred though much less rational views of nature's processes sprang up in\nthe mind of the ancient Hindu or the ancient Greek.\n\nThe philosophy of life herein flashed out by the poet was later to be\nelaborated fully on its objective or observational side by Spencer--the\nphilosopher par excellence of evolution--and finally, also, of course, on\nthe objective side, to become an assured fact of science through the\npublication in 1859 of Darwin's epoch-making book, \"The Origin of\nSpecies,\" wherein the laws, so disturbing to many at the time, of natural\nselection and the survival of the fittest were fully set forth.\n\nWhile the genetic view of nature, as the phraseology of to-day goes, had\nbeen anticipated in writers on cosmology like Leibnitz and Laplace, in\ngeology by such men as Hutton and Lyall, and had entered into the domain\nof embryology through the researches of Von Baer, and while Spencer had\nalready formulated a philosophy of evolution, Darwin went out into the\nopen and studied the actual facts in the domain of living beings. His\nstudies made evolution a certainty. They revealed the means by which its\nprocesses were accomplished, and in so doing pointed to an origin of man\nentirely opposed to orthodox views upon this subject. Thus was inaugurated\nthe last great phase in the struggle between mind and spirit.\n\nHenceforth, science stood completely revealed as the unflinching searcher\nof truth. Intuition was but a handmaid whose duty was to formulate working\nhypotheses, to become scientific law if provable by investigation or\nexperiment, to be discarded if not.\n\nThe aspects which this battle has assumed in the latter half of the\ncentury have been many and various. Older sciences with a new lease of\nlife and sciences entirely new have advanced along the path pointed out by\nthe doctrines of evolution. Battalions of determined men have held aloft\nthe banner of uncompromising truth. Each battalion has stormed truth's\ncitadel only to find that about its inmost reality is an impregnable wall.\nThe utmost which has been attained in any case is a working hypothesis,\nuseful in bringing to light many new objective phenomena, it is true,\nbut, in the end, serving only to deepen the mystery inherent in the nature\nof all things.\n\nSuch a working hypothesis was the earlier one of gravitation whose laws of\naction were elaborated by Sir Isaac Newton, and by the great mind of\nLaplace were still further developed with marvelous mathematical precision\nin his \"Mechanique Celeste.\"\n\nSuch another hypothesis is that of the atomic theory of the constitution\nof matter usually associated with the name of Dalton, though it has\nundergone many modifications from other scientific thinkers. Of this\nhypothesis Theodore Merz writes in his history of nineteenth-century\nscientific thought:\n\n    \"As to the nature of the differences of the elements, the atomic view\n    gives no information; it simply asserts these differences, assumes\n    them as physical constants, and tries to describe them by number and\n    measurement. The atomic view is therefore at best only a provisional\n    basis, a convenient resting place, similar to that which Newton found\n    in physical astronomy, and on which has been established the\n    astronomical view of nature.\"\n\nThe vibratory theories of the ether, the theories of the conservation of\nenergy, the vitalistic view of life, the theory of parallelism of physical\nand psychical phenomena are all such hypotheses. They have been of\nincalculable value in helping to a larger knowledge of the appearances of\nthings, and in the formation of laws of action and reaction, but in no way\nhave they aided in revealing the inner or transcendent realities of the\nmyriad manifestations of nature and life!\n\nDuring the last half of the century this truth has forced itself with ever\nincreasing power upon the minds of scientists, and has resulted in many\ndivisions among the ranks. Some rest upon phenomena as the final reality;\nhence materialistic or mechanical views of life. Some believe that the\nonly genuine reality is the one undiscoverable by science; hence new\npresentations of metaphysical views of life.\n\nDuring these decades the solid phalanx of religious believers has\ncontinued to watch from its heights with more or less of fear the advance\nof science. Here, too, there has been division in the ranks. Many\ndenounced the scientists as the destroyers of religion; others like the\ngood Bishop Colenso could write such words as these in 1873: \"Bless God\ndevoutly for the gift of modern science\"; and who ten years earlier had\nexpressed satisfaction in the fact that superstitious belief in the letter\nof the Bible was giving way to a true appreciation of the real value of\nthe ancient Hebrew Scriptures as containing the dawn of religious light.\n\nFrom another quarter came the critical students of the Bible, who\nsubjected its contents to the keen tests of historical and archaeological\nstudy. Serene, above all the turmoil, was the small band of genuine\nphilosophers who, like Browning's own musician, Abt Vogler, knew the very\ntruth. No matter what disturbing facts may be brought to light by science,\nbe it man's descent from Anthropoids or a mechanical view of sensation,\nthey continue to dwell unshaken in the light of a transcendent truth which\nreaches them through some other avenue than that of the mind.\n\nBrowning belonged by nature in this last group. Already in \"Sordello\" his\nattention is turned to the development of the soul, and from that time on\nto the end of his career he is the champion of the soul-side of existence\nwith all that it implies of character development--\"little else being\nworth study,\" as he declared in his introduction to a second edition of\nthe poem written twenty years after its first appearance.\n\nOn this rock, the human soul, he takes his stand, and, though all the\ncomplex waves of the tempest of nineteenth-century thought break against\nhis feet, he remains firm.\n\nBeginning with \"Sordello,\" it is no longer evolution as applied to every\naspect of the universe but evolution as applied to the human spirit which\nhas his chief interest. Problems growing out of the marvelous developments\nof such sciences as astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry or biology do\nnot enter into the main body of the poet's thought, though there are\nallusions many and exact which show his familiarity with the growth of\nthese various objective sciences during his life.\n\nDuring all the middle years of his poetic career the relations of the mind\nand the spirit seemed to fascinate Browning, especially upon the side of\nthe problems connected with the supernatural bases of religious\nexperience. These are the problems which grew out of that phase of\nscholarly advance represented by biblical criticism.\n\nSuch a poem as \"Saul,\" for example, though full of a humanity and\ntenderness, as well as of a sheer poetic beauty, which endear it alike to\nthose who appreciate little more than the content of the poem, and to\nthose whose appreciation is that of the connoisseur in poetic art, is\nnevertheless an interpretation of the origin of prophecy, especially of\nthe Messianic idea, which places Browning in the van of the thought of the\ncentury on questions connected with biblical criticism.\n\nAt the time when \"Saul\" was written, 1845, modern biblical criticism had\ncertainly gained very little hearing in England, for even as late as 1862\nBishop Colenso's enlightened book on the Pentateuch was received, as one\nwriter expresses it, with \"almost unanimous disapprobation and widespread\nhorror.\"\n\nCritics of the Bible there had been since the seventeenth century, but\nthey had produced a confused mass of stuff in their attacks upon the\nauthenticity of the Bible against which the orthodox apologists had\nsucceeded in holding their own. At the end of the eighteenth and the dawn\nof the nineteenth century came the more systematic criticism of German\nscholars, echoes of whose theories found their way into England through\nthe studies of such men as Pusey. But these, though they gave full\nconsideration to the foremost of the German critics of the day, ranged\nthemselves, for the most part, on the side of orthodoxy.\n\nEichhorn, one of the first of the Germans to be studied in England, had\nfound a point of departure in the celebrated \"Wolfenbuettel Fragments,\"\nwhich had been printed by Lessing from manuscripts by an unknown writer\nReimarus discovered in the Wolfenbuettel library. These fragments represent\ncriticism of the sweepingly destructive order, characteristic of what has\nbeen called the naturalistic school. Although Eichhorn agreed with the\nwriter of the \"Fragments\" that the biblical narratives should be divested\nof all their supernatural aspects, he did not interpret the supernatural\nelements as simply frauds designed to deceive in order that personal ends\nmight be gained. He restored dignity to the narrative by insisting at once\nupon its historical verity and upon a natural interpretation of the\nsupernatural--\"a spontaneous illumination reflected from antiquity\nitself,\" which might result from primitive misunderstanding of natural\nphenomena, from the poetical embellishment of facts, or the symbolizing of\nan idea.\n\nDoctor Paulus, in his commentary on the Gospels (1800), carried the idea\nstill farther, and the rationalistic school of Bible criticism became an\nassured fact, though Kant at this time developed an entirely different\ntheory of Bible interpretation, which in a sense harked back to the older\nallegorical interpretation of the Bible.\n\nHe did not trouble himself at all about the historical accuracy of the\nnarratives. He was concerned only in discovering the idea underlying the\nstories, the moral gist of them in relation to human development. With the\nnaturalists and the rationalists, he put aside any idea of Divine\nrevelation. It was the moral aspiration of the authors, themselves, which\nthrew a supernatural glamour over their accounts of old traditions and\nturned them into symbols of life instead of merely records of bona fide\nfacts of history. The weakness of Kant's standpoint was later pointed out\nby Strauss, whose opinion is well summed up in the following paragraph.\n\n\"Whilst Kant sought to educe moral thoughts from the biblical writings,\neven in their historical part, and was even inclined to consider these\nthoughts as the fundamental object of the history: on the other hand he\nderived these thoughts only from himself and the cultivation of his age,\nand therefore could seldom assume that they had actually been laid down by\nthe authors of these writings; and on the other hand, and for the same\nreason, he omitted to show what was the relation between these thoughts\nand those symbolic representations, and how it happened that the one came\nto be expressed by the other.\"\n\nThe next development of biblical criticism was the mythical mode of\ninterpretation in which are prominent the names of Gabler, Schelling,\nBauer, Vater, De Wette, and others. These critics among them set\nthemselves the difficult task of classifying the Bible narratives under\nthe heads of three kinds of myths: historical myths, philosophical myths,\nand poetical myths. The first were \"narratives of real events colored by\nthe light of antiquity, which confounded the divine and the human, the\nnatural and the supernatural\"; the second, \"such as clothe in the garb of\nhistorical narrative a simple thought, a precept, or an idea of the time\";\nthe third, \"historical and philosophical myths partly blended together and\npartly embellished by the creations of the imagination, in which the\noriginal fact or idea is almost obscured by the veil which the fancy of\nthe poet has woven around it.\"\n\nThis sort of interpretation, first applied to the Old Testament, was later\nused in sifting history from myth to the New Testament.\n\nIt will be seen that it has something in common with both the previously\nopposed views. The mythical interpretation agrees with the old allegorical\nview in so far that they both relinquish historical reality in favor of\nsome inherent truth or religious conception of which the historical\nsemblance is merely the shell. On the other hand it agrees with the\nrationalistic view in the fact that it really gives a natural explanation\nof the process of the growth of myths and legends in human society.\nImmediate divine agency controls in the allegorical view, the spirit of\nindividuals or of society controls in the mythical view.\n\nNeither the out-and-out rationalists nor the orthodox students of the\nBible approved of this new mode of interpretation, which was more or less\nthe outcome of the study of the sacred books of other religions. In 1835,\nhowever, appeared an epoch-making book which subjected the New Testament\nto the most elaborate criticism based upon mythical and legendary\ninterpretation. This was the \"Life of Jesus, Critically Examined,\" by Dr.\nDavid Friedrich Strauss. This book caused a great stir in the theological\nworld of Germany. Strauss was dismissed from his professorship in the\nUniversity of Tuebingen in consequence of it. Not only this, but in 1839,\nwhen he was appointed professor of Church History and Divinity at the\nUniversity of Zurich, he was compelled at once to resign, and the\nadministration which appointed him was overthrown. This veritable bomb\nthrown into the world of theology was translated by George Eliot, and\npublished in England in 1846.\n\nThrough this translation the most advanced German thought must have become\nfamiliar to many outside the pale of the professional scholar, and among\nthem was, doubtless, the poet Browning, if indeed he had not already\nbecome familiar with it in the original. When the content and the thought\nof Browning's poems upon religious subjects are examined, it becomes\ncertain that he was familiar with the whole trend of biblical criticism in\nthe first half of the century and of its effect upon certain of the\northodox churchmen, and that with full consciousness he brought forward in\nhis religious poems, not didactically, but often by the subtlest\nindirections, his own attitude toward the problems raised in this\ndepartment of scientific historical inquiry.\n\nSome of the problems which occupied his attention, such as that in \"The\nDeath in the Desert,\" are directly traceable to the influence of Strauss's\nbook. Whether he knew of Strauss's argument or not when he wrote \"Saul,\"\nhis treatment of the story of David and Saul is not only entirely in\nsympathy with the creed of the German school of mythical interpreters, but\nthe poet himself becomes one of the myth makers in the series of\nprophets--that is, he takes the idea, the Messianic idea, poetically\nembellishes an old tradition, making it glow with humanness, throws into\nthat idea not only a content beyond that which David could have dreamed\nof, but suggests a purely psychical origin of the Messianic idea itself in\nkeeping with his own thought on the subject.\n\nThe history of the origin and growth of the Messianic ideal as traced by\nthe most modern Jewish critics claims it to have been a slow evolution in\nthe minds of the prophets. In Genesis it appears as the prophecy of a time\nto come of universal happiness promised to Abraham, through whose seed all\nthe peoples of the earth shall be blessed, because they had hearkened unto\nthe voice of God. From a family ideal in Abraham it passed on to being a\ntribal ideal with Jacob, and with the prophets it became a national ideal,\nan aspiration toward individual happiness and a noble national life. Not\nuntil the time of Isaiah is a special agent mentioned who is to be the\ninstrument by means of which the blessing is to be fulfilled, and there we\nread this prophecy: \"There shall sprout forth a shoot from the stem of\nJesse, upon whom will rest the spirit of Yahveh, the spirit of wisdom\nand understanding, of counsel and strength, of the knowledge and fear of\nGod. He will not judge according to appearance, nor will he according to\nhearsay. He will govern in righteousness the poor, and judge with equity\nthe humble of the earth. He will smite the mighty with the rod of his\nmouth, and the wicked with the breath of his lips.\"\n\nThe ideal expressed here of a great and wise national ruler who would\nbring about the realization of liberty, justice and peace to the Hebrew\nnation, and not only to them but to all mankind, becomes in the prophetic\nvision of Daniel a mystic being. \"I saw in the visions of night, and\nbehold, with the clouds of heaven came down as a likeness of the son of\nman. He stepped forward to the ancient of days. To him was given dominion,\nmagnificence and rule. And all the peoples, nations and tongues did homage\nto him. His empire is an eternal empire and his realm shall never cease.\"\n\nIn \"Saul\" Browning makes David the type of the prophetic faculty in its\ncomplete development. His vision is of an ideal which was not fully\nunfolded until the advent of Jesus himself--the ideal not merely of the\nmythical political liberator but of the spiritual saviour, who through\ninfinite love would bring redemption and immortality to mankind. David\nin the poem essays to cheer Saul with the thought of the greatness that\nwill live after him in the memory of others, but his own passionate desire\nto give something better than this to Saul awakens in him the assurance\nthat God must be as full of love and compassion as he is. Thus Browning\nexplains the sudden awakening of David, not as a divine revelation from\nwithout, but as a natural growth of the human spirit Godward. This new\nperception of values produces the ecstasy during which David sees his\nvisions, the \"witnesses, cohorts\" about him, \"angels, powers, the\nunuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware.\"\n\nThis whole conception was developed by Browning from the single phrase in\nI Samuel: \"And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him\ngreatly.\" In thus making David prophesy of an ideal which had not been\nevolved at his time, Browning indulges in what the biblical critic would\ncall prophecy after the fact, and so throws himself in on the side of the\nmythical interpreters of the Bible.\n\nHe has taken a historical narrative, embellished it poetically as in the\nimaginary accounts of the songs sung by David to Saul, and given it a\nphilosophical content belonging on its objective side to the dawn of\nChristianity in the coming of Jesus himself and on its subjective side to\nhis (the poet's) own time--that is, the idea of internal instead of\nexternal revelation--one of the ideas about which has been waged the\nso-called conflict of Science and Religion as it was understood by some of\nthe most prominent thinkers of the latter half of the century. In this,\nagain, it will be seen that Browning was in the van of the thought of the\ncentury, and still more was he in the van in the psychological tinge which\nhe gives to David's experience. Professor William James himself could not\nbetter have portrayed a case of religious ecstasy growing out of genuine\nexaltation of thought than the poet has in David's experience.\n\nThis poem undoubtedly sheds many rays of light upon the feelings, at the\ntime, of its writer. While he was a profound believer in the spiritual\nnature and needs of man, he was evidently not opposed to the contemporary\nmethods of biblical criticism as applied to the prophecies of the Old\nTestament, for has he not himself worked in accord with the light such\ncriticism had thrown upon the origin of prophecy? Furthermore, the poem is\nnot only an instance of his belief in the supremacy of the human spirit,\nbut it distinctly repudiates the Comtian ideal of a religion of humanity,\nand of an immortality existing only in the memory of others. The Comte\nphilosophy growing out of a material conception of the universe and a\nproduct of scientific thought has been one of the strong influences\nthrough the whole of the nineteenth century in sociology and religion.\nWhile it has worked much good in developing a deeper interest in the\nsocial life of man, it has proved altogether unsatisfactory and barren as\na religious ideal, though there are minds which seem to derive some sort\nof forlorn comfort from this religion of positivism--from such hopes as\nmay be inspired by the worship of Humanity \"as a continuity and solidarity\nin time\" without \"any special existence, more largely composed of the dead\nthan of the living,\" by the thought of an immortality in which we shall be\nreunited with the remembrance of our \"grandsires\" like Tyltyl and Mytyl in\nMaeterlinck's \"Blue Bird.\"\n\nHere, as always, the poet throws in his weight on the side of the\nparamount worth of the individual, and of a conception of life which\ndemands that the individual shall have a future world in which to overcome\nthe flaws and imperfections incident to earthly life.\n\nAlthough, as I have tried to show, this poem undoubtedly bears witness to\nBrowning's awareness to the thought currents of the day, it is couched in\na form so dramatic, and in a language so poetic, that it seems like a\nspontaneous outburst of belief in which feeling alone had played a part.\nCertainly, whatever thoughts upon the subject may have been stowed away in\nthe subconscious regions of the poet's mind, they well up here in a\nfountain of pure inspiration, carrying the thought forward on the wings of\nthe poet's own spirit.\n\nPoems reflecting several phases of the turmoil of religious opinion rife\nin mid-century England are \"Christmas Eve\" and \"Easter Day.\" Baffling they\nare, even misleading to any one who is desirous of finding out the exact\nattitude of the poet's mind, for example, upon the rival doctrines of a\nMethodist parson and a German biblical critic.\n\nThe Methodist Chapel and the German University might be considered as\nrepresentative of the extremes of thought in the more or less prescribed\nrealm of theology, which largely through the influence of the filtering in\nof scientific and philosophic thought had divided itself into many sects.\n\nWithin the Church of England itself there were high church and low\nchurch, broad church and Latitudinarian, into whose different shades of\nopinion it is not needful to enter here. Outside of the Established Church\nwere the numerous dissenters, including Congregationalists, Baptists,\nQuakers, Methodists, Swedenborgians, Unitarians, and numerous others.\n\nThere was one broad line of division between the Established Church and\nthe dissenting bodies. In the first was inherent the ancient principle of\nauthority, while the principle of self-government in matters of faith\nguided all the dissenters in their search for the light.\n\nIt is not surprising that with so many differing shades of opinion within\nthe bosom of the Anglican Church it should, in the earlier half of the\ncentury, have lost its grip upon not only the people at large, but upon\nmany of its higher intellects. The principle of authority seemed to be\ntottering to its fall. In this crisis the Roman Catholic Church exercised\na peculiar fascination upon men of intellectual endowment who, fearing the\ndirection in which their intellect might lead them, turned to that church\nwhere the principle of authority kept itself firmly rooted by summarily\ndismissing any one who might question it. It is of interest to remember\nthat at the date when this poem was written the Tractarian Movement, in\nwhich was conspicuous the Oxford group of men, had succeeded in carrying\nover four hundred clergymen and laity into the Catholic Church.\n\nThose who were unafraid followed the lead of German criticism and French\nmaterialism, but the large mass of common people found in Methodism the\nsort of religious guidance which it craved.\n\nTo this sect has been attributed an unparalleled influence in the moral\ndevelopment of England. By rescuing multitudes from ignorance and from\nalmost the degradation of beasts, and by fostering habits of industry and\nthrift, Methodism became a chief factor in building up a great,\nintelligent and industrious middle-class. Its influence has been felt even\nin the Established Church, and as its enthusiastic historians have pointed\nout, England might have suffered the political and religious convulsions\ninaugurated by the French Revolution if it had not been for the saving\ngrace of Methodism.\n\nAppealing at first to the poor and lowly, suffering wrong and persecution\nwith its founder, Wesley, it was so flexible in its constitution that\nafter the death of Wesley it broadened out and differentiated in a way\nthat made it adaptable to very varied human needs. In consequence of this\nit finally became a genuine power in the Church and State of Great\nBritain.\n\nThe poem \"Christmas Eve\" becomes much more understandable when these facts\nabout Methodism are borne in mind--facts which were evidently in the\npoet's mind, although the poem itself has the character of a symbolic\nrather than a personal utterance. The speaker might be regarded as a type\nof the religious conscience of England. In spite of whatever direct\nvisions of the divine such a type of conscience may gain through the\ncontemplation of nature and the revelations of the human heart, its\nrelations to the past cause it to feel the need of some sectarian form of\nreligion--a sort of inherited need to be orthodox in one form or another.\nThis religious conscience has its artistic side; it can clothe its inborn\nreligious instincts in exquisite imaginative vision. Also, it has its\nclear-sighted reasoning side. This is able unerringly to put its finger\nupon any flaw of doctrine or reasoning in the forms of religion it\ncontemplates. Hence, Catholic doctrine, which was claiming the allegiance\nof those who were willing to put their troublesome intellects to sleep\nand accept authority where religion was concerned, does not satisfy this\nkeen analyzer. Nor yet is it able to see any religious reality in such a\nmyth of Christ rehabilitated as an ethical prophet as the Goettingen\nprofessor constructs in a manner so reminiscent of a passage in Strauss's\n\"Life of Jesus,\" where he is describing the opinions of the rationalists'\nschool of criticism, that a comparison with that passage is enlightening.\n\nHaving swept away completely the supernatural basis of religion, the\nrationalist is able still to conceive of Jesus as a divine Messenger, a\nspecial favorite and charge of the Deity:\n\n    \"He had implanted in him by God the natural conditions only of that\n    which he was ultimately to become, and his realization of this destiny\n    was the result of his own spontaneity. His admirable wisdom he\n    acquired by the judicious application of his intellectual powers and\n    the conscientious use of all the aids within his reach; his moral\n    greatness, by the zealous culture of his moral dispositions, the\n    restraint of his sensual inclinations and passions, and a scrupulous\n    obedience to the voice of his conscience; and on these alone rested\n    all that was exalted in his personality, all that was encouraging in\n    his example.\"\n\nThe difficulty to this order of mind of the direct personal revelation\nlies in the fact that it is convincing only to those who experience it,\nhaving no basis in authority, and may even for them lose its force.\n\nWhat then is the conclusion forced upon this English religious conscience?\nSimply this: that, though failing both from the intellectual and the\naesthetic standpoint, the dissenting view was the only religious view of\nthe time possessing any genuine vitality. It represented the progressive,\ndemocratic religious force which was then in England bringing religion\ninto the lives of the people with a positiveness long lost to the Anglican\nChurch. The religious conscience of England was growing through this\nMethodist movement. This is why the speaker of the poem chooses at last\nthat form of worship which he finds in the little chapel.\n\nWhile no one can doubt that the exalted mysticism based upon feeling, and\nthe large tolerance of the poem, reflect most nearly the poet's personal\nattitude, on the other hand it is made clear that in his opinion the\ndissenting bodies possessed the forms of religious orthodoxy most potent\nat the time for good.\n\nIn \"Easter Day,\" the doubts and fears which have racked the hearts and\nminds of hundreds and thousands of individuals, as the result of the\nincrease of scientific knowledge and biblical criticism are given more\npersonal expression. The discussion turns principally upon the relation of\nthe finite to the Infinite, a philosophical problem capable of much\nhair-splitting controversy, solved here in keeping with the prevailing\nthought of the century--namely, that the finite is relative and that this\nrelativity is the proof of the Infinite.\n\nThe boldness of this statement, one such as might be found in the pages of\nSpencer, is by Browning elaborated with pictorial and emotional power.\nOnly by a marvelous vision is the truth brought home to the speaker that\nthe beauties and joys of earth are not all-sufficient, but that they are\nin the poet's speech but partial beauty, though through this very\nlimitation they become \"a pledge of beauty in its plenitude,\" gleams\n\"meant to sting with hunger for full light.\" It is not, however, until\nthis see-er of visions perceives the highest gleam of earth that he is\nable to realize through the spiritual voice of his vision that the nature\nof the Infinite is in its essence Love, the supreme manifestation of which\nwas symbolized in the death and resurrection of Christ.\n\nThis revelation is nevertheless rendered null by the man's conviction that\nthe vision was merely such \"stuff as dreams are made on.\" At the end as\nat the beginning he finds it hard to be a Christian.\n\nHis vision, which thus symbolizes his own course of emotionalized\nreasoning, brings hope but not conviction. Like the type in \"Christmas\nEve,\" conviction can come to him only through a belief in supernatural\nrevelation. He is evidently a man of broad intellectual endowment, who\ncannot, as the Tractarians did, lay his mind asleep, and rest in the\nauthority of a church, nor yet can he be satisfied with the unconscious\nanthropomorphism of the sectarian. He doubts his own reasoning attempts to\nformulate religious doctrines, he doubts even the revelations of his own\nmystic states of consciousness; hence there is nothing for him but to\nflounder on through life as best he can, hoping, fearing, doubting, as\nmany a serious mind has done owing to the nineteenth-century reaction\nagainst the supernatural dogmas of Christianity. Like others of his ilk,\nhe probably stayed in the Anglican Church and weakened it through his\nlatitudinarianisms.\n\nA study in religious consciousness akin to this is that of Bishop\nBlougram. Here we have not a generalized type as in \"Christmas Eve,\" nor\nan imaginary individual as in \"Easter Day,\" but an actual study of a real\nman, it being no secret that Cardinal Wiseman was the inspiration for the\npoem.\n\nWiseman's influence as a Catholic in the Tractarian movement was a\npowerful one, and in the poet's dissection of his psychology an attempt is\nmade to present the reasoning by means of which he made his appeal to less\nindependent thinkers. With faith as the basis of religion, doubt serves as\na moral spur, since the will must exercise itself in keeping doubt\nunderfoot. Browning, himself, might agree that aspiration toward faith was\none of the tests of its truth, he might also consider doubt as a spur to\ngreater aspiration, but these ideals would connote something different to\nhim from what he makes them mean to Blougram. The poet's aspiration would\nbe toward a belief in Omniscient Love and Power, his doubts would grow out\nof his inability to make this ideal tally with the sin and evil he beholds\nin life. Blougram's consciousness is on a lower plane. His aspiration is\nto believe in the dogmas of the Church, his doubts arise from an\nintellectual fear that the dogmas may not be true. Where Browning seems to\nmiss comprehension of such a nature as Blougram's is in failing to\nrecognize that on his own plane of consciousness genuine feeling and the\nperception of beauty play at least as large a part in the basis of his\nfaith as utilitarian and instinctive reasoning do. While this poem shows\nin its references to the scientific theories of the origin of morals and\nits allusions to Strauss, as well as in the indirect portrayal of\nGigadibs, the man emancipated from the Church, how entirely familiar the\npoet was with the currents of religious and scientific thought, it falls\nshort as a fair analysis of a man who is acknowledged to have wielded a\ntremendous religious influence upon Englishmen of the caliber of Cardinal\nNewman, Kingsley, Arnold, and others.\n\nIf we leave out of account its connection with a special individual, the\npoem stands, however, as a delightful study of a type in which is depicted\nin passingly clever fashion methods of reasoning compounded of tantalizing\ngleams of truth and darkening sophistication.\n\nThe poem which shows most completely the effect of contemporary biblical\ncriticism on the poet is \"A Death in the Desert.\" It has been said to be\nan attempt to meet the destructive criticism of Strauss. The setting of\nthe poem is wonderfully beautiful, while the portrayal of the mystical\nquality of John's reasoning is so instinct with religious feeling that it\nmust be a wary reader indeed who does not come from the reading of this\npoem with the conviction that here, at least, Browning has declared\nhimself unflinchingly on the side of supernatural Christianity in the face\nof the battering rams of criticism and the projectiles of science.\n\nBut if he be a wary reader, he will discover that the argument for\nsupernaturalism only amounts to this--and it is put in the mouth of John,\nwho had in his youth been contemporary with Christ--namely, that miracles\nhad been performed when only by means of them faith was possible, though\nmiracles were probably not what those who believed in them thought they\nwere. Here is the gist of his defence of the supernatural:\n\n    \"I say, that as a babe, you feed awhile,\n  Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself,\n  So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth:\n  When they can eat, babes'-nurture is withdrawn.\n  I fed the babe whether it would or no:\n  I bid the boy or feed himself or starve.\n  I cried once, 'That ye may believe in Christ,\n  Behold this blind man shall receive his sight!'\n  I cry now, 'Urgest thou, _for I am shrewd\n  And smile at stories how John's word could cure--\n  Repeat that miracle and take my faith_?'\n  I say, that miracle was duly wrought\n  When save for it no faith was possible.\n  Whether a change were wrought in the shows o' the world,\n  Whether the change came from our minds which see\n  Of shows o' the world so much as and no more\n  Than God wills for his purpose,--(what do I\n  See now, suppose you, there where you see rock\n  Round us?)--I know not; such was the effect,\n  So faith grew, making void more miracles,\n  Because too much they would compel, not help.\n  I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ\n  Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee\n  All questions in the earth and out of it,\n  And has so far advanced thee to be wise.\n  Wouldst thou improve this to re-prove the proved?\n  In life's mere minute, with power to use the proof,\n  Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung?\n  Thou hast it; use it and forthwith, or die!\"\n\nThe important truth as seen by John's dying eyes is that faith in a\nbeautiful ideal has been born in the human soul. Whether the accounts of\nthe exact means by which this faith arose were literally true is of little\nimportance, the faith itself is no less God-given, as another passage will\nmake clear:\n\n  \"Man, therefore, thus conditioned, must expect\n  He could not, what he knows now, know at first;\n  What he considers that he knows to-day,\n  Come but to-morrow, he will find misknown;\n  Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns\n  Because he lives, which is to be a man,\n  Set to instruct himself by his past self;\n  First, like the brute, obliged by facts to learn,\n  Next, as man may, obliged by his own mind,\n  Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned to law.\n  God's gift was that man should conceive of truth\n  And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake\n  As midway help till he reach fact indeed.\"\n\nThe defence of Christianity in this poem reminds one very strongly of the\ntheology of Schleiermacher, a resume of which the poet might have found in\nStrauss's \"Life of Jesus.\" Although Schleiermacher accepted and even went\nbeyond the negative criticism of the rationalists against the doctrines of\nthe Church, he sought to retain the essential aspects of positive\nChristianity. He starts out from the consciousness of the Christian, \"from\nthat internal experience resulting to the individual from his connection\nwith the Christian community, and he thus obtains a material which, as its\nbasis of feeling, is more flexible and to which it is easier to give\ndialectically a form that satisfies science.\"\n\nAgain, \"If we owe to him [Jesus] the continual strengthening of the\nconsciousness of God within us, this consciousness must have existed in\nhim in absolute strength, so that it or God in the form of the\nconsciousness was the only operative force within him.\" In other words, in\nJesus was the supreme manifestation of God in human consciousness. This\ntruth, first grasped by means which seemed miraculous, is finally\nrecognized in man's developing consciousness as a consummation brought\nabout by natural means. John's reasoning in the poem can lead to no other\nconclusion than this.\n\nSchleiermacher's theology has, of course, been objected to on the ground\nthat if this incarnation of God was possible in one man, there is no\nreason why it should not frequently be possible. This is the orthodox\nobjection, and it is voiced in the comment added by \"One\" at the end of\nthe poem showing the weakness of John's argument from the strictly\northodox point of view.\n\nWith regard to the miracles being natural events supernaturally\ninterpreted--that is an explanation familiar to the biblical critic, and\none which the psychologist of to-day is ready to support with numberless\nproofs and analyses. How much this poem owes to hints derived from\nStrauss's book is further illustrated by the \"Glossa of Theotypas,\" which\nis borrowed from Origen, whose theory is referred to by Strauss in his\nIntroduction as follows: \"Origen attributes a threefold meaning to the\nScriptures, corresponding with his distribution of the human being into\nthree parts, the liberal sense answering to the body, the moral to the\nsoul, and the mystical to the spirit.\"\n\nOn the whole, the poem appears to be influenced more by the actual\ncontents of Strauss's book than to be deliberately directed against his\nthought, for John's own reasoning when his feelings are in abeyance might\nbe deduced from more than one passage in this work wherein are passed in\nreview the conclusions of divers critics of the naturalist and rationalist\nschools of thought.\n\nThe poem \"An Epistle\" purports to give a nearly contemporary opinion by an\nArab physician upon the miracle of the raising of Lazarus. We have here,\non the one hand, the Arab's natural explanation of the miracle as an\nepileptic trance prolonged some three days, and Lazarus's interpretation\nof his cure as a supernatural event. Though absolutely skeptical, the Arab\ncannot but be impressed with the beliefs of Lazarus, because of their\nrevelation of God as a God of Love. Thus Browning brings out the power of\nthe truth in the underlying ideas of Christianity, whatever skepticism may\nbe felt as to the letter of it.\n\nThe effect of the trance upon the nature of Lazarus is paralleled to-day\nby accounts, given by various persons, of their sensations when they\nhave sunk into unconsciousness nigh unto death. I remember reading of a\ncase in which a man described his feeling of entire indifference as to the\nrelations of life, his joy in a sense of freedom and ineffable beauty\ntoward which he seemed to be flying through space, and his disinclination\nto be resuscitated, a process which his spirit was watching from its\nheights with fear lest his friends should bring him back to earth. This\nhigher sort of consciousness seems to have evolved in some people to-day\nwithout the intervention of such an experience as that of Lazarus or one\nsuch as that of the above subject of the Society for Psychical Research.\n\nIn describing Lazarus to have reached such an outlook upon life, Browning\nagain ranges himself with the most advanced psychological thought of the\ncentury. Hear William James: \"The existence of mystical states absolutely\noverthrows the pretension of non-mystical states to be the sole and\nultimate dictators of what we may believe. As a rule, mystical states\nmerely add a supersensuous meaning to the ordinary outward data of\nconsciousness. They are excitements like the emotions of love or ambition,\ngifts to our spirit by means of which facts already objectively before\nus fall into a new expressiveness and make a new connection with our\nactive life. They do not contradict these facts as such, or deny anything\nthat our senses have immediately seized. It is the rationalistic critic\nrather who plays the part of denier in the controversy, and his denials\nhave no strength, for there never can be a state of facts to which new\nmeaning may not truthfully be added, provided the mind ascend to a more\nenveloping point of view. It must always remain an open question whether\nmystical states may not possibly be such superior points of view, windows\nthrough which the mind looks out upon a more extensive and inclusive\nworld. The difference of the views seen from the different mystical\nwindows need not prevent us from entertaining this supposition. The wider\nworld would in that case prove to have a mixed constitution like that of\nthis world, that is all. It would have its celestial and its infernal\nregions, its tempting and its saving moments, its valid experiences and\nits counterfeit ones, just as our world has them; but it would be a wider\nworld all the same. We should have to use its experiences by selecting and\nsubordinating and substituting just as is our custom in this ordinary\nnaturalistic world; we should be liable to error just as we are now; yet\nthe counting in of that wider world of meanings, and the serious dealing\nwith it, might, in spite of all the perplexity, be indispensable stages in\nour approach to the final fulness of the truth.\"\n\nThe vision of Lazarus belongs to the beatific realm, and the naturalistic\nArab has a longing for similar strange vision, though he calls it a\nmadman's, for--\n\n  \"So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too--\n  So, through the thunder comes a human voice\n  Saying, 'O heart I made, a heart beats here!\n  Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!\n  Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,\n  But love I gave thee, with myself to love,\n  And thou must love me who have died for thee.'\"\n\nA survey of Browning's contributions to the theological differences of the\nmid-century would not be complete without some reference to \"Caliban\" and\n\"Childe Roland.\" In the former, the absurdities of anthropomorphism, of\nthe God conceived in the likeness of man, are presented with dramatic and\nironical force, but, at the same time, is shown the aspiration to\nsomething beyond, which has carried dogma through all the centuries,\nforward to ever purer and more spiritual conceptions of the absolute. In\nthe second, though it be a purely romantic ballad, there seems to be\nsymbolized the scientific knight-errant of the century, who, with belief\nand faith completely annihilated by the science which allows for no realm\nof knowledge beyond its own experimental reach, yet considers life worth\nliving. Despite the complex interpretations which have issued from the\noracular tripods of Browning Societies, one cannot read the last lines of\nthis poem--\n\n  \"Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,\n  And blew, '_Childe Roland to the dark Tower came_'\"--\n\nwithout thinking of the splendid courage in the face of disillusionment of\nsuch men of the century as Huxley, Tyndall or Clifford.\n\nWhen we ask, where is Browning in all this diversity of theological\nopinion? we can only answer that beyond an ever-present undercurrent of\nreligious aspiration there is no possibility of pinning the poet to any\ngiven dogmas. Everywhere we feel the dramatic artist. In \"Paracelsus\" the\nphilosophy of life was that of the artist whose adoration finds its\ncompletion in beauty and joy; now the poet himself is the artist\nexperiencing as Aprile did, this beauty and joy in a boundless sympathy\nwith many forms of mystical religious ecstasy. Every one of these poems\npresents a conflict between the doubts born of some phase of theological\ncontroversy and the exaltation of moments or periods of ecstatic vision,\nand though nowhere is dogmatic truth asserted with positiveness,\neverywhere we feel a mystic sympathy with the moving power of religious\naspiration, a sympathy which belongs to a form of consciousness perhaps\nmore inclusive than the religious--namely, a poetic consciousness, able at\nonce to sympathize with the content and to present the forms of mystic\nvision belonging to various phases of human consciousness.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE CENTURY'S END: PROMISE OF PEACE\n\n\nPassing onward from this mid-century phase of Browning's interest in what\nI have called the battle of the mind and the spirit, we find him in his\nlater poems taking up the subject in its broader aspects, more as he\ntreated it in \"Paracelsus,\" yet with a marked difference in temper. God is\nno longer conceived of merely as a divine creator, joying in the wonder\nand beauty of his creations. The ideal of the artist has been modified by\nthe observation of the thinker and the feeling induced by human rather\nthan by artistic emotion. Life's experiences have shown to the more\nhumanly conscious Browning that the problem of evil is not one to be so\neasily dismissed. The scientist may point out that evil is but lack of\ndevelopment, and the lover and artist may exult when he sees the wonderful\nprocesses of nature and mind carrying forward development until he can\npicture a time when the evil shall become null and void, but the human,\nfeeling being sees the misery and the unloveliness of evil. It does not\nsatisfy him to know that it is lack of development or the outcome of lack\nof development, nor yet that it will grow less as time goes on he ponders\nthe problem, \"why is evil permitted, how is it to be harmonized with the\nexistence of a universe planned upon a scheme which he believes to be the\noutcome of a source all-powerful and all-loving!\"\n\nAbout this problem and its corollary, the conception of the infinite,\nBrowning's latter-day thought revolves as it did in his middle years about\nthe basis of religious belief.\n\nIt is one of the strange freaks of criticism that many admirers of\nBrowning's earlier work have failed to see the importance of his later\npoems, especially \"Ferishtah's Fancies,\" and \"The Parleyings,\" not only as\nexpressions of the poet's own spiritual growth, but as showing his mental\ngrasp of the problems which the advance of nineteenth-century scientific\nthought brought to the fore in the last days of the century.\n\nThe date at which various critics have declared that Browning ceased to\nwrite poetry might be considered an index of the time when that critic's\npowers became atrophied. No less a person than Edmund Gosse is of the\nopinion that since 1868 the poet's books were chiefly valuable as keeping\nalive popular interest in him, and as leading fresh generations of readers\nto what he had already published. Fortunately it has long been admitted\nthat Homer sometimes nods, though not with such awful effect as was said\nto attend the nods of Jove. Hence, in spite of Mr. Gosse's undoubted\neminence as a critic, we may dare to assume that in this particular\ninstance he fell into the ancient and distinguished trick of nodding.\n\nIf Mr. Gosse were right, it would practically put on a par with a mere\nadvertising scheme many poems which have now become household favorites.\nTake, for example, \"Herve Riel.\" Think of the blue-eyed Breton hero whom\nall the world has learned to love through Browning, tolerated simply as an\nindex finger to \"The Pied Piper of Hamelin.\" Take, too, such poems, as\n\"Donald.\" This man's dastardly sportsmanship is so vividly portrayed that\nit has the power to arouse strong emotion in strong men, who have been\nknown literally to break down in the middle of it through excess of\nfeeling; \"Ivan Ivanovitch,\" in which is embodied such fear and horror that\nweak hearts cannot stand the strain of hearing it read; the story of the\ndog Tray, who rescued a drowning doll with the same promptitude as he\ndid a drowning child--at the relation of whose noble deeds the eyes of\nlittle children grow eager with excitement and sympathy. And where is\nthere in any poet's work a more vivid bit of tragedy than \"A Forgiveness?\"\n\nAnd would not an unfillable gap be left in the ranks of our friends of the\nimaginative world if Balaustion were blotted out?--the exquisite lyric\ngirl, brave, tender and with a mind in which wisdom and wit are fair play\nfellows.\n\nAs Carlyle might say, \"Verily, verily, Mr. Gosse, thou hast out-Homered\nHomer, and thy nod hath taken upon itself very much the semblance of a\nsnore.\"\n\nThese and many others which might be mentioned since the date when Mr.\nGosse autocratically put up the bars to the poet's genius are now\nuniversally accepted. There are others, however, such as \"The Red Cotton\nNight-cap Country,\" \"The Inn Album,\" \"Aristophanes' Apology,\" \"Fifine at\nthe Fair,\" which are liable at any time to attacks from atrophied critics,\nand among these are the groups of poems which are to form the center of\nour present discussion.\n\nWithout particularizing either critics or criticism it may be said that\ncriticism of these poems divides itself into the usual three\nbranches--one which objects to their philosophy, one which objects to\ntheir art, one which finds them difficult of comprehension at all. This\nlast criticism may easily be disposed of by admitting it is in part true.\nThe mind whose highest reaches of poetic inspiration are ministered unto\nby such simple and easily understandable lyrics as \"Twinkle, twinkle,\nlittle star,\" might not at once grasp the significance of the Parleying\nwith George Bubb Dodington. Indeed, it may be surmised that some minds\nmight sing upon the starry heights with Hegel and fathom the equivalence\nof being and non-being, and yet be led into a slough of despond by this\nsame cantankerous George.\n\nBut a poetical slough of despond may be transfigured in the twinkling of\nan eye--after a proper amount of study and hard thinking--into an elevated\nplateau with prospects upon every side, grand or terrible or smiling.\n\nAre we never to feel spurred to any poetical pleasure more vigorous than\ndilly-dallying with Keats while we feast our eyes upon the wideness of the\nseas? or lazily floating in a lotus land with Tennyson, perhaps, among the\nmeadows of the Musketaquid, in canoes with silken cushions? Beauty and\npeace are the reward of such poetical pleasures. They fall upon the spirit\nlike the \"sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and\ngiving odor,\" but shall we never return from the land where it is always\nafternoon? Is it only in such a land as this that we realize the true\npower of emotion? Rather does it conduce to the slumber of emotion, for\nprogress is the law of feeling as it is the law of life, and many times we\nfeel--yes, feel--with tremendous rushes of enthusiasm like climbing\nMatterhorns with great iron nails in our shoes, with historical and\narchaeological and philosophical Alpen-stocks in our hands, and when we\nreach the summit what unsuspected beauties become ours!\n\nThen let us hear no more of the critic who wishes Browning had ceased to\nwrite in 1868 or at any other date. It may be said of him, not as of\nWhitman, \"he who reads my book touches a man,\" but \"he who reads my poems\nfrom start to finish grasps the life and thought of a century.\"\n\nThere will be no exaggeration in claiming that these two series of poems\nform the keystone to Browning's whole work. They are like a final\nsynthesis of the problems of existence which he has previously portrayed\nand analyzed from myriad points of view in his dramatic presentation of\ncharacter and his dramatic interpretations of spiritual moods.\n\nIn \"Pauline,\" before the poet's personality became more or less merged in\nthat of his characters, we obtain a direct glimpse of the poet's own\nartistic temperament, and may literally acquaint ourselves with those\nqualities which were to be a large influence in moulding his work.\n\nAs described by himself, the poet of \"Pauline\" was\n\n  \"Made up of an intensest life,\n  Of a most clear idea of consciousness\n  Of self, distinct from all its qualities,\n  From all affections, passions, feelings, powers;\n  And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all:\n  But linked in me to self-supremacy,\n  Existing as a center to all things,\n  Most potent to create and rule and call\n  Upon all things to minister to it.\"\n\nThis sense of an over-consciousness is the mark of an objective poet--one\nwho sympathizes with all the emotions and aspirations of\nhumanity--interprets their actions through the light of this sympathy, and\nat the same time keeps his own individuality distinct.\n\nThe poet of this poem discovers that he can no longer lose himself with\nenthusiasm in any phase of life; but what does that mean to a soul\nconstituted as his? It means that the way has been cleared for the birth\nof that greater, broader love of the fully developed artist soul which,\nwhile entering into sympathy with all phases of life, finds its true\ncomplement only in an ideal of absolute Love.\n\nThis picture of the artist aspiring toward the absolute by means of his\nlarge human sympathy may be supplemented by the theory of man's relation\nto the universe involved in \"Paracelsus\" as we have seen.\n\nFrom this point in his work, Browning, like the Hindu Brahma, becomes\nmanifest not as himself, but in his creations. The poet whose portrait is\npainted for us in \"Pauline\" is the same poet who sympathetically presents\na whole world of human experiences to us, and the philosopher whose\nportrait is drawn in \"Paracelsus\" is the same who interprets these human\nexperiences in the light of the great life theories therein presented.\n\nBut as the creations of Brahma return into himself, so the human\nexperiences Browning has entered into artistic sympathy with return to\nenrich his completed view of the problems of life, when, like his own\nRabbi Ben Ezra, he reaches the last of life for which the first was\nplanned in these \"Fancies\" and \"Parleyings.\"\n\nThough these two groups of poems undoubtedly express the poet's own mature\nconclusions, they yet preserve the dramatic form. Several things are\ngained in this way: First, the poems are saved from didacticism, for the\npoet expresses his opinions as an individual, and not in his own person as\na seer, trying to implant his theories in the minds of disciples. Second,\nvariety is given and the mind stimulated by having opposite points of view\npresented, while the thought is infused with a certain amount of emotional\nforce through the heat of argument.\n\nIt has frequently been objected, not only of these poems, but upon general\ngrounds, that philosophical and ethical problems are not fit subjects for\ntreatment in poetry. There is one point which the critic of aesthetics\nseems in danger of never realizing--namely, that the law of evolution is\ndifferentiation, in art as well as in cosmic, organic, and social life. It\nis just as prejudiced and unforeseeing in these days to limit poetry to\nthis or that kind of a subject, or to say that nothing is dramatic which\ndoes not deal with immediate action, as it would have been for Homer to\ndeclare that no poem would ever be worthy the name that did not contain\na catalogue of ships.\n\nThese facts exist! We have dramas dealing merely with action, dramas in\nwhich character development is of prime importance; dramas wherein action\nand character are entirely synchronous; and those in which the action\nmeans more than appears upon the surface, like Hauptmann's \"Sunken Bell,\"\nor Ibsen's \"Master Builder\"; then why not dramas of thought and dramas of\nmood when the brain and heart become the stage of action instead of an\nactual stage.\n\nSurely such an extension of the possibilities of dramatic art is a\ndevelopment quite natural to the intellectual ferment of the nineteenth\ncentury. As the man in \"Half Rome\" says, \"Facts are facts and lie not, and\nthe question, 'How came that purse the poke o' you?' admits of no reply.\"\n\nBy using the dramatic form, the poet has furthermore been enabled to give\none a deep sense of the characteristics peculiar to the century. The\nlatter half of Victorian England in its thought phases lives just as\nsurely in these poems as Renaissance Italy in its art phases in \"Fra Lippo\nLippi,\" \"Andrea del Sarto,\" and the rest; and this is true though the\nfirst series is cast in the form of Persian fables and the second in the\nform of \"Parleyings\" with worthies of past centuries.\n\nIt may be worth while for the benefit of the reader not thoroughly\nfamiliar with these later poems to pass quickly in review the problems in\nthem upon which Browning bends his poet's insight.\n\nNothing bears upon the grounds of moral action more disastrously than\nblind fatalism, and while there have been many evil forms of this doctrine\nin the past there has probably been none worse than the modern form,\nbecause it seems to have sanction in the scientific doctrines of the\nconservation of energy, the persistence of heredity, and the survival of\nthe fittest. Even the wise and the thoughtful with wills atrophied by\nscientific phases of fatalism allow themselves to drift upon what they\ncall the laws of development, possessing evidently no realizing sense that\nthe will of man, whether it be in the last analysis absolutely free or\nnot, is a prime factor in the working of these laws. Such people will\nhesitate, therefore, to throw in their voices upon either side in the\nsolution of great national problems, because, things being bound to follow\nthe laws of development, what matters a single voice! Such arguments were\nfrequently heard among the wise in our own country during the Cuban and\nPhilippine campaigns. Upon this attitude of mind the poet gives his\nopinion in the first of \"Ferishtah's Fancies,\" \"The Eagle.\" It is a strong\nplea for the exercise of those human impulses that lead to action. The\nwill to serve the world is the true force from God. Every man, though he\nbe the last link in a chain of causes over which he had no control, can,\nat least, have a determining influence upon the direction in which the\nnext link shall be forged. Ferishtah appears upon the scene, himself, a\nfatalist, leaving himself wholly in God's hands, until he is taught by the\ndream God sent him that man's part is to act as he saw the eagle act,\nsuccoring the helpless, not to play the part of the helpless birdlings.\n\nAnother phase of the same thought is brought out in \"A Camel Driver,\"\nwhere the discussion turns upon punishment. The point is, if, as Ferishtah\ndeclares, the sinner is not to be punished eternally, then why should man\ntrouble himself to punish him? Universalist doctrines are here put into\nthe mouth of Ferishtah, and not a few modern philanthropists would agree\nwith Ferishtah's questioners that punishment for sins (the manifestations\nof inherited tendencies for which the sinners are not responsible) is no\nlonger admissible. Ferishtah's answer amounts to this. That no matter what\ncauses for beneficent ends may be visible to the Divine mind in the\nallowance of the existence of sin, nor yet the fact that Divine love\ndemands that punishment shall not be eternal; man must regard sin simply\nfrom the human point of view as absolute evil, and must will to work for\nits annihilation. It follows then that the punishing of a sinner is the\nmeans by which he may be taught to overcome the sin. There is the added\nthought, also, that the suffering of the conscience over the subtler sins\nwhich go unpunished is all the hell one needs.\n\nAnother doctrine upon which the nineteenth-century belief in progress as\nthe law of life has set its seal is that of the pursuit of happiness, or\nthe striving for the greatest good of the whole number in which oneself is\nnot to be excluded. With this doctrine Browning shows himself in full\nsympathy in \"Two Camels,\" wherein Ferishtah contends that only through the\ndevelopment of individual happiness and the experiencing of many forms of\njoyousness can one help others to happiness and joyousness, while in \"Plot\nCulture\" the enjoyment of human emotion as a means of developing the soul\nis emphasized.\n\nThe relation of good and evil in their broader aspects occupy the poet's\nattention in others of this group. Nineteenth-century thought brought\nabout a readjustment of these relations. Good and evil as absolutely\ndefinable entities gave place to the doctrine that good and evil are\nrelative terms, a phrase which we sometimes forget must be understood in\ntwo ways: first, that good and evil are relative to the state of society\nin which they exist. What may be good according to the ethics of a Fejee\nIslander would not hold in the civilized society of to-day. This is the\nevil of lack of development which in the long run becomes less. On the\nother hand, there is the evil of suffering and pain which it is more\ndifficult to reconcile with the idea of omnipotent power. In \"Mihrab\nShah,\" Browning gives a solution of this problem in consonance with the\nidea that were it not for evil we should not have learned how to\nappreciate the good, to work for it, and, in doing so, bring about\nprogress.\n\nTo his pupil, worried over this problem, Ferishtah points out that evil in\nthe form of bodily suffering has given rise to the beautiful sentiments of\npity and sympathy. Having proved in this way that good really grows out of\nevil, there is still the query, shall evil be encouraged in order that\ngood may be evolved? \"No!\" Ferishtah declares, man bound by man's\nconditions is obliged to estimate as \"fair or foul right, wrong, good,\nevil, what man's faculty adjudges as such,\" therefore the man will do all\nhe can to relieve the suffering or poor Mihrab Shah with a fig plaster.\n\nThe final answers, then, which Browning gives to the ethical problems\nwhich grew out of the acceptance of modern scientific doctrines are, in\nbrief, that man shall use that will-power of which he feels himself\npossessed--the power really distinguishing him from the brute creation--in\nworking against whatever appears to him to be evil; while that good for\nwhich he shall work is the greatest happiness of all.\n\nIn the remaining poems of the group we have the poet's mature word upon\nthe philosophical doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, a doctrine\nwhich received the most elaborate demonstration from Herbert Spencer in\nmany directions. It is insisted upon in \"Cherries,\" \"The Sun,\" in \"A Bean\nStripe also Apple Eating,\" and especially in that remarkable poem, \"A\nPillar at Sebzevar.\" That knowledge fails is the burden of these poems.\nKnowledge the golden is but lacquered ignorance, as gain to be\nmistrusted. Curiously enough, this contention of Browning's has been the\ncause of most of the criticisms against him as a thinker, yet the deepest\nthinkers of to-day as well as many in the past have held the opinion in\nsome form or another that the intellect was unable to solve the mysterious\nproblems of the universe. Even the metaphysicians who build their unstable\nair castles on _a priori_ ideas declare these ideas cannot be matters of\nmere intellectual perception, but must be intuitions of the higher reason.\nBrowning, however, does not rest in the mere assertion that the intellect\nfails. From this truth, so disconcerting to many, he draws immense\ncomfort. Though intellectual knowledge be mistrusted as gain, it is not to\nbe mistrusted as means to gain, for through its very failure it becomes a\npromise of greater things.\n\n\"Friend,\" quoth Ferishtah in \"A Pillar of Sebzevar,\"\n\n  \"As gain--mistrust it! Nor as means to gain:\n  Lacquer we learn by: cast in firing-pot,\n  We learn--when what seemed ore assayed proves dross\n  Surelier true gold's worth, guess how purity\n  I' the lode were precious could one light on ore\n  Clarified up to test of crucible.\n  The prize is in the process: knowledge means\n  Ever-renewed assurance by defeat\n  That victory is somehow still to reach.\"\n\nFor men with minds of the type of Spencer's this negative assurance of the\nInfinite is sufficient, but human beings as a rule will not rest satisfied\nwith such cold abstractions. Though Job said thousands of years ago, \"Who\nby searching can find out God,\" mankind still continues to search. They\nlong to know something of the nature of the divine as well as to be\nassured of its existence. In this very act of searching Browning declares\nthe divine becomes most directly manifest.\n\nFrom the earliest times of which we have any record man has been aspiring\ntoward God. Many times has he thought he had found him, but with enlarged\nperceptions he discovered later that what he had found was only God's\nimage built up out of his own human experiences.\n\nThis search of man for the divine is described with great power and\noriginality in the Fancy called \"The Sun,\" under the symbol of the man who\nseeks the prime Giver that he may give thanks where it is due for a\npalatable fig. This search for God, Browning calls love, meaning by that\nthe moving, aspiring force of the whole universe in its multifarious\nmanifestations, from the love that goes forth in thanks for benefits\nreceived, through the aspiration of the artist toward beauty, of the\nlover toward human sympathy, even of the scientist toward knowledge, to\nthe lover of humanity like Ferishtah, who declares, \"I know nothing save\nthat love I can, boundlessly, endlessly.\"\n\nThe poet argues from this that if mankind has with ever-increasing fervor\naspired toward a God of Love, and has ever developed toward broader\nconceptions of human love, it is only reasonable to infer that in his\nnature God has some attribute which corresponds to human love, though it\ntranscend our most exalted imagining of it.\n\nAt the end of the century a book was written in America in which an\nargument similar to this was used to prove the existence of God. This book\nwas \"Through Nature to God,\" by John Fiske, whose earlier work, \"Cosmic\nPhilosophy,\" did much to familiarize the American reading public with the\nevolutionary philosophy of Spencer.\n\nFiske claimed that his theory was entirely original, yet no one familiar\nwith the thought of Browning could fail to see the similarity of their\npoints of view. Fiske based his proof upon analogies drawn from the\nevolution of organic life in following out the law of the adjustment of\ninner to outer relations. For example, since the eye has through aeons\nof time gradually adjusted itself into harmony with light, why should not\nman's search for God be the gradual adjustment of the soul into harmony\nwith the infinite spirit? This adjustment, as Browning expresses it, is\nthat of human love to divine love.\n\n[Illustration: HERBERT SPENCER]\n\nOther modern thinkers, notably Schleiermacher in Germany and Shaftsbury in\nEngland, have placed the basis of religious truth in feeling. The idea is\nthus not a new one. Yet in Browning's treatment of it the conception has\ntaken on new life, partly because of the intensity of conviction with\nwhich it is expounded in these later poems, and partly because of its\nhaving been so closely knit into the scientific thought of the century.\n\nOptimistically the thought is finally rounded out in \"A Bean Stripe also\nApple Eating,\" in which Ferishtah argues that life in spite of the evil in\nit seems to him on the whole good. He cannot believe that evil is not\nmeant to serve a good purpose since he is so sure that God is infinite in\nlove.\n\nFrom all this it will be seen that Browning accepts with Spencerians the\nnegative proof of God growing out of the failure of intellect to grasp the\nrealities underlying all phenomena, but adds to it the positive proof\nbased upon emotion. The true basis of belief is the intuition of God\nthat comes from the direct revelation of feeling in the human heart, which\nhas been at once the motive force of the search for God and the basis of a\nconception of the nature of God.\n\nIt was a stroke of genius on the part of the poet to present such problems\nin Persian guise, for Persia stands in Zoroastrianism for the dualism\nwhich Ferishtah with his progressive spirit decries in his recognition of\nthe part evil plays in the development of good, and through Mahometanism\nfor the Fatalism Ferishtah learned to cast from him. The Persian\natmosphere is preserved throughout not only by the introduction constantly\nof Persian allusions traceable to the great Persian epic, \"The Shah\nNameh,\" but by the telling of fables in the Persian manner to point the\nmorals intended.\n\nWith the exception of the first Fancy, derived from a fable of Bidpai's,\nwe have the poet's own word that all the others are inventions of his own.\nThese clever stories make the poems lively reading in spite of their\nethical content. Ferishtah is drawn with strong strokes. Wise and clever\nhe stands before us, reminding us at times of Socrates--never at a loss\nfor an answer no matter what bothersome questions his pupils may\npropound.\n\nIf we see the thoughtful and brilliant Browning in the \"Fancies\" proper,\nwe perhaps see even more clearly the emotional and passionate Browning in\nthe lyrics which add variety and an unwonted charm to the whole. This\nfeature is also borrowed from Persian form, an interesting example of\nwhich has been given to English readers in Edwin Arnold's \"Gulistan\" or\n\"Rose Garden\" of the poet Sa'di. Indeed Browning evidently derived the\nhint for his humorous prologue in which he likens the poems to follow to\nan Italian dish made of ortolans on toast with a bitter sage leaf,\nsymbolizing sense, sight, and song from Sa'di's preface to the \"Rose\nGarden,\" wherein he says, \"Yet will men of light and learning, from whom\nthe true countenance of a discourse is not concealed, be well aware that\nherein the pearls of good counsel which heal are threaded on strings of\nright sense; that the bitter physic of admonition is constantly mingled\nwith the honey of good humor, so that the spirits of listeners grow not\nsad, and that they remain not exempt from blessings of acceptance.\"\n\nA further interest attaches to these lyrics because they form a series of\nemotional phases in the soul-life of two lovers whom we are probably\njustified in regarding as Mr. and Mrs. Browning. One naturally thinks of\nthem as companion pictures to Mrs. Browning's \"Sonnets from the\nPortuguese.\" In these the sunrise of a great love is portrayed with\nintense and exalted passion, while the lyrics in \"Ferishtah's Fancies\"\nreflect the subsequent development of such a love, through the awakening\nof whole new realms of feeling, wherein love for humanity is enlarged\ncriticism from the one beloved welcome; all the little trials of life\ndissolved in the new light; and divine love realized with a force never\nbefore possible.\n\nDo we not see a living portrait of the two poets in the lyric \"So the head\naches and the limbs are faint?\" Many a hint may be found in the Browning\nletters to prove that Mrs. Browning with just such a frail body possessed\na fire of spirit that carried her constantly toward attainment, while he,\nwith all the vigor of splendid health, could with truth have frequently\nsaid, \"In the soul of me sits sluggishness.\" These exquisite lyrics,\nwhich, whether they conform to Elizabethan models or not, are as fine as\nanything ever done in this form, are crowned by the epilogue in which we\nhear the stricken husband crying out to her whom twenty years earlier he\nhad called his \"lyric love,\" in a voice doubting, yet triumphing in the\nthought that his lifelong optimism is the light radiating from the halo\nwhich her human love had irised round his head.\n\nNo more emphatic way than the interspersion of these emotional lyrics\ncould have been chosen to bring home the poet's conviction of the value of\nemotion in finding a positive basis for religious belief.\n\nIn the \"Parleyings\" the discussions turn principally upon artistic\nproblems and their relation to modern thought. Four out of the seven were\ninspired by artist, poet or musician. The forgotten worthies whom Browning\nrescued from oblivion make their appeal to him upon various grounds that\nconnect them with the present.\n\nBernard de Mandeville evidently caught Browning's fancy, because in his\nsatirical poem, \"The Grumbling Hive,\" he forestalled, by a defence of the\nDuke of Marlborough's war policy, the doctrine of the relativity of good\nand evil. This subject, though so fully treated in the \"Fancies,\" still\ncontinued to fascinate Browning, who seemed to feel the need of thinking\nhis way through all its implications. Fresh interest is added in this\ncase because the objector in the argument was the poet's contemporary\nCarlyle, whose well-known pessimism in regard to the existence of evil is\ngraphically presented.\n\nBrowning clenches his side of the argument with an original and daring\nvariation upon the Prometheus myth led up to by one of the most\nmagnificent passages in the whole range of his poetry, and probably the\nfinest example anywhere in literature of a description of nature as\ninterpreted by the laws of cosmic evolution. A comparison of this passage\nwith the one in \"Paracelsus\" brings out very clearly the exact measure of\nthe advance in the poet's thought during the fifty years between which\nthey were written--1835 and 1887. While in the \"Paracelsus\" passage it is\nthe thought of the joy in the creator's soul for his creations, and the\nparticipation of mankind in this joy of progression while pleasure climbs\nits heights forever and forever, which occupies the poet's mind, in the\nlater passage, there is no attempt at a definite conception of the divine\nnature. Force represented in the sunlight is described as developing life\nupon the earth. The thrill of this life-giving power is felt by all\nthings, and is unquestioningly accepted and delighted in.\n\n                                          \"Everywhere\n  Did earth acknowledge Sun's embrace sublime\n  Thrilling her to the heart of things: since there\n  No ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew,\n  No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grew\n  Glad through the inrush--glad nor more nor less\n  Than, 'neath his gaze, forest and wilderness,\n  Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread,\n  The universal world of creatures bred\n  By Sun's munificence, alike gave praise.\"\n\nMan alone questions. His mind reaches out for knowledge of the cause; he\nwould know its nature. Man's mind will not give any definite answer to\nthis question. But Prometheus offered an artifice whereby man's mind is\nsatisfied. He drew sun's rays into a focus plain and true. The very sun in\nlittle: made fire burn and henceforth do man service. Denuded of its\nscientific and mystical symbolism, Browning thus makes the Prometheus myth\nteach his favorite doctrine, namely, that the image of love formed in the\nhuman heart by means of the burning glass supplied by sense and feeling is\na symbol of infinite love.\n\nDaniel Bartoli, a Jesuit of the seventeenth century who is dyed and doubly\ndyed in superstition, is set up by Browning in the next poem simply to be\nknocked down again upon the ground that all the legendary saints he\nworshipped could not compare with a real woman the poet knows. The\nromantic story of the lady is told in Browning's most fascinating\nnarrative style, so rapid and direct that it has all the force of a\ndramatic sketch. The heroine's claim upon the poet's admiration consists\nin her recognition of the sacredness of love, which she will not dishonor\nfor worldly considerations, and finding her betrothed incapable of\nattaining her height of nobleness, she leaves him free.\n\nThis story bears upon the poet's philosophy as it reflects his attitude\ntoward human love, which he considers so clearly a revelation that any\ntreatment of it not absolutely noble and true to the highest ideals is a\nsin against heaven itself.\n\nGeorge Bubb Dodington is the black sheep of these later poems. He gives\nthe poet an opportunity to let loose all his subtlety and sarcasm, while\nthe reader may exercise his wits in discovering that the poet _assumes_ to\nagree with Dodington in his doubtful doctrine of serving the state with an\neye always upon his own private welfare, and pretends to criticise him\nonly for his method of attaining his ends. His method is to disclaim that\nhe works for any other good than that of the State--a proposition so\npreposterous in his case that nobody would believe it. The poet then\npresents what purports to be the correct method of successful\nstatesmanship--namely, to pose as a superior being endowed with the divine\nright to rule, treating everybody as his puppet, and entirely scornful of\nany criticisms against himself. If he will adopt this attitude he may\nchange his tactics every year and the people, instead of suspecting his\nsincerity, will think that he has wise reasons beyond their insight for\nhis changes. The poem is a powerful, intensely cynical argument against\nthe imperialistic temper and in favor of liberal government. This means\nfor the individual not only the right but the power to judge for himself,\ninstead of being obliged to depend, because of his own inefficiency, upon\nthe leadership of the over-man, whose intentions are unfortunately too\nseldom to be trusted.\n\nThe poet called from the shades by Browning, Christopher Smart, is\ncelebrated in the world of criticism for having only once in his life\nwritten a great poem. The eulogies upon the beauties of \"The Song of\nDavid\" might not be echoed by all lay readers of poetry; nor is it of any\nmoment whether Browning actually agreed with the conclusions of the\ncritics, since the episode is used merely as a text for discussing the\nproblem of beauty versus truth in art. Should the poet's province be\nsimply to record his vision of the beauty and the strength of nature and\nthe universe--visions which come to him in moments of inspiration such as\nthat which came once to Christopher Smart? Browning answers the question\ncharacteristically with his feet upon the earth. The visions of poets\nshould not be considered as ends in themselves, but as material to be used\nfor greater ends.\n\nThe poet should find his inspiration in the human heart, and climb to\nheaven by its means, not investigate the heavens first. Diligently must he\nstudy mankind, and teach as man may through his knowledge.\n\nIn \"Francis Furini\" the subject is the nude in art. The keynote is struck\nby the poet's declaring he will never believe the tale told by Baldinicci\nthat Furini ordered all his pictures in which there were nude figures\nburned. He expresses his indignation at the tale vigorously at some\nlength, showing plainly his own sympathies.\n\nThe passage in the poem bearing more especially upon the present\ndiscussion is the lecture by Furini imagined by the poet to have been\ndelivered before a London audience. It is a long and recondite speech in\nwhich the scientific and the intuitional methods of arriving at truth\nare compared. While the scientific method is acknowledged to be of value,\nthe intuitional method is claimed as by far the more important.\n\nA philippic against Greek art and its imitation is delivered by the poet\nin the \"Parleying with Gerard de Lairesse,\" whom he makes the scapegoat of\nhis strictures, on the score of a book Lairesse wrote in which was\ndescribed a walk through a Dutch landscape when every feature was\ntransmogrified by classic imaginings.\n\nTo this good soul, an old sepulcher struck by lightning became the tomb of\nPhaeton, and an old cartwheel half buried in the sand near by, the Chariot\nof the Sun.\n\nIn a spirit of bravado Browning proceeds to show what he himself could\nmake of a walk provided he condescended to illuminate it by classic\nmetaphor and symbol, and a remarkable passage is the result. It occupies\nfrom the eighth to the twelfth stanza. It is meant to be in derision of a\ngrandiloquent, classically embroidered style but so splendid is the\nlanguage, so haunting the pictures, the symbolism so profound that it is\nas if a God were showing some poor weakling mortal how not to do it--and\nthrough his omniscience must perforce create something wondrously\nbeautiful. The double feeling produced in reading this passage only adds\nto its interest. After thus classicizing in a manner that might make\nEuripides, himself, turn green with envy, he nonchalantly remarks:\n\n\"Enough, stop further fooling,\" and to show how a modern poet greets a\nlandscape he flings in the perfectly simple and irresistible little lyric:\n\n  \"Dance, yellows, and whites and reds.\"\n\nThe poet's strictures upon classicism are entirely consonant with his\nphilosophy, placing as he does the paramount importance on living\nrealities, \"Do and nowise dream,\" he exclaims:\n\n  \"Earth's young significance is all to learn;\n  The dead Greek love lies buried in its urn\n  Where who seeks fire finds ashes.\"\n\nThe \"Parleying\" with Charles Avison is more a poem of moods than any of\nthe others. The poet's profound appreciation of music is reflected in his\nclaiming it as the highest artistic expression possible to man. Sadness\ncomes to him, however, at the thought of the ephemeralness of its forms, a\nfact that is borne in on him because of the inadequateness of Avison's\nold march styled \"grand.\" He finally emerges triumphantly from this mood\nof sadness through the realization that music is the most perfect symbol\nof the evolution of spirit, of which the central truth--\n\n  \"The inmost care where truth abides in fulness\"--\n\nas Paracelsus expresses it, remains always permanent, while the form is\never changing, but though ever changing it is of absolute value to the\ntime when the spirit found expression in it. Furthermore, in any form once\npossessing beauty, by throwing one's self into its historical atmosphere\nthe beauty may be regained.\n\nThe poem has, of course, a still larger significance in relation to all\nforms of truth and beauty of which every age has had its living, immortal\nexamples, the \"broken arcs\" which finally will make the perfect round,\neach arc perfect in itself, and thus the poet's final paean is joyous,\n\"Never dream that what once lived shall ever die.\"\n\nThe prologue of this series of poems prefigures the thought in a striking\ndialogue between Apollo and the Fates wherein the Fates symbolize the\nnatural forces of life, behind which is Zeus or divine power; Apollo's\nlight symbolizes the glamour which hope and aspiration throw over the\nevents of human existence, without actually giving any assurance of its\nworth, and the wine of Bacchus symbolizes feeling, by means of which a\nperception of the absolute is gained. Man's reason, guided by the divine,\naccepts this revelation through feeling not as actual knowledge of the\nabsolute which transcends all intellectual attempts to grasp it, but as a\npromise sufficiently assuring to take him through the ills and\nuncertainties of life with faith in the ultimate triumph of beauty and\ngood.\n\nThe epilogue, a dialogue between John Fust and his friends, brings home\nthe thought once more in another form, emphasizing the fact that there can\nbe no new realm of actual, palpable knowledge opened up to man beyond that\nwhich his intellect is able to perceive. Once having gained this knowledge\nof the failure of intellectual knowledge to solve what Whitman calls the\n\"strangling problems\" of life, man's part is to follow onward through\nignorance.\n\n                                \"Dare and deserve!\n  As still to its asymptote speedeth the curve,\n  So approximates Man--Thee, who reachable not,\n    Hast formed him to yearningly\n                              Follow thy whole\n  Sole and single omniscience!\"\n\nIt will be seen from this review of the salient points enlarged upon by\nBrowning in these last groups of poems that he has deliberately set\nhimself to harmonize the intellectual and the intuitional aspects of human\nconsciousness. He has sought to join the hands of mind and spirit. The\nartistic exuberance of Paracelsus is supplemented by spiritual fervor. To\nthe young Browning, the beauty of immortal, joyous life pursuing its\nheights forever was as a radiant vision, to the Browning who had grappled\nwith the strangling problems of the century this beauty was not so\ndistinctly seen, but its reality was felt with all the depth of an\nintensely spiritual nature--a nature moreover so absolutely fearless, that\nit could unflinchingly confront every giant of doubt, or of\ndisillusionment which science in its pristine egotism had conjured up,\nsaying \"Keep to thine own province, where thou art indeed powerful; to the\nthreshold of the eternal we may come through thy ministrations, but the\nconsciousness of divine things cometh through the still small voice of the\nheart.\"\n\nThus, while he accepted every law relating to phenomena which science has\nbeen able to formulate, he realized the futility of resting in a primal,\nwholly dehumanized energy, that is, something not greater but less than\nits own outcome, humanity. He was incapable of any such absurdity as\nClifford's dictum that \"Reason, intelligence and volition are properties\nof a complex which is made up of elements, themselves not rational, not\nintelligent, not conscious.\" Since Clifford's time, the marked differences\nbetween the processes of a psychic being like man, and the processes of\nnature have been so fully recognized and so carefully defined by\npsychologists that Browning's insistence upon making man the center whence\ntruth radiates has had full confirmation.\n\nTheodore Merz has summed up these psychological conclusions in regard to\nthe characteristics peculiar to man as distinguished from all the rest of\nthe universe in the following words:\n\n    \"There are two properties with which we are familiar through common\n    sense and ordinary reflection as belonging especially to the phenomena\n    of our inner self-conscious life, and these properties seem to lie\n    quite beyond the sphere and the possibilities of the ordinary methods\n    of exact research.\n\n    \"As we ascend in the scale of human beings we become aware that they\n    exhibit a special kind of unity which cannot be defined, a unity\n    which, even when apparently lost in periods of unconsciousness, is\n    able to reestablish itself by the wonderful and indefinable property\n    called 'memory'--a center which can only be very imperfectly\n    localized--a together which is more than a mechanical sum; in fact\n    we rise to the conception of individuality, that which cannot be\n    divided and put together again out of its parts.\n\n    \"The second property is still more remarkable. The world of the inner\n    processes which accompany the higher forms of nervous development in\n    human beings is capable of unlimited growth and it is capable of this\n    by a process of becoming external: it becomes external, and, as it\n    were, perpetuates itself in language, literature, science and art,\n    legislation, society, and the like. We have no analogue of this in\n    physical nature, where matter and energy are constant quantities and\n    where the growth and multiplication of living matter is merely a\n    conversion of existing matter and energy into special altered forms\n    without increase or decrease in quantity. But the quantity of the\n    inner thing is continually on the increase; in fact, this increase is\n    the only thing of interest in the whole world.\"\n\nThus the modern psychologist and the poet who in the early days of the\ncentury said the soul was the only thing worth study join hands.\n\nThe passage already referred to in \"Francis Furini\" presents most\nexplicitly the objective or intellectual method and the subjective or\nintuitional method of the search for truth.\n\nFurini is made to question--\n\n                                          \"Evolutionists!\n  At truth I glimpse from depths, you glance from heights,\n  Our stations for discovery opposites,\n  How should ensue agreement! I explain.\"\n\nHe describes, then, how the search of the evolutionist for the absolute is\noutside of man. \"'Tis the tip-top of things to which you strain.\" Arriving\nat the spasm which sets things going, they are stopped, and since having\narrived at unconscious energy, they can go no further, they now drop down\nto a point where atoms somehow begin to think, feel, and know themselves\nto be, and the world's begun such as we recognize it. This is a true\npresentation of the attitude of physicists and chemists to-day, the latter\nespecially holding that experiment proves that in the atoms themselves is\nan embryonic form of consciousness and will. From these is finally evolved\nat last self-conscious man. But after all this investigating on the part\nof the evolutionist what has been gained? Of power--that is, power to\ncreate nature or life, or even to understand it--man possesses no\nparticle, and of knowledge, only just so much as to show that it ends in\nignorance on every side. This is the result of the objective search for\ntruth. But begin with man himself, and there is a fact upon which he can\ntake a sure stand, his self-consciousness--a \"togetherness,\" as Merz says,\nwhich cannot be explained mathematically by the adding up of atoms; and\nfurthermore an inborn certainty that whatever is felt to be within had\nits rise or cause without: \"thus blend the conscious I, and all things\nperceived in one Effect.\" Through this subjective perception of an\nall-powerful cause a reflex light is thrown back upon all that the\ninvestigations of the intellect have accomplished. The cause is no longer\nsimply blind energy, but must itself be possessed of gifts as great and\nstill greater than those with which the soul of man is endowed. The forces\nat work in nature thus become instinct with wonder and beauty, the good\nand evil of life reveal themselves as a means used by absolute Power and\nLove for the perfecting of the soul which made to know on and ever must\nknow\n\n  \"All to be known at any halting stage\n  Of [the] soul's progress, such as earth, where wage\n  War, just for soul's instruction, pain with joy,\n  Folly with wisdom, all that works annoy\n  With all that quiets and contents.\"\n\nTo sum up--our investigations into Browning's thought show him to be a\ntype primarily of the mystic. Mysticism in its most pronounced forms\nregards the emotions of the human mind as supreme. The mystic, instead of\nallowing the intellectual faculty to lead the way, degrades it to an\ninferior position and makes it entirely subservient to the feelings. In\nsome moods Browning seems almost to belong to this pronounced type; for\nexample, when he says in \"A Pillar at Sebzevar,\" \"Say not that we know,\nrather that we love, therefore we know enough.\"\n\n[Illustration: DAVID STRAUSS]\n\nIt must be remembered, however, that he is not in either class of the\nsupernatural mystic, one of which supposes truth to be gained by a fixed\nsupernatural channel, the other that it is gained by extraordinary\nsupernatural means. On the contrary, truth comes to Browning in pursuance\nof a regular law or fact of the inward sensibility, which may be defined\nin his case as a mode of intuition. His intuition of God, as we have seen,\nis based upon the feeling of love both in its human and its abstract\naspects.\n\nBut this is not all. Upon the intellectual side Browning accepted the\nconclusions of scientific investigation as far as phenomena were\nconcerned, and while he denied its worth in giving direct knowledge of the\nAbsolute, he recognized it as useful because of its very failure in\nstrengthening the sense of the existence of a power transcending human\nconception. \"What is our failure here but a triumph's evidence of the\nfulness of the days?\" And, furthermore, with mystic love already in our\nhearts, all knowledge that the scientist may bring us of the phenomena of\nnature and life only adds immeasurably to our wonder and awe of the power\nwhich has brought these things to pass, thus \"with much more knowledge\"\ncomes \"always much more love.\"\n\nOnce more, the poet's mysticism is tempered by a tinge of idealism. There\nare several passages in his poems, notably one already quoted from Furini,\nwhich show him to have had a perception of God directly through his own\nconsciousness by means of what the idealist calls the higher reason. His\nperception, for instance, that whatever takes place within the\nconsciousness had its rise without and that this external origin emanates\nfrom God is the idealist's way of arriving at the absolute.\n\nThus we see that into Browning's religious conceptions enter the\nintuitions of the artistic consciousness as illustrated in Paracelsus\nwhere God is the divine artist joying in his creations, the intuitions of\nthe intellect which finds in the failure of knowledge to probe the secrets\nof the universe the assurance of a transcendent power beyond human ken,\nthe intuition of the higher reason which affirms God is, and the\nintuitions of the heart which promise that God is love, through whom is\nto come fulfilment of all human aspirations toward Beauty, Truth, and Love\nin immortality.\n\nIf these are all points which have been emphasized, now by one, now by\nanother, of the vast array of thinkers who have crowded the past century,\nthere is no one who to my knowledge has so completely harmonized the\nvarious thought tendencies of the age, and certainly none who has clothed\nthem in such a wealth of imaginative and emotional illustration.\n\nIn these last poems Browning appears to borrow an apt term from Whitman,\nas the \"Answerer\" of his age. In them he has unquestioningly accepted the\nknowledge which science has brought, and, recognizing its relative\ncharacter, has yet interpreted it in such a way as to make it subserve the\nhighest ideals in ethics, religion, and art. Far from reflecting any\ndegeneration in Browning's philosophy of life, these poems place on a\nfirmer basis than ever thoughts prominent in his poetry from the first,\nwhile adding to these the profounder insight into life which life's\nexperiences had brought him.\n\nThe subject matter and form are no less remarkable than their thought. The\nvariety in both is almost bewildering. Religion and fable, romance and\nphilosophy, art and science all commingled in rich profusion; everything\nin language--talk almost colloquial, dainty lyrics full of exquisite\nemotion, and grand passages which present in sweeping images now the\nprocesses of cosmic evolution, now those of spiritual evolution, until it\nseems as if we had indeed been conducted to some vast mountain height,\nwhence we can look forth upon the century's turbulent seas of thought,\ninto which flows many a current from the past, while suspended above\nbetween the sea and sky, like the crucifix in Simons's wonderful symbolic\npicture of the Middle Ages, is the mystical form of divine love and joy\nwhich Browning has made symbolic of the nineteenth century.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nPOLITICAL TENDENCIES\n\n\nIn the political affairs of his own age and country Browning as a poet\nshows little interest. This may at first seem strange, for that he was\ndeeply sympathetic with past historical movements indicating a growth\ntoward democratic ideals in government is abundantly proved by his choice\nand treatment of historical epochs in which the democratic tendencies were\npeculiarly evident. Why then did he not give us dramatic pictures of the\nVictorian era, in which as perhaps in no other era of English history the\nyeast of political freedom has been steadily and quietly working?\n\nThere were probably several reasons for his failure to make himself felt\nas an influence in the political world of his time. In the first place, he\nwas preeminently a dramatic poet, and as such his interest was in the\npresentation and analysis of individual character as it might work itself\nout in a given historical environment. To deal with contemporaries in\nthis analytic manner would be a difficult and delicate matter, and, as we\nsee, in those instances where he did venture upon an analysis of English\ncontemporaries, as in the case of Wiseman (Bishop Blougram), Carlyle in\nBernard de Mandeville and in \"George Bubb Dodington,\" the sketch of Lord\nBeaconsfield, he takes care to suppress every external circumstance which\nwould lead to their identification, and to dwell only upon their\nintellectual or psychic aspects.\n\nA second reason is that the present is usually too near at hand to be used\naltogether effectively as dramatic material. Contemporary conditions of\nhistory seem to have an air of stateliness owing to the fact that every\none is familiar with them, not only through talk and experience but\nthrough newspapers and magazines, while their larger, universal meanings\ncannot be seen at too close a range. If, however, past historical episodes\nand their tendencies can be so presented as to illustrate the tendencies\nof the present, then the needful artistic perspective is gained. In this\nmanner, with a few minor exceptions, Browning has revealed the direction\nin which his political sympathies lay.\n\nWhen Browning was born, the first Napoleonic episode was nearing its\nclose. Absolutism and militarism had in its lust for power and bloodshed\nslaughtered itself for the time being, and once more there was opportunity\nfor the people of England to strive for their own enfranchisement.\n\nAs a progressive ministry in England did not come into power until 1830,\nthe struggles of the people were rewarded with little success during many\nyears after the Battle of Waterloo. During the childhood and boyhood of\nBrowning the events which from time to time marked the determination of\nthe downtrodden Englishman to secure a larger measure of justice for\nhimself were exciting enough to have made a strong impression upon the\nprecocious mind of the incipient poet even in the seclusion of his\nfather's library at Camberwell.\n\nThe artificial prosperity which had buoyed up the workman during the war\nwith France suddenly collapsed with the advent of peace after the Battle\nof Waterloo. Everything seemed to combine to make the affairs of the\nworkingman desperate. Public business had been blunderingly administered,\nand while a fatuous Cabinet was congratulating the nation upon the\nflourishing state of the country, trade was actually almost at a\nstandstill, and failures in business were the order of the day. To make\nmatters worse, a wet summer and early frosts interfered with farming, and\nthe result was that laborers and workmen could not find employment. A not\nunusual percentage of paupers in any given district was four fifths of the\nwhole population. Thinking the farmers were to blame for the high price of\nbread, these starving people wreaked their vengeance on them by burning\nfarm buildings, and machinery, and even stacks of corn and hay.\n\n[Illustration: CARDINAL WISEMAN]\n\nInstead of giving sympathy to these men in their desperate condition, a\nconservative government saw in them only rioters, and took the most\nstringent measures against them. They were tried by a special commission,\nand thirty-four of them were condemned to death, though it is recorded\nthat only five of them were executed. The miners of Cornwall and Wales,\nthe lace makers of Nottingham, and the iron workers of the Black Country,\nnext broke out and the smashing of machinery continued. Finally there was\na meeting of the artisans of London, Westminster, and Southwick in Spa\nFields, Clerkenwall, which had been called by Harry Hunt, a man of\nproperty and education, who was known as a supporter of extreme measures,\nand the leader of the Radicals of that day. They met for the legitimate\npurpose, one would think, of considering the propriety of petitioning the\nPrince Regent and Parliament to adopt means of relieving the existing\ndistress. One of the speakers, however, a poor doctor by the name of\nWatson, was of a more belligerent disposition. He made an inflammatory\nspeech which ended by his seizing a tri-colored flag and marching toward\nthe city followed by the turbulent rabble. On their way they seized the\ncontents of a gunsmith's shop on Snow Hill, murdered a man, and finally\nwere met opposite the Mansion House by the Lord Mayor, who, assisted by a\nstrong body of police, arrested some of the leaders and dispersed the\nrest. The arrested persons were brought to trial and indicted for high\ntreason by the Attorney General, but the jury, evidently thinking the\nindictment had taken too exaggerated a form, acquitted Watson, and the\nothers were dismissed.\n\nThe conservative Parliament was, however, so alarmed by these proceedings\nthat, instead of seeking some way of removing the cause of the\ndifficulties, it thought only of making restrictions for the protection of\nthe person of the Regent, of the more effective prevention of seditious\nmeetings and of surer punishment. And what were some of these measures?\nDebating societies, lecture halls and reading rooms were shut up. Even\nlectures on medicine, surgery and chemistry were prohibited. Though there\nwas a possibility of getting a license to lecture from the magistrate, the\nlaw was interpreted in the narrowest spirit.\n\nParliamentary reform began to be spoken of in 1819, when a resolution\npledging the House of Commons to the consideration of the state of\nrepresentation was rejected by a vote of one hundred and fifty-three to\nfifty-eight. This decision stirred up the reform spirit, and large\nmeetings in favor of it were held. The people attending these meetings\nreceived military drilling and marched to their meetings in orderly\nprocessions, a fact naturally very disturbing to the government. When a\ngreat meeting was arranged at Manchester on the 16th of August, troops\nwere accordingly sent to Manchester. The cavalry was ordered to charge the\ncrowd, and although they used the flat side of their swords, the charge\nresulted in the killing of six persons and the wounding of some hundreds.\nThe clash did not end here, for to offset the ministerial approval of the\naction of the magistrates and their decision that the meeting was illegal,\nthe Common Council of London passed a resolution by a large majority\ndeclaring that the meeting was legal. A number of Whig noblemen also were\non the side of the London Council and made similar motions. But the\nministers, unmoved by these signs of the times, introduced bills in\nParliament for the repression of disorder and the further restraining of\npublic liberty. The bills, it is true, were strenuously opposed in both\nhouses, but the eloquence expended against them was all to no purpose, the\nbills were passed, and reform for the time being was nipped in the bud.\n\nAlthough after this laws were gradually introduced by the ministers which\ntended very much to the betterment of conditions, the fire of reform did\nnot burst out again with full fury until the time of the Revolution of\nJuly, in France, which it will be remembered was directed against the\ndespotic King Charles X, and ended in his being deposed, when his crown\nwas given to his distant cousin Louis Philippe. The success of the French\nin their stand against despotism caused a general revolutionary stir in\nseveral European countries, while in England the spirit of revolution\nshowed itself in incendiary fires from one end of the country to the\nother.\n\nWith Parliament itself full of believers in reform, the chief of the\nCabinet, the Duke of Wellington, announced that the House of Commons did\nnot need reform and that he would resist all proposals for a change. So\ngreat was the popular excitement at this announcement that the Duke could\nnot venture to go forth to dine at the Guildhall for fear that he might be\nattacked.\n\nSuch were the chief episodes in the forward advance of the people up to\nthe time of the presentation of the Reform Bill in Parliament. This\nimportant measure has been described as the greatest organic change in the\nBritish Constitution that had taken place since the revolution of 1688.\nWhen this bill was finally passed it meant a transference of governmental\ncontrol from the upper classes to the middle classes, and was the\ninauguration of a policy which has constantly added to the prosperity and\nwell-being of the English people. The agitation upon this bill, introduced\nin the House by Lord John Russell, under the Premiership of Earl Grey, and\na ministry favorable to reform, was filling the attention of all\nEnglishmen to the exclusion of every other subject just at the time when\nBrowning was emerging into manhood, 1831 and 1832, and though he has not\ncommemorated in his poetry this great step in the political progress of\nhis own century, his first play, written in 1837, takes up a period of\nEnglish history in which a momentous struggle for liberty on the part of\nthe people was in progress.\n\nImportant as the Reform Bill was, it furnished no such picturesque\nepisodes for a dramatist as did the struggle of Pym and Strafford under\nthe despotic rule of King Charles I.\n\nIn choosing this period for his play the poet found not only material\nwhich furnished to his hand a series of wonderfully dramatic situations,\nbut in the three men about whom the action moves is presented an\nindividuality and a contrast in character full of those possibilities for\nanalysis so attractive to Browning's mind.\n\nAnother point to be gained by taking this remote period of history was\nthat his attitude could be supremely that of the philosopher of history.\nHe could portray with fairness whatever worth of character he found to\nadmire in the leaders upon either side, at the same time that he could\nshow which possessed the winning principle--the principle of progress. In\ndealing with contemporary events a strong personal feeling is sure to gain\nthe upper hand, and to be non-partisan and therefore truly dramatic is a\ndifficult, if not an impossible, task. When we come to examine this play,\nwe find that the character which unquestionably interested the poet most\nwas Strafford's; not because of his political principles but because of\nhis devotion to his King. Human love and loyalty in whomever manifested\nwas always of the supremest interest to Browning, and, working upon any\nhints furnished by history, the poet has developed the character of\nStrafford in the light of his personal friendship for the King--a feeling\nso powerful that no fickle change of mood on the part of the King could\nalter it. Upon this fact of his personal relations to the King Strafford's\nactions in this great crisis have been interpreted and explained, though\nnot defended, from the political point of view.\n\nSome wavering on the part of Pym is also explained upon the ground of his\nfriendship for and his belief in Strafford, but mark the difference\nbetween the two men. Pym, once sure that Strafford is not on the side of\nprogress, crushes out all personal feeling. He allows nothing to stand in\nthe way of his political policy. With unflinching purpose he proceeds\nagainst his former friend, straight on to the impeachment for treason,\nstraight on, like an inexorable fate, to the prevention of his rescue from\nexecution. Browning's dramatic imagination is responsible for this last\nclimax in which he brings the two men face to face. Here, in Pym's\nstrength of will to serve England at any cost, mingled with the hope of\nmeeting Strafford purged of all his errors in a future life, and in\nStrafford's response, \"When we meet, Pym, I'd be set right--not now! Best\ndie,\" is foreshadowed the ultimate triumph of the parliamentary over the\nmonarchical principles of government, and the poet's own sympathy with the\nparty of progress is made plain.\n\nIt is interesting in the present connection to inquire whether there are\nany parallels between the agitation connected with the reform legislation\nof 1832 and the revolution at the time of Charles I which might send\nBrowning's mind back to that period. The special point about which the\nbattle raged in 1832 was the representation in Parliament. This was so\nirregular that it was absolutely unfair. In many instances large districts\nor towns would have fewer representatives than smaller ones, or perhaps\nnone at all. Representation was more a matter of favoritism than of\njustice. The votes in Parliament were, therefore, not at all a true\nmeasure of the attitude of the country. It seems strange that so eminently\nsensible a reform should meet with such determined opposition. As usual,\nthose in power feared loss of privilege. The House of Lords was the\nobstruction. The bill was in fact a step logically following upon the\ndetermination of the people of the time of Charles I that they would not\nsubmit to be levied upon for ship-money upon the sole authority of the\nKing. They demanded that Parliament, which had not been assembled for ten\nyears, should meet and decide the question. This question was not merely\none of the war-tax or ship-money, but of whether the King should have the\npower to levy taxes upon the people without consent of Parliament.\n\nAs every one knows, when the King finally consented to the assembling of\nParliament, in April, 1840, he informed it that there would be no\ndiscussion of its demands until it had granted the war subsidies for which\nit had been asked. The older Vane added to the consternation of the\nassembly by announcing that the King would accept nothing less than the\ntwelve subsidies which he had demanded in his message. In the face of this\nultimatum the committee broke up without coming to a conclusion,\npostponing further consideration until the next day, but before they had\nhad time to consider the matter the next day the King had decided to\ndissolve the Parliament.\n\nThe King was forced, however, to reassemble Parliament again in the\nautumn. In this Parliament the people's party gained control, and many\nreforms were instituted. Led by such daring men as Pym, Hampden, Cromwell,\nand the younger Vane, resolutions were passed censuring the levying of\nship-money, tonnage and poundage, monopolies, innovations in religion--in\nfact, all the grievances of the oppressed which had been ignored for a\ndecade were brought to light and redressed by the House, quite regardless\nof the King's attitude.\n\nThe chief of the abuses which it was bent upon remedying was the imposing\nof taxes upon the authority of the King and the persecution of the\nPuritans. But there was another grievance which received the attention of\nthe Long Parliament, and which forms a close link with the reforms of\n1832--namely, the attempt to improve the system of representation in\nParliament, an attempt which was partially carried into effect by Cromwell\nlater. Under Charles II, however, things fell back into their old way and\ngradually went on from bad to worse until the tide changed, and the people\nbecame finally aroused after two hundred years to the need of a radical\nchange. The blindness of the Duke of Wellington, declaring no reform was\nneeded, is hardly less to be marveled at than that of King Charles\ndeclaring he would rule without Parliament. The King took the ground that\nthe people had no right to representation in the government; the Minister,\nthat only some of the people had a right.\n\nThe horrors of revolution followed upon the blindness of the one, with its\nreactionary aftermath, while upon the other there was violence, it is\ntrue, and a revolution was feared, but through the wise measures of the\nliberal ministers no subversion of the government occurred. Violence\nreached such a pitch, however, that the castle of Nottingham in Derby was\nburned, the King's brother was dragged from his horse, and Lord\nLondonderry roughly treated. The mob at Bristol was so infuriated that Sir\nC. Wetherell, the Recorder of the city, who had voted against the bill,\nhad to be escorted to the Guildhall by a hundred mounted gentlemen. Two\nmen having been arrested, the mob attacked and destroyed the interior of\nthe Mansion House, set fire to the Bishop's palace and to many other\nbuildings. There was not only an enormous loss of property, but loss of\nlife.\n\nA quieter demonstration at Birmingham carries us back, as it might have\ncarried Browning, to the \"great-hearted men\" of the Long Parliament. A\nmeeting was called which was attended by one hundred and fifty thousand\npersons, and resolutions were passed to the effect that if the Reform Bill\nwere not passed they would refuse to pay taxes, as Hampden had refused to\npay ship-money.\n\nThe final act in this momentous drama was initiated with the introduction\nby Lord John Russell of the third Reform Bill in December, 1831. Again it\nwas defeated in the House of Lords, whereupon some of the Cabinet wished\nto ask the King to create a sufficient number of new peers to force the\nbill through the House. Earl Grey was not at all in favor of this, but at\nlast consented. This course was not welcome to the House of Lords, and the\ndoubtful members in the House promised that if this suggestion were not\ncarried into effect they would insure a sufficient majority in the House\nof Lords to carry the bill. This was done, but before the Lords went into\ncommittee a hostile motion postponing the disfranchisement clauses was\ncarried. Then Earl Grey asked for the creation of new peers. As it would\nrequire the creating of about fifty new peers, the King refused, the\nministry resigned and the Duke of Wellington came into power again. But\nhis power, like that of Strafford, was broken. He had reached the point of\nrecognizing that some reform was needed, but he could not persuade his\ncolleagues of this. In the meantime the House of Commons passed a\nresolution of confidence in the Grey administration. Such determined\nopposition being shown not only in Parliament but by the people in various\nways, Wellington felt his only course was resignation. William IV had,\nmuch to his chagrin, to recall Grey, but he escaped the necessity of\ncreating a large number of peers, by asking the opposition in the House of\nLords to withdraw their resistance to the bill. The Duke of Wellington and\nothers thereupon absented themselves, and finding further obstruction was\nuseless, the Lords at last passed the bill and it became law in June,\n1832.\n\nThis national crisis through which Browning had lived could not fail to\nhave made its impression on him. It is certainly an indication of the\ndepth of his interest in the growth of liberalism that his first English\nsubject, written only a few years subsequent to this momentous change in\ngovernmental methods, should have dealt with a period whose analysis and\ninterpretation in dramatic form gave him every opportunity for the\nexpression of his sympathy with liberal ideals. Broad-minded in his\ninterpretation of Strafford's career, in love with his qualities of\nloyalty, and his capabilities of genuine affection for the vacillating\nCharles, he made Strafford the hero of his play, but it is Pym whom, in\nhis play, he has exalted as the nation's hero, and into whose mouth he has\nput one of the greatest and most intensely pathetic speeches ever uttered\nby an Englishman. It is when he confronts Strafford at the last:\n\n  \"Have I done well? Speak, England! Whose sole sake\n  I still have labored for, with disregard\n  To my own heart,--for whom my youth was made\n  Barren, my manhood waste, to offer up\n  Her sacrifice--this friend--this Wentworth here--\n  Who walked in youth with me, loved me, it may be,\n  And whom, for his forsaking England's cause,\n  I hunted by all means (trusting that she\n  Would sanctify all means) even to the block\n  Which waits for him. And saying this, I feel\n  No bitterer pang than first I felt, the hour\n  I swore that Wentworth might leave us, but I\n  Would never leave him: I do leave him now.\n  I render up my charge (be witness, God!)\n  To England who imposed it. I have done\n  Her bidding--poorly, wrongly,--it may be,\n  With ill effects--for I am weak, a man:\n  Still, I have done my best, my human best,\n  Not faltering for a moment. It is done.\n  And this said, if I say ... yes, I will say\n  I never loved but one man--David not\n  More Jonathan! Even thus I love him now:\n  And look for that chief portion in that world\n  Where great hearts led astray are turned again,\n  (Soon it may be, and, certes, will be soon:\n  My mission over, I shall not live long)--\n  Ay, here I know and talk--I dare and must,\n  Of England, and her great reward, as all\n  I look for there; but in my inmost heart,\n  Believe, I think of stealing quite away\n  To walk once more with Wentworth--my youth's friend\n  Purged from all error, gloriously renewed,\n  And Eliot shall not blame us. Then indeed ...\n  This is no meeting, Wentworth! Tears increase\n  Too hot. A thin mist--is it blood?--enwraps\n  The face I loved once. Then, the meeting be.\"\n\nAt the same time that Browning was writing \"Strafford,\" he was also\nengaged upon \"Sordello.\" In that he has given expression to his democratic\nphilosophy through his construction and interpretation of Sordello's\ncharacter as a champion of the people as well as a poet who ushered in the\ndawn of the Italian literary Renaissance. As he made Paracelsus develop\nfrom a dependence upon knowledge as his sole guide in his philosophy of\nlife into a perception of the place emotion must hold in any satisfactory\ntheory of life, and put into his mouth a modern conception of evolution\nilluminated by his own artistic emotion, so he makes Sordello develop from\nthe individualistic type to the socialist type of man, who is bent upon\nraising the masses of the people to higher conditions. The ideal of\nliberal forms of government was even in Sordello's time a growing one,\nsifting into Italy from Greek precedents, but Browning's Sordello sees\nsomething beyond either political or ecclesiastical espousal of the\npeople's cause--namely, the espousal of the people's cause by the people\nthemselves, the arrival of the self-governing democracy, an ideal much\nnearer attainment now than when Browning was writing:\n\n  \"Two parties take the world up, and allow\n  No third, yet have one principle, subsist\n  By the same injustice; whoso shall enlist\n  With either, ranks with man's inveterate foes.\n  So there is one less quarrel to compose\n  The Guelf, the Ghibelline may be to curse--\n  I have done nothing, but both sides do worse\n  Than nothing. Nay, to me, forgotten, reft\n  Of insight, lapped by trees and flowers, was left\n  The notion of a service--ha? What lured\n  Me here, what mighty aim was I assured\n  Must move Taurello? What if there remained\n  A cause, intact, distinct from these, ordained\n  For me its true discoverer?\"\n\nThe mood here portrayed was one which might have been fostered in Browning\nin relation to his own time. He doubtless felt that neither the\nprogressive movements in the state nor those in religion really touched\nupon the true principles of freedom for the individual. He might not have\ndefined these principles to himself any more definitely than as a desire\nfor the greatest happiness of the whole number. And even of such an ideal\nas that he had his doubts because of the necessity of his mind to find a\nlogical use for evil in the world. This he could only do by supposing it a\ndivine means for the development of the human soul in its sojourn in this\nlife. Speaking in his own person in \"Sordello,\" he gives expression to\nthis doubt in the following passage in the third book:\n\n                          \"I ask youth and strength\n  And health for each of you, not more--at length\n  Grown wise, who asked at home that the whole race\n  Might add the spirit's to the body's grace,\n  And all be dizened out as chiefs and bards.\n\n    *       *       *       *       *\n\n              \"----As good you sought\n  To spare me the Piazza's slippery stone\n  Or keep me to the unchoked canals alone,\n  As hinder Life the evil with the good\n  Which make up Living rightly understood.\"\n\nStill, though vague as to what the good for the whole people might be,\nthere was no vagueness in his mind as to the people's right to possess the\npower to bring about their own happiness. Yet given the right principles,\nhe would not have the attempt made to put them into practice all at once.\n\nHis final attitude toward the problem of the best methods for bettering\nhuman conditions in the poem is, strictly speaking, that of the\nopportunist working a step toward his ideal rather than that of the\nrevolutionist who would gain it by one leap. Sordello should realize that\n\n  \"God has conceded two lights to a man--\n  One, of men's whole work, man's first\n  Step to the plan's completeness.\"\n\nMan's part is to take this first step, leaving the ultimate ideal to be\nworked out, as time goes, on by successive men. To reach at one bound the\nideal would be to regard one's self as a god. Some such theory of action\nas this is the one which guides the Fabian socialist working in England\nto-day. Nothing is to be done to subvert the present order of society, but\nevery opportunity is to be made the most of which will tend to the\nbetterment of the conditions of the masses, until by degrees the\nsocialist regime will become possible. Sordello was too much of the\nidealist to seize the opportunity when it came to him of helping the\npeople by means of the Ghibelline power suddenly conferred upon him, and\nso he failed.\n\nThis opportunist doctrine is one especially congenial to the English\ntemperament and certainly has its practical advantages, if it is not so\ninspiring as the headlong idealism of a Pym, which just as surely has its\ndisadvantages in the danger that the ideal will be ahead of humanity's\npower of seizing it and living it, and will therefore run the risk of\nbeing overturned by a reaction to the low plane of the past; especially\ndoes this danger become apparent when the way to the attainment of the\nideal is paved with violence.\n\nWhile Browning was writing \"Sordello,\" the preparation of which included a\nshort trip to Italy, the Chartist agitation was going on in England. It\nmay well, at that time, have been considered to demand an ideal beyond\npossibility of attainment, which was proved by its final utter\nannihilation. The workingmen's association led by Mr. Duncombe was\nresponsible for a program in the form of a parliamentary petition which\nasked for six things. These were: universal suffrage, or the right of\nvoting by every male of twenty-one years of age; vote by ballot; annual\nParliaments; abolition of the property qualification for members of\nParliament; members of Parliament to be paid for their services; equal\nelectoral districts.\n\nThere were two sorts of Chartists, moral-force Chartists and\nphysical-force Chartists, the latter of whom did as much damage as\npossible in the agitation.\n\nThe combined forces were led by Feargus O'Connor, an Irish barrister, who\nmadly spent his force and energy for ten years in carrying forward the\nmovement, and, at last, confronted by disagreement in the ranks of the\nChartists and the Duke of Wellington and his troops, gave it up in\ndespair. He was a martyr to the cause, for he took its failure so much to\nheart that he ended his days in a lunatic asylum.\n\nThis final failure came many years after \"Sordello\" was finished, but the\npoet's conclusions in \"Sordello\" seem almost prophetic in the light of the\npassage in the poem already quoted, in which the poet declares himself\ngrown wiser than he was at home, where he had asked the utmost for all\nmen, and now realized that this cannot be attained in one leap.\n\nAgitation about the relations between England and Ireland were also\nfilling public attention at this time, but most important of all the\ncontemporary movements was the League for the Repeal of the Corn Laws. The\nstory of the growth and the peaceful methods by which it attained its\ngrowth is one of the most interesting in the annals of England's political\ndevelopment. It meant the adoption of the great principle of free trade,\nto which England has since adhered. For eight years the agitation in\nregard to it was continued, during which great meetings were held,\nthousands of pounds were subscribed to the cause, and the names of Sir\nRichard Cobden and John Bright became famous as leaders in the righteous\ncause of untaxed food for the people. John Bright's account of how he\nbecame interested in the movement and associated himself with Cobden in\nthe work, told in a speech made at Rochdale, gives a vivid picture of the\nhuman side of the problem which by the conservatives of the day was\ntreated as a merely political issue:\n\n    \"In the year 1841 I was at Leamington and spent several months there.\n    It was near the middle of September there fell upon me one of the\n    heaviest blows that can visit any man. I found myself living there\n    with none living of my house but a motherless child. Mr. Cobden\n    called upon me the day after that event, so terrible to me and so\n    prostrating. He said, after some conversation, 'Don't allow this\n    grief, great as it is, to weigh you down too much. There are at this\n    moment in thousands of homes in this country wives and children who\n    are dying of hunger--of hunger made by the law. If you come along with\n    me, we will never rest till we have got rid of the Corn Law.' We saw\n    the colossal injustice which cast its shadow over every part of the\n    nation, and we thought we saw the true remedy and the relief, and that\n    if we united our efforts, as you know we did, with the efforts of\n    hundreds and thousands of good men in various parts of the country, we\n    should be able to bring that remedy home, and to afford that relief to\n    the starving people of this country.\"\n\nThe movement thus inaugurated was, as Molesworth declares, \"without\nparallel in the history of the world for the energy with which it was\nconducted, the rapid advance it made, and the speedy and complete success\nthat crowned its efforts; for the great change it wrought in public\nopinion and the consequent legislation of the country; overcoming\nprejudice and passion, dispelling ignorance and conquering powerful\ninterests, with no other weapons than those of reason and that eloquence\nwhich great truths and strong conviction inspire.\"\n\nA signal victory for the League was gained in 1843, when the London\n_Times_, which up to that time had regarded the League with suspicion\nand even alarm, suddenly turned round and ranged itself with the advancing\ntide of progress by declaring, \"The League is a great fact. It would be\nfoolish, nay, rash, to deny its importance. It is a great fact that there\nshould have been created in the homestead of our manufacturers\n(Manchester) a confederacy devoted to the agitation of one political\nquestion, persevering at it year after year, shrinking from no trouble,\ndismayed at no danger, making light of every obstacle. It demonstrates the\nhardy strength of purpose, the indomitable will, by which Englishmen\nworking together for a great object are armed and animated.\"\n\nThe final victory, however, did not come until three years later, when Sir\nRobert Peel, who became Prime Minister to defend the Corn Laws, announced\nthat he had been completely convinced of their injustice, and that he was\nan \"absolute convert to the free-trade principle, and that the\nintroduction of the principle into all departments of our commercial\nlegislation was, according to his intention, to be a mere question of time\nand convenience.\" This was in January, 1845, and shortly after, June,\n1846, the bill for the total repeal of the Corn Laws passed the House.\n\nHow much longer it might have been before the opposition was carried is a\nquestion if it had not been for the failure of the grain crops and the\nwidespread potato disease which plunged Ireland into a state of famine,\nand threatened the whole country with more or less of disaster.\n\nEven when this state of affairs became apparent in the summer of 1845\nthere was still much delay. The Cabinet met and discussed and discussed;\nstill Parliament was not assembled; and then it was that the Mansion House\nRelief Committee of Dublin drew up resolutions stating that famine and\npestilence were approaching throughout the land, and impeaching the\nconduct of the Ministry for not opening the ports or calling Parliament\ntogether.\n\nBut still Peel, already won over, could not take his Cabinet with him; he\nwas forced to resign. Lord John Russell was called to form a ministry, but\nfailed, when Peel was recalled, and the day was carried.\n\nBrowning's brief but pertinent allusion to this struggle in \"The\nEnglishman in Italy\" shows clearly how strongly his sympathies were with\nthe League and how disgusted he was with the procrastination of Parliament\nin taking a perfectly obvious step for the betterment of the people.\n\n  \"Fortnu, in my England at home,\n  Men meet gravely to-day\n  And debate, if abolishing Corn laws\n  Be righteous and wise\n  If 'twere proper, Scirocco should vanish\n  In black from the skies!\"\n\nAn occasional allusion or poem like this makes us aware from time to time\nof Browning's constant sympathy with any movement which meant good to the\nmasses. Even if he had not written near the end of his life \"Why I am a\nLiberal,\" there could be no doubt in any one's mind of his political\nideals. In \"The Lost Leader\" is perhaps his strongest utterance upon the\nsubject. The fact that it was called out by Wordsworth's lapse into\nconservatism after the horrors of the French Revolution had brought him\nand his _sans culotte_ brethren, Southey and Coleridge, to pause, a fact\nvery possibly freshened in Browning's mind by Wordsworth's receiving a\npension in 1842 and the poet-laureateship in 1843, does not affect the\nforce of the poem as a personal utterance on the side of democracy.\nBrowning, himself, considered the poem far too fierce as a portrayal of\nWordsworth's case.[2] He evidently forgot Wordsworth, and thought only of\na renegade liberal as he went on with the poem. It was written the same\nyear that there occurred the last attempt to postpone the passing of the\nAnti-Corn Law Bill, when the intensity of feeling on the part of all who\nbelieved in progress was at its height, and the bare thought of a deserter\nfrom Liberal ranks would be enough to exasperate any man who had the\nnation's welfare at heart. That Browning's feeling at the time reached the\npoint not only of exasperation but of utmost scorn for any one who was not\non the liberal side is shown most forcibly in the bitter lines:\n\n  \"Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,\n    One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,\n  One more devil's triumph and sorrow for angels,\n    One more wrong to man, one more insult to God!\"\n\nBrowning speaks of having thought of Wordsworth at an unlucky juncture.\n\nWhatever the exact episode which called forth the poem may have been, we\nare safe in saying that at a time when Disraeli was attacking Sir Robert\nPeel because of his honesty in avowing his conversion to free trade, and\nbecause of his bravery in coming out from his party, in breaking up his\ncabinet and regardless of all costs in determining to carry the bill or\nresign, and finally carrying it in the face of the greatest odds--at\nsuch a time, when a great conservative leader had shown himself capable of\nbeing won over to a great liberal principle; the spectacle of a deserter\nfrom the cause, and that deserter a member of one's own brotherhood of\npoets, would be especially hard to bear.\n\nOne feels a little like asking why did not Browning let his enthusiasm\ncarry him for once into a contemporary expression of admiration for Sir\nRobert Peel? Perhaps the tortuous windings of parliamentary proceedings\nobscured to a near view the true greatness of Peel's action.\n\nThe year of this great change in England's policy was the year of Robert\nBrowning's marriage and his departure for Italy, where he lived for\nfifteen years. During this time and for some years after his return to\nEngland there is no sign that he was taking any interest in the political\naffairs of his country. Human character under romantic conditions in a\nsocial environment, or the thought problems of the age, as we have already\nseen, occupied his attention, and for the subject matter of these he more\noften than not went far afield from his native country.\n\nIn \"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau\" is the poet's first deliberate portrayal\nof a person of contemporary prominence in the political world. The\nalliance of Napoleon III with England brought his policy of government\ninto strong contrast with that of the liberal leaders in English politics,\na contrast which had been emphasized through Lord Palmerston's sympathy\nwith the _coup d'etat_.\n\nThe news of the manner in which Louis Napoleon had carried out his policy\nof smashing the French constitution caused horror and consternation in\nEngland, and the Queen at once gave instructions that nothing should be\ndone by her ambassador in Paris which could be in any way construed as an\ninterference in the internal affairs of France. Already, however, Lord\nPalmerston had expressed to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs his\nentire approbation in the act of Napoleon and his conviction that he could\nnot have acted otherwise than as he had done. When this was known, the\nPrime Minister, Lord John Russell, wrote Palmerston a letter, causing his\nresignation, which was accepted very willingly by the Queen. The letter\nwas as follows:\n\n    \"While I concur in the foreign policy of which you have been the\n    adviser, and much as I admire the energy and ability with which it has\n    been carried into effect, I cannot but observe that misunderstandings\n    perpetually renewed, violations of prudence and decorum too\n    frequently repeated, have marred the effects which ought to have\n    followed from a sound policy and able admirers. I am, therefore, most\n    reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that the conduct of\n    foreign affairs can no longer be left in your hands with advantage to\n    the country.\"\n\nWhen England's fears that Louis Napoleon would emulate his illustrious\npredecessor and invade her shores were allayed, her attitude was modified.\nShe forgot the horrors of the _coup d'etat_ and formed an alliance with\nhim, and her hospitable island became his refuge in his downfall.\n\nA prominent figure in European politics for many years, Louis Napoleon had\njust that combination of greatness and mediocrity which would appeal to\nBrowning's love of a human problem. Furthermore, Napoleon was brought very\ndirectly to the poet's notice through his Italian campaign and Mrs.\nBrowning's interest in the political crisis in Italy, which found\nexpression in her fine group of Italian patriotic poems.\n\nThe question has been asked, \"Will the unbiased judgment of posterity\nallow to Louis Napoleon some extenuating circumstances, or will it\npronounce an unqualified condemnation upon the man who, for the sake of\nconsolidating his own power and strengthening his corrupt government,\nspilled the blood of no less than a hundred thousand Frenchmen?\"\n\nWhen all Europe was putting to itself some such question as this, and\nanswering it with varying degrees of leniency, Browning conceived the idea\nof making Napoleon speak for himself, and at the same time he added what\npurports to be the sort of criticism of him indulged in by a Thiers or a\nVictor Hugo. The interest of the poem centers in Napoleon's own\nvindication of himself as portrayed by Browning. What Browning wrote of\nthe poem in a letter to a friend in 1872 explains fully his aim, as well\nas showing by indirection, at least, how much he was interested in\npolitical affairs at this time, though so little of this interest crops\nout in his poetry: \"I think in the main he meant to do what I say, and but\nfor weakness--grown more apparent in his last years than formerly--would\nhave done what I say he did not. I thought badly of him at the beginning\nof his career, _et pour cause_; better afterward, on the strength of the\npromises he made and gave indications of intending to redeem. I think him\nvery weak in the last miserable year. At his worst I prefer him to\nThiers's best.\" At another time he wrote: \"I am glad you like what the\neditor of the _Edinburgh_ calls my eulogium on the Second Empire, which it\nis not, any more than what another wiseacre affirms it to be, 'a\nscandalous attack on the old constant friend of England.' It is just what\nI imagine the man might, if he pleased, say for himself.\"\n\nBrowning depicts the man as perfectly conscious of his own limitations. He\nrecognizes that he is not the genius, nor the creator of a new order of\nthings, but that his power lies in his faculty of taking an old ideal and\nimproving upon it. He contends that in following out his special gifts as\na conservator he is doing just what God intended him to do, and as to his\nmethod of doing it that is his own affair. God gives him the commission\nand leaves it to his human faculties to carry it out, not inquiring what\nthese are, but simply asking at the end if the commission has been\naccomplished.\n\nOnce admit these two things--namely, that his nature, though not of the\nhighest, is such as God gave him, and his lack of responsibility in regard\nto any moral ideal, so that he accomplishes the purpose of this\nnature--and a loophole is given for any inconsistencies he may choose to\nindulge in in bringing about that strengthening of an old ideal in which\nhe believes. The old ideal is, of course, the monarchical principle of\ngovernment, administered, however, in such a manner that it will be for\nthe good of society in all its complex manifestations of to-day. His\nnotion of society's good consists in a balancing of all its forces,\nsecured by the smoothing down of any extreme tendencies, each having its\norbit marked but no more, so that none shall impede the other's path.\n\n  \"In this wide world--though each and all alike,\n  Save for [him] fain would spread itself through space\n  And leave its fellow not an inch of way.\"\n\nBrowning makes him indulge in a curiously sophisticated view of the\nrelativity of good and evil in the course of his argument, to the effect\nthat since there is a further good conceivable beyond the utmost earth can\nrealize, therefore to change the agency--the evil whereby good is brought\nabout, try to make good do good as evil does--would be just as foolish as\nif a chemist wanting white and knowing that black ingredients were needed\nto make the dye insisted these should be white, too. A bad world is that\nwhich he experiences and approves. A good world he does not want in which\nthere would be no pity, courage, hope, fear, sorrow, joy--devotedness, in\nshort--which he believes form the ultimate allowed to man; therefore it\nhas been his policy not to do away with the evil in the society he is\nsaving. To mitigate, not to cure, has been his aim.\n\nBrowning would, himself, answer the sophistry, here, by showing that evil\nthough permitted by divine power was only a means of good through man's\nworking against whatever he conceives to be evil with the whole strength\nof his being. To deliberately follow the policy of conserving evil would\nbe in the end to annihilate the good. Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau could\nnot see so far as this.\n\nIt is not astonishing that with such a policy as this his methods of\ncarrying it out might seem somewhat dubious if not positively criminal.\nHis departure from his early idealism is excused for the reason that\nidealism is not practicable when the region of talk is left for the real\naction of life. Every step in his own aggrandizement is apologized for on\nthe ground that what needed to be accomplished could only be done by a\nstrong hand and that strong hand his own. He was in fact an unprincipled\nutilitarian as Browning presents him, who spoiled even what virtue resides\nin utilitarianism by letting his care for saving society be too much\ninfluenced by his desire for personal glory. One ideal undertaking he\npermitted himself, the freeing of Italy from the Austrian yoke. But he was\nnot strong enough for any such high flight of idealism, as the sequel\nproved.\n\nBrowning does not bring out in the poem the Emperor's real reasons for\nstopping short in the Italian campaign, which certainly were sufficient\nfrom a practical standpoint, but as Archibald Forbes says in his \"Life of\nNapoleon,\" should have been thought of before he published his program of\nfreedom to Italy \"from the Alps to the Adriatic.\" \"Even when he addressed\nthe Italians at Milan,\" continues Forbes, \"the new light had not broken in\nupon him which revealed the strength of the quadrilateral, the cost of\nexpelling the Austrians from Venetia, and the conviction that further\nFrench successes would certainly bring mobilized Germany into the field.\nThat new light seems to have flashed upon Napoleon for the first time from\nthe stern Austrian ranks on the day of Solferino. It was then he realized\nthat should he go forward he would be obliged to attack in front an enemy\nentrenched behind great fortresses, and protected against any diversion on\nhis flanks by the neutrality of the territories surrounding him.\"\n\nMrs. Browning, whose consternation and grief over Villafranca broke out in\nburning verse, yet made a defence of Napoleon's action here which might\nhave been worked into Browning's poem with advantage. She wrote to John\nFoster that while Napoleon's intervention in Italy overwhelmed her with\njoy it did not dazzle her into doubts as to the motive of it, \"but\nsatisfied a patient expectation and fulfilled a logical inference. Thus it\ndid not present itself to my mind as a caprice of power, to be followed\nperhaps by an onslaught on Belgium and an invasion of England. Have we not\nwatched for a year while every saddle of iniquity has been tried on the\nNapoleonic back, and nothing fitted? Wasn't he to crush Piedmontese\ninstitutions like so many eggshells? Was he ever going away with his army,\nand hadn't he occupied houses in Genoa with an intention of bombarding the\ncity? Didn't he keep troops in the north after Villafranca on purpose to\ncome down on us with a grand duke or a Kingdom of Etruria and Plon-Plon to\nrule it? And wouldn't he give back Bologna to the Pope?... Were not\nCipriani, Farini and other patriots his 'mere creatures' in treacherous\ncorrespondence with the Tuileries 'doing his dirty work'?\" Of such\naccusations as these the intelligent English journals were full, but she\nmaintains that against \"The Inane and Immense Absurd\" from which they were\nborn is to be set \"a nation saved.\" She realized also how hard Napoleon's\nposition in France must be to maintain \"forty thousand priests with\nbishops of the color of Monseigneur d'Orleans and company, having, of\ncourse, a certain hold on the agricultural population which forms so large\na part of the basis of the imperial throne. Then add to that the parties\nwho use this Italian question as a weapon simply.\"\n\nMany of Napoleon's own statements have furnished Browning with the\narguments used in the apology. After deliberately destroying the\nconstitution, for example, and himself being the cause of the violence and\nbloodshed in Paris, he coolly addressed the people in the following\nstrain, in which we certainly recognize Hohenstiel-Schwangau:\n\n\"Frenchmen! the disturbances are appeased. Whatever may be the decision of\nthe people, society is saved. The first part of my task is accomplished.\nThe appeal to the nation, for the purpose of terminating the struggle of\nparties, I knew would not cause any serious risk to the public\ntranquillity. Why should the people have risen against me? If I do not\nany longer possess your confidence--if your ideas are changed--there is no\noccasion to make precious blood flow; it will be sufficient to place an\nadverse vote in the urn. I shall always respect the decision of the\npeople.\"\n\nHis cleverness in combining the idea of authority with that of the idea of\nobeying the will of the people is curiously illustrated in his speech at\nthe close of his dictatorship, during which it must be confessed that he\nhad done excellently well for the country--so well, indeed, that even the\nsocialists were ready to cry \"_Vive l'Empereur!_\"\n\n    \"While watching me reestablish the institutions and reawaken the\n    memories of the Empire, people have repeated again and again that I\n    wished to reconstitute the Empire itself. If this had been so the\n    transformation would have been accomplished long ago; neither the\n    means nor the opportunities would have been lacking.... But I have\n    remained content with that I had. Resolved now, as heretofore, to do\n    all in my power for France and nothing for myself, I would accept any\n    modification of the present state of things only if forced by\n    necessity.... If parties remain quiet, nothing shall be changed. But\n    if they endeavor to sap the foundations of my government; if they deny\n    the legitimacy of the result of the popular vote; if, in short, they\n    continually put the future of the country in jeopardy, then, but only\n    then, it might be prudent to ask the people for a new title which\n    would irrevocably fix on my head the power with which they have\n    already clothed me. But let us not anticipate difficulties; let us\n    preserve the Republic. Under its banner I am anxious to inaugurate\n    once more an epoch of reconciliation and pardon; and I call on all\n    without distinction who will frankly cooperate with me for the public\n    good.\"\n\nIn contrast to such fair-sounding phrases Napoleon was capable of the most\ndishonorable tactics in order to gain his ends. Witness the episode of his\ntempting Bismarck with offers of an alliance against Austria at the same\ntime that he was treating secretly with Francis Joseph for the cession of\nVenetia in return for Silesia. And while negotiating secretly and\nseparately with these two sworn enemies, he pretended to be so\ndisinterested as to suggest the submission of their quarrel to a European\ncongress.\n\nBrowning has certainly presented a good portrait of the man as the history\nof his own utterances contrasted with the history of his actions proves.\nIn trying to bridge with this apology the discrepancies between the two he\nhas, however, attributed to Louis Napoleon a degree of self-consciousness\nbeyond any ever evinced by him. The principle of imperialism was a\nconviction with him. That he desired to help the people of France and to a\ngreat extent succeeded, is true; that he combined with this desire the\ndesire of power for himself is true; that he used unscrupulous means to\ngain whatever end he desired when such were necessary is true; but that he\nwas conscious of his own despicable traits to the extent that the poet\nmakes him conscious of them is most unlikely. Nor is it likely that he\nwould defend himself upon any such subtle ground as that his character and\ntemperament being the gift of God he was bound to follow out his nature in\norder that God's purposes might be accomplished. It is rather an\nexplanation of his life from the philosopher's or psychologist's\nstandpoint than a self-conscious revelation. It is none the less\ninteresting on this account, while the scene setting gives it a thoroughly\nhuman and dramatic touch.\n\nWhatever may be said of Napoleon himself, his rule was fraught with\nconsequences of import for the whole of Europe, not because of what he\nwas, but because of what he was not. He was an object lesson on the\nfallacy of trying to govern so that all parties will be pleased by\nautocratically keeping each one from fully expressing itself. The result\nis that each grows more aware of the suppression than of the amount of\nfreedom allowed to it, and nobody is pleased. When added to such a policy\nas this is the surmounting desire for power and the Machiavellian\ndetermination to attain it by any means, fair or foul, a principle of\nstatecraft which by the middle of the century could not be practised in\nits most acute form without arousing the most severe criticism, his power\ncarried within it the seeds of destruction.\n\nIt has been said that \"never in the history of the world has one man\nundertaken a task more utterly beyond the power of mortal man than that\nwhich Louis Napoleon was pledged to carry through.\" He professed to be at\none and the same time the elect sovereign of the people, a son of the\nrevolution, a champion of universal suffrage, and an adversary of the\ndemagogues. In the first of these characters he was bound to justify his\nelevation by economic and social reforms, in his second character he had\nto destroy the last trace of political liberty. He had, in fact, assumed\nvarious utterly incompatible attitudes, and the day that the masses found\nthemselves deceived in their expectations, and the middle classes found\ntheir interests were betrayed, reaction was inevitable.\n\n[Illustration: WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE]\n\nIn spite of his heinous faults, however, historians have grown more and\nmore inclined to admit that Napoleon filled for a time a necessary niche\nin the line of progress, just that step which Browning makes him say\nthe genius will recognize that he fills--namely, to\n\n  \"Carry the incompleteness on a stage,\n  Make what was crooked straight, and roughness smooth,\n  And weakness strong: wherein if I succeed,\n  It will not prove the worst achievement, sure\n  In the eyes at least of one man, one I look\n  Nowise to catch in critic company:\n  To-wit, the man inspired, the genius, self\n  Destined to come and change things thoroughly.\n  He, at least, finds his business simplified,\n  Distinguishes the done from undone, reads\n  Plainly what meant and did not mean this time\n  We live in, and I work on, and transmit\n  To such successor: he will operate\n  On good hard substance, not mere shade and shine.\"\n\nThat is, at a time when Europe was seething with the idea of a new order,\nin which the ideal of nationality was to take the place of such decaying\nideas as the divine right of kings, balance of power, and so on, Napoleon\nheld on to these ideas just long enough to prevent a general\ndisintegration of society. He held in his hands the balance of power until\nthe nations began to find themselves, and in the case of Italy actually\nhelped on the triumph of the new order.\n\nIt is interesting to note in this connection that one of the principal\nfactors in the making of Gladstone into the stanch liberal which he\nbecame was the freeing of Italy, in which Napoleon had so large a share.\nGladstone himself wrote in 1892 of the events which occurred in the fifth\ndecade: \"Of the various and important incidents which associated me almost\nunawares with foreign affairs ... I will only say that they all\ncontributed to forward the action of those home causes more continuous in\ntheir operation, which, without in any way effacing my old sense of\nreverence for the past, determined for me my place in the present and my\ndirection toward the future.\" In 1859 Gladstone dined with Cavour at\nTurin, when the latter had the opportunity of explaining his position and\npolicy to the man whom he considered \"one of the sincerest and most\nimportant friends that Italy had.\" But as his biographer says, Gladstone\nwas still far from the glorified democracy of the Mazzinian propaganda,\nand expressed his opinion that England should take the stand that she\nwould be glad if Italian unity proved feasible, \"but the conditions of it\nmust be gradually matured by a course of improvement in the several\nstates, and by the political education of the people; if it cannot be\nreached by these means, it hardly will by any others; and certainly not by\nopinions which closely link Italian reconstruction with European\ndisorganization and general war.\" Yet he was as distressed as Mrs.\nBrowning at the peace of Villafranca, about which he wrote: \"I little\nthought to have lived to see the day when the conclusion of a peace should\nin my own mind cause disgust rather than impart relief.\" By the end of the\nyear he thought better of Napoleon and expressed himself again somewhat in\nthe same strain as Mrs. Browning, to the effect that the Emperor had\nshown, \"though partial and inconsistent, indications of a genuine feeling\nfor the Italians--and far beyond this he has committed himself very\nconsiderably to the Italian cause in the face of the world. When in reply\nto all that, we fling in his face the truce of Villafranca, he may\nreply--and the answer is not without force--that he stood single-handed in\na cause when any moment Europe might have stood combined against him. We\ngave him verbal sympathy and encouragement, or at least criticism; no one\nelse gave him anything at all. No doubt he showed then that he had\nundertaken a work to which his powers were unequal; but I do not think\nthat, when fairly judged, he can be said to have given proof by that\nmeasure of insincerity or indifference.\"\n\nGladstone's gradual and forceful emancipation into the ranks of the\nliberals may be followed in the fascinating pages of Morley's \"Life,\" who\nat the end declares that his performances in the sphere of active\ngovernment were beyond comparison. Gladstone's own summary of his career\ngives a glimpse of what these performances were as well as an\ninterpretation of the century and England's future growth which indicate\nthat had he had another twenty years in which to progress, perhaps fewer,\nhe would beyond all doubt have become an out and out social democrat.\n\n    \"The public aspect of the period which closes for me with the fourteen\n    years (so I love to reckon them) of my formal connection with\n    Midlothian is too important to pass without a word. I consider it as\n    beginning with the Reform Act of Lord Grey's government. That great\n    act was for England, improvement and extension: for Scotland it was\n    political birth, the beginning of a duty and a power, neither of which\n    had attached to the Scottish nation in the preceding period. I rejoice\n    to think how the solemnity of that duty has been recognized, and how\n    that power has been used. The threescore years offer as the pictures\n    of what the historian will recognize as a great legislative and\n    administrative period--perhaps, on the whole, the greatest in our\n    annals. It has been predominantly a history of emancipation--that is,\n    of enabling man to do his work of emancipation, political, economical,\n    social, moral, intellectual. Not numerous merely, but almost\n    numberless, have been the causes brought to issue, and in every one of\n    them I rejoice to think that, so far as my knowledge goes, Scotland\n    has done battle for the right.\n\n    \"Another period has opened and is opening still--a period possibly of\n    yet greater moral dangers, certainly a great ordeal for those classes\n    which are now becoming largely conscious of power, and never\n    heretofore subject to its deteriorating influences. These have been\n    confined in their actions to the classes above them, because they were\n    its sole possessors. Now is the time for the true friend of his\n    country to remind the masses that their present political elevation is\n    owing to no principles less broad and noble than these--the love of\n    liberty, of liberty for all without distinction of class, creed or\n    country, _and the resolute preference of the interests of the whole_\n    to any interest, be it what it may, of a narrower scope.\"\n\nMr. Gladstone entered Parliament at twenty-three, in 1832, and a year\nlater Browning, at twenty-one, printed his first poem, \"Pauline.\" The\ncareers of the two men ran nearly parallel, for Browning died in 1889, on\nthe day of the publication of his last volume of poems, and Gladstone's\nretirement from active life took place in 1894, shortly after the defeat\nof his second Home Rule Bill. Though there is nothing to show that these\ntwo men came into touch with each other during their life, and while it is\nprobable that Browning would not have been in sympathy with many of the\naspects of Gladstone's mentality, there is an undercurrent of similarity\nin their attitude of mind toward reform. The passage in \"Sordello\" already\nreferred to, written in 1840, might be regarded almost as a prophecy of\nthe sort of leader Gladstone became. I have said of that passage that it\nexpressed the ideal of the opportunist, not that of the revolutionary.\nOpportunist Mr. Gladstone was often called by captious critics, but any\nunbiased reader following his career now as a whole will see, as Morley\npoints out, that whenever there was a chance of getting anything done it\nwas generally found that he was the only man with courage and resolution\nenough to attempt it.\n\nA distinction should be made between that sort of opportunism which\n_waits_ upon the growth of conditions favorable to the taking of a short\nstep in amelioration, and what might be called militant opportunism,\nwhich, at all times, seizes every opportunity to take a step in the\ndirection of an evolving, all-absorbing ideal. Is not this the opportunism\nof both a Browning and a Gladstone? Such a policy at least tacitly\nacknowledges that the law of evolution is the law that should be followed,\nand that the mass of the people as well as the leader have their share in\nthe unfolding of the coming ideal, though their part in it may be less\nconscious than his and though they may need his leadership to make the\nsteps by the way clear.\n\nThe other political leader of the Victorian era with whom Gladstone came\nmost constantly into conflict was Disraeli, of whom Browning in \"George\nBubb Dodington\" has given a sketch in order to draw a contrast between the\nunsuccessful policy of a charlatan of the Dodington type and that of one\nlike Disraeli. The skeptical multitude of to-day cannot be taken in by\ndeclarations that the politician is working only for their good, and if he\nfrankly acknowledged that he is working also for his own good they would\nhave none of him. The nice point to be decided is how shall he work for\nhis own good and yet gain control of the multitude. Dodington did not know\nthe secret, but according to Browning Disraeli did, and what is the\nsecret? It seems to be an attitude of absolute self-assurance, a disregard\nof consistency, a scorn of the people he is dealing with, and a pose\nsuggesting the play of supernatural forces in his life.\n\nThis is a true enough picture of the real Disraeli, who seems to have had\na leaning toward a belief in spiritualism, and who was notorious for his\nunblushing changes of opinion and for a style of oratory in which his\npoints were made by clever invective and sarcasm hurled at his opponents\ninstead of by any sound, logical argument, it being, indeed one of his\nbrilliant discoveries that \"wisdom ought to be concealed under folly, and\nconsistency under caprice.\"\n\nMany choice bits of history might be given in illustration of Browning's\nportrayal of him; for example, speaking against reform, he exclaims:\n\"Behold the late Prime Minister and the Reform Ministry! The spirited and\nsnow-white steeds have gradually changed into an equal number of sullen\nand obstinate donkeys, while Mr. Merryman, who, like the Lord Chancellor,\nwas once the very life of the ring, now lies his despairing length in the\nmiddle of the stage, with his jokes exhausted and his bottle empty.\"\n\nAs a specimen of his quickness in retort may be cited an account of an\nepisode which occurred at the time when he came out as the champion of the\nTaunton Blues. In the course of his speech he \"enunciated,\" says an\nanonymous writer of the fifties, \"one of those daring historical paradoxes\nwhich are so signally characteristic of the man: 'Twenty years ago' said\nthe Taunton Blue hero, 'tithes were paid in Ireland more regularly than\nnow!'\n\n\"Even his supporters appeared astounded by this declaration.\n\n\"'How do you know?' shouted an elector.\n\n\"'I have read it,' replied Mr. Disraeli.\n\n\"'Oh, oh!' exclaimed the elector.\n\n\"'I know it,' retorted Disraeli, 'because I have read, and you' (looking\ndaggers at his questioner) 'have not.'\n\n\"This was considered a very happy rejoinder by the friends of the\ncandidate, and was loudly cheered by the Blues.\n\n\"'Didn't you write a novel?' again asked the importunate elector, not very\nmuch frightened even by Mr. Disraeli's oratorical thunder and the\nsardonical expression on his face.\n\n\"'I have certainly written a novel,' Mr. Disraeli replied; 'but I hope\nthere is no disgrace in being connected with literature.'\n\n\"'You are a curiosity of literature, you are,' said the humorous elector.\n\n\"'I hope,' said Mr. Disraeli, with great indignation, 'there is no\ndisgrace in having written that which has been read by hundreds of\nthousands of my fellow-countrymen, and which has been translated into\nevery European language. I trust that one who is an author by the gift of\nnature may be as good a man as one who is Master of the Mint by the gift\nof Lord Melbourne.' Great applause then burst forth from the Blues. Mr.\nDisraeli continued, 'I am not, however, the puppet of the Duke of\nBuckingham, as one newspaper has described me; while a fellow laborer in\nthe same vineyard designated me the next morning, \"the Marleybone\nRadical.\" If there is anything on which I figure myself it is my\nconsistency.'\n\n\"'Oh, oh!' exclaimed many hearers.\n\n\"'I am prepared to prove it,' said Mr. Disraeli, with menacing energy. 'I\nam prepared to prove it, and always shall be, either in the House of\nCommons or on the hustings, considering the satisfactory manner in which I\nhave been attacked, but I do not think the attack will be repeated.'\"\n\nIt seems extraordinary that such tactics of bluff could take a man onward\nto the supreme place of Prime Minister. Possibly it was just as much owing\nto his power to amuse as to any of the causes brought out by Browning. Is\nthere anything the majority of mankind loves more than a laugh?\n\nThe conflicts of Disraeli and Gladstone form one of the most remarkable\nepisodes of nineteenth-century politics. One is tempted to draw a parallel\nbetween Napoleon III and Disraeli, whose tactics were much the same,\nexcept that Disraeli was backed up by a much keener intellect. Possibly he\nheld a part in English politics similar to that held by Napoleon in\nEuropean politics--that is, he conserved the influences of the past long\nenough to make the future more sure of itself. Browning, however,\nevidently considered him nothing more than a successful charlatan.\n\nWhen Browning wrote, \"Why I Am a Liberal,\" in 1885, liberalism in English\npolitics had reached its climax in the nineteenth century through the\nintroduction by Mr. Gladstone, then Premier for the third time, of his\nHome Rule Bill. The injustices suffered by the Irish people and the\nhorrible atrocities resulting from these had had their effect upon Mr.\nGladstone and had taken him the last great step in his progress toward\nfreedom. The meeting at which this bill was introduced has been described\nas the greatest legislative assembly of modern times. The House was full\nto overflowing, and in a brilliant speech of nearly four hours the veteran\nleader held his audience breathless as he unfolded his plans for the\nbetterment of Irish conditions. We are told that during the debates that\nfollowed there was a remarkable exhibition of feeling--\"the passions, the\nenthusiasm, the fear, and hope, and fury and exultation, sweeping, now\nthe surface, now stirring to its depths the great gathering.\" The bill,\nwhich included, besides the founding of an Irish Parliament in Dublin,\nwhich would have the power to deal with all matters \"save the Crown, the\nArmy and Navy, Foreign and Colonial Policy, Trade, Navigation, Currency,\nImperial Taxation, and the Endowment of Churches,\" also provided that\nIreland should annually contribute to the English exchequer the sum of\nL3,243,000.\n\nEloquence, enthusiasm, exultation--all came to naught. The bill did not\neven suit the liberals, the bargain from a financial point of view being\nregarded as hard. It was defeated in Parliament and fared no better when\nan appeal was made to the country, and Mr. Gladstone resigned. In nine\nmonths, however, a general election returned him to office again, and\nagain he introduced a Home Rule Bill, and though it passed the Commons, it\nwas overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Lords.\n\nIt is pleasant to reflect that in this last act of a noble and brilliant\ncareer spent in the interests of the ever-growing ideals of democracy\nGladstone had the sympathy of Browning, shown by his emphatic expression\nof \"liberal sentiments\" at a momentous crisis, when a speech on the\nliberal side even from the mouth of a poet counted for much.\n\nAs we have seen, the reflections in Browning's poetry of his interest in\npublic affairs are comparatively few, yet such glimpses as he has given\nprove him, beyond all doubt, to have been a democrat in principle, to have\narrived, in fact, at the beginning of his career at a point beyond that\nattained by England's rulers at the end of the century. This far-sighted\nvision of his may have been another reason to be added to those mentioned\nat the beginning of the chapter why his interest in the practical affairs\nof his country did not more often express itself. The wrangling, the\ninconsequentialness, the eloquence expended upon mere personal interests\nwhich make up by far the larger proportion of all political agitation, are\nirritating to the last degree to a man of vision. His part was that of the\nphilosopher and artist--to watch and to record in the portrayal of his\nmany characters the underlying principle of freedom, which was the guiding\nstar in all his work.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nSOCIAL IDEALS\n\n\nBrowning's social ideals revolve about a trinity of values: the value of\nlove, the value of truth, the value of evil. His ethics are the natural\noutgrowth of his mysticism and his idealism, with no touch of the\nutilitarianism which has been a distinctive mark of the fabric of English\nsociety during the nineteenth century, nor, on the other hand, of the\nhidebound conventionalism which has limited personal freedom in ways\ndetrimental to just those aspects of social morality it was most anxious\nto preserve.\n\nThe fact of which Browning seemed more conscious than of any other fact of\nhis existence, and which, as we have seen, was the very core of his\nmysticism, was feeling. Things about which an ordinary man would feel no\nemotion at all start in his mind a train of thoughts, ending only in the\nperception of divine love. The eating of a palatable fig fills his heart\nwith such gratefulness to the giver of the fig that immediately he fares\nforth upon the way which brings him into the presence of the Prime Giver\nfrom whom all gifts are received. What ecstasy of feeling in the artist\naspiring through his art to the higher regions of Absolute Beauty in \"Abt\nVogler\" of the poet who loves, aspiring to the divine through his human\nlove in the epilogue to \"Ferishtah's Fancies!\" The perception of feeling\nwas so intense that it became in him exalted and concentrated, incapable\nof dissipating itself in ephemeral sentimentalities, and this it is which\ngives feeling to Browning its mystical quality, and puts personal love\nupon the plane of a veritable revelation.\n\nThough reports have often floated about in regard to his attachments to\nother women after Mrs. Browning's death, the fact remains that he did not\nmarry again, that he wrote the lyrics in \"Ferishtah's Fancies,\" and the\nsonnet to Edward Fitzgerald just before his death, and thirty years after\nhis wife's death. Moreover, in the epilogue to \"The Two Poets of Croisic\"\nhe gives a hint of what might be his attitude toward any other women who\nmay have come into his life, in the application of the tale of the cricket\nchirping \"love\" in the place of the broken string of a poet's lyre--\n\n  \"For as victory was nighest,\n    While I sang and played,\n  With my lyre at lowest, highest,\n    Right alike--one string that made\n    Love sound soft was snapt in twain,\n    Never to be heard again,----\n\n  \"Had not a kind cricket fluttered,\n    Perched upon the place\n  Vacant left, and duly uttered,\n    'Love, Love, Love,' when'er the bass\n    Asked the treble to atone\n    For its somewhat sombre drone.\"\n\nThese rare qualities of constancy, exaltation and aspiration, in love\nsublimating it into a spiritual emotion, which was evidently the\ndistinctive mark of Browning's personality on the emotional side,\nfurnishes the keynote by which his presentation or solution of the social\nproblems involved in the relations of men and women is always to be\ngauged.\n\nHe had been writing ten years when he essayed his first serious\npresentation of what we might to-day call a problem play on an English\nsubject in \"A Blot in the 'Scutcheon.\" In all of his long poems and in\nmany of his short ones personal love had been portrayed under various\nconditions--between friends or lovers, husband and wife, or father and\nson, and in every instance it is a dominating influence in the action, as\nwe have already seen it to be in \"Strafford.\" Again, in \"King Victor and\nKing Charles\" the action centers upon Charles's love for his father, and\nis also moulded in many ways by Polyxena's love for her husband, Charles.\n\nBut a perception of the possible heights to be obtained by the passion of\nromantic love only fully emerges in \"Pippa Passes,\" for example in\nOttima's vision of the reality of her own love, despite her great sin as\ncontrasted with that of Sebald's, and in Jules's rising above the\nconventionally low when he discovers he has been duped, and perceiving in\nPhene a purity of soul which no earthly conditions had been able to sully,\n\n  \"Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends,\n  What the whole world except our love--my own,\n  Own Phene?...\n  I do but break these paltry models up\n  To begin art afresh ...\n  Some unsuspected isle in the far seas!\n  Like a god going through the world there stands\n  One mountain for a moment in the dusk,\n  Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow:\n  And you are ever by me while I gaze\n  --Are in my arms as now--as now--as now!\n  Some unsuspected isle in the far seas!\n  Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas!\"\n\nAgain, in \"The Return of the Druses\" there is a complicated clash between\nthe ideal of religious reverence for the incarnation of divinity in Djabal\nand human love for him in the soul of Anael, resulting at the end in the\ndestruction of the idea of Djabal's supernatural divinity, and his\nreinstatement perceived by Anael as divine through the complete exaltation\nof his human love for Anael.\n\nThese examples, however, while they illustrate Browning's attitude toward\nhuman love, are far enough removed from nineteenth-century conditions in\nEngland. In \"Pippa,\" the social conditions of nineteenth-century Italy are\nreflected; in \"The Druses,\" the religious conditions of the Druse nation\nin the fifteenth century.\n\nIn the \"Blot in the 'Scutcheon\" a situation is developed which comes home\nforcibly to the nineteenth-century Englishman despite the fact that the\nscene is supposed to be laid in the eighteenth century. The poet's\ntreatment of the clash between the ideal, cherished by an old and honored\naristocratic family of its own immaculate purity, and the spontaneous,\ncomplete and exalted love of the two young people who in their ecstasy\ntranscend conventions, illustrates, as perhaps no other situation could,\nhis reverential attitude upon the subject of love. Gwendolen, the older,\nintuitional woman, and Mertoun, the young lover, are the only people in\nthe play to realize that purity may exist although the social enactments\nupon which it is supposed to depend have not been complied with. Tresham\nlearns it only when he has wounded Mertoun unto death; Mildred never\nlearns it. The grip of conventional teaching has sunk so deeply into her\nnature that she feels her sin unpardonable and only to be atoned for by\ndeath. Mertoun, as he dies, gives expression to the essential purity and\ntruth of his nature in these words:\n\n                                      \"Die along with me,\n  Dear Mildred! 'tis so easy, and you'll 'scape\n  So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest,\n  With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds\n  Done to you?--heartless men shall have my heart\n  And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm,\n  Aware, perhaps, of every blow--O God!--\n  Upon those lips--yet of no power to bear\n  The felon stripe by stripe! Die Mildred! Leave\n  Their honorable world to them! For God\n  We're good enough, though the world casts us out.\"\n\nThis is only one of many instances which go to show that Browning's\nconception of love might include, on the one hand, a complete freedom\nfrom the trammels imposed upon it by conventional codes of morality, but\non the other, was so real and permanent a sympathy between two souls, and\nso absolute a revelation of divine beauty, that its morality far\ntranscended that of the conventional codes, which under the guise of\nlawful alliances permit and even encourage marriages based upon the most\nexternal of attractions, or those entered into for merely social or\ncommercial reasons. A sin against love seems in Browning's eyes to come\nthe nearest of all human failings to the unpardonable sin.\n\nIt must not be supposed from what has been said that he had any\nanarchistic desire to do away with the solemnization of marriage, but his\neyes were wide open to the fact that there might be sin within the\nmarriage bond, and just as surely that there might be love pure and true\noutside of it.\n\nAnother illustration of Browning's belief in the existence of a love such\nas Shakespeare describes, which looks on tempests and is never shaken, is\ngiven in the \"Inn Album.\" Here, again, the characters are all English, and\nthe story is based upon an actual occurrence. Such changes as Browning\nhas made in the story are with the intention of pitting against the\nvillainy of an aristocratic seducer of the lowest type a bourgeois young\nman, who has been in love with the betrayed woman, and who when he finds\nout that it was this man, his friend, who had stood between them, does not\nswerve from his loyalty and truth to her, and in the end avenges her by\nkilling the aristocratic villain. The young man is betrothed to a girl he\ncares nothing for, the woman has married a man she cares nothing for. All\nis of no moment in the presence of a genuine loyal emotion which shows\nitself capable of a life of devotion with no thought of reward.\n\nBrowning has nowhere translated into more noble action the love of a man\nthan in the passage where the hero of the story gives himself unselfishly\nto the woman who has been so deeply wronged:\n\n                            \"Take heart of hers,\n  And give her hand of mine with no more heart\n  Than now, you see upon this brow I strike!\n  What atom of a heart do I retain\n  Not all yours? Dear, you know it! Easily\n  May she accord me pardon when I place\n  My brow beneath her foot, if foot so deign,\n  Since uttermost indignity is spared--\n  Mere marriage and no love! And all this time\n  Not one word to the purpose! Are you free?\n  Only wait! only let me serve--deserve\n  Where you appoint and how you see the good!\n  I have the will--perhaps the power--at least\n  Means that have power against the world. Fortune--\n  Take my whole life for your experiment!\n  If you are bound--in marriage, say--why, still,\n  Still, sure, there's something for a friend to do,\n  Outside? A mere well-wisher, understand!\n  I'll sit, my life long, at your gate, you know,\n  Swing it wide open to let you and him\n  Pass freely,--and you need not look, much less\n  Fling me a '_Thank you!--are you there, old friend?_'\n  Don't say that even: I should drop like shot!\n  So I feel now, at least: some day, who knows?\n  After no end of weeks and months and years\n  You might smile! '_I believe you did your best!_'\n  And that shall make my heart leap--leap such leap\n  As lands the feet in Heaven to wait you there!\n  Ah, there's just one thing more! How pale you look!\n  Why? Are you angry? If there's after all,\n  Worst come to worst--if still there somehow be\n  The shame--I said was no shame,--none, I swear!--\n  In that case, if my hand and what it holds,--\n  My name,--might be your safeguard now,--at once--\n  Why, here's the hand--you have the heart.\"\n\nThe genuine lovers in Browning's gallery will occur to every reader of\nBrowning: lovers who are not deterred by obstacles, like Norbert, lovers\nlike Miranda, devoted to a woman with a \"past\"; like the lover in \"One Way\nof Love,\" who still can say, \"Those who win heaven, blest are they.\"\nSometimes there is a problem to be solved, sometimes not. Whenever there\nis a problem, however, it is solved by Browning on the side of sincerity\nand truth, never on the side of convention.\n\nTake, for example, \"The Statue and the Bust,\" which many have considered\nto uphold an immoral standard and of which its defenders declare that the\nmoral point of the story lies not in the fact that the lady and the Duke\nwished to elope with each other but that they never had strength enough of\nmind to do so. Considering what an entirely conventional and loveless\nmarriage this of the lady and the Duke evidently was we cannot suppose, in\nthe light of Browning's solution of similar situations, that he would have\nthought it any great crime if the Duke and the lady had eloped, since\nthere was so genuine an attraction between them. But he does word his\nclimax, it must be confessed, in a way to leave a loophole of doubt on the\nsubject for those who do not like to be scandalized by their Browning:\n\"Let a man contend to the uttermost for his life's set prize, be it what\nit will!\"\n\nThere is a saving grace to be extracted from the last line.\n\n  \"--The sin I impute to each frustrate ghost\n  Is--the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,\n  Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.\"\n\nIn \"The Ring and the Book,\" the problem is similar to that in the \"Inn\nAlbum,\" except that the villain in the case is the lawful husband. The\nlover, Caponsacchi, under different conditions demanding that he shall not\ngive the slightest expression to his love, rises to a reverential height\nwhich even some of Browning's readers seem to doubt as possible.\nCaponsacchi is, however, too much under the spell of Catholic theology to\nsee the mystical meaning of the love which he acknowledges in his own soul\nfor Pompilia. In this poem it is Pompilia who is given the divine vision.\nIf I may resay what I have said in another connection,[3] there is no\nmoral struggle in Pompilia's short life such as that in Caponsacchi's.\nBoth were alike in the fact that up to a certain point in their lives\ntheir full consciousness was unawakened: hers slept, through innocence and\nignorance; his, in spite of knowledge, through lack of aspiration. She was\nrudely awakened by suffering; he by the sudden revelation of a possible\nideal. Therefore, while for him, conscious of his past failures, a\nstruggle begins: for her, conscious of no failure in her duty, which she\nhad always followed according to her light, there simply continues duty\naccording to the new light. Neither archbishop nor friendly \"smiles and\nshakes of head\" could weaken her conviction that, being estranged in soul\nfrom her husband, her attitude toward him was inevitable. No qualms of\nconscience troubled her as to her inalienable right to fly from him. That\nshe submitted as long as she did was only because no one could be found to\naid her. And how quick and certain her defence of Caponsacchi, threatened\nby Guido, when he overtakes them at the Inn! As she thinks over it calmly\nafterward, she makes no apology, but justifies her action as the voice of\nGod.\n\n  \"If I sinned so--never obey voice more.\n  O, the Just and Terrible, who bids us 'Bear.'\n  Not--'Stand by; bear to see my angels bear!'\"\n\nThe gossip over her flight with Caponsacchi does not trouble her as it\ndoes him. He saved her in her great need; the supposition that their\nmotives for flight had any taint of impurity in them is too puerile to be\ngiven a thought, yet with the same sublime certainty of the right,\ncharacteristic of her, she acknowledges, at the end, her love for\nCaponsacchi, and looks for its fulfilment in the future when marriage\nshall be an interpenetration of souls that know themselves into one.\nHaving attained so great a good she can wish none of the evil she has\nsuffered undone. She goes a step farther. Not only does she accept her own\nsuffering for the sake of the final supreme good to herself, but she feels\nassured that good will fall at last to those who worked the evil.\n\nIn her absolute certainty of her realization of an unexpressed love in a\nfuture existence, she is only equaled in Browning's poetry by the speaker\nin \"Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead.\"\n\nThat Browning's belief in the mystical quality of personal love never\nchanged is shown by the fact that near the end of his life, in the\n\"Parleying\" with Daniel Bartoli, he treats a love romance based upon fact\nin a way to emphasize this same truth which so constantly appears in his\nearlier work. The lady in this case, who is of the people, having been\noffered a bribe by the King which will mean the dishonoring of herself and\nher husband, and which if she does not accept will mean her complete\nseparation from her husband, instantly decides against the bribe. She\nprefers love in spirit in a convent to the accepting of the King's\npromise that she will be made much of in court if she will sign a paper\nagreeing that her husband shall at once cede his dukedoms to the King. She\nexplains her attitude to the Duke, who hesitates in his decision,\nwhereupon she leaves and saves his honor for him, but his inability to\ndecide at once upon the higher ground of spiritual love reveals to her the\ninadequacy of his love as compared with her own and kills her love for\nhim. She later, however, marries a man who was only a boy of ten at the\ntime of this episode, and their life together was a dream of happiness.\nBut she dies and the devoted husband becomes a man of the world again. The\nDuke, however, has a streak of genuineness in his nature after all.\nAlthough carried away by the charms of a bold, black-eyed, tall creature,\na development in keeping with the nature of the Duke in the true story,\nBrowning is equal to the occasion, and makes him declare that the real man\nin him is dead and is still faithful to the old love. All she has is his\nghost. Some day his soul will again be called into life by his ideal love.\n\nThe poet frequently expresses a doubt of man's power to be faithful to the\nletter in case of a wife's death. \"Any wife to any husband\" reveals that\nfeeling as it comes to a woman. The poet's answer to this doubt is\ninvariably, that where the love was true other attraction is a makeshift\nby which a desolate life is made tolerable, or, as in \"Fifine at the\nFair,\" an ephemeral indulgence in pleasure which does not touch the\nreality of the spiritual love.\n\nBrowning was well aware that the ordinary woman had a stronger sense of\nthe eternal in love than the ordinary man. In relation to the Duke in the\npoem previously mentioned he remarks:\n\n  \"One leans to like the duke, too; up we'll patch\n  Some sort of saintship for him--not to match\n  Hers--but man's best and woman's worst amount\n  So nearly to the same thing, that we count\n  In man a miracle of faithfulness\n  If, while unfaithful somewhat, he lay stress\n  On the main fact that love, when love indeed,\n  Is wholly solely love from first to last--\n  Truth--all the rest a lie.\"\n\nIt may be said that all this is the romantic love about which the poets\nhave always sung, and has as much existence in real life as the ideal of\ndisinterested helpfulness to lovelorn damsels sung about in the days of\nchivalry. True, others have sung of the exaltation and the immortality of\nlove, and few have been those who have found it, but nowhere has the\ndistinctively human side been touched with such reverence as in Browning.\nIt is not Beatrice translated into a divine personage to be adored by a\nworshipping devotee, but a wholly human woman who loves and is loved, who\ntouches divinity in Browning's mind. Human love is then not an impossible\nideal of which he writes in poetic language existing only in the realm of\nfancy; it is a living religion, bringing those who love nearer to God\nthrough the exaltation of their feeling than any other revelation of the\nhuman soul. Other states of consciousness reveal to humanity the existence\nof the absolute, but this gives a premonition of what divine love may have\nin store for the aspiring soul.\n\nIn holding to such an ideal of love as this Browning has ranged himself\nentirely apart from the main tendencies of thought of the century, on the\nrelations of men and women, which have, on the one hand, been wholly\nconventional, marriage being a contract under the law binding for life\nexcept in cases of definite breaches of conduct, and under the Church of\naffection which is binding only for life; and have, on the other hand,\ngone extreme lengths in the advocacy of entire freedom in the relations\nof the sexes. The first degrades love by making it too much a matter of\nlaw, the second by making it an ephemeral passion from which almost\neverything truly beautiful in the relationship of two human beings is, of\nnecessity, eliminated.\n\nTo either of these extreme factions Browning's attitude is equally\nincomprehensible. The first cries out against his liberalness, the second,\ndeclaring that human emotion should be untrammeled by either Church, law\nor God, would find him a pernicious influence against freedom; there are,\nhowever, many shades of opinion between the two extremes which would feel\nsympathy with his ideals in one or more directions.\n\nThe chief difficulty in the acceptance of the ideal for most people is\nthat they have not yet developed to the plane where feeling comes to them\nwith the intensity, the concentration, the depth or the constancy that\nbrings with it the sense of revelation. For many people law or the Church\nis absolutely necessary to preserve such feeling as they are capable of\nfrom dissipating itself in shallow sentimentalism; while one or the other\nwill always be necessary in some form because love has its social as well\nas its personal aspect.\n\nYet the law and the Church should both allow sufficient freedom for the\nbreaking of relations from which all sincerity has departed, even though\nhumanity as a whole has not yet and probably will not for many ages arrive\nat Browning's conception of human love.\n\nTruth to one's own highest vision in love being a cardinal principle with\nBrowning, it follows that truth to one's nature in any direction is\ndesirable. He even carries this doctrine of truth to the individual nature\nso far as to base upon it an apology for the most unmitigated villain he\nhas portrayed, Guido, and to put this apology into the mouth of the person\nhe had most deeply wronged, Pompilia. With exquisite vision she, even, can\nsay:\n\n  \"But where will God be absent! In his face\n  Is light, but in his shadow healing too:\n  Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed!\n  And as my presence was unfortunate,--\n  My earthly good, temptation and a snare,--\n  Nothing about me but drew somehow down\n  His hate upon me,--somewhat so excused\n  Therefore, since hate was thus the truth of him,--\n  May my evanishment for evermore\n  Help further to relieve the heart that cast\n  Such object of its natural loathing forth!\n  So he was made; he nowise made himself:\n  I could not love him, but his mother did.\"\n\nIt is this notion that every nature must express its own truth which\nunderlies a poem like \"Fifine at the Fair.\" Through expressing the truth\nof itself, and so grasping at half truths, even at the false, it finally\nreaches a higher truth. A nature like Guido's was not born with a faculty\nfor development. He simply had to live out his own hate. The man in\n\"Fifine\" had the power of perceiving an ideal, but not the power of living\nup to it without experimentation upon lower planes of living, probably the\nmost common type of man to-day. There are others like Norbert or Mertoun,\nin whom the ideal truth is the real truth of their natures and for whom\nlife means the constant expansion of this ideal truth within them. In many\nof the varying types of men and women portrayed by Browning there is the\nrecognition of the possibility of psychic development either by means of\nexperience or by sudden intuitions, and if, as in the case of Guido, there\nis no development in this life, there is hope in a future existence in a\nuniverse ruled by a God of love.\n\nIn his views upon human character and its possibilities of development\nBrowning is, of course, in touch with the scientific views on the subject\nwhich filled the air in all later nineteenth-century thought, changing the\northodox ideal of a static humanity born in sin and only to be saved by\nbelief in certain dogmas to that of a humanity born to develop; changing\nthe notion that sin was a terrible and absolutely defined entity, against\nwhich every soul had ceaselessly to war, into the notion that sin is a\nrelative evil, consequent upon lack of development, which, as the human\nsoul advances on its path, led by its inborn consciousness of the divine\nto be attained, will gradually disappear.\n\nBut the evil which results from this lack of development in individuals to\nother individuals, and to society at large, brings a problem which as we\nhave already seen in the first chapter is not so easy of solution. Yet\nBrowning solves it, for is it not through the combat with this evil that\nthe soul is given its real opportunity for development? Pain and suffering\ngive rise to the thirst for happiness and joy, and through the arousing of\nsympathy and pity, the desire that others shall have happiness and joy,\ntherefore to be despairing and pessimistic about evil or to wish for its\nimmediate annihilation would really be suicidal to the best interests of\nthe human race; nay, he even goes farther than this, as is hinted in one\nof his last poems, \"Rephan,\" and imagines that any other state than one\nof flux between good and evil would be monotonous:\n\n  \"Startle me up, by an Infinite\n  Discovered above and below me--height\n  And depth alike to attract my flight,\n\n  \"Repel my descent: by hate taught love.\n  Oh, gain were indeed to see above\n  Supremacy ever--to move, remove,\n\n  \"Not reach--aspire yet never attain\n  To the object aimed at! Scarce in vain,--\n  As each stage I left nor touched again.\n\n  \"To suffer, did pangs bring the loved one bliss,\n  Wring knowledge from ignorance:--just for this--\n  To add one drop to a love--abyss!\n\n  \"Enough: for you doubt, you hope, O men,\n  You fear, you agonize, die: what then?\n  Is an end to your life's work out of ken?\n\n  \"Have you no assurance that, earth at end,\n  Wrong will prove right? Who made shall mend\n  In the higher sphere to which yearnings tend?\"\n\nIn his attitude toward the existence of evil Browning takes issue with\nCarlyle, as already noted in the second chapter. Carlyle, as Browning\nrepresents him, cannot reconcile the existence of evil with beneficent and\nomniscient power. He makes the opponent, who is an echo of Carlyle in the\nargument in \"Bernard de Mandeville,\" exclaim:\n\n                                        \"Where's\n  Knowledge, where power and will in evidence\n  'Tis Man's-play merely! Craft foils rectitude,\n  Malignity defeats beneficence,\n  And grant, at very last of all, the feud\n  'Twixt good and evil ends, strange thoughts intrude\n  Though good be garnered safely and good's foe\n  Bundled for burning. Thoughts steal even so--\n  Why grant tares leave to thus o'ertop, o'ertower\n  Their field-mate, boast the stalk and flaunt the flower,\n  Triumph one sunny minute?\"\n\nNo attempt must be made to show God's reason for allowing evil. Any such\nattempt will fail. This passage comes as near as any in Browning to a\nplunge into the larger social questions which during the nineteenth\ncentury have come more and more to the front, and is an index of just\nwhere the poet stood in relation to the social movements of the century's\nend. His gaze was so centered upon the individual and the power of the\nindividual to work out his own salvation and the need of evil in the\nprocess that his philosophical attitude toward evil quite overtops the\nmilitant interest in overcoming it.\n\nCarlyle, on the other hand, saw the immense evil of the social conditions\nin England, and raged and stormed against them, but could see no light by\nwhich evil could be turned into good. He little realized that his own\nstorming at the ineptitude, the imbecility, the fool-ness of society, and\nhis own despair over the, to him, unaccountable evils of existence, were\nin themselves a positive good growing out of the evil. Though he was not\nto suggest practical means for leading the masses out of bondage, he was\nto call attention in trumpet tones to the fact that the bondage existed.\nBy so doing he was taking a first step or rather drawing aside the curtain\nand revealing the dire necessity that steps should be taken and taken\nsoon. While Carlyle was militantly shouting against evil to some purpose\nwhich would later mean militant action against it, Browning was settling\nin his own mind just what relation evil should hold to good in the scheme\nof the universe, and writing a poem to tell why he was a liberal. In fine,\nCarlyle was opening the way toward the socialism of the latter part of the\ncentury, while Browning was still found in the camp of what the socialist\nof to-day calls the middle-class individualist.\n\nLiberalism, which had taken on social conditions to the point through\nlegislation where every man was free to be a property holder if he could\nmanage to become one, and to amass wealth, left out of consideration the\nfact that he never could be free as long as he had to compete with\nevery other man in the state to get these things. Hence the movement of\nthe working classes to gain freedom by substituting for a competitive form\nof society a cooperative form. Great names in literature and art have\nhelped toward the on-coming of this movement. Carlyle had railed at the\nmillions of the English nation, \"mostly fools;\" Ruskin had bemoaned the\nenthronement of ugliness as the result of the industrial conditions;\nMatthew Arnold had proposed a panacea for the ills of the social condition\nin the bringing about of social equality through culture, and, best of\nall, William Morris had not only talked but acted.\n\n[Illustration: WILLIAM MORRIS]\n\nTo any student of social movements to-day, whether he has been drawn into\nthe swirl of socialistic propaganda or whether he is still comfortably\nsitting in his parlor feeling an intellectual sympathy but no emotional\ncall to leave his parlor and be up and doing, Morris appears as the most\ninteresting figure of the century. The pioneers in the nineteenth-century\nmovement toward socialism in England, unless we except the social\nenthusiasm of a Shelley or a Blake, were Owen and Maurice. Owen was that\nremarkable anomaly, a self-made man who had gained his wealth because of\nthe new industrial order inaugurated by the invention of machinery, who\nyet could look at the circumstances so fortuitous for him in an impersonal\nmanner, and realize that what had put a silver spoon into his own mouth\nwas taking away even pewter spoons from other men's mouths. Although he\nwas really in love with the new order of machine production, he realized\nwhat many to-day fail to see, that machine production organized for the\nbenefit of private persons would most assuredly mean the poverty and the\ndegradation of the workers. He did not stop here, however, but spent his\nvast fortune in trying to make the conditions of the workingmen better. In\nthe estimation of socialists to-day his work was of a very high order,\n\"not mere utopianism.\" It bore no similarity to the romantic dreams of\npoets who saw visions of a perfect society regardless of the fact that a\nperfect society cannot suddenly blossom from conditions of appalling\nmisery and degradation. Owen was a practical business man. He knew all the\nins and outs of the industrial regime, and consequently he had a practical\nprogram, not a dream, which he wished to see carried out. Accounts of the\nconditions of the workers at that time are heartrending. Everywhere the\nsame tale of abject poverty, ignorance, and oppression in field and\nfactory, long hours of labor and dear food. To bring help to these\ndowntrodden people was the burning desire of Robert Owen and his\nfollowers. His efforts were not rewarded by that success which they\ndeserved, his failure being a necessary concomitant of the fact that even\na practical program for betterment cannot suddenly take effect owing to\nthe inevitable inertia of any long-established conditions. In showing the\ncauses which kept him from the full accomplishment of his ideals, in spite\nof his genuine practicalness, Brougham Villiers, the recent historian of\nthe socialist movement in England, says he attempted too much \"to\ninfluence the workers from without, trying, of course vainly, to induce\nthe governing classes to interest themselves in the work of social reform.\nYet it is difficult to see what else he could have done at the time. We\nhave already shown how utterly disorganized the working classes were, how\nincapable, indeed, of any organization. They were also destitute of\npolitical power, and miserably underpaid. What could they do to help\nthemselves? Help, if it was to come at all, must come from the only people\nwho then had the power, if they only had the will, to accord it, and to\nthem, at first, Robert Owen appealed. Later, he turned to the people,\nand for them indeed his work was not utterly wasted, though generations\nwere to pass before the full effect of it could be seen.\"\n\nHowever abortive his attempts to gain political sympathy for his socialist\nprogram, and in spite of the fact that socialist agitation came to a\nstandstill in England with the defeat of the somewhat chaotic socialism of\nthe Chartists, it cannot be doubted that his efforts influenced the\npolitical reformers who were to take up one injustice after another and\nfight for its melioration until the working classes were at least brought\nto a plane where they could begin to organize and develop toward the still\nhigher plane where they could themselves take their own salvation in hand.\n\nAnother man who did much to bring the workingman's cause into prominence\nwas Maurice, who emphasized the Christian aspect of the movement. He was\nan excellent supplement to Owen, whose liberal views on religion militated\nin some quarters against an acceptance of his humane views in regard to\nworkingmen.\n\nNotwithstanding the personal strength of these two men they failed not\nonly in the practical attainment of their object, but their ideas on\nsocialism did not even wedge itself into the thought consciousness of the\nEnglishmen.\n\nThe men who did more than any one else to awaken the sleeping English\nconsciousness were Carlyle, Ruskin, Arnold and Morris. Of these Morris\nheld a position midway between the old-fashioned dreamer of dreams and the\nnew-fashioned hustling political socialist, who now sends his\nrepresentatives to Parliament and has his \"say\" in the national affairs of\nthe country.\n\nBeing a poet, he could, of course, dream dreams, and one of these, \"The\nDream of John Ball,\" puts the case of the toilers in a form at once so\nconvincing and so full of divine pity that it does not seem possible it\ncould be read even by the most hardened of trust magnates without making\nhim see how unjust has been the distribution of this world's goods through\nthe making of one man do the work of many: \"In days to come one man shall\ndo the work of a hundred men--yea, of a thousand or more: and this is the\nshift of mastership that shall make many masters and many rich men.\" This\nis a riddle which John Ball cannot grasp at once, and when it is explained\nto him he is still more mystified at the result.\n\n\"Thou hast seen the weaver at his loom: think how it should be if he sit\nno longer before the web and cast the shuttle and draw home the sley, but\nif the shed open of itself, speed through it as swift as the eye can\nfollow, and the sley come home of itself, and the weaver standing by ...\nlooking to half a dozen looms and bidding them what to do. And as with the\nweaver so with the potter, and the smith, and every worker in metals, and\nall other crafts, that it shall be for them looking on and tending, as\nwith the man that sitteth in the cart while the horse draws. Yea, at last\nso shall it be even with those who are mere husbandmen; and no longer\nshall the reaper fare afield in the morning with his hook over his\nshoulder, and smite and bind and smite again till the sun is down and the\nmoon is up; but he shall draw a thing made by men into the field with one\nor two horses, and shall say the word and the horses shall go up and down,\nand the thing shall reap and gather and bind, and do the work of many men.\nImagine all this in thy mind if thou canst, at least as ye may imagine a\ntale of enchantment told by a minstrel, and then tell me what shouldst\nthou deem that the life of men would be amidst all this, men such as these\nof the township here, or the men of the Canterbury guilds.\"\n\nAnd John Ball's conclusion is that things in that day to come will be not\nas they are but as they ought to be. With irresistible logic he declares:\n\n\"I say that if men still abide men as I have known them, and unless these\nfolk of England change as the land changeth--and forsooth of the men, for\ngood and for evil, I can think no other than I think now, or behold them\nother than I have known them and loved them--I say if the men be still\nmen, what will happen except that there should be all plenty in the land,\nand not one poor man therein ... for there would then be such abundance of\ngood things, that, as greedy as the lords might be, there would be enough\nto satisfy their greed and yet leave good living for all who labored with\ntheir hands; so that these should labor for less than now, and they would\nhave time to learn knowledge,\" and he goes on, \"take part in the making of\nlaws.\"\n\nBut Morris was not the man to dream, merely. Though he did not trouble\nhimself about the doctrinaire side of socialism, he preached it constantly\nfrom the human side and from the artistic side. While some socialist\nwriters make us feel that socialism might possibly only be Gradgrind in\nanother guise, he makes us feel that peace and plenty and loveliness\nwould attend upon the sons and daughters of socialism. As one of his many\nadmirers says of him: \"He was an out-and-out Communist because of the\nessential sanity of a mind incapable of the desire to monopolize anything\nhe could not use.\"\n\nThe authoritarianism of the Marxian socialists was distasteful to him,\nfor, to quote from the same admirer, his \"conception of socialism was that\nof a free society, based on the simple rights of all to use the earth and\nanything in it, and the consequent abolition of all competition for the\nmeans of life.\" His attitude of mind on these points led him to break away\nfrom the Social Democratic Federation, which, with its political program,\nwas distasteful to Morris's more purely social feeling, and found the\nSocialist League. This emphasized more particularly the artistic side of\nsocialism. Morris and his followers were bent upon making life a beautiful\nthing as well as a comfortable thing.\n\nAccording to all accounts, the League was not as great a force in the\ndevelopment of socialist ideals as was Morris himself, who inspired such\nmen as Burne-Jones and Walter Crane with a sympathy in the new ideals, as\nwell as multitudes of lesser men in the crowds that gathered to listen to\nhim in Waltham Green or in some other like open place of a Sunday.\n\nMorris's chief contribution to the growth of the cause was perhaps his own\nbusiness plant, into which he put as many of his ideals for the betterment\nof the workingmen's conditions as he was able to do under existing\nconditions. Who has not gloated over his exquisite editions of Chaucer and\nthe like--books in which even the punctuation marks are a delight to the\neye, and the illustrations as far beyond ordinary illustrations as the\npunctuation marks are beyond ordinary periods. If anything could add to\nthe richness of the interior it is the contrasting simplicity of the white\nvellum bindings, and, again, if there is another possible touch of\ngrace--a gilding of the lily--what could better fulfil that purpose than\nthe outer boxing covered with a Morris cotton print! The critical may\nobject that these Morris editions are so expensive that none but\nmillionaire bibliophiles can have many of them. How many of us have even\nseen them except in such collections! And how many of his workmen are able\nto share in this product of their labor to any greater extent than the\nproduct of labor is usually shared in by its producers, may be asked.\n\nThough we are obliged to answer that the workmen probably do not have the\nMorris books in their own libraries, they yet have the joy of making these\nbeautiful books under conditions of happy workmanship--that is, they are\nskilled craftsmen, who have been trained in an apprenticeship, who are\nasked to work only eight hours a day, who receive higher wages than other\nworkmen and, above all, who have the stimulation of the presence of\nMorris, himself, working among them.\n\nMorris's enthusiasm for a more universally happy and beautiful society\ncombined with the object lesson of his own methods in conducting a\nbusiness upon genuinely artistic principles has done an incalculable\namount in spreading the gospel of socialism. Still there was too much of\nthe _laissez faire_ atmosphere about his attitude for it to bring about\nany marked degree of progress.\n\nThe opinion of Mr. William Clarke who had many conversations with Morris\non the subject reveals that, after all, there was too much of the poet\nabout him for him to be a really practical force in the movement. He\nwrites:\n\n\"It is not easy to understand how Morris proposes to bring about the\ncondition of things he looks forward to. No parliamentary or municipal\nmethods, no reliance upon lawmaking machinery, an abhorrence of everything\nthat smacks of 'politics': it all seems very impracticable to the average\nman, and certainly suggests the poet rather than the man of affairs. What\nMorris thinks will really happen is, I should say, judging from numerous\nconversations I have had with him, something like this: Existing society\nis, he thinks, gradually, but with increasing momentum, disintegrating\nthrough its own rottenness. The capitalist system of production is\nbreaking down fast and is compelled to exploit new regions in Africa and\nother parts, where he thinks its term will be short. Economically,\nsocially, morally, politically, religiously, civilization is becoming\nbankrupt. Meanwhile it is for the socialist to take advantage of this\ndisintegration by spreading discontent, by preaching economic truths, and\nby any kind of demonstration which may harass the authorities and develop\namong the people an _esprit de corps_. By these means the people will, in\nsome way or other, be ready to take up the industry of the world when the\ncapitalist class is no longer able to direct or control it. Morris\nbelieves less in a violent revolution than he did and thinks that\nworkmen's associations and labor unions form a kind of means between\nbrute force on the one hand and a parliamentary policy on the other. He\ndoes not, however, share the sanguine views of John Burns as to the\nwonders to be accomplished by the 'new' trades unionism.\"\n\nThe practical ineffectiveness of the Morris socialism in spite of its\nhaving taken some steps in the direction of vital activity was overcome by\nthe next socialist body which came into prominence--the Fabian Society, in\nwhich Bernard Shaw has been so conspicuous a figure.\n\nAs already mentioned, the Fabians are not a fighting body, but a solidly\neducational body. To them is due the bringing of socialism into the realm\nof political economy, and in so doing they have striven to harmonize it\nwith English practical political methods. Besides this, they have done a\nvast amount of work in educating public opinion, not with the view to\nimmediately converting the English nation to a belief in the changing of\nthe present order into one wholly socialistic, but with a view to\nintroducing socialistic treatment of the individual problems which arise\nin contemporary politics.\n\n[Illustration: JOHN BURNS]\n\nTheir campaign of education was conducted so well that its effects were\nsoon visible, not only in the modification of public opinion, but upon\nthe workingmen themselves. The method was simple enough: \"If any public,\nespecially any social, question came to the front, the Fabian method was\nto make a careful independent study of the matter, and present to the\npublic, in a penny pamphlet, a thoughtful statement of the case and some\ncommon sense, and incidentally socialistic, suggestions for a solution.\"\nFabian ideas were thus introduced into the consciousness of the awakening\ntrades unionists.\n\nIt has been objected that the gain was much more for the trades unionists\nthan for the Fabians. Their one-time eager pupils have, it is said,\nprogressed beyond their masters, as a review of recent socialistic\ntendencies would divulge had we the time to follow them in this place.\nHowever that may be, the great fact remains that the Fabians have done\nmore than any other branch of socialists to bridge over the distance\nbetween what the English writers call the middle-class idealist and the\nproletarian, with the result that the proletarian has begun to think for\nhimself and to translate middle-class idealism into proletarian realism.\n\nSocialism, from being the watch word of the enthusiastic revolutionary,\nbegan to be discussed in every intelligent household and in every\ndebating society. This enormous growth in public sentiment occurred during\nthe session of the Unionist Parliament, 1886-92. When this Parliament\nopened there was hardly any socialist literature, and when it closed\neverybody was reading Bellamy and the \"Fabian Essays,\" and Sir William\nHarcourt had made his memorable remark: \"We are all socialists now.\"\n\nThe gesticulating and bemoaning idealists, the Carlyles and the Ruskins,\nthe revolutionary but _laissez faire_ prophets like Morris, who believed\nin a complete change but not in using any of the means at hand to bring\nabout that change, had given place to men like Keir Hardie and John Burns,\nwho had sprung into leadership from the ranks of the workingmen\nthemselves, and who were to be later their representatives in Parliament\nwhen the Independent Labor Party came into existence. All this had been\ndone by that group of progressive men, long-headed enough to see that the\nideal of a better and more beautiful social life could not be gained\nexcept by a long and toilsome process of education and of action which\nwould consciously follow the principles of growth discovered by scientists\nto obtain in all unconscious cosmic and physical development, the very\nprinciple which as we have seen, Browning declared should have guided his\nhero Sordello long before the Fabian socialists came into\nexistence--namely, the principle of evolution. That their methods should\nhave peacefully brought about the conditions where it was possible to form\nan Independent Labor Party, which would have the power to speak and act\nfor itself instead of working as the Fabians themselves do through the\nparties already in power, shouts aloud for the wisdom of their policy. And\nis there not still plenty of work for them to do in the still further\neducating of all parties toward the flowering of genuine democracy, when\nthe dreams of the dreamer shall have become actualities, because true and\nnot spurious ways of making them actual shall have been worked out by\nexperience?\n\nThis remarkable growth in social ideals was taking place during the ninth\ndecade of the century and the last decade of Browning's life. Is there any\nindication in his later work that he was conscious of it? There is\ncertainly no direct evidence in his work that he progressed any farther in\nthe development of democratic ideals than we find in the liberalism of\nsuch a parliamentary leader as Mr. Gladstone, while in that poem in which\nhe considers more especially than in any other the subject of better\nconditions for the people, \"Sordello,\" he distinctly expresses a mood of\ndoubt as to the advisability of making conditions too easy for the human\nbeing, who needs the hardships and ills of life to bring his soul to\nperfection, a far more important thing in Browning's eyes than to live\ncomfortably and beautifully. All he wishes for the human being is the fine\nchance to make the most of himself spiritually. The socialist would say\nthat he could not secure the chance to do this except in a society where\nthe murderous principle of competition should give way to that of\ncooperation. With this Browning might agree. Indeed, may this not have\nbeen the very principle Sordello had in mind as something revealed to him\nwhich neither Guelf nor Ghibelline could see, or was this only the more\nobvious principle of republican as opposed to monarchical principle and\nstill falling under an individualistic conception of society?\n\nWhile his work is instinct with sympathy for all classes and conditions of\nmen, Browning does not feel the ills of life with the intensity of a\nCarlyle, nor its ugliness with the grief of a Ruskin, nor yet its lack of\nculture with the priggishness of an Arnold, nor would he stand in open\nspaces and preach discontent to the masses like Morris. Why? Because he\nfrom the first was made wise to see a good in evil, a hope in ill-success,\nto be proud of men's fallacies, their half reasons, their faint aspirings,\nupward tending all though weak, the lesson learned after weary experiences\nof life by Paracelsus. His thought was centered upon the worth of every\nhuman being to himself and for God. Earth is after all only a place to\ngrow in and prepare one's self for lives to come, and failure here, so\nlong as the fight has been bravely fought, is to be regarded with anything\nbut regret, for it is through the failure that the vision of the future is\nmade more sure.\n\nWhat he finds true, as we saw, in the religious or philosophical world, he\nfinds true in the moral world. Lack in human knowledge points the way to\nGod; lack in human success points the way to immortality.\n\nThe meaning of this life in relation to a future life being so much more\nimportant than this life in itself, and man's individual development being\nso much more important than his social development, Browning naturally\nwould not turn his attention upon those practical, social or governmental\nmeans by which even the chance for individual development must be\nsecured. He is too much occupied with the larger questions. He is not even\na middle-class idealist, dreaming dreams of future earthly bliss; he is\nthe prophet of future existences.\n\nDoes his practical influence upon the social development of the century\namount to nothing then? Not at all. He started out on his voyage through\nthe century toward the democratic ideal in the good ship\nIndividualism--the banner ship indeed. What he has emphasized upon this\nvoyage is first the paramount worth of each and every human being, whether\ngood or bad. Second, the possibility in every human being of conceiving an\nideal, toward which by the exertion of his will power he should aspire,\nbattling steadfastly against every obstruction that life throws in his\ncourse. Third, that even those who are incapable of formulating an ideal\nmust be regarded as living out the truth of their natures and must\ntherefore be treated with compassion. Fourth, that the highest function of\nthe human soul is love, which expresses itself in many ways, but attains\nits full flowering only in the love of man and woman on a plane of\nspiritual exaltation, and that through this power of human love some\nglimpse of the divine is caught; therefore to this function of the soul\nit is of the utmost importance that human beings should be loyal and true,\neven if that loyalty and truth conflict with conventional ways of looking\nat life. Sailing in this good ship he also expresses his sympathy\nindirectly in his dramas and directly upon several occasions with the\nideals of political freedom which during the century have been making\nprogress toward democracy in the English Parliament through the\nlegislation of the liberals, whose laws have brought a greater and greater\nmeasure of freedom to the middle classes and some measure of freedom to\nthe working classes.\n\nBut it seems as if when nearing the end of the century Browning landed\nfrom his ship upon some high island and straining his eyes toward the\nhorizon of the dawn of another life did not fully realize that there was\nanother good ship, Socialism, struggling to reach the ideal of democracy,\nand now become the banner ship whose work is to sail out into the unknown,\nturbulent seas of the future, finding the path to another high island in\norder that the way may be made clear for the ship Individualism to\ncontinue her course to another stage in the voyage toward a perfect\ndemocracy. And as the new ship, Socialism, passes on its way it will do\nwell to heed the vision of the poet seer, straining his eyes toward the\ndawn of other lives in other spheres, lest in the struggle and strain to\nbring about a more comfortable and beautiful life upon earth, the\nimportant truth be slighted that humanity has a higher destiny to fulfil\nthan can be realized in the most Utopian dreams of an earthly democracy.\nThis truth is in fact not only forgotten but is absolutely denied by many\nof the latter-day social reformers.\n\nTo sum up, I think one is justified in concluding that as a sympathizer\nwith the liberal political tendencies of the nineteenth century Browning\nis of his age. In his quiescence upon the proletarian movement of the\nlatter part of the nineteenth century he seems to have been left behind by\nhis age. In his insistence upon the worth of the individual to himself and\nto God he is both of his age and beyond it. As has been said of\nphilosophy, \"It cannot give us bread but it can give us God, soul and\nimmortality,\" so we may say of Browning, that though he did not raise up\nhis voice in the cry of the proletarian for bread, he has insisted upon\nthe truths of God, the soul and immortality.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nART SHIBBOLETHS\n\n\nIn the foregoing chapters the relations of the poet to the philosophical,\nreligious, political, and social movements of the nineteenth century have\nbeen pointed out. In this and the next chapter some account of his\nrelation to the artistic and literary ideals of the century will be\nattempted.\n\nBrowning's relation to the art of the century is, of course, twofold,\ndealing as it must with his own conceptions and criticisms of art as well\nas with the position of his own art in the poetic development of the\ncentury.\n\nIn order to understand more fully his own contribution to the developing\nliterary standards of the century it may be well first to consider the\nfundamental principles of art laid down by him in various poems wherein he\nhas deliberately dealt with the subject.\n\nThe poem in which he has most clearly formulated the general principles\nunderlying the growth of art is the \"Parleying\" with Charles Avison.\nThough music is the special art under consideration, the rules of growth\nobtaining in that are equally applicable to other arts. They are found to\nbe, as we should expect in Browning, a combination of the ideas of\nevolution and conservation. Though the standards of art change and\ndevelop, because as man's soul evolves, more complex forms are needed to\nexpress his deeper experiences, his wider vision, yet in each stage of the\ndevelopment there is an element of permanent beauty which by the aid of\nthe historical sense man may continue to enjoy. That element of permanence\nexists when genuine feeling and aspiration find expression in forms of\nart. The element of change grows out of the fact that both the thought\nexpressed and the form in which it is expressed are partial manifestations\nof the beauty or truth toward which feeling aspires; hence the need of\nfresh attempts to reach the infinite. The permanence of feeling,\nexpressing itself in ever new forms, is brought out finely in this\npassage:\n\n                                          \"Truths escape\n  Time's insufficient garniture: they fade,\n  They fall--those sheathings now grown sere, whose aid\n  Was infinite to truth they wrapped, saved fine\n    And free through march frost: May dews crystalline\n    Nourish truth merely,--does June boast the fruit\n  As--not new vesture merely but, to boot,\n  Novel creation? Soon shall fade and fall\n  Myth after myth--the husk-like lies I call\n  New truth's Corolla-safeguard.\"\n\nIn another passage is shown how the permanence of feeling conserves even\nthe form, if we will bring ourselves into touch with it:\n\n                                \"Never dream\n  That what once lived shall ever die! They seem\n  Dead--do they? lapsed things lost in limbo? Bring\n  Our life to kindle theirs, and straight each king\n  Starts, you shall see, stands up.\"\n\nThis kindling of an old form with our own life is more difficult in the\ncase of music than it is in painting or poetry, for in these we have a\nconcrete form to deal with--a form which reflects the thought with much\nmore definiteness than music is able to do. The strength and weakness, at\nonce, of music is that it gives expression to subtler regions of thought\nand feeling than the other arts, at the same time that the form is more\nevanescent, because fashioned out of elements infinitely less related to\nnature than those of other art forms. In his poems on music, the poet\nalways emphasizes these aspects of music. Its supremacy as a means of\ngiving expression to the subtlest regions of feeling is dwelt upon in\n\"Abt Vogler\" and \"Fifine at the Fair.\" The Abbe, from the standpoint of\nthe creator of music, feels so strongly from the inside its power for\nexpressing infinite aspiration that in his ecstasy he exclaims: \"The rest\nmay reason and welcome. 'Tis we musicians know.\" Upon the evanescence of\nthe form peculiar emphasis is also laid in this poem, through the fact\nthat the music is improvised. Yet even this fact does not mean the entire\nannihilation of the form. In the tenth stanza of the poem the idea of the\npermanence of the art form as well as of the feeling is expanded into a\nsymbol of the immortality of all good:\n\n  \"All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;\n    Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power\n  Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist\n    When eternity confirms the conception of an hour,\n  The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,\n    The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,\n  Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;\n    Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by.\"\n\nThe sophistical arguer in \"Fifine\" feels this same power of music to\nexpress thoughts not to be made palpable in any other manner.\n\n                        \"Words struggle with the weight\n  So feebly of the False, thick element between\n  Our soul, the True, and Truth! which, but that intervene\n  False shows of things, were reached as easily by thought\n  Reducible to word, and now by yearnings wrought\n  Up with thy fine free force, oh Music, that canst thrill,\n  Electrically win a passage through the lid\n  Of earthly sepulchre, our words may push against,\n  Hardly transpierce as thou.\"\n\nAnd again, in another passage, he gives to music the power of conserving a\nmood of feeling, which in this case is not an exalted one, since it is one\nthat chimes in with his own rather questionable feeling for Fifine, the\nfiz-gig. It is found in Schumann's \"Carnival\":\n\n  \"Thought hankers after speech, while no speech may evince\n  Feeling like music,--mine, o'er-burthened with each gift\n  From every visitant, at last resolved to shift\n  Its burthen to the back of some musician dead\n  And gone, who feeling once what I feel now, instead\n  Of words, sought sounds, and saved forever, in the same,\n  Truth that escapes prose,--nay, puts poetry to shame.\n  I read the note, I strike the Key, I bid _record_\n  The instrument--thanks greet the veritable word!\n  And not in vain I urge: 'O dead and gone away,\n  Assist who struggles yet, thy strength becomes my stay,\n  Thy record serve as well to register--I felt\n  And knew thus much of truth! With me, must knowledge melt\n  Into surmise and doubt and disbelief unless\n  Thy music reassure--I gave no idle guess,\n  But gained a certitude I yet may hardly keep!\n  What care? since round is piled a monumental heap\n  Of music that conserves the assurance, thou as well\n  Was certain of the same! thou, master of the spell,\n  Mad'st moonbeams marble, didst _record_ what other men\n  Feel only to forget!'\"\n\nThe man in the case is merely an appreciator, not a creator, yet he\nexperiences with equal force music's power as a recorder of feeling. He\nnotes also that the feeling must appear from time to time in a new dress,\n\n                              \"the stuff that's made\n  To furnish man with thought and feeling is purveyed\n  Substantially the same from age to age, with change\n  Of the outside only for successive feasters.\"\n\nIn this case, the old tunes have actually been worked over by the more\nmodern composer whose form has not yet sufficiently gone by to fail of an\nimmediate appeal to this person with feelings kindled by similar\nexperiences. What the speaker in the poem perceives is not merely the fact\nof the feelings experienced but the power of the music to take him off\nupon a long train of more or less philosophical reasoning born of that\nvery element of change. In this power of suggestiveness lies music's\ngreater range of spiritual force even when the feeling expressed is not of\nthe deepest.\n\nIf we look at his poems on painting, the same principles of art are\ninsisted upon except that more emphasis is laid upon the positive value of\nthe incompleteness of the form. In so far as painting or sculpture reaches\na perfect unity of thought and form it loses its power of suggesting an\ninfinite beauty beyond any that our earth-born race may express.\n\nThis in Browning's opinion is the limitation of Greek art. It touches\nperfection or completion in expression and in so doing limits its range to\nthe brief passion of a day. The effect of such art is to arouse a sort of\ndespair, for it so far transcends merely human beauty that there seems\nnothing left to accomplish:\n\n  \"So, testing your weakness by their strength,\n    Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty\n  Measured by Art in your breadth and length,\n    You learned--to submit is a mortal's duty.\"\n\nWhen such a deadlock as this is reached through the stultifying effect of\nan art expression which seems to have embodied all there is of passion and\nphysical beauty, the one way out is to turn away from the abject\ncontemplation of such art and go back again to humanity itself, in whose\nwidening nature may be discovered the promise of an eternity of\nprogression. Therefore, \"To cries of Greek art and what more wish you?\"\nthe poet would have it that the early painters replied:\n\n          \"To become now self-acquainters,\n    And paint man, whatever the issue!\n  Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray,\n    New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters:\n  To bring the invisible full into play!\n    Let the visible go to the dogs--what matters?\"\n\nThe revolution in art started by these early worthies had more of\nspiritual promise in it than the past perfection--\"The first of the new,\nin our race's story, beats the last of the old.\"\n\nHis emphasis here upon the return to humanity in order to gain a new\nsource of inspiration in art is further illustrated in his attitude toward\nthe two painters which he portrays so splendidly: Fra Lippo Lippi, the\nrealist, whose Madonnas looked like real women, and who has scandalized\nsome critics on this account, and Andrea del Sarto, the faultless painter,\nwho exclaims in despair as he gazes upon a picture by Raphael, in which he\nsees a fault to pardon in the drawing's line, an error that he could alter\nfor the better, \"But all the play, the insight and the stretch,\" beyond\nhim.\n\nThe importance of basing art upon the study of the human body is later\ninsisted upon in Francis Furini, not as an end in itself, but as the\ndwelling place of the soul. \"Let my pictures prove I know,\" says Furini,\n\n  \"Somewhat of what this fleshly frame of ours\n  Or is or should be, how the soul empowers\n  The body to reveal its every mood\n  Of love and hate, pour forth its plenitude\n  Of passion.\"\n\nThe evolutionary ideal appears again in his utterances upon poetry, though\nwhen speaking of poetry it is the value of the subject matter and its\nintimate relation to the form upon which he dwells.\n\nThe little poem \"Popularity\" shows as clearly as any the importance which\nhe attaches to a new departure in poetic expression, besides giving vent\nto his scorn of the multitude which sees nothing in the work of the\ninnovator but which is ready at a later date to laud his imitators. Any\nminor poet, for that matter, any Nokes or Stokes who merely prints blue\naccording to the poetic conventions of the past, possessing not a\nsuspicion of the true inspiration which goes to the making of a poet of\nthe new order, is more acceptable to an unseeing public than him with\npower to fish \"the murex up\" that contains the precious drop of royal\nblue.\n\nMore than one significant hint may be gleaned from his verse in regard to\nhis opinion upon the formal side of the poet's art. In \"Transcendentalism\"\nhe has his fling at the didactic poet who pleases to speak naked thoughts\ninstead of draping them in sights and sounds, for \"song\" is the art of the\npoet. Some stout mage like him of Halberstadt has his admiration, who with\na\n\n                \"'Look you!' vents a brace of rhymes,\n  And in there breaks the sudden rose herself,\n  Over us, under, round us every side,\n  Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs\n  And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all,--\n  Buries us with a glory young once more,\n  Pouring heaven into this shut house of life.\"\n\nHe was equally averse to an ornate classical embellishment of a latter day\nsubject or to a looking at nature through mythopoeic Greek eyes. This is\ndriven home in the splendid fooling in \"Gerard de Lairesse\" where the poet\nhimself indulges by way of a joke in some high-flown classical imagery in\nderision of the style of Lairesse and hints covertly probably at the\nnineteenth-century masters of classical resuscitation, in subject matter\nand allusion, Swinburne and Morris. Reacting to soberer mood, he\nreiterates his belief in the utter deadness of Greek ideals of art,\nspeaking with a strength of conviction so profound as to make one feel\nthat here at least Browning suffered from a decided limitation, all the\nmore strange, too, when one considers his own masterly treatment of Greek\nsubjects. To the poets whose poetic creed is\n\n              \"Dream afresh old godlike shapes,\n  Recapture ancient fable that escapes,\n  Push back reality, repeople earth\n  With vanished falseness, recognize no worth\n  In fact new-born unless 'tis rendered back\n  Pallid by fancy, as the western rack\n  Of fading cloud bequeaths the lake some gleam\n  Of its gone glory!\"\n\nhe would reply,\n\n                          \"Let things be--not seem,\n  I counsel rather,--do, and nowise dream!\n  Earth's young significance is all to learn;\n  The dead Greek lore lies buried in the urn\n  Where who seeks fire finds ashes. Ghost, forsooth!\n  What was the best Greece babbled of as truth?\n  A shade, a wretched nothing,--sad, thin, drear,\n\n    *       *       *       *       *\n\n                                    Sad school\n  Was Hades! Gladly,--might the dead but slink\n  To life back,--to the dregs once more would drink\n  Each interloper, drain the humblest cup\n  Fate mixes for humanity.\"\n\nThe rush onward to the supreme is uppermost in the poet's mind in this\npoem. Though he does indulge in the refrain that there shall never be one\nlost good echoing the thought in \"Charles Avison,\" the climax of his mood\nis in the contemplation of the evolutionary force of the soul which must\nleave Greek art behind and find new avenues of beauty:\n\n                                  \"The Past indeed\n  Is past, gives way before Life's best and last\n  The all-including Future! What were life\n  Did soul stand still therein, forego her strife\n  Through the ambiguous Present to the goal\n  Of some all-reconciling Future? Soul,\n  Nothing has been which shall not bettered be\n  Hereafter,--leave the root, by law's decree\n  Whence springs the ultimate and perfect tree!\n  Busy thee with unearthing root? Nay, climb--\n  Quit trunk, branch, leaf and flower--reach, rest sublime\n  Where fruitage ripens in the blaze of day.\"\n\nWhen it comes to the subject matter of poetry, Browning constantly insists\nthat it should be the study of the human soul. A definite statement as to\nthe range of subjects under this general material of poetry is put forth\nvery early in his poetical career in \"Paracelsus\" and it is all-inclusive.\nIt is the passage where Aprile describes how universal he wished to make\nhis sympathy as a poet. No one is to be left out of his all-embracing\ndemocracy.\n\nSuch, then, are his general principles in regard to poetic development and\nsubject matter. These do not touch upon the question so often discussed of\nthe relative value of the subjective as against the objective poet. This\npoint the poet considers in \"Sordello,\" where he throws in his weight on\nthe side of the objective poet. In the passage in the third book the poet,\nspeaking in person, gives illustrations of three sorts of poetic\ncomposition: the dramatic, the descriptive and the meditative; the first\nbelongs to the objective, the second, not distinctively to either, and the\nthird to the subjective manner of writing. The dramatic method is the most\nforceful, for it imparts the gift of seeing to others, while the\ndescriptive and meditative merely tell what they saw, or, worse still,\ntalk about it.\n\nFurther indications of his allegiance to the dramatic form of poetry as\nthe supreme one are found in his poems inspired by Shakespeare, \"House\"\nand \"Shop,\" but we must turn to a pregnant bit of his prose in order to\nfind his exact feeling upon the relations of the subjective and objective\npoet, together with a clear conception of what he meant by a dramatic\npoet, which was something more than Shakespeare's \"holding the mirror up\nto nature.\" In his view the dramatic poet must have the vision of the seer\nas well as the penetration of a psychologist. He must hold the mirror up\nnot only to nature, regarded as phenomena, but to the human soul, and he\nmust perceive the relation of that human soul to the universal. He must in\nfact plunge beneath the surface of actions and events and bring forth to\nthe light the psychic and cosmic causes of these things. The passage\nreferred to in the \"Introduction to the Shelley Letters\" points out how in\nthe evolution of poetry there will be the play and interplay of the\nsubjective and the objective faculties upon each other, with the probable\nresult of the arising of poets who will combine the two sorts of faculty.\nWhile Browning's own sympathy with the dramatic poet is as fully evident\nhere as in the passage in \"Sordello,\" he realizes, as perhaps he did not\nat that time, when he was himself breaking away from Shelley's influence,\nthe value of the subjective method in carrying on the process of poetic\nevolution:\n\n    \"It would be idle to inquire, of these two kinds of poetic faculty in\n    operation, which is the higher or even rarer endowment. If the\n    subjective might seem to be the ultimate requirement of every age,\n    the objective, in the strictest state, must still retain its original\n    value. For it is with this word, as starting-point and basis alike,\n    that we shall always have to concern ourselves: the world is not to be\n    learned and thrown aside, but reverted to and relearned. The spiritual\n    comprehension may be infinitely subtilized, but the raw material it\n    operates upon must remain. There may be no end of the poets who\n    communicate to us what they see in an object with reference to their\n    own individuality; what it was before they saw it, in reference to the\n    aggregate human mind, will be as desirable to know as ever. Nor is\n    there any reason why these two modes of poetic faculty may not issue\n    hereafter from the same poet in successive perfect works, examples of\n    which, according to what are now considered the exigencies of art, we\n    have hitherto possessed in distinct individuals only. A mere running\n    in of the one faculty upon the other is, of course, the ordinary\n    circumstance. Far more rarely it happens that either is found so\n    decidedly prominent and superior as to be pronounced comparatively\n    pure: while of the perfect shield, with the gold and the silver side\n    set up for all comers to challenge, there has yet been no instance. A\n    tribe of successors (Homerides), working more or less in the same\n    spirit, dwell on his discoveries and reinforce his doctrine; till, at\n    unawares, the world is found to be subsisting wholly on the shadow of\n    a reality, on sentiments diluted from passions, on the tradition of a\n    fact, the convention of a moral, the straw of last year's harvest.\n    Then is the imperative call for the appearance of another sort of\n    poet, who shall at once replace this intellectual rumination of food\n    swallowed long ago, by a supply of the fresh and living swathe;\n    getting at new substance by breaking up the assumed wholes into parts\n    of independent and unclassed value, careless of the unknown laws for\n    recombining them (it will be the business of yet another poet to\n    suggest those hereafter), prodigal of objects for men's outer and not\n    inner sight; shaping for their uses a new and different creation from\n    the last, which it displaces by the right of life over death,--to\n    endure until, in the inevitable process, its very sufficiency to\n    itself shall require, at length, an exposition of its affinity to\n    something higher--when the positive yet conflicting facts shall again\n    precipitate themselves under a harmonizing law, and one more degree\n    will be apparent for a poet to climb in that mighty ladder, of which,\n    however cloud-involved and undefined may glimmer the topmost step, the\n    world dares no longer doubt that its gradations ascend.\"\n\nIf we measure Browning's own work by the poetic standards which he has\nhimself set up in the course of that work, it is quite evident that he has\non the whole lived up to them. He has shown himself to be an illustration\nof the evolutionary principles in which he believes by breaking away from\nall previous standards of taste in poetry. The history of poetry in\nEngland has shown this to be a distinctive characteristic of all the\ngreatest English poets. From Shakespeare down they have one and all run\nafoul of the critics whose special province seems to be to set up literary\nshibboleths which every genius is bent upon disregarding. When Spenser was\ninventing his stanza, verse critics were abject in their worship of\nhexameters, and their hatred of bald rhymes. Though these sticklers for\nclassical forms could see clearly enough that Spenser was possessed of\ngenius, they yet lamented the blindness of one, who might have written\nhexameters, perversely exclaiming \"Why a God's name may not we as else the\nGreeks have the kingdom of our own language, and measure our accents by\nthe sound, reserving quantity to the verse?\" When Milton appears and finds\nblank verse the medium best suited to his subject, he comes up against the\nrhyming standards of his day and is forced to submit to the indignity of\nhaving his \"Paradise Lost\" \"tagged with rhymes,\" as he expresses it, by\nDryden, who graciously devoted his powers of rhyme to an improved version\nof the poem. Milton was actually obliged to defend himself in his preface\nto \"Paradise Lost\" for using blank verse, as Browning defends himself in\nthe Epilogue to \"Pacchiarotto and How We Worked in Distemper\" for writing\n\"strong\" verse instead of the \"sweet\" verse the critics demand of him.\n\nBy the time the nineteenth century dawns the critics are safely intrenched\nin the editorial den, from which, shielded by any sort of shibboleth they\ncan get hold of, they may hurl forth their projectiles upon the\nunoffending head of the genius, who, with no chance of firing back in the\nopen arena of the magazine, must either suffer in silence or take refuge\nin sarcastic slurs upon his critics in his poetry, for here lies the only\nchance of getting even without waiting for the whirligig of time to bring\nthe public round to a recognition of the fact that he is the one who has\nin very truth, \"fished the murex up.\"\n\nThe caliber of man who could speak of \"The Ode to Immortality\" as \"a most\nillegible and unintelligible poem,\" or who wonders that any man in his\nsenses could put his name to such a rhapsody as \"Endymion,\" or who\ndismissed \"Prometheus Unbound\" with the remark that it was a _melange_ of\nnonsense, cockneyism, poverty and pedantry, would hardly be expected to\nwelcome \"Sordello\" with effusion. Even very intelligent people cracked\nunseemly jokes upon the appearance of \"Sordello,\" and what wonder, for\nBrowning's British instinct for freedom carried him in this poem to the\nmost extreme lengths. In \"Pauline\" he had allied himself with things\nfamiliar to the English reader of poetry. Many of the allusions are\nclassical and introduced with a rich musicalness that Shelley himself\nmight have envied. The reminiscences of Shelley would also come within the\nintellectual acreage of most of the cultured people of the time. And even\nin \"Paracelsus,\" despite the unfamiliarity of the subject, there was\nmusic and imagery such as to link the art with the admired poetic art of\nthe day, but in \"Sordello\" all bounds are broken.\n\nNo one but a delver in the byways of literature could, at that time, have\nbeen expected to know anything about Sordello; no one but a historian\ncould have been expected to know about the complicated struggles of the\nGuelfs and the Ghibellines; no one but a philosopher about the tendencies,\nboth political and literary, manifesting themselves in the direction of\nthe awakening of democratic ideals in these pre-Dantean days; no one but a\npsychologist about the tortuous windings of Sordello's mind.\n\nOnly by special searching into all these regions of knowledge can one\nto-day gain a complete grasp of the situation. He must patiently tread all\nthe paths that Browning trod before he can enter into sympathy with the\npoet. Then he will crack no more jokes, but he will marvel at the mind\nwhich could wield all this knowledge with such consummate familiarity; he\nwill grow ecstatic over the splendors of the poem, and will regret its\nredundancy not of diction so much but of detail and its amazing lack of\norganic unity.\n\nNo one but a fanatic could claim that \"Sordello\" is a success as an\norganic work of art. While the poet had a mastery of knowledge, thought\nand feeling, he did not have sufficient mastery of his own form to weld\nthese together into a harmonious and convincing whole, such mastery as he,\nfor example, shows in \"The Ring and the Book,\" though even in that there\nis some survival of the old redundancy.\n\nOne feels when considering \"Sordello\" as a whole as if gazing upon a\npicture in which the perspective and the high lights and the shadows are\nnot well related to each other. As great an abundance of detail is\nexpended upon the less important as upon the more important fact, and\nwhile the details may be interesting enough in themselves, they dislodge\nmore important affairs from the center of consciousness. It is, not to be\ntoo flippant, something like Alice's game of croquet in \"Through the\nLooking Glass.\" When the hedgehog ball is nicely rolled up ready to be\nstruck, the flamingo mallet walks off somewhere else.\n\nThere, then, in \"Sordello\" is perhaps the most remarkable departure from\nthe accepted in poetic art that an Englishman has ever attempted. In its\nelements of failure, however, it gave \"a triumph's evidence,\" to use the\npoet's own phrase, \"of the fulness of the days.\" In this poem he had\nthrown down the gauntlet. His subject matter was not to be like that of\nany other poet, nor was his form to be like that of any other poet. He\ndiscarded the flowing music of \"Pauline\" and of \"Paracelsus.\" His\nallusions were no longer to be classic, but to be directly related to\nwhatever subject he had in hand; his style was also to be forth-right and\nrelated to his subject, strong, idiomatic, rugged, even jolting if need\nbe, or noble, sweeping along in large rhythms or couched in rare forms of\nsymbolism, but, whatever it was to be, always different from what had\nbeen.\n\nAll he required at the time when \"Sordello\" appeared was to find that form\nin which he could so unify his powers that his poems would gain the\norganic completeness necessary to a work of art. No matter what new\nregions an artist may push into he must discover the law of being of this\nnew region. Unless he does, his art will not convince, but the moment he\ndoes, all that was not convincing falls into its right place. He becomes\nthe master of his art, and relates the new elements in such a way that\ntheir rightness and their beauty, if not immediately recognized, are sure\nsooner or later to be recognized by the evolving appreciator, who is the\nnecessary complement, by the way, of the evolving artist. Before\n\"Sordello\" Browning had tried three other forms; the subjective narrative\nin \"Pauline,\" the dramatic poem in \"Paracelsus,\" a regular drama in\n\"Strafford,\" which however runs partly parallel with \"Sordello\" in\ncomposition. He had also done two or three short dramatic monologues.\n\nHe evidently hoped that the regular drama would prove to be the form most\ncongenial to him, for he kept on persistently in that form for nearly ten\nyears, wrote much magnificent poetry in it and at times attained a\ngrandeur of dramatic utterance hardly surpassed except in the master of\nall dramatists, Shakespeare. But while he has attained a very genuine\nsuccess in this form, it is not the success of the popular acting drama.\nHis dramas are to-day probably being left farther and farther aside every\nmoment in the present exaggerated demands for characters in action, or\nperhaps it might be nearer the truth to say clothes horses in action.\nBesides, the drama of action in character, which is the type of drama\nintroduced into English literature by Browning, has reached a more perfect\ndevelopment in other hands. Ibsen's dramas are preeminently dramas of\naction in character, but the action moves with such rapidity that the\naudience is almost cheated into thinking they are the old thing over\nagain--that is, dramas of characters in action.\n\nBrowning's characters in his dramas are presented with a completeness of\npsychological analysis which makes them of paramount interest to those few\nwho can and like to listen to people holding forth to any length on the\nstage, and with superb actors, who can give every subtlest change of mood,\na Browning drama furnishes an opportunity for the utmost intensity of\npleasure. Still, one cannot help but feel that the impressionistic\npsychology of Ibsen reaches a pinnacle of dramatic art not attained by\nBrowning in his plays, delightful in character portrayal as they are, and\nnot upon any account to have been missed from dramatic literature.\n\nIn the dramatic monologue Browning found just that form which would focus\nhis forces, bringing them into the sort of relationship needed to reveal\nthe true law of being for his new region of poetic art.\n\nIf we inquire just why this form was the true medium for the most perfect\nexpression of his genius, I think we may answer that in it, as he has\ndeveloped it, is given an opportunity for the legitimate exercise of his\nmental subtlety. Through the voice of one speaker he can portray not only\nthe speaker but one or more other characters, and at the same time show\nthe scene setting, and all without any direct description. On the other\nhand, his tendency to redundancy, so marked when he is making a character\nreveal only his own personality, is held in check by the necessity of\nusing just those words and turns of expression and dwelling upon just\nthose details which will make each character stand out distinctly, and at\nthe same time bring the scene before the reader.\n\nThe people in his dramatic monologues live before us by means of a\npsychology as impressionistic as that of Ibsen's in his plays. The effect\nis the same as that in a really great impressionistic painting. Nature is\nrevealed far more distinctly--the thing of lights and shadows, space and\nmovement--than in pictures bent upon endless details of form. \"My Last\nDuchess\" is one among many fine examples of his method in monologue. In\nthat short poem we are made to see what manner of man is the duke, what\nmanner of woman the duchess. We see what has been the duke's past, what is\nto be his future, also the present scene, as the duke stands in the hall\nof his palace talking to an ambassador from the count who has come to\narrange a marriage with the duke for the count's daughter. Besides all\nthis a glimpse of the ambassador's attitude of mind is given. This is done\nby an absolutely telling choice of words and by an organic relationing of\nthe different elements. The law of his genius asserts itself.\n\nBrowning's own ideal of the poet who makes others see was not completely\nrealized until he had perfected a form which would lend itself most\nperfectly to the manner of thing which he desired to make others\nsee--namely, the human soul in all its possible manifestations of feeling\nand mood, good, bad, and indifferent, from the uninspired organist who\nstruggles with a mountainous fugue to the inspired improvisor whose soul\nascends to God on the wings of his music, from the unknown sensitive\npainter who cannot bear to have his pictures the subject of criticism or\ncommerce to the jolly life-loving Fra Lippo, from the jealous, vindictive\nwoman of \"The Laboratory\" to the vision-seeing Pompilia, from Ned Bratts\nto Bishop Blougram, and so on--so many and wonderful that custom cannot\nstate their infinite variety.\n\nConsistent, so far, with his own theories we find the work of Browning to\nbe. He also follows his ideal in the discarding of classical allusion\nand illustration. Part of his dictum that the form should express the\nthought is shown in his habitual fitting of his allusions to the subject\nhe is treating. By this means he produces his atmosphere and brings the\nscene clearly before us; witness his constant references to Molinos and\nhis influence in \"The Ring and the Book,\" an influence which was making\nitself felt in all classes of society at the time when the actual tragedy\nportrayed in the poem occurred. This habit, of course, brings into his\npoetry a far wider range of allusions unfamiliar to his contemporaries\nthan is to be found in other Victorian poets, and makes it necessary that\nthese should be \"looked up\" before an adequate enjoyment of their fitness\nis possible. Hence the Browning societies, so often held up to ridicule by\nthe critics, who blindly prefer to show their superior attitude of mind in\nregard to everything they do not know, and growl about his obscurity, to\nwelcoming any movement which means an increase of general culture. The\nBrowning societies have not only done much to make Browning's unusual\nallusions common matters of knowledge, but they have helped to keep alive\na taste for all poetry in an age when poetry has needed all the friendly\nsupport it could get.\n\nAll great poets lead the ordinary mind to unfamiliar regions of knowledge\nand thereby to fresh planes of enjoyment. That Browning has outdone all\nother poets in this particular should be to his honor, not to his\ndispraise.\n\nIn one very marked direction, however, he is not a perfect exemplar of his\nown theories--that is, he is not always consistently dramatic. He belongs\nto that order of poets described by himself in the Shelley Introduction as\nneither completely subjective nor completely objective, but with the two\nfaculties at times running in upon each other. He is often absolutely\nobjective in his expression of a mood or a feeling, but the moment the\nmood takes upon it the tinge of thought we begin to feel Browning himself.\n\nThe fundamental principles upon which he bases his own solution of the\nproblems of existence are seen to crop out, colored, it is true, by the\npersonality of the speaker, but yet traceable to their source in the\nmental make up of Browning himself. It may well be that Browning has come\nso near to the ultimate truth discoverable by man in his fundamental\nprinciples that they are actually universal truths, to be found lying deep\ndown at the roots of all more partial expressions, just as gravitation,\nconservation of energy, evolution underlie every phenomena of nature,\nand therefore when a Pope in \"The Ring and the Book,\" a Prince\nHohenstiel-Swangau, a Bishop Blougram, a Cleon or a John in \"The Death in\nthe Desert,\" give utterance to their views upon life, they are bound to\ntouch from one or another angle the basic principles of life common to all\nhumanity as well as to the poet--the center within us all where \"truth\nabides in fulness.\"\n\nThis would seem an even more complete fusing of the two faculties in one\npoet than that spoken of by Browning, where a poet would issue successive\nworks, in some of them the one faculty and in some of them the other\nfaculty being supreme.\n\nThat Browning was, to a certain extent, a poet of this third order of\nwhich he prophesied is true, for he has written a number of poems like \"La\nSaisiaz,\" \"Reverie,\" various of his prologues and epilogues which are\npurely subjective in content. There are also subjective passages in the\nmidst of other poems, like those in \"Sordello,\" \"Prince Hohenstiel,\" the\n\"Parleyings,\" etc. If we place such a poem as \"Reverie\" side by side with\n\"Fra Lippo Lippi\" we see well-nigh perfect illustrations of the two\nfaculties as they existed in the one poet, Browning. On the other hand,\nin those poems where the thought, as I have said, suggests Browning, in\nthe speech of his characters he has something of the quality of what\nBrowning calls the subjective poet of modern classification. \"Gifted like\nthe objective poet, with the fuller perception of nature and man, he is\nimpelled to embody the thing he perceives, not so much with reference to\nthe many below as to the One above him, the supreme intelligence which\napprehends all things in their absolute truth, an ultimate view ever\naspired to, if but partially attained, by the poet's soul.\"\n\nBrowning may be said to have carried to its flood tide the \"Liberal\nMovement in English Literature,\" as Courthope calls it, inaugurated at the\ndawn of the century by the Lake School, which reacted against the correct\nschool of Dryden and Pope. Along with the earlier poets of the century he\nshared lack of appreciation at the hands of critics in general. The\ncritics had been bred in the school of the eighteenth century, and\nnaturally would be incapable of understanding a man whose thought was\npermeated with the doctrines of evolution, then an unknown quantity except\nto the elect in scientific circles, and not to become the possession of\nthe thinking world at large until beyond the middle of the century;\nwhose soul was full of the ardor of democracy, shown not only in his\nchoice and treatment of subjects, but in his reckless independence of all\nthe shibboleths of the past; and whose liberalness in the treatment of\nmoral and religious problems was such as to scandalize many in an age when\nthe law forbade that a man should marry his deceased wife's sister, and\nwhen the Higher Criticism of the Bible had not yet migrated to England\nfrom Germany; and, finally, whose style was everything that was atrocious\nbecause entirely different from anything they had seen before.\n\nThe century had to grow up to him. It is needless to say that it did so.\nJust as out of the turmoil of conflicting scientific and religious thought\nhas emerged a serene belief in man's spiritual destiny, so out of the\nturmoil of conflicting schools of criticism has arisen a perception of the\nvalue of the new, the original, the different in art. Critics begin to\napply the principles of evolution to their criticism as Browning applied\nit to his art, with the result that they no longer measure by past\nstandards of art but by relating the art to the life of the time in its\nvarious manifestations, not forgetting that the poet or the dramatist may\nhave a further vision of what is to come than any other man of his age.\n\nThe people first, for the most part, found out that here in Browning's\nwork was a new force, and calmly formed themselves into groups to study\nwhat manner of force it might be, regardless of the sneers of newspaperdom\nand conventional academies. And gradually to the few appreciative critics\nof the early days have been added one authoritative voice after another\nuntil the chorus of praise has become a large one, and Browning, though\nlater than any great poet of the century, is coming into his own.\n\nIn a certain chart of English literature with which I am acquainted,\nwherein the poets are graphically represented in mountain ranges with\npeaks of various heights, Tennyson is shown as the towering peak of the\nVictorian Era, while Browning is a sturdy but much lower peak with a\nblunted top. This is quite symbolic of the general attitude toward\nBrowning at the end of the century, for, with all the appreciation, there\nhas been on the part of authority a disinclination to assign to him the\nchief place among the poets of the Victorian Era. Courthope, who most of\nthe time preserves a remarkable reticence upon Browning, voices this\ngeneral attitude in a remark ventured upon in one of his lectures in\n1900. He says:\n\n\"No one who is capable of appreciating genius will refuse to admire the\npowers of this poet, the extent of his sympathy and interest in external\nthings, the boldness of his invention, the energy of his analysis, the\naudacity of his experiments. But so absolutely does he exclude all\nconsideration for the reader from his choice of subject, so arbitrarily,\nin his treatment of his themes, does he compel his audience to place\nthemselves at his own point of view, that the life of his art depends\nentirely upon his own individuality. Should future generations be less\ninclined than our own to surrender their imagination to his guidance, he\nwill not be able to appeal to them through that element of life which lies\nin the Universal.\"\n\nTo the present writer this seems simply like a confession on Courthope's\npart that he was unable to perceive in Browning the elements of the\nUniversal which are most assuredly there, and which were fully recognized\nby a Scotch writer, Dawson, at the same time that Courthope was\nquestioning his power to hold coming generations.\n\n\"The fashions of the world may change,\" writes Dawson, \"and the old doubts\nmay wear themselves out and sink like shadows out of sight in the\nmorning of a stronger faith; but even so the world will still turn to the\nfiner poems of Browning for intellectual stimulus, for the purification of\npity and of pathos, for the exaltation of hope.\n\n\"Or if the darkness still thickens, all the more will men turn to this\nstrong man of the race, who has wrestled and prevailed; who has illumined\nwith imaginative insight the deepest problems of the ages; who has made\nhis poetry not merely the vehicle of pathos, passion, tenderness, fancy,\nand imagination, but also of the most robust and masculine thought. He has\nwritten lyrics which must charm all who love, epics which must move all\nwho act, songs which must cheer all who suffer, poems which must fascinate\nall who think; and when 'Time hath sundered shell from pearl,' however\nstern may be the scrutiny, it may be said that there will remain enough of\nRobert Browning to give him rank among the greatest of poets, and secure\nfor him the sure reward of fame.\"\n\nBut it is to France we must go for the surest authoritative note--that\nland of the Academy and correct taste which _hums_ and _hahs_ over its own\nImmortals in proverbially unpenetrating conclave. No less a man than\nTaine declares that Browning stands first among English poets--\"the most\nexcellent where excellence is greatness, the most gifted where genius is a\ncommon dower.\"\n\nWhile there can be no doubt that Browning outdid all the other great poets\nof his time in \"azure feats,\" in developing an absolutely self-centered\nideal of art, which is yet so true to the ultimate tendencies of the\ncentury, indeed to those of all time, for evolution and democracy are\nhenceforth the torch-bearers of the human soul--each of the other\nhalf-dozen or so greatest poets had distinct and independent\nindividualities which were more nearly the outcome of the current\ntendencies of the time than Browning's.\n\n[Illustration: ALFRED TENNYSON]\n\nTennyson was equally familiar with the thought and much more familiar with\nthe politics of the day, but there is an infinite difference in their\nattitude. Browning, if I may be excused for quoting one of Shakespeare's\nmost abused phrases, rides over the century like a \"naked new-born babe\nstriding the blast.\" Tennyson ambles through it on a palfrey which has a\ntendency to flounder into every slough of despond it comes to. This may\nseem to be putting it rather too strongly, but is it not true? Browning\nhas the vision belonging to the latest child of time. He never follows; he\nleads. With his eyes fixed upon a far-off future where man shall be _man_\nat last, he faces every problem with the intrepidity of an Oedipus\nconfronting the Sphynx. The mystery of its riddles has no terrors for him.\nIt is given to him as to few others to see the ineffable beauty of life's\nmystery, the promise it holds out of eternal joy. While he frequently\ndiscourses upon the existence of evil, he never for a moment admits any\ndoubt into his own utmost soul of the beneficent part evil is meant to\nplay in the molding of human destinies. Mr. Santayana has called him a\nbarbarous poet. In a certain sense he is, if to be born among the first on\na new plane of psychic perception where of no account become the endless\nmetaphysical meanderings of the intellect, which cry \"proof, proof, where\nthere can be no proof,\" is barbarous. It was doubtless largely owing to\nthis power of vision reminding us again somewhat of the child's in\nMaeterlinck's \"Les Aveugles\" which kept Browning from tinkering in the\nhalf-measures of the political leaders of his time. His plane is not\nunlike that of his own Lazarus, about whom the Arab physician says:\n\n  \"The man is witless of the size, the sum,\n  The value in proportion of all things,\n  Or whether it be little or be much.\n  Discourse to him of prodigious armament\n  Assembled to besiege his city now,\n  And of the passing of a mule with gourds--\n  'Tis one! Then take it on the other side,\n  Speak of some trifling fact,--he will gaze rapt\n  With stupor at its very littleness,\n  (For as I see) as if in that indeed\n  He caught prodigious import, whole results;\n  And so will turn to us the bystanders\n  In ever the same stupor (note this point)\n  That we, too, see not with his opened eyes.\"\n\nThe import of an event is everything. Large imports may lurk more surely\nin the awakening of some obscure soul than in the pageantry of law\nbringing a tardy and wholly inadequate measure of justice to humanity.\nThough Tennyson talks of the \"far-off divine event\" he has no burning\nconviction of it and does not ride toward it with triumph in his eye and\nflaming joy in his soul. As he ambles along, steeping himself in the\nscience of the time, its revelations make him nervous; he falls into doubt\nfrom which he can only extricate himself by holding on to belief, a very\ndifferent thing from Browning's vision.\n\nThus it happens that Tennyson voices the feelings of an immense class of\ncultured people, who have gone through the century in the same ambling\nfashion, a prey to its fears, intellectual enough to see the truths of\nscience, but not spiritual enough to see the import of the dawn of the new\nday.\n\nTennyson, then, quite of and in his time, would desire above all things to\nappeal to it as it appealed to him. He waxes enthusiastic over\nconventional politics, he treats his social problems so entirely in\naccordance with the conventions of the day that they are not problems at\nall, and he is quite in love with the beauty of aristocratic society,\nthough he occasionally descends to the people for a subject. These are all\nentirely sufficient reasons for his popularity as a poet during his life,\nfurther emphasized by the added fact that having no subject matter (that\nis thought-content) wherewith to startle the world by strangeness, he took\nthe wiser part of delighting them with his exquisite music.\n\nThough so satisfactory a representative of his times, he did outrage one\nof the shibboleths of the critics in his efforts to find a new and richer\nmusic than poets had before used by bringing scientific imagery into his\nverse. Of all the absurd controversies indulged in by critics, the most\nabsurd is that fought out around the contention that science and poetry\ncannot be made to harmonize. Wordsworth was keen enough to see this before\nthe rest of the world and prophesied in the preface to his \"Lyrical\nBallads\" that science would one day become the closest of allies to\npoetry, and Tennyson was brilliant enough to seize the new possibilities\nin scientific language with a realization that nature imagery might almost\nbe made over by the use in describing it of scientific epithets. A famous\nillustration of the happy effects he produced by these means is in the\nlines \"Move eastward happy Earth and round again to-night.\" His\nobservation of Nature, moreover, had a scientific accuracy, which made\npossible far more delicate and individual descriptions of Nature's aspects\nthan had been produced before. It was also a happy thought for him to\nweave so much of his poetry around the Arthurian legends. Beautiful in\nthemselves, they came nearer home than classical or Italian legends, and,\nwhen made symbolic of an ideal which must appeal to the heart of every\ncultured Englishman, who regarded himself as a sort of prototype of the\nblameless King Arthur, and whose grief at the failure of the social fabric\nplanned by him would be as poignant as that of the King himself, they\ncarried with them a romantic and irresistible attraction.\n\nThe reasons why Tennyson should appeal especially to the nineteenth\ncentury cultured and highly respectable Englishman far outweighed any\ncriticisms that might be made by critics on his departure from poetic\ncustoms of the past. He pleased the highest powers in the land, became\nLaureate and later Lord Tennyson. He will therefore always remain the poet\nmost thoroughly representative of that especial sort of beauty belonging\nto a social order which has reached a climax of refinement and\nintelligence, but which, through its very self-satisfaction, cuts itself\noff from a perception of the true value of the new forces coming into play\nin the on-rushing stream of social development.\n\nThe other poets who divide with Browning and Tennyson the highest honors\nof the Victorian Era are Landor, Arnold, Rossetti, Swinburne, Morris, Mrs.\nBrowning, George Meredith.\n\nLandor and Arnold preserved more than any of the others a genuine\nclassical aroma in their verse, and on this account have always been\ndelighted in by a few. After all, the people may not immediately accept a\npoet of too great independence, but they are least of all likely to grow\nenthusiastic over anything reactionary either in style or thought.\nRomantic elements of not too startling a character win the favor of most\nreaders.\n\nThough classic in style both these poets reflected phases of the century's\nthought. Landor differed from Browning in the fact that he frequently\nexpressed himself vigorously upon the subject of current politics. His\npolitical principles were not of the most advanced type, however. He\nbelieved in the notion of a free society, but seems to have thought the\nbest way of attaining it would be a commonwealth in which the wise should\nrule, and see that the interests of all should be secured. Still his\ninsistence upon liberty, however old-fashioned his ideas of the means by\nwhich it should be maintained, puts him in the line of the democratic\nmarch of the century.\n\nSwinburne calls him his master, and represents himself in verse as having\nlearned many wise and gracious things of him, but his thought was not\nsufficiently progressive to triumph over the classicism of his style in an\nage of romantic poetry, though there will always be those who hold on to\nthe shibboleth that, after all, the classic is the real thing in poetry,\nnever realizing that where the romantic is old enough, it, too, becomes\nclassic.\n\nMatthew Arnold stands in poetry where men like Huxley and Clifford stood\nin science, who, Childe-Roland like, came to the dark tower, calmly put\nthe slug horn to their lips and blew a blast of courage. Science had\nundermined their belief in a future life as well as destroying the\nrevealed basis of moral action. In such a man the intellectual nature\noverbalances the intuitional, and when inherited belief based on authority\nis destroyed, there is nothing but the habit of morality left.\n\nArnold has had the sympathy of those who could no longer believe in their\nrevealed religion, but who loved it and regretted its passing away from\nthem. He gives expression to this feeling in lines like these:\n\n                      \"The sea of faith\n  Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore\n  Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.\n  But now I only hear\n  Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,\n  Retreating, to the breath\n  Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear\n  And naked shingles of the world.\"\n\nThe regret for something beautiful that is gone is capable of exquisite\npoetic treatment, but it is not an abiding note of the century. It\nrepresents only one phase of its thought, and that a transcient one,\nbecause it could be felt with poignancy only by those whose lives were\nrudely shaken by the destruction of the ideal in which they had been bred\nand in which they devoutly believed. Arnold's sympathetic treatment of\nthis phase of doubt seems, however, to have been of incalculable service\nto those who felt as he did. It softened the anguish of the shock to have\nnot only the beauty of the past dwelt upon, but to have the beauty of\ncourage in the face of a destroyed ideal erected into a new ideal for\nliving brave and noble lives. In \"Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse\" is a\nfine example of the beauty which may be imparted to a mood as melancholy\nas could well be imagined:\n\n  \"Not as their friend, or child, I speak!\n    But as, on some far northern strand,\n  Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek\n    In pity and mournful awe might stand\n  Before some fallen Runic stone--\n  For both were faiths, and both are gone.\n\n  \"Wandering between two worlds, one dead\n    The other powerless to be born,\n  With nowhere yet to rest my head,\n    Like these, on earth I wait forlorn,\n  Their faith, my tears, the world deride--\n  I come to shed them at their side.\"\n\nSuch hope as he has to offer comes out in stanzas like the following,\nbut all is dependent upon strenuous living:\n\n  \"No, no! the energy of life may be\n  Kept on after the grave, but not begun;\n  And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,\n  From strength to strength advancing--only he,\n  His soul well-knit, and all his battle won,\n  Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.\"\n\nNor shall better days on earth come without struggle since life\n\n  \"Is on all sides o'ershadowed by the high\n  Uno'erleaped Mountains of Necessity,\n  Sparing us narrower margin than we deem.\n  Nor will that day dawn at a human nod,\n  When, bursting through the network, superposed\n  By selfish occupation--plot and plan,\n  Lust, avarice, envy-liberated man,\n  All difference with his fellow-mortal closed,\n  Shall be left standing face to face with God.\"\n\nThough Arnold was sternly criticised he had before the end of the century\nbeen accorded his proper place as a poet, which was that of the chief poet\nbetween the greatest lights of the century, Browning and Tennyson and the\npre-Raphaelite group. Gosse, with more penetration than can always be\naccorded to him, declares that \"His devotion to beauty, the composure,\nsimplicity and dignity of his temper, and his deep moral sincerity gave\nto his poetry a singular charm which may prove as durable as any element\nin modern verse.\"\n\nThe phase of romanticism carried to its climax by the pre-Raphaelite poets\nRossetti and his sister, Morris and Swinburne had, like the work of\nTennyson, its full recognition, in its own time, because these poets, like\nhim, have put into exquisite music romantic subjects derived both from the\nclassics and from mediaeval legend. The new note of sensuousness, due\nlargely to the Italian influence of Rossetti, with his sensuous\ntemperament, his intensity of passion and his love of art, and also in\nMorris and Swinburne to their pagan feeling, one of the elements\ninaugurated by the general breaking down of orthodox religious ideals\nthrough the encroachments of science, does not seem to have affected their\npopularity.\n\nAs there were those who would sympathize with the Tennysonian attitude\ntoward doubt, and those who would sympathize with Matthew Arnold's, there\nwere others to feel like Swinburne, pantheistic, and, like Morris, utterly\nhopeless of a future, while others again might criticise the pagan\nfeeling, but, with their inheritance of beauty from Tennyson and his\npredecessors of the dawn of the century, would delight in these new\ndevelopments of the romantic spirit.\n\n[Illustration: A. C. SWINBURNE]\n\nRuskin is said to have been the original inspirer of these four poets,\nthough Fitz-Gerald's \"Rubaiyat\" of Omar Khayyam was not without its\ninfluence. But as Edmund Gosse says, \"The attraction of the French\nromances of chivalry for William Morris, of Tuscan painting for D. G.\nRossetti, of the spirit of English Gothic architecture for Christina\nRossetti, of the combination of all these with Greek and Elizabethan\nelements for Swinburne, were to be traced back to start--words given by\nthe prophetic author of the 'Seven Lamps of Architecture.'\"\n\nThough the first books of this group of poets, the \"Defence of Guenevere\"\n(1858), \"Goblin Market,\" \"Early Italian Poets,\" \"Queen Mother and\nRosamond\" (1861), did not make any impression on the public, with the\npublication of Swinburne's \"Atalanta in Calydon\" an interest was awakened\nwhich reached a climax with the publication of Rossetti's poems in 1870.\nRossetti had thrown these poems into his wife's grave, as the world knows,\nbut was prevailed upon to have them recovered and published.\n\nIn the success of this group was vindicated at last the principles of the\nnaturalists of the dawn of the century. Here was a mixture of color, of\nmelody, of mysticism, of sensuousness, of elaboration of form which\ncarried originality and independence as far as it could well go in a\ndirection which painted life primarily from the outside. But when this\nbrilliant culminating flash of the early school of Coleridge and Keats\nbegan to burn itself out, there was Tennyson, who might be called the\nconservative wing of the romantic movement, dominant as ever, and\nBrowning, the militant wing, advanced from his mid-century obscurity into\na flood-tide of appreciation which was to bear him far onward toward\nliterary pre-eminence, placing him among the few greatest names in\nliterature.\n\nThe originality of the pre-Raphaelites grew out of their welding of\nromantic, classical, and mediaeval elements, tempered in each case by the\nspecial mental attitude of the poet.\n\nRossetti and his brother artists, Millais and Holman Hunt, who founded the\npre-Raphaelite brotherhood of painters, pledged themselves to the\nfundamental principle laid down by Rossetti in the little magazine they\nstarted called the _Germ_. This new creed was simple enough and ran: \"The\nendeavor held in view throughout the writings on art will be to\nencourage and enforce an entire adherence to the simplicity of Nature.\"\n\nIn their interpretation and development of this simple principle, artists\nand the poets who joined them differentiated from one another often to a\nwide extent. In Rossetti, it becomes an adoration of the beauty of woman\nexpressed in ultra-sensuous though not in sensual imagery, combined with\nan atmosphere of religious wonder such as one finds in mediaeval poets, of\nwhich \"The Blessed Damozel\" stands as a typical example. In it, as one\nappreciator has said, all the qualities of Rossetti's poetry are found.\n\"He speaks alternately like a seer and an artist; one who is now bewitched\nwith the vision of beauty, and now is caught up into Paradise, where he\nhears unutterable things. To him the spiritual world is an intense\nreality. He hears the voices, he sees the presences of the supernatural.\nAs he mourns beside the river of his sorrow, like Ezekiel, he has his\nvisions of winged and wheeling glory, and leaning over the ramparts of the\nworld his gaze is fixed on the uncovered mysteries of a world to come.\nThere is no poet to whom the supernatural has been so much alive.\nReligious doubt he seems never to have felt. But the temper of religious\nwonder, the old, childlike, monkish attitude of awe and faith in the\npresence of the unseen, is never absent in him. The artistic force of his\ntemperament drives him to the worship of beauty; the poetic and religious\nforces to the adoration of mystery.\"\n\nTo Swinburne the simplicity of nature included the utmost lengths to which\neroticism could go. Upon this ground he has been severely censured and he\nhas had an unfortunate influence upon scores and scores of younger writers\nwho have seemed to think that the province of the poet is to decry the\nexistence of sincere affection, and who in their turn have exercised\nactual mischief in lowering social standards.\n\nThis is not all of Swinburne, however. His superb metrical power is his\nchief contribution to the originality of this group, and when he developed\naway from his nauseating eroticism, he could charm as no one else with his\ndelicious music, though it often be conspicuous for its lack of richness\nin thought.\n\nHis fate has been somewhat different from that of most poets. When his\n\"Atalanta in Calydon\" was published it was received with enthusiasm, but\nthe volumes overweighted with eroticism which followed caused a fierce\ncontroversy, and many have not even yet discovered that this was only one\nphase of Swinburne's art, and that, unfortunate as it is in many\nrespects, it was a phase of the century's life which must find its\nexpression in art if that life is to be completely given, and that it was\na passing phase Swinburne himself proved in the development of other\nphases shown in his interest in current political situations, his\nenthusiasm for Italy and his later expressions of high moral ideals, as\nwell as in a quasi-religious attitude of mind, not so far from that of\nEmerson, himself, in which strong emphasis is placed upon the importance\nof the individual, and upon the unity of God and man.\n\nThere is moral courage and optimism in the face of doubt of a high order\nin the following lines:\n\n  --\"Are ye not weary and faint not by the way\n  Seeing night by night devoured of day by day,\n    Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?\n      Sleepless; and ye too, when shall ye, too sleep?\n  --We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,\n  And surely more than all things sleep were sweet,\n    Than all things save the inexorable desire\n      Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.\n\n  \"Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?\n  Is this so sure when all men's hopes are hollow,\n     Even this your dream, that by much tribulation\n      Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?\n  --Nay though our life were blind, our death were fruitless,\n  Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless;\n    But man to man, nation would turn to nation,\n      And the old life live, and the old great word be great.\"\n\nBut Swinburne in his farthest reaches of pantheistic aspiration is to be\nseen in a poem like \"Hertha\":\n\n              \"I am that which began;\n                Out of me the years roll;\n              Out of me God and man;\n                I am equal and whole;\n  God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.\n\n              \"The tree many-rooted\n                That swells to the sky\n              With frondage red-fruited\n                The life-tree am I;\n  In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves; ye shall live and not\n      die.\n\n              \"But the Gods of your fashion\n                That take and that give,\n              In their pity and passion\n                That scourge and forgive,\n  They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they shall die\n      and not live.\n\n              \"My own blood is what stanches\n                The wounds in my bark:\n              Stars caught in my branches\n                Make day of the dark,\n  And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires\n      as a spark.\"\n\nMorris's interpretation of pre-Raphaelite tenets took him into mediaeval\nlegend and the classics for his subject matter. In his first volume, \"The\nDefence of Guenevere and Other Poems,\" he came into competition with\nTennyson, who was at the same time issuing his Arthurian legends. The\npolish of Tennyson's verse, as well as its symbolical meaning for the\ntime, was more acceptable than the actual return to the nature of the\nfifteenth century, and this the first volume from a pre-Raphaelite was\nhardly noticed by the critics. Morris sulked within his literary tents for\nten years before he again appeared, this time with \"The Life and Death of\nJason\" (1867), which immediately became popular. Later came the \"Earthly\nParadise.\" These tales, in verse noble and simple, in style recalling the\ntales of Chaucer, yet with a charm all their own, in which the real men\nand women of Chaucer give place to types, have been the delight of those\nwho like to find in poetry a dreamland of romance where they may enjoy\nthemselves far from the problems and toils of everyday life. He differs\nfrom all the other poets of this group in his lack of religious hope. His\nmind was of the type that could not stand up against the undermining\ninfluences of the age: hence world-weariness and despair are the\nconstantly recurring notes.\n\n[Illustration: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI]\n\nMrs. Browning far outdistanced her husband in the early days in\npopularity. She pleased the people by her social enthusiasm, a\ncharacteristic more marked in her verse than in that of any of the poets\nmentioned. The critics have found many faults in her style, mainly those\ngrowing out of an impassioned nature which carried her at times beyond the\nrealm of perfectly balanced art. But even an English critic of the\nconservatism of Edmund Gosse could at last admit that \"In some of her\nlyrics and more rarely in her sonnets she rose to heights of passionate\nhumanity which place her only just below the great poets of her country.\"\n\nContemporary criticism of \"Aurora Leigh,\" which was certainly a departure\nboth in form and matter from the accepted standards, was, on the whole,\njust. _The Quarterly Review_ in 1862 said of it: \"This 'Aurora Leigh' is a\ngreat poem. It is a wonder of art. It will live. No large audience will it\nhave, but it will have audience; and that is more than most poems have. To\nthose who know what poetry is and in what struggles it is born--how the\ngreat thoughts justify themselves--this work will be looked upon as one of\nthe wonders of the age.\" Mrs. Browning resembles her husband in the fact\nthat she does not fit into the main line of evolution of the romantic\nschool, but is an individual manifestation of the romantic spirit, showing\nalmost as great freedom from the trammels of accepted romanticism as\nBrowning does.\n\nThe writer of the century whose experience as a novelist almost paralleled\nthat of Browning as poet was Meredith. Because of his psychological\nanalysis and the so-called obscurity of his style, he waited many years\nfor recognition and finally was accepted as one of the most remarkable\nnovelists of the age. His poetry, showing similar tendencies, and\novershadowed by his novels, has not yet emerged into the light of\nuniversal appreciation. One finds it even ignored altogether in the most\nrecent books of English literature, yet he is the author of one of the\nmost remarkable series of sonnets in the English language, \"Modern Love,\"\npresenting, as it does, a vivid picture of domestic decadence which forms\na strange contrast to Rossetti's sonnets, \"The House of Life,\" indicating\nhow many and various have been the forces at work during the nineteenth\ncentury in the disintegrating and molding of social ideals. Meredith\nwrites of \"Hiding the Skeleton\".\n\n  \"At dinner she is hostess, I am host.\n  Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps\n  The topic over intellectual deeps\n  In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.\n  With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:\n  It is in truth a most contagious game;\n  _Hiding the Skeleton_ shall be its name.\n  Such play as this the devils might appall,\n  But here's the greater wonder; in that we,\n  Enamor'd of our acting and our wits,\n  Admire each other like true hypocrites.\n  Warm-lighted glances, Love's Ephemeral,\n  Shoot gayly o'er the dishes and the wine.\n  We waken envy of our happy lot.\n  Fast sweet, and golden, shows our marriage-knot.\n  Dear guests, you now have seen Love's corpse-light shine!\"\n\nRossetti writes \"Lovesight\":\n\n  \"When do I see thee most, beloved one?\n    When in the light the spirits of mine eyes\n    Before thy face, their altar, solemnize\n  The worship of that Love through thee made known?\n  Or when, in the dusk hours (we two alone),\n    Close-kiss'd and eloquent of still replies\n    Thy twilight--hidden glimmering visage lies,\n  And my soul only sees thy soul its own?\n    O love, my love! if I no more should see\n    Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,\n  Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,--\n    How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope,\n    The ground-whirl of the perish'd leaves of Hope,\n  The wind of Death's imperishable wing?\"\n\nBrowning's criticism of painting was evidently much influenced by the\npre-Raphaelites. Their admiration for the painters who preceded Raphael,\nrevealing as it did to them an art not satisfied with itself, but reaching\nafter higher things, and earnestly seeking to interpret nature and human\nlife, is echoed in his \"Old Pictures in Florence,\" which was written but\nsix years after Hunt, Millais, and Rossetti formed their brotherhood. In\npoetry, they did not eschew classical subjects, as Browning did for the\nmost part, but they treated these subjects in a romantic spirit, and so\nremoved them from the sort of strictures that Browning made upon the\nperfection of Greek art.\n\nFrom this summary of the chief lines of literary development in the\nnineteenth century it will be seen, not only what a marvelous age it has\nbeen for the flowering of individualism in literary invention, but how\nBrowning has surpassed all the other poets of note in the wideness of his\ndeparture from accepted standards, and how helpless the earlier critics\nwere in the face of this departure, because of their dependence always\nupon critical shibboleths--in other words, of principles not sufficiently\nuniversal--as their means of measuring a poet's greatness. Tennyson and\nthe pre-Raphaelites won their popularity sooner among critics because\nthey followed logically in the line of development inaugurated by the\nearlier poets, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, etc., whose poetry had already\ndone some good work in breaking down the school of Dryden and Pope, though\nit succeeded only in erecting another standard not sufficiently universal\nto include Browning. The evolution of art forms, a principle so clearly\nunderstood, as we have shown by Browning, has never become a guiding one\nwith critics, though Mr. Gosse in his \"Modern English Literature\" has\nexpressed a wish that the principle of evolution might be adapted to\ncriticism. He has evidently felt how hopeless is the task of appraising\npoets by the old individualistic method, which, as he says, has been in\nfavor for at least a century. It possesses, he declares, considerable\neffectiveness in adroit hands, but is, after all, an adaptation of the old\ntheory of the unalterable type, merely substituting for the one authority\nof the ancients an equal rigidity in a multitude of isolated modern\ninstances. For this inflexible style of criticism he proposes that a\nscientific theory shall be adopted which shall enable us at once to take\nan intelligent pleasure in Pope and in Wordsworth, in Spenser and in\nSwift. He writes:\n\n\"Herbert Spencer has, with infinite courage, opened the entire world of\nphenomena to the principles of evolution, but we seem slow to admit them\ninto the little province of aesthetics. We cling to the individualist\nmanner, to that intense eulogy which concentrates its rays on the\nparticular object of notice and relegates all others to proportional\nobscurity. There are critics of considerable acumen and energy who seem to\nknow no other mode of nourishing a talent or a taste than that which is\npursued by the cultivators of gigantic gooseberries. They do their best to\nnip off all other buds, that the juices of the tree of fame may be\nconcentrated on their favorite fruit. Such a plan may be convenient for\nthe purposes of malevolence, and in earlier times our general ignorance of\nthe principles of growth might well excuse it. But it is surely time that\nwe should recognize only two criteria of literary judgment. The first is\nprimitive, and merely clears the ground of rubbish; it is, Does the work\nbefore us, or the author, perform what he sets out to perform with a\ndistinguished skill in the direction in which his powers are exercised? If\nnot, he interests the higher criticism not at all; but if yes, then\nfollows the second test: Where, in the vast and ever-shifting scheme of\nliterary evolution, does he take his place, and in what relation does he\nstand, not to those who are least like him, but to those who are of his\nown kith and kin?\"\n\n[Illustration: GEORGE MEREDITH]\n\nWith such principles of criticism as this, the public would sooner be\nbrought to an appreciation of all that is best worth while in literature,\ninstead of being taken, as it too often is, upon a wrong scent to worship\nat the shrine of the Nokes and Stokes, who simply print blue and eat the\nturtles.\n\nIf Mr. Gosse had himself been fully imbued with such principles would he\nhave made the statement quoted in chapter two in regard to Browning's\nlater books? And should we have such senseless criticism as a remark which\nhas become popular lately, and which I believe emanated from a university\nin the South--namely, that Browning never said anything that Tennyson had\nnot said better? As an illustration of this a recent critic may be quoted\nwho is entirely scornful of the person who prefers Browning's\n\n  \"God's in his heaven, all's right with the world\"\n\nto Tennyson's\n\n  \"And hear at times a sentinel\n    Who moves about from place to place,\n    And whispers to the worlds of space\n  In the deep night that all is well.\"\n\nOne might reply to this that it is a matter of taste had not Courthope\nshown conclusively that Matthew Arnold's criterion of criticism--namely,\nthat a taste which is born of culture is the only certain possession by\nwhich the critic can measure the beauty of a poet's line--is a fallacy.\nHis argument is worth quoting:\n\n    \"You have stated strongly one side of the truth, but you have ignored,\n    completely ignored, the other. You have asserted the claims of\n    individual liberty, and up to a certain point I agree with you. I do\n    not deny that spiritual liberty is founded on consciousness, and hence\n    the self-consciousness of the age is part of the problem we are\n    considering. I do not deny that the prevailing rage for novelty must\n    also be taken into account. Liberty, variety, novelty, are all\n    necessary to the development of Art. Without novelty there can be no\n    invention, without variety there can be no character, without liberty\n    there can be no life. Life, character, invention, these are of the\n    essence of Poetry. But while you have defended with energy the freedom\n    of the Individual, you have said nothing of the authority of society.\n    And yet the conviction of the existence of this authority is a belief\n    perhaps even more firmly founded in the human mind than the sentiment\n    as to the rights of individual liberty....\n\n    The great majority of the professors of poetry, however various their\n    opinions, however opposite their tastes, have felt sure that there was\n    in taste, as in science, a theory of false and true; in art, as in\n    conduct, a rule of right and wrong. And even among those who have\n    asserted most strongly the inward and relative nature of poetry, do\n    you think there was one so completely a skeptic as to imagine that he\n    was the sole proprietor of the perception he sought to embody in\n    words; one who doubted his power, by means of accepted symbols, to\n    communicate to his audience his own ideas and feelings about external\n    things? Yet until some man shall have been found bold enough to defend\n    a thesis so preposterous, we must continue to believe that there is a\n    positive standard, by which those at least who speak a common language\n    may reason about questions of taste.\"\n\nArmed with this gracious permission on the part of a professor of poetry,\nwe may venture to reason a little upon the foregoing quotations from\nTennyson and Browning to the effect that the person of really good taste\nmight like each of them in its place. While Tennyson's mystical quatrain\nis beautiful and quite appropriate in such a poem as \"In Memoriam,\" it\nwould not be in the least appropriate from the lips of a little\nsilk-winding girl as she wanders through the streets of Asolo on a sunny\nmorning singing her little songs. She is certainly a more lifelike child\nspeaking Browningese, as she has often been criticised for doing, than she\nwould be if upon this occasion she spoke in a Tennysonian manner. That her\nsong has touched the hearts of the twentieth century, if it was not\naltogether appreciated in the nineteenth, is proved by the fact that it is\none of the most popular songs of the day as set by Mrs. H. H. A. Beach,\nand that the line is heard upon the lips of people to-day who do not even\nknow whose it is, and herein lies the ultimate test of greatness.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nCLASSIC SURVIVALS\n\n\nBefore passing in review Browning's treatment of classical subjects as\ncompared with the other great poets of the nineteenth century, it will be\ninteresting to take a glimpse at his choice of subject-matter in general.\n\nTo compare Browning's choice of subject-matter with that of other English\npoets is to strike at the very root of his position in the chain of\nliterary development. Subject-matter is by no means simple in its nature,\nbut as a musical sound is composed of vibrations within vibrations, so it\nis made up of the complex relations of body and spirit--the mere external\nfacts of the story are blended with such philosophical undercurrent, or\ndramatic _motif_, or unfolding of the hidden springs of action as the poet\nis able to insinuate into it.\n\nHowever far back one penetrates in the history of poetry, poets will be\nfound depending largely upon previous sources, rather than upon their own\ncreative genius, for the body of their subject-matter, until the\nquestion presents itself with considerable force as to who could have been\nthe mysterious first poet who supplied plots to the rest of mankind.\nConjecture is obliged to play a part here, as it does wherever human\norigins are in question. Doubtless, this first poet was no separate\nindividual, but simply the elements man and nature, through whose action\nand reaction upon each other grew up story-forms, evidently compounded of\nhuman customs, and observed natural phenomena such as those we find in the\ngreat Hindu, Greek, and Teutonic classics, and which thus crystallized\nbecame great well-springs of inspiration for future generations of poets.\n\nEach new poet, however, who is worthy of the name, sets up his own\nparticular interplay with man and nature; and however much he may be\nindebted for his inspiration to past products of this universal law of\naction and reaction, he is bound to use them or interpret them in a manner\ncolored by his own personal and peculiar relations with the universe.\n\nIn so doing he supplies the more important spiritual side of\nsubject-matter and becomes in very truth the poet or maker, to that extent\nat least which Browning himself lays down as the province of art--namely,\nto arrange,\n\n  \"Dissociate, redistribute, interchange\n  Part with part: lengthen, broaden\n  ... simply what lay loose\n  At first lies firmly after, what design\n  Was faintly traced in hesitating line\n  Once on a time grows firmly resolute\n  Henceforth and evermore.\"\n\nSometimes the poet's power of arranging and redistributing and\ninterchanging carries him upward into the realm of ideas alone, among\nwhich his imagination plays in absolute freedom; he throws over the\nresults of man's past dallyings with Nature and makes his own terms with\nher, and the result is an approach to absolute creation.\n\nExcept in the case of lyric poetry the instances where there have been no\nsuggestions as to subject-matter are rare in comparison with those where\nthe subject-matter has been derived from some source.\n\nLook, for instance, at the father of English poetry, Chaucer, how he\nransacked French, Italian and Latin literature for his subject-matter,\nmost conscientiously carrying out his own saying, that\n\n  \"Out of olde feldys as men sey\n    Comyth all this newe corn from yere to yere,\n  And out of olde books in good fey\n    Cometh all this new science that men alere.\"\n\nHow external a way he had of working over old materials, especially in his\nearlier work, is well illustrated in \"The Parliament of Fowls,\" which he\nopens by relating the dream of Scipio, originally contained in Cicero's\ntreatise on the \"Republic,\" and preserved by Macrobius. This dream, which\ntells how Africanus appears to Scipio, and carries him up among the stars\nof the night, shows him Carthage, and prophesies to him of his future\ngreatness, tells him of the blissful immortal life that is in store for\nthose who have served their country, points out to him the brilliant\ncelestial fires, and how insignificant the earth is in comparison with\nthem, and opens his ears to the wondrous harmony of the spheres--this\ndream is as far removed from the main argument of the poem as anything\nwell could be a contest between three falcons for the hand of a formel.\nThe bringing together of such diverse elements presents no difficulties to\nthe childlike stage of literary development that depends upon surface\nanalogies for the linking together of its thoughts. Just as talking about\nhis ancestor, the great Scipio Africanus, with the old King Masinissa\ncaused Scipio to dream of him, so reading about this dream caused Chaucer,\nwho has to close his book and go to bed for want of a light, to dream of\nScipio Africanus also, who \"was come and stood right at his bedis syde.\"\n\nAfricanus then plays the part of conductor to Chaucer in a manner\nsuggestive not only of his relations to Scipio, but of Virgil's relation\nto Dante, and brings him to the great gateway and through it into the\ngarden of love. The description is of the temple of Venus in Boccaccio's\n\"La Teseide.\" There Nature and the \"Fowls\" are introduced and described,\nand at last the point is reached. Nature proclaims that it is St.\nValentine's day, and all the fowls may choose them mates. The royal falcon\nis given first choice, and chooses the lovely formel that sits upon\nNature's hand. Two other ardent falcons declare their devotion to the same\nfowl, and Nature, when the formel declares that she will serve neither\nVenus nor Cupid and asks a respite for a year, decides that the three\nshall serve their lady another year--a pretty allegory supposed to refer\nto the wooing of Blanche of Lancaster by John of Gaunt.\n\nThe main argument of this poem, when it finally is reached by artificially\nwelding together rich links borrowed from other poets, is one of the few\nexamples in Chaucer of subject-matter derived direct from a real event,\nbut the putting of it in an allegorical form at once lays him under\nobligations to his poetic predecessors, not only on Anglo-Saxon soil, but\nin France and Italy.\n\nHis most important contributions as an inventor are, of course, his\ndescriptions of the Canterbury Pilgrims, which are the pure outcome of a\nkeen observation of men and women at first hand. So lifelike are they that\nin them he has made the England of the fourteenth century live again. But\nhow small a proportion of the bulk of the \"Canterbury Tales\" is contained\nin these glimpses of English life and manners. It is but the framework\nupon which luxuriate vines of fancy transplanted from many another garden,\nand even in its place resembling, if not borrowed from, Boccaccio.\n\nThe thoroughly human instincts of the poet assert themselves, however, in\nthe choice of the tales which he puts into the mouths of his pilgrims. He\nallows a place to the crudities and even the vulgarities of common stories\nas well as to culture-lore. The magic of the East, the love tales of\nItaly, the wisdom of philosophers, the common stories of the people, all\ngive up their wealth to his gentle touch. With a keen sense of propriety\nhe, with few exceptions, gives each one of his pilgrims a tale suited in\nits general tendency to the character of its narrator, and in the critical\nchatter of the pilgrims about the tales, reflects not only his own tastes,\nbut that of the times, the opinions expressed frequently being most\nuncomplimentary in their tenor.\n\nIn fine, the life of reality and the life of books is spread out before\nChaucer, and his observation of both is keen and interested; and this it\nis which makes him much more than the \"great translator\" that Eustace Les\nChamps called him, and settles the nature of the \"subtle thing\" called\nspirit contributed by the individuality of the poet to his subject-matter.\nHe brings everything within the reach of human sympathy, because his way\nof putting a story into his own words is sympathetic. He was a combination\nof the story-teller, the scholar, the poet, and the critic. As a scholar\nhe brings in learned allusions that are entirely extraneous to the action\nin hand; as the story-teller, he takes delight in the tales that both the\npoet and the people have told; as the poet, his imagination dresses up a\nstory with a fresh environment, often anachronous, and sometimes he alters\nthe moral tone of the characters. Cressida is an interesting example of\nthis. But instead of the characters suggesting by their own action and\nspeech all the needed moral, Chaucer himself appears ever at hand to\nanalyze and criticise and moralize, though he does it so delightfully that\none hesitates to call him didactic. The result of all this is that the\nexternal form and the underlying essence of his subject-matter are not\ncompletely fused. We often see a sort of guileless working of the\nmachinery of art, yet it is true, no doubt, though perhaps not to the\nextent insisted on by Morley, that he has something of the Shakespearian\nquality which enables him to show men as they really are, \"wholly\ndeveloped as if from within, not as described from without by an imperfect\nand prejudiced observer.\"\n\nIn his great work, Spenser is no less dependent upon sources for his\ninspiration, but there is a marked difference in his use of them. Although\nhis range of observation is much narrower than Chaucer's, hardly extending\nat all into the realm of actual human effort, yet he makes an advance in\nso far as his powers of redistribution are much greater than Chaucer's.\n\nThe various knights of the \"Fairy Queen\" and their exploits are not\nmodeled directly upon any previous stories, but they are made up of\nincidents similar to those found scattered all through classic lore; and\nas his inspirations were drawn in most cases directly from the\nfountain-head of story in the Greek writers--instead of as they filtered\nthrough the Latin, Italian, and French, with the inevitable accretions\nthat result from migrations,--and from the comparatively unalloyed\nArthurian legends, there is a clearer reflection in them of the cosmic\nelements that shine through both the Greek and Arthurian originals than is\nfound in Chaucer.\n\nAlthough Spenser was certainly unaware of any such modern refinement of\nthe mythologist as a solar myth, yet the \"Fairy Queen\" forms a curious and\ninteresting study on account of the survivals everywhere evident of solar\ncharacteristics in his characters and plots. Indeed it could hardly be\notherwise, considering his intention, and his method of carrying it out,\nwhich he, himself, explains in his quaint letter to Sir Walter\nRaleigh--namely, \"to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and\ngentle discipline.\" He goes on:\n\n    \"I close the history of King Arthur as most fit for the excellency of\n    his person, being made famous by many men's former works, and also\n    further from danger and envy of suspicion of present time. In which I\n    have followed all the antique poets historical; first Homer, who in\n    the person of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governor\n    and a virtuous man, the one in his 'Iliad,' the other in his\n    'Odyssey'; then Virgil, whose like intention was to do in the person\n    of AEneas: After him, Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando, and\n    lately Tasso dissevered them again, and formed both parts in two\n    persons, the part which they in Philosophy call Ethice or virtues of a\n    private man, colored in his Rinaldo, the other, named Politice, in his\n    Godfieldo. By example of which excellent poets, I labor to portray in\n    Arthur before he was King, the image of a brave Knight perfected in\n    the twelve private moral virtues as Aristotle hath devised, the which\n    is the purpose of these first twelve books.\"\n\nIn the fashioning of his knight he took Arthur, a hero whose life as it\nappears in the early romances is inextricably mingled with solar elements,\nand has built up his virtues upon other ancient solar heroes. Here are all\nthe paraphernalia of solar mythology: invincible knights with marvelous\nweapons, brazen castles guarded by dragons, marriage with a beautiful\nmaiden and parting from the bride to engage in new quests, an enchantress\nwho turns men into animals, even the outcast child; but none of the\nincidents appear intact. It is as if there had been a great explosion in\nthe ancient land of romance and that in the mending up of things the\nseparate pieces are all recognizable, although all joined together in a\ndifferent pattern, while under all is the allegory. A gentle knight is\nno longer a solar hero as set forth by Max Mueller or Cox, but Holiness;\nhis invincible armor is not the all-powerful rays of the sun, but truth;\nthe enchantress not night casting a spell over mortals, but sensuous\npleasure entangling them.\n\nThese two poets, Chaucer and Spenser, are prototypes of two poet types of\ntwo poetical tendencies that have gone on developing side by side in\nEnglish literature: Chaucer, democratic, interested supremely in the\npersonalities of men and women, portraying the real, and Spenser,\naristocratic, interested in imaging forth an ideal of manhood, choosing\nhis subject-matter from sources that will lend themselves to such a\npurpose; Chaucer drawing his lessons out of the real actions of humanity;\nSpenser framing his story so that it will illustrate the moral he wishes\nto inculcate.\n\nShakespeare, of course, ranges himself in line with Chaucer. His interest\ncentered on character, and wherever a story capable of character\ndevelopment presented itself, that he chose, altered it in outline\ncomparatively little, and when he did so it was in order to carry forward\nthe dramatic _motif_ which he infused into his subject. The dramatic\nform in which he wrote furnished him a better medium for reaching a\ncomplete welding together of the external and spiritual side of his\nsubject-matter. Where Chaucer hinted at the possibilities of an artistic\ndevelopment of character that would cause the events of the story to\nappear as the inevitable outcome of the hidden springs of action,\nShakespeare accomplished it, and peopled the world of imagination with\ngroup after group of living, acting characters.\n\nIn the nineteenth century Tennyson and Browning have represented, broadly\nspeaking, these two tendencies. As with Spenser, the classics and the\nArthurian legends have been the sources from which Tennyson has drawn most\nlargely; but although a philosophical undercurrent is this poet's\nspiritual addition to the subject-matter, his method of putting his soul\ninside his work is very different from Spenser's. He does not tear the old\nmyths to pieces and join them together again after a pattern of his own to\nfit his allegorical situation, but keeps the events of his stories almost\nunchanged, in this particular resembling Chaucer and Shakespeare,\nand--except in a few instances, such as Tithonus and Lucretius, where the\nclassic spirit of the originals is preserved--he infuses in his subject a\nvein of philosophy, illustrating those modern tendencies of English\nthought of which Tennyson, himself, was the exemplar. Even when inventing\nsubjects, founded upon the experiences of everyday life, he so manipulates\nthe story as to make it illustrate some of his favorite moral maxims. His\ncharacters do not act from motives which are the inherent necessities of\ntheir natures, but they act in accordance with Tennyson's preconceived\nnotions of how they ought to act. He manipulates the elements of character\nto suit his own view of development, just as Spenser manipulated the\nelements of the story to suit his own allegorical purpose.\n\nBrowning is the nineteenth-century heir of Chaucer; but it is doubtful\nwhether Chaucer would recognize his own offspring, so remarkable has the\ndevelopment been in those five centuries. With Chaucer's keen interest in\nhuman nature deepened to a profound insight into the very soul of\nhumanity, and the added wealth of these centuries of human history,\nBrowning not only had a far wider range of choice in subject-matter, but\nhe was enabled to instil into it greater intellectual and emotional\ncomplexities.\n\nRarely has he treated any subject that has already been treated poetically\nunless we except the transcripts from the classics soon to be\nconsidered. Wherever he saw an interesting historical personage,\ninteresting, not on account of his brilliant achievements in the eyes of\nthe world, but on account of potentialities of character, such a one he\nhas set before us to reveal himself. There are between twenty and thirty\nportraits of this nature in his work, chosen from all sorts and conditions\nof men--men who stand for some phase of growth in human thought; and\nalways in developing a personality he gives the kernel of truth upon which\ntheir peculiar point of view is based. Thus, among the musical poems, Abt\nVogler speaks for the intuitionalist--he who is blessed by a glimpse of\nthe absolute truth. Charles Avison, on the other hand, is the philosopher\nof the relative in music and the arts generally. Among the art poems, Fra\nLippo Lippi is the apostle of beauty in realism, Andrea del Sarto the\nattainer of perfection in form. In the religious poems the Jewish\nstandpoint is illustrated in \"Saul\" and \"Rabbi Ben Ezra,\" the Christian in\nthe portrait of John in \"The Death in the Desert\"; the empirical reasoner\nin \"Paracelsus.\"\n\nThis is only one of Browning's methods in the choice and use of\nsubject-matter. The characters and incidents in his stories are\nfrequently the result of pure invention, but he sets them in an\nenvironment recreated from history, developing their individualities in\nharmony with the environment, thus giving at one stroke the spirit of the\ntime and the individual qualities of special representatives of the time.\nExamples of this are: \"My Last Duchess,\" where the Duke is an entirely\nimaginary person and the particular incident is invented, but he is made\nto act and talk in a way perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the\ntime--mediaeval Italy. \"Hugues of Saxe-Gotha\" is another being of\nBrowning's fancy, who yet represents to perfection the spirit of the old\nfugue writers. \"Luria,\" \"The Soul's Tragedy,\" \"In a Balcony,\" all\nrepresent the same method.\n\nAnother plan pursued by the poet is either to invent or borrow a\nhistorical personage into whose mouth he puts the defence of some course\nof action or ethical standard that may or may not be founded upon the\nhighest ideals. Sludge, the hero of \"Fifine at the Fair,\" Bishop Blougram,\nHohenstiel-Schwangau, range themselves in this group.\n\nThere are comparatively few cases where he has taken a complete story and\ndeveloped its spiritual possibilities without much change in external\ndetail, but how adequate his art was to such ends, \"The Ring and the\nBook,\" \"Inn Album,\" \"Two Poets of Croisic,\" \"Red Cotton Nightcap Country,\"\nthe historical dramas of \"Strafford,\" and \"King Victor and King Charles\"\nfully prove, including, as they do, some of his finest masterpieces.\n\nHistory and story have furnished many of the incidents which he has worked\nup in his dramatic lyrics and romances like \"Clive,\" \"Herve Riel,\"\n\"Donald,\" etc. There remains, however, a large number of poems containing\nsome of Browning's loveliest work in which the subject-matter is, as far\nas we know, the creation of pure, unadulterated fancy. \"A Blot in the\n'Scutcheon,\" \"In a Balcony,\" \"Colombe's Birthday,\" \"Childe Roland,\" \"James\nLee's Wife\" are some of them. Even in this rapid survey of the field the\nfact is patent that Browning's range of subject-matter is infinitely wider\nand his method of developing it far more varied than has been that of any\nother English poet. He seems the first to have completely shaken himself\nfree from the trammels of classic or mediaeval literature. There are no\nechoes of Arthur and his Knights in his poetry, the shadows of the Greek\ngods and goddesses exert no spell--except in the few instances when he\ndeliberately chose a Greek subject.\n\nThe fact that Browning was so free from classical influence in the great\nbody of his work as compared with the other chief poets of the nineteenth\ncentury gives an especial interest to those poems in which he chose\nclassical themes for his subjects. There are not more than ten all told,\nand one of these is a translation, yet they represent some of his finest\nand most original work, for Browning could not touch a classical theme\nwithout infusing into it that grasp and insight peculiar to his own\ngenius.\n\nHis first and most conventionally classical poem is the fragment in \"Men\nand Women,\" \"Artemis Prologizes,\" written in 1842. It was to have been the\nintroduction to a long poem telling of the mad love of Hippolytus for a\nnymph of Artemis, after that goddess had brought about his resuscitation.\nIt has been suggested by Mr. Boynton in an interesting paper that Browning\nshows traces of the influence of Landor in his poetry. This fragment\ncertainly furnishes argument for this opinion, though it has a strength of\ndiction along with its Greek severity and terseness of style which leads\nto the conclusion that the influence came from the fountain head of\nGreek poetry itself rather than through the lesser muse of this\nnineteenth-century Greek.\n\nThe poem is said to have been begun on a sick-bed and when the poet\nrecovered he had forgotten or lost interest in his plans. This is to be\nregretted for if he had continued as he began, the poem would have stood\nunique in his work as a true survival of Greek subject wedded with\nclassical form and style, and would certainly have challenged comparison\nwith the best work done in this field by Landor or Swinburne, who tell\nover the classical stories or even invent new episodes, but, when all is\nsaid, do not write as if they were actually themselves Greeks.\n\nThere is no other instance in Browning of such a survival. In his other\npoems on Greek subjects it is Browning bringing Greek life to our ken with\nwonderful distinctness, but doing it according to his own accustomed\npoetical methods, or, as in \"Ixion,\" a Greek story has been used as a\nsymbol for the inculcating of a philosophy which is largely Browning's\nown.\n\nIn spite of the fact that he has turned to Greece so seldom for\ninspiration, his Greek poems range from such stirring pictures of Greek\nlife and feeling as one gets in the splendid dramatic idyl\n\"Pheidippides,\" based on a historical incident, through the imaginary\n\"Cleon,\" in which is found the sublimated essence of Greek philosophical\nthought at the time of Christ--thought, weary of law and beauty, longing\nfor a fresh inspiration, knowing not what, and unable to perceive it in\nthe new ideal of love being taught by the Christians--to \"Aristophanes'\nApology,\" in which the Athens of his day, with its literary and political\nfactions, is presented with a force and analysis which place it second\nonly to \"The Ring and the Book.\"\n\nThis poem taken, with Balaustion, gives the reader not only a\ncomprehensive view of the historical atmosphere of the time but indirectly\nshows the poet's own attitude toward the literary war between Euripides\nand Aristophanes. So different are Browning's Greek poems from all other\npoems upon classical subjects that it will be interesting to dwell upon\nthe most important of them at greater length than has been deemed\nnecessary in the case of the more widely known and read of the poems.\n\n\"Cleon\" links itself with the nineteenth century, because of its dealing\nwith the problem of immortality, a problem which has been ever present in\nthe mind of the century. Cleon has, beside that type of synthetic mind\nwhich belongs to a ripe phase of civilization. Though he is a Greek and a\npagan, he stretches hands across the centuries to men of the type of\nMorris or Matthew Arnold. He is the latest child of his own time, the heir\nof all the ages during which Greece had developed its aesthetic perfection,\ndiscovered the inadequacy of its established religion, come through its\nphilosophers and poets to a perception of the immortality of the soul, and\nsunk again to a skepticism which had no vision of personal immortality at\nleast, though among the stoics there were some who believed in an\nabsorption into divine being. Cleon would fain believe in personal\nimmortality but cannot, and, like Matthew Arnold, believes in facing death\nimperturbably.\n\nIn \"Balaustion's Adventure\" a historical tradition is used as the central\nepisode of the poem, but life and romance are given to it by the creation\nof the heroine, Balaustion, a young Greek woman whose fascinating\npersonality dominates the whole poem. She was a Rhodian, else her freedom\nof action and speech might seem too modern, but among the islands of\nGreece, at least at the time of Euripides, there still survived that\nattitude toward woman which we see reflected in the Homeric epics. Away\nfrom Athens, too, Euripides was a power; hence his defence is put into the\nmouth of one not an Athenian. She had saved a shipload of Athenian\nsympathizers by reciting Euripides when they were in danger from the\nhostile Syracusans.\n\n[Illustration: EURIPIDES]\n\nBesides the romantic touch which is given the story by the creation of the\nlyric girl, there is an especial fitness in making the enthusiastic\ndevotee of this poet a woman, for no one among the ancients has so fully\nand sympathetically portrayed woman in all her human possibilities of\ngoodness and badness as Euripides, yet he has been called a\nwoman-hater--because some of his men have railed against women--but one\nAlkestis is enough to offset any dramatic utterances of his men about\nwomen. The poet's attitude should be looked for in his power of portraying\nwomen of fine traits, not in any opinions expressed by his men.\nFurthermore, Browning had before him a model of Balaustion in her\nenthusiasm for Euripides, in Mrs. Browning. These circumstances are\ncertainly sufficient to prove the appropriateness of making a Rhodian girl\nthe defender of Euripides.\n\nThere is nothing more delicious in Browning than Balaustion's relation of\n\"Alkestis,\" as she had seen it acted, to her three friends. Her woman's\ncomment and criticisms combine a Browning's penetration of the fine points\nin the play with a girl's idealism. Such a combination of masculine\nintellectualism and feminine charm has been known in women of all\ncenturies. As the translation of the beautiful play of \"Alkestis\"\nproceeds, Balaustion interprets its art and moral, defending her favorite\npoet, not with the ponderousness of a grave critic weighing the influences\nwhich may have molded his genius, or calculating the pros and cons of his\nstyle, but with the swift appreciation of a mind and spirit full of the\nardor of sympathy. Moreover, her talk of the play being a recollection of\nhow it appeared to her as she saw it acted, the mere text is constantly\nenlarged upon and made vital with flashing glimpses of the action, as, for\nexample, in the passage just after the funeral of Alkestis:\n\n  \"So, to the struggle off strode Herakles,\n  When silence closed behind the lion-garb,\n  Back came our dull fact settling in its place,\n  Though heartiness and passion half-dispersed\n  The inevitable fate. And presently\n  In came the mourners from the funeral,\n  One after one, until we hoped the last\n  Would be Alkestis, and so end our dream.\n  Could they have really left Alkestis lone\n  I' the wayside sepulchre! Home, all save she!\n  And when Admetos felt that it was so,\n  By the stand-still: when he lifted head and face\n  From the two hiding hands and peplos' fold,\n  And looked forth, knew the palace, knew the hills,\n  Knew the plains, knew the friendly frequence there,\n  And no Alkestis any more again,\n  Why, the whole woe billow-like broke on him.\"\n\nAgain, her criticism of Admetos gives at once the natural feeling of a\ngirl who could not be satisfied with what seemed to her his selfish\naction, and Browning's feeling that Euripides saw its selfishness just as\nsurely as Balaustion, despite the fact that it was in keeping, as numerous\ncritics declare, with the customs of the age, and would not by any of his\ncontemporaries be regarded as selfish on his part:\n\n  \"So he stood sobbing: nowise insincere,\n  But somehow child-like, like his children, like\n  Childishness the world over. What was new\n  In this announcement that his wife must die?\n  What particle of pain beyond the pact\n  He made with his eyes wide open, long ago--\n  Made and was, if not glad, content to make?\n  Now that the sorrow, he had called for, came,\n  He sorrowed to the height: none heard him say,\n  However, what would seem so pertinent,\n  'To keep this pact, I find surpass my power;\n  Rescind it, Moirai! Give me back her life,\n  And take the life I kept by base exchange!\n  Or, failing that, here stands your laughing-stock\n  Fooled by you, worthy just the fate o' the fool\n  Who makes a pother to escape the best\n  And gain the worst you wiser Powers allot!'\n  No, not one word of this; nor did his wife\n  Despite the sobbing, and the silence soon\n  To follow, judge so much was in his thought--\n  Fancy that, should the Moirai acquiesce,\n  He would relinquish life nor let her die.\n  The man was like some merchant who in storm,\n  Throws the freight over to redeem the ship;\n  No question, saving both were better still,\n  As it was,--why, he sorrowed, which sufficed.\n  So, all she seemed to notice in his speech\n  Was what concerned her children.\"\n\nAmong modern critics who take the conventional ground in regard to Admetos\nmay be cited Churton Collins, whose opinion is, of course, weighty. He\nwrites:\n\n    \"Alcestis would be considered fortunate for having had an opportunity\n    of displaying so conspicuously the fidelity to a wife's first and\n    capital duty. Had Admetus prevented such a sacrifice he would have\n    robbed Alcestis of an honor which every nobly ambitious woman in\n    Hellas would have coveted. This is so much taken for granted by the\n    poet that all that he lays stress on in the drama is the virtue\n    rewarded by the return of Alcestis to life, the virtue characteristic\n    of Admetus, the virtue of hospitality; to this duty in all the agony\n    of his sorrow Admetus had been nobly true, and as a reward for what he\n    had thus earned, the wife who had been equally true to woman's\n    obligations was restored all-glorified to home and children and mutual\n    love.\"\n\nMost readers, however, will find it difficult to put themselves into the\nappropriate Greek frame of mind, and will sympathize with Browning's\nsupposition that after all Euripides had transcended current ideas on the\nsubject and deliberately intended to convey such an interpretation of the\ncharacter of Admetos as Balaustion gives.\n\nBalaustion shows her penetration again in her appreciation of Herakles. He\ndistinguishes clearly between evil that is inherent in the nature as the\nselfishness of Admetos, and evil which is more or less external, growing\nout of conditions incident to the time rather than from any real trait of\nnature. Herakles' delight in the hospitality accorded him, his drinking\nand feasting in the interim of his labors, did not touch the genuine,\nlarge-hearted helpfulness of the demigod, who became sober the moment he\nlearned there was sorrow in the house and need of his aid.\n\nIn her proposed version of the story, Balaustion is surely the romantic\ngirl, who would have her hero a hero indeed and in every way the equal of\nhis spouse. Yet if we delve below this romanticism of Balaustion we shall\nfind the poet's own belief in the almost omniscient power of human love\nthe basis of the relation between Admetos and Alkestis.\n\nThe soul of Alkestis in one look entered into that of Admetos; she died,\nbut he is entirely guiltless of agreeing to her death. Alkestis herself\nhad made the pact with Apollo to die for her husband. He, when he learns\nit, refuses to accept the sacrifice, and unable to persuade him that his\nduty to humanity demands that he accept it, Alkestis asks him to look at\nher. Then her soul enters his, but when she goes to Hades and demands to\nbecome a ghost, the Queen of Hades replies:\n\n  \"Hence, thou deceiver! This is not to die,\n  If, by the very death which mocks me now,\n  The life, that's left behind and past my power,\n  Is formidably doubled--Say, there fight\n  Two athletes, side by side, each athlete armed\n  With only half the weapons, and no more,\n  Adequate to a contest with their foes.\n  If one of these should fling helm, sword and shield\n  To fellow--shieldless, swordless, helmless late--\n  And so leap naked o'er the barrier, leave\n  A combatant equipped from head to heel,\n  Yet cry to the other side, 'Receive a friend\n  Who fights no longer!' 'Back, friend, to the fray!'\n  Would be the prompt rebuff; I echo it.\n  Two souls in one were formidable odds:\n  Admetos must not be himself and thou!\n\n  \"And so, before the embrace relaxed a whit,\n  The lost eyes opened, still beneath the look;\n  And lo, Alkestis was alive again,\n  And of Admetos' rapture who shall speak?\"\n\nHow unique a treatment of a classical subject this poem is, is\nself-evident. Not content with making a superb translation of the play,\nremarkable both for its literalness and for its poetic beauty, the poet\nhas dared to present that translation indirectly through the mouth of\nanother speaker, and to incorporate with it a running commentary of\ncriticism in blank verse. Still more daring was it to make play and\ncriticism an episode in a dramatic monologue in which we learn not only\nthe story of the rescue of the shipload of Athenian sympathizers, but the\nstory of Balaustion's love. Along with all this complexity of interest\nthere is still room for a lifelike portrayal of Balaustion herself, one of\nthe loveliest conceptions of womanhood in literature.\n\nTo reiterate what I have upon another occasion expressed in regard to her,\nshe is a girl about whom the fancy loves to cling--she is so joyous, so\nbrave, and so beautiful, and possessed of so rare a mind scintillating\nwith wit, wisdom and critical insight, not Browning's own mind either\nexcept in so far as his sympathies were with Euripides. Her ardor for\npurity and perfection is perhaps peculiarly feminine. It is quite\ndifferent from that of the mind tormented by the problem of evil and\ntaking refuge in a partisanship of evil as a force which works for good\nand without which the world would be a waste of insipidity. Her suggested\nversion of the Alkestis story converts Admetos into as much of a saint as\nAlkestis, and makes an exquisite and soul-stirring romance of their\nperfect union, though it must be admitted that it would do away with all\nthe intensity and dramatic force of the play as it is presented by\nEuripides. Like the angels who rejoice more over one sinner returned than\nover the ninety and nine that did not go astray, an artist prefers the\ncontrast and movement of a sinning and regenerated Admetos to an Admetos\nmore suited from the first to be the consort of Alkestis. This is the\ntouch, however, which preserves Balaustion's feminine charm and makes her\ntruly her own self--an ardent soul very far from being simply Browning's\nmouthpiece.\n\n\"Aristophanes' Apology\" is a still more remarkable play in its complexity.\nAgain, Balaustion is the speaker, and Browning has set himself the task in\nthis monologue of relating the fall of Athens, of presenting the\npersonality of Aristophanes, of defending Euripides, a translation of\nwhose play, \"Herakles,\" is included, and incidentally sketching the\nhistory of Greek comedy, all through the mouth of the one speaker,\nBalaustion. Not until one has grasped the law by which the poet has\naccomplished this, and has moreover freshly in his mind the facts of Greek\nhistory at the time of Athens' fall, and Greek literature, especially the\nplays of Aristophanes and Euripides, can the poem be thoroughly enjoyed.\n\nIn the very first line the suggestion of the scene setting is given, and\nsuch suggestions occur from time to time all through the poem. It should\nbe observed that they are never brought in for themselves alone, but are\nalways used in connection with some mood of Balaustion's or as imagery in\nrelation to some thought. While the reader is thus kept conscious of the\nbackground of wind and wave, as Balaustion and her husband voyage toward\nRhodes, it is not until the end of the poem that we learn with a pleasant\nsurprise that the boat on which they are sailing is the same one saved\nonce by Balaustion when she recited Euripides' \"sweetest, saddest song.\"\nThus there is a dramatic denouement in connection with the scene setting.\n\nThrough the expression of a mood of despair on the part of Balaustion at\nthe opening of the poem the reader is put in possession not only of the\nscene setting but of the occasion of the voyage, which is the overthrow\nof Athens. From the mood of despair Balaustion passes to one in which she\ndescribes how she could better have borne to see Athens perish. This\ncarries her on to a more hopeful frame of mind, in which she can foresee\nthe spiritual influence of Athens persisting. The peace of mind ensuing\nupon this consideration makes it possible for her calmly to survey the\nevents connected with its downfall, among which the picturesque episode of\nthe dancing of the flute girls to the demolition of the walls of the\nPiraeus is conspicuous. She then sees the vision of the immortal Athens\nwhile Sparta the victorious in arms will die. Then comes a mood in which\nshe declares it will be better to face the grief than to brood over it,\nwhich leads to her proposing to Euthukles that they treat the fall of\nAthens as a tragic theme, as the poet might do, and enact it on the\nvoyage. Then grief over the recent events takes possession of her again,\nand now with the feminine privilege of changing her mind, she thinks it\nwould be better to rehearse an event which happened to herself a year ago\nas a prologue. Speaking of adventures causes her very naturally to drop\ninto reminiscences about her first adventure, when she recited\nEuripides and met the man who was to become her husband.\n\n[Illustration: ARISTOPHANES]\n\nThus, through this perfectly natural transition from one mood to another,\nBalaustion leads up to the real subject-matter of the poem, Aristophanes'\ndefence of himself, which, however, is preceded by an account of the\neffect of the death of Euripides upon the Athenians as witnessed by\nEuthukles, his death being the occasion of Aristophanes' call on\nBalaustion. What she calls the prologue is really the main theme of the\npoem, while all her talk up to this point is truly the prologue. The\nactual account of the fall of Athens does not come until the conclusion,\nand is related in comparatively few words.\n\nWhat seems, then, to be the chief theme of the poem with its setting of\nwind and wave and bark bears somewhat the same relation to the real theme\nas incidental music does to a play. Upon first thoughts it may seem like a\nclumsy contrivance for introducing Aristophanes upon the scene, but in the\nend it will be perceived, I think, that it serves the artistic purpose of\nplacing Aristophanes in proper perspective. Balaustion with her\nexquisitely human moods and progressive spirit forms the right complement\nto the decaying ideals of Aristophanes, and gives him the proper flavor\nof antiquity. Instead of seeing him in the broad light of a direct\ndramatic presentation we see him indirectly through Balaustion's thoughts\nand moods, who, though permitting him to do full justice to himself, yet\nsurrounds him all the time with the subtle influence of her sympathy for\nEuripides.\n\nAs the better way to follow the development of the preliminary part of the\npoem is by regarding every step as the outcome of a mood on the part of\nBalaustion, so the better way of following Aristophanes through what seems\nhis interminable defence of himself is again by tracing the moods through\nwhich his arguments express themselves.\n\nAristophanes comes in half drunk to make his call on Balaustion, and his\nfirst mood is one of graciousness toward her whose beauty has impressed\nhis artistic perceptions, but noticing her dignity and its effect in\nrouting the chorus, he immediately begins to be on the defensive. The\ndisappearance of his chorus, however, takes him off on a little excursion\nabout the moves which are being made by the city to cut down the expense\nof dramatic performances by curtailing the chorus. In a spirit of bravado\nhe declares that he does not care so long as he has his actors left. A\ncoarse reference causes Balaustion to turn and he changes his mood. He\nacknowledges he is drunk and rushes off into a defence of drunkenness in\ngeneral for playwrights and for himself, which on this occasion came about\non account of the supper he and his players have attended. He rattles on\nabout the supper, telling how the merriment increased until something\nhappened. The thought of this something changes his mood completely.\nBalaustion notices it, he reads her expression, and characteristically\nexplains the change in himself as due to her fixed regard. The reader is\nleft in suspense as to the something which happened, yet it haunts the\nmemory, and he feels convinced that some time he is to know what it was.\n\nNow Aristophanes bids Balaustion speak to him without fear. She does so,\nconveying in her welcome both her disapproval and her admiration.\nAristophanes, evidently piqued, does not answer, but makes personal\nremarks upon the manner of her speech, asking her if she learned tragedy\nfrom _him_--Euripides. This starts him off on dreams of a new comedy in\nwhich women shall act, but he concludes that his mission is to ornament\ncomedy as he finds it, not invent a new comedy.\n\nThis gives Balaustion a chance to ask if in his last play, later than the\none Euthukles had seen, he had smoothed this ancient club of comedy he\nspeaks of into a more human and less brutal implement of warfare, and was\nit a conviction of this new method he might use in comedy which was the\nsomething that happened at the feast. Aristophanes, as usual when he is\ncornered, makes no direct reply, but asks if Euthukles saw his last play,\nto which Balaustion frankly replies that having seen the first he never\ncared to see the following. Aristophanes avows he can show cause why he\nwrote them, but glances off in a sarcastic reference to Euripides, whose\nart he says belongs to the closet or the cave, not to the world. He\nprefers to stick to the old forms of art and make Athens happy in what\ncoarse way she desires. He then proceeds to enlarge upon what that is.\nThen he changes again and asks with various excursions into side issues\n(for example: the rise of comedy; how it is now being regarded by the\ngovernment, which favors tragedy, giving him another chance for a dig at\nEuripides) if he is the man likely to be satisfied to be classed merely a\ncomic poet since he wrote the \"Birds?\" Balaustion encourages him a little\nhere, and, cheered up, he goes on to tell how he gave the people draught\ndivine in \"Wasps\" and \"Grasshoppers,\" and how he praised peace by\nshowing the kind of pleasures one may have when peace reigns--and still at\nevery opportunity casting slurs at the tragic muse, especially Euripides.\n\nHe goes on describing his play until he touches on some of the sarcasms\nwhich make Balaustion wince.\n\nThen he turns about and declares he loathes as much as she does the things\nof which he tells, but his attempts at bringing comedy up to a high level\nhaving failed, he is obliged to give the Athenians what they want, a\nsmartened up version of the \"Thesmaphoriazousai,\" which had failed the\nyear before. He describes his triumph with this which was being celebrated\nat the supper when the something happened which is now at last\ndescribed--namely, the entrance of Sophocles, who announces that he\nintends to commemorate the death of Euripides by having his chorus clothed\nin black and ungarlanded at the performance of his play next month.\n\nThis startling scene, being prepared for and not brought in until\nAristophanes has done much talking, seems to throw a sudden flash of\nreality into the poem. Ill-natured criticism, Aristophanes shows, follows\non the part of the feasters, though Aristophanes' mood is one of sudden\nrecognition of the value of Euripides. But when he, sobered for the time\nbeing, proposes a toast to the Tragic Muse, the feasters consider it a\njoke. He quickly accepts the situation, and comes off triumphant by\nproposing a toast to both muses.\n\nAfter this Balaustion asks Aristophanes if he will commemorate Euripides\nwith them. But his sober mood is gone. He looks about the room, sees\nthings that belong to Euripides, and immediately begins stabbing at him.\nBalaustion objects, and upon the theme of respect to the dead he begins\nhis usual invective against his rivals, but finally ends by giving respect\nto Euripides, him whose serenity, he declares, could never with his gibes\nbe disturbed.\n\nAfter venting this mood of animosity he begins soberly to discuss the\norigin of comedy. He traces its growth to the point where he found it, and\nenlarges on the improvements he has made, touching, as always, upon the\ncriticisms of his opposers, and finally arriving at the chief point of\ndifference between himself and Euripides, which he enlarges upon at great\nlength. Here the incidental music breaks in with talk between Balaustion\nand Euthukles, in which the former rather tries to excuse herself from\nrelating her reply to Aristophanes.\n\nHowever, she does give her reply, which is conducted in a more truly\nargumentative fashion than the defence of Aristophanes. She picks up his\npoints and makes her points against him usually by denying the truth of\nwhat he has said. Her supreme defence is, however, the reading of the play\n\"Herakles.\"\n\nAristophanes, touched but not convinced, finally insists that he is\nAthens' best friend. He is no Thamuris to be punished for seeing beyond\nhuman vision. The last characteristic touch is when Aristophanes catches\nup the psalterion and sings the lyric of Thamuris. Then he departs, and\nBalaustion rehearses the last days of Athens, with Euthukles' part in\ndelaying the tragedy of the doomed city.\n\nBy threading one's way thus through the apology, not from the point of\nview of Aristophanes' arguments, but from the point of view of his moods,\none experiences a tremendous sense of the personality of the man.\nRepetitions which are not required for the full presentation of his case\ntake their place as natural to a man who is not only inordinately vain but\nis immediately swayed by every suggestion and emotion that comes to him.\nOwing to his volatile temperament the argument is varied by now a bit of\nvivid description like that of the archon's feast when Sophocles appeared,\nnow by some merely personal remark to Balaustion.\n\nThe criticism in this play, as in that of \"Balaustion's Adventure,\" may be\nconsidered either as representing some phase of contemporary opinion about\nAristophanes or as expressing the opinion of the poet himself.\nBalaustion's indignation is especially aroused by the two plays, \"The\nLusistrata\" and the \"Thesmophoriazousai,\" both of which she finds utterly\ndetestable. It is interesting to compare with this entirely unfavorable\ncriticism the feeling of such distinguished classical scholars as Gilbert\nMurray and J. A. Symonds. The first Murray describes as a play \"full of\ndaring indecency, it is true, but the curious thing is that Aristophanes,\nwhile professing to ridicule the women, is all through on their side. The\njokes made by the superior sex at the expense of the inferior--to give\nthem their Roman names--are seldom remarkable either for generosity or\nrefinement, and it is our author's pleasant humor to accuse everybody of\nevery vice he can think of at the moment. Yet with the single exception\nthat he credits women with an inordinate fondness for wine parties--the\nequivalent it would seem of afternoon tea--he makes them on the whole\nperceptibly more sensible and more sympathetic than his men.\"\n\nOf the second play Symonds speaks with actual enthusiasm. \"It has a\nregular plot--an intrigue and a solution--and its persons are not\nallegorical but real. Thus it approaches the standard of modern comedy.\nBut the plot, though gigantic in its scale, and prodigious in its wealth\nof wit and satire, is farcical. The artifices by which Euripides endeavors\nto win Agathon to undertake his cause, the disguise of Muesilochus in\nfemale attire, the oratory of the old man against the women in the midst\nof their assembly, his detection, the momentary suspension of the dramatic\naction by his seizure of the supposed baby, his slaughter of the swaddled\nwine jar, his apprehension by Cleisthenes, the devices and disguises by\nwhich Euripides endeavors to extricate his father-in-law from the scrape,\nand the final _ruse_ by which he eludes the Scythian bowmen, and carries\noff Muesilochus in triumph--all these form a series of highly diverting\ncomic scenes.\" Again, \"There is no passage in Aristophanes more amusing\nthan the harangue of Muesilochus. The portrait, too, of Agathon in the act\nof composition is exquisitely comic. But the crowning sport of the\n'Thesmophoriazousai' is in the last scene when Muesilochus adapts the\nPalamedes and the Helen of Euripides to his own forlorn condition,\njumbling up the well-known verses of these tragedies with coarse-flavored,\nrustical remarks; and when at last Euripides, himself, acts Echo and\nPerseus to the Andromeda of his father-in-law, and both together mystify\nthe policeman by their ludicrous utterance of antiphonal lamentation.\"\n\nIn her welcome of him, Balaustion expresses rather what she thinks he\nmight be than what she really thinks he is. She welcomes him:\n\n  \"Good Genius! Glory of the poet, glow\n  O' the humorist who castigates his kind,\n  Suave summer-lightning lambency which plays\n  On stag-horned tree, misshapen crag askew,\n  Then vanishes with unvindictive smile\n  After a moment's laying black earth bare.\n  Splendor of wit that springs a thunder ball--\n  Satire--to burn and purify the world,\n  True aim, fair purpose: just wit justly strikes\n  Injustice,--right, as rightly quells the wrong,\n  Finds out in knaves', fools', cowards', armory\n  The tricky tinselled place fire flashes through.\n  No damage else, sagacious of true ore;\n  Wit learned in the laurel, leaves each wreath\n  O'er lyric shell or tragic barbiton,--\n  Though alien gauds be singed,--undesecrate.\"\n\nHer attitude here is very like that of criticism in general, except that\nshe is more or less sarcastic, meaning to imply that such Aristophanes\nmight be but is not. Symonds, on the other hand, thinks him really what\nBalaustion thinks he might be.\n\n\"If,\" he says, \"Coleridge was justified in claiming the German word\nLustspiel for the so-called comedies of Shakespeare, we have a far greater\nright to appropriate this wide and pregnant title to the plays of\nAristophanes. The brazen mask which crowns his theatre smiles indeed\nbroadly, serenely, as if its mirth embraced the universe; but its hollow\neye-sockets suggest infinite possibilities of profoundest irony.\nBuffoonery carried to the point of paradox, wisdom disguised as insanity,\nand gaiety concealing the whole sum of human disappointment, sorrow and\ndisgust, seem ready to escape from its open but rigid lips, which are\nmolded to a proud perpetual laughter. It is a laughter which spares\nneither God nor man--which climbs Olympus only to drag down the immortals\nto its scorn, and trails the pall of august humanity in the mire; but\nwhich, amid its mockery and blasphemy, seems everlastingly asserting, as\nby paradox, that reverence of the soul which bends our knees to heaven and\nmakes us respect our brothers.\"\n\nOne cannot help feeling, in view of these very diverse opinions, that both\nare exaggerated. The enthusiasm of Symonds seems almost fanatic. Though no\none of penetration can fail to see the wit and wisdom, and at times, in\nsuch lyrics as those in \"The Clouds,\" the poetic charm of Aristophanes,\nthe person of fastidious taste, whether a Greek girl of his own day, or a\nman of these latter days, must sometimes feel that his buffoonery\noversteps the bounds of true wit, even when it is not shadowed by a\ncoarseness not to be borne at the present day. When Balaustion asks him\n\"in plain words,\"\n\n  \"Have you exchanged brute blows, which teach the brute\n  Man may surpass him in brutality,--\n  For human fighting, or true god-like force\n  Which breeds persuasion nor needs fight at all?\"\n\nAristophanes replies that it had not been his intention to turn art's\nfabric upside down and invent an entirely new species of comedy. That sort\nof thing can be done by one who has turned his back on life, friendly\nfaces, sympathetic cheer, as Euripides had done in his Salaminian cave.\n\nThis may be regarded, on the whole, as a good bit of defence on\nAristophanes' part. It is equivalent to his saying that there was no use\nin his trying to be anything for which his genius had not fitted him. This\nchimes in, again, with such authoritative criticism as Murray's, who\ndeclares: \"The general value of his view of life, and, above all, his\ntreatment of his opponent's alleged vices, may well be questioned. Yet\nadmitting that he often opposed what was best in his age, or advocated it\non the lowest grounds, admitting that his slanders are beyond description\nand that, as a rule, he only attacks the poor and the leaders of the poor,\nnevertheless he does it all with such exhuberant high spirits, such an air\nof its all being nonsense together, such insight and swiftness, such\nincomparable directness and charm of style, that even if some Archelaus\nhad handed him over to Euripides to scourge, he would probably have\nescaped his well-earned whipping.\"\n\nMuch of Aristophanes' defence consists in slurring at Euripides, against\nwhom he waxes more and more fierce as he goes on. His plays furnish\nnumerous illustrations of his rivalry with Euripides, yet curiously\nenough, as critics have pointed out, Aristophanes imitates Euripides to a\nnoteworthy extent, so much so that the dramatist Cratinus invented a word\nto describe the style of the two--Euripid-Aristophanize. Judging from his\nparodies on Euripides, he must certainly have read and reread his plays\nuntil he knew them practically by heart.\n\nBalaustion, as Browning has portrayed her in this poem, is the lyric girl\ndeveloped into splendid womanhood. She has a large heart and a large\nbrain, as well as imagination and strong ethical fervor. Her intense\nfeeling at the fall of Athens, which had been the ideal to her of\ngreatness, and her reverential love for Euripides, her charity toward\nAristophanes the man, if not toward his work, show how deep and\nfar-reaching her sympathies were. Again, her imagination flashes forth in\nher picturesque descriptions of the ruined Athens and her prophetic\npicture of the new Athens, of the spirit which will arise in its place, in\nher telling portraiture of Aristophanes and his entrance into her house,\nas well as in many another passage. Her intellect shines out in her clever\nmanagement of the argument with Aristophanes, and her ethical fervor in\nher denunciations of the moral depravity of certain of the plays.\n\nAs to the question of whether a young Greek woman would be likely to\ncriticise Aristophanes in this way, opinion certainly differs. History is,\nfor the most part, silent about women. As Mahaffy says, it is only in the\ndramatists and the philosophers that we can get any glimpses of the woman\nof the time.\n\nMahaffy's opinions are worth quoting as an example of the pessimism\ngrowing out of a bias in favor of a particular type of woman which he\nidealized in his own mind. He seems utterly incapable of appreciating the\nhumanness of the women in the Greek dramatists, especially those in\nEuripides. \"Sadder than the condition of the aged was that of women,\" he\nwrites, \"at this remarkable period. The days of the noble and\nhigh-principled Penelope, of the refined and intellectual Helen, of the\ninnocent and spirited Nausikaa, of the gentle and patient Andromache, had\npassed away. Men no longer sought and respected the society of the gentler\nsex. Would that Euripides had even been familiar, as Homer was, with the\nsound of women brawling in the streets! For in these days they were\nconfined to Asiatic silence and seclusion, while the whole life of the\nmen, both in business and recreation, was essentially public. Just as the\nfeverish excitement of political life nowadays prompts men to spend even\ntheir leisure in the clubs, where they meet companions of like passions\nand interests with themselves, so the Athenian gentleman only came home\nto eat and sleep. His leisure as well as his business kept him in the\nmarket place. His wife and daughters, ignorant of philosophy and politics,\nwere strangers to his real life, and took no interest in his pursuits.\n\n\"The results were fatal to Athenian society. The women, uninstructed,\nneglected, and enslaved, soon punished their oppressors with their own\nkeen and bitter weapons, and with none keener than their vices. For, of\ncourse, all the grace and delicacy of female character disappeared.\nIntellectual power in women was distinctly associated with moral\ndepravity, so that excessive ignorance and stupidity was considered the\nonly guarantee of virtue. The qualifications for society became\nincompatible with the qualifications for home duties, so that the outcasts\nfrom society, as we call them, were not the immoral and the profligate but\nthe honorable and the virtuous.\"\n\nSuch is the view to be gleaned from history, and in Mahaffy's opinion the\nliterature of the time tells the same story. He goes on: \"When we consult\nthe literature of the day, we find women treated either with contemptuous\nridicule in comedy, or with still more contemptuous silence in history. In\ntragedy or in the social theories of the philosophers alone can we hope\nfor a glimpse into the average character and position of Athenian women.\nHere at least we might have expected that the portraits drawn with such\nconsummate skill by Homer would have been easily transferred to the\nAthenian stage. But to our astonishment we find the higher social feelings\ntoward women so weak that the Athenian tragic poets seem quite unable to\nappreciate, or even to understand, the more delicate features in Homeric\ncharacters. They are painted so coarsely and ignorantly by Euripides that\nwe should never recognize them but for their names. Base motives and\nunseemly wrangling take the place of chivalrous honor and graceful\npoliteness.\n\n\"But the critics of the day complained that Euripides degraded the ideal\ncharacter of tragedy by painting human nature as he found it: in fact as\nit was, and not as it ought to be. Let us turn, then, to Sophokles, who\npainted the most ideal women which the imagination of a refined Athenian\ncould conceive, and consider his most celebrated characters, his Antigone\nand his Elektra. A calm, dispassionate survey will, I think, pronounce\nthem harsh and masculine. They act rightly, no doubt, and even nobly, but\nthey do it in the most disagreeable way. Except in their external\ncircumstances they differ in no respect from men.\"\n\nCertainly, the opinion expressed of the women of Euripides is tainted by\nthe feeling that they ought to act like English matrons and their\ndaughters.\n\nQuite a different impression is given by Symonds, who, in regard to some\nof the sentences occurring in Euripides which are uncomplimentary to\nwomen, says: \"It is impossible to weigh occasional sententious sarcasms\nagainst such careful studies of heroic virtue in women as the Iphigenia,\nthe Elektra, the Polyxena, the Alkestis.\"\n\nBut the complete vindication of the fact that Balaustion and Mrs. Browning\nand our own women of to-day are on the right side in their appreciation of\nEuripides as the great woman's poet of antiquity is found in the opinion\nof our contemporary critic, Gilbert Murray, who more than thirty years\nafter these poems were written writes of the \"wonderful women-studies by\nwhich Euripides dazzled and aggrieved his contemporaries. They called him\na hater of women; and Aristophanes makes the women of Athens conspire for\nrevenge against him. Of course he was really the reverse. He loved and\nstudied and expressed the women whom the Socratics ignored and Pericles\nadvised to stay in their rooms. Crime, however, is always more striking\nand palpable than virtue. Heroines like Medea, Phaedra, Stheneboia,\nAerope, Clytemnestra, perhaps fill the imagination more than those of the\nangelic or devoted type--Alcestis, who died to save her husband, Evadne\nand Laodamia, who could not survive theirs, and all the great list of\nvirgin-martyrs. But the significant fact is that, like Ibsen, Euripides\nrefuses to idealize any man, and does idealize women. There is one\nyouth-martyr, Menoikeus in the 'Phaenissae,' but his martyrdom is a\nmasculine, businesslike performance--he gets rid of his prosaic father by\na pretext about traveling money without that shimmer of loveliness that\nhangs over the virgins.\"\n\nWhere then did Euripides find these splendid women of force and character?\nIt seems quite impossible that he could have evolved them out of his own\ninner consciousness. He must have known women who served at least, in\npart, as models. Besides, there was undoubtedly a new woman movement in\nthe air or Plato in his \"Republic\" would not have suggested a plan for\neducating men and women alike. The free women of Athens are known in some\ncases to have attained a high degree of culture. Aspasia, who became the\nwife of Pericles, is a shining example. There was Sappho, also, with her\nschool of poetry attended by girls in Lesbos.\n\nTaking all these facts into consideration, it would seem that Browning was\nsufficiently justified in drawing such a woman as Balaustion, and that a\nwoman of her penetrating intellect and ardor of spirit would love\nEuripides, and dislike Aristophanes, seems absolutely certain.\n\nTherefore, if the historical attitude is taken toward Balaustion and her\ncriticism and appreciation, it can be on the whole accepted as reflecting\nwhat would probably be the feeling of an ardent woman-follower of\nEuripides in his own day.\n\nBut, on the other hand, if the criticism be taken as Browning's own, it is\nopen to question whether it is partisan rather than entirely broad-minded.\nTake the consensus of opinion of modern critics and we find them all\nagreed in regard to the genius of Aristophanes, though admitting that his\ncoarseness must, at times, detract from their enjoyment of him.\n\nThere is much truth in Symonds' criticism of the poem. He says of it: \"As\na sophist and a rhetorician of poetry, Mr. Browning proves himself\nunrivaled, and takes rank with the best writers of historical romances.\nYet students may fairly accuse him of some special pleading in favor of\nhis friends and against his foes. It is true that Aristophanes did not\nbring back again the golden days of Greece; true that his comedy revealed\na corruption latent in Athenian life. But neither was Euripides in any\nsense a savior. Impartiality regards them both as equally destructive:\nAristophanes, because he indulged animalism and praised ignorance in an\nage which ought to have outgrown both; Euripides, because he criticised\nthe whole fabric of Greek thought and feeling in an age which had not yet\ndistinguished between analysis and skepticism.\n\n\"What has just been said about Mr. Browning's special pleading indicates\nthe chief fault to be found with his poem. The point of view is modern.\nThe situation is strained. Aristophanes becomes the scapegoat of Athenian\nsins, while Euripides shines forth a saint as well as a sage. Balaustion,\nfor her part, beautiful as her conception truly is, takes up a position\nwhich even Plato could not have assumed. Into her mouth Mr. Browning has\nput the views of the most searching and most sympathetic modern analyst.\nShe judges Euripides not as he appeared to his own Greeks, but as he\nstrikes the warmest of his admirers, who compare his work with that of all\nthe poets who have ever lived.\"\n\nIt would seem that Mr. Symonds, himself, does some special pleading here.\nAs we have seen, Euripides, though not a favorite in Athens, did have warm\nadmirers in his own day; consequently there is nothing out of the way in\nportraying one of his contemporaries as an admirer. Furthermore,\nBalaustion does not represent him as a savior of his age. She sees only\ntoo clearly that in the narrow sense of convincing his age he has not been\na success. What is her vision of the spiritual Athens which is to arise\nbut a confession of this fact! Nor is it entirely improbable that she\nmight be prophetic of a time when Euripides will be recognized as the true\npower. Any disciple of a poet ahead of his time perceives these things.\nOne should be careful in judging of the poem as good modern criticism not\nto be entirely guided by the opinions of Balaustion. It should never be\nforgotten that it is a dramatic poem in which Aristophanes is allowed to\nspeak for himself at great length, and whatever can be accepted as good\nargument for himself upon his own ground should be set over against the\nsweeping strictures of Balaustion. Indeed it may turn out that Browning\nhas, after all, said for him the most exculpatory word of any critic, for\nhe has so presented his case as to show that he considers him the outcome\nof the undeveloped phase of morals then existing for which he is hardly\nresponsible because the higher light has not yet broken in upon him. This\nis evidenced especially in the strange combination in him of a frank\nbelief in a life of the senses which goes along with a puritanical\nreverence for the gods, and a hatred of anything that falls within his own\ndefinition of vice.\n\nTo sum up, if I may again be forgiven for re-expressing an opinion\nelsewhere printed, which states as clearly as I am able to do my\nconviction of where the play stands as criticism, like all dramatic work,\nthis poem aims to present the actual spirit of the time in which the\nactors moved upon the stage of life, and to reproduce something of their\nmental and emotional natures. Any criticism of the poets who figure in the\npoem, or of the larger question of the quarrel between tragedy and comedy,\nshould be deduced indirectly, as implied in the sympathetic presentation\nof both sides, not based exclusively upon direct expressions of opinion\non either side. So regarded it would seem that Browning was able to\nappreciate the genius of Aristophanes as well as that of Euripides, but\nthat he considered Aristophanes to have value chiefly in relation to his\nage, as the artistic mouthpiece of its long-established usages, while\nEuripides had caught the breath of the future, and was the mirror of the\nprophetic impulses of his age rather than of its dominant civilization.\n\nIt is not improbable that Landor's fascinating portrayal of the brilliant\nAspasia may have had some influence upon Browning's conception of\nBalaustion, upon the intellectual side at least. Alcibiades says that many\npeople think her language as pure and elegant as Pericles, and Pericles\nsays she was never seen out of temper or forgetful of what argument to\nurge first and most forcibly. When all is said, however, it may be that\nthe \"halo irised around\" Balaustion's head was due, more than to any one\nelse, to the influence of the memory of Mrs. Browning, of whom she is made\nto say with a sublime disregard of its anachronism:\n\n  \"I know the poetess who graved in gold,\n  Among her glories that shall never fade,\n  This style and title for Euripides,\n  _The Human with his droppings of warm tears_.\"\n\nAfter such a study of Greek life as this, wherein every available incident\nin history, every episode in the plays of Aristophanes bearing on the\nsubject, every contemporary allusion are all woven together with such\nconsummate skill that the very soul and body of the time is imaged forth,\nthe classical poems of the other great names of the century seem almost\nlike child's play. Landor's poems on Greek subjects sound like imitations\nin inferior material of antiquity. Arnold's are even duller. Swinburne\ntells his Greek tales in an endless flow of rhythmical, musical verse,\nwhich occasionally rises into the realm of having something to say. Morris\ntells his at equal length in a manner suggestive of Chaucer without\nChaucer's snap, but where among them all is there such a bit of stinging\nlife as in \"Pheidippedes\" or \"Echetlos?\"\n\n[Illustration: WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR]\n\nTennyson has, it is true, written some altogether exquisite verse, upon\nclassical themes, and in every case the poems are not descriptive nor\ndramatic, but are dramatic soliloquies, thus approaching in form\nBrowning's dramatic idyls. One of the most beautiful of these is \"Oenone.\"\nThere we have a mere tradition enlarged upon and the feelings of Oenone\nupon the desertion of Paris expressed with a richness of emotional fervor\nin a setting of appropriate nature imagery which carries us back to the\nidyls of Theocritus. \"Ulysses,\" again gives the psychology of a wanderer\nwho has become so habituated to adventures that he is quite incapable of\nsettling down with Penelope for the remainder of his life. One cannot\nquite forgive the poet for calling the ever youthful and beautiful\nPenelope, whose hand was sought by so many suitors, and who, although\ntwenty years had passed, might still be quite young, an \"aged wife.\" It\nhas always seemed to the writer like a wholly unnecessary stab at a very\nbeautiful story, and the poem would have been just as effective if\nUlysses' hunger for lands beyond the sun had not been coupled with any\nscorn of Penelope, but with a feeling of pain that again Fate must take\nhim away from her. Aside from this note of bad taste--bad, because it\nshadows a picture of faithfulness, cherished as an almost universal\npossession of humanity--the poem is fine. There is also, though not Greek,\nthe remarkable study of Lucretius going mad from the effects of his wife's\nlove philter, in which the most fascinating glimpses of his philosophy of\natoms are caught amid his maniacal wanderings, and, last, the very\nbeautiful Demeter and Persephone.\n\nThese are as unique in their way as Browning's Greek poems are in theirs,\nstanding quite apart from such work as Morris', or Swinburne's, not only\nbecause of their haunting music, which even Swinburne cannot equal, but\nbecause of a deeper vein of thought running through them. As far as\nthought is concerned, however, all pale in significance the moment they\nare placed in juxtaposition with any of Browning's classical productions.\n\nNot the least interesting of Browning's classical poems is \"Ixion.\" In his\ntreatment of the myth of Ixion he proves himself a true child of the\nGreeks, not that he makes any slavish attempt to reproduce a Greek\natmosphere as it existed in the lifetime of Greek poetry, but he exercises\nthat prerogative which the Greek poets always claimed, of interpreting a\nmyth to suit their own ends.\n\nIt has become a sort of critical axiom to compare Browning's \"Ixion\" with\nthe \"Prometheus\" of literature. This is one of those catching analogies\nwhich lay hold upon the mind, and cannot be shaken off again without\nconsiderable difficulty. Mr. Arthur Symons first spoke of the resemblance;\nand almost every other critic with the exception of Mr. Nettleship has\ndwelt mainly upon that aspect of the poem which bears out the comparison.\nBut why, it might very well be asked, did Browning, if he intended to make\nanother Prometheus, choose Ixion for his theme? And the answer is evident,\nbecause in the story of Ixion he found some quality different from any\nwhich existed in the story of Prometheus, and which was especially suited\nto the end he had in view.\n\nThe kernel of the myth of Prometheus as developed by AEschylus is proud,\nunflinching suffering of punishment, inflicted, not by a god justly angry\nfor sin against himself, but by a god sternly mindful of his own\nprerogatives, whose only right is might, and jealous of any interference\nin behalf of the race which he detested--the race of man. Thus Prometheus\nstands out as a hero in Greek mythology, a mediator between man and the\nblind anger of a god of unconditional power; and Prometheus, with an\nequally blind belief in Fate, accepts while he defies the punishment\ninflicted by Zeus. He tacitly acknowledges the right of Zeus to punish\nhim, since he confesses his deeds to be sins, but, nevertheless, he would\ndo exactly the same thing over again:\n\n                \"By my choice, my choice\n  I freely sinned--I will confess my sin--\n  And helping mortals found mine own despair.\"\n\nOn the other hand, Ixion never appears in classic lore as a hero. He has\nbeen called the \"Cain\" of Greece, because he was the first, as Pindar\nsays, \"to introduce to mortal men the murder of kin not unaccompanied by\ncunning.\" Zeus appears, however, to have shown more leniency to him for\nthe crime of killing his father-in-law than he ever did to Prometheus, as\nhe not only purified him from murder, but invited him to a seat among the\ngods. But to quote Pindar again, \"he found his prosperity too great to\nbear, when with infatuate mind he became enamored of Hera.... Thus his\nconceit drave him to an act of enormous folly, but the man soon suffered\nhis deserts, and received an exquisite torture.\" Ixion, then, in direct\ncontrast to Prometheus, stands forth an embodiment of the most detestable\nof sins, perpetrated simply for personal ends. To depict such a man as\nthis in an attitude of defiance, and yet to justify his defiance, is a far\nmore difficult problem than to justify the already admired heroism of\nPrometheus. It is entirely characteristic of Browning that he should\nchoose perhaps the most unprincipled character in the whole range of Greek\nmythology as his hero. He is not content, like Emerson, with simply\ntelling us that \"in the mud and scum of things there alway, alway\nsomething sings\"; his aim is ever to bring us face to face with reality,\nand to open our ears that we may hear for ourselves this universal song.\nIn fine, Browning chose Ixion and not another, because he wanted above all\nthings an unquestioned sinner; and the task he set himself was to show the\nuse of sin and at the same time exonerate the sinner from the eternal\nconsequences of his act.\n\nSo mystical is the language of the poem that it is extremely difficult to\ntrace behind it the subtle reasoning. Mr. Nettleship has given by far the\nbest exposition of the poem, though even he does not seize all its\nsuggestiveness.\n\nIxion, the sinner, suffering eternal torment, questions the justice of\nsuch torment. The first very important conclusion to which he comes, and\nit is one entirely in accord with science, is that sin is an aberration of\nsense, merely the result of external conditions in which the soul of man\nhas no active part. The soul simply dreams, but once fully awakened, it\nwould free itself from this bondage of sense if it were allowed to do so.\nIxion argues that it is Zeus that hath made him and not he himself, and if\nhe has sinned it is through the bodily senses which Zeus has conferred\nupon him, and if he were the friendly and all-powerful god which he\nclaimed himself to be and which Ixion believed he was, why did he allow\nthese distractions of sense to lead him (Ixion) into sin which could only\nbe expiated by eternal punishment? Without body there would have been\nnothing to obstruct his soul's rush upon the real; and with one touch of\npitying power Zeus might have dispersed \"this film-work, eye's and ear's.\"\nIt is entirely the fault of Zeus that he had sinned; and having done so\nwill external torture make him repent any more who has repented already?\nThis is the old, old problem that has taxed the brains of many a\nphilosopher and the faith of many a theologian--the reconcilement of the\nexistence of evil with an omnipotent God. Then follows a comparison\nbetween the actions of Zeus, a god, and of Ixion, the human king; and\nIxion declares could he have known all, as Zeus does, he would have warded\noff evil from his subjects, would have seen that they were trained aright\nfrom the first--in fact, would not have allowed evil to exist, or failing\nthis, could he have seen the heart of the criminals and realized how they\nrepented he would have given them a chance to retrieve their past. Ixion\nnow realizes that his human ideal is higher than that of Zeus. He had\nimagined him possessed of human qualities, and finds his qualities are\nless than human. What must be the inevitable result of arriving at such a\nconclusion? It means the dethronement of the god, and either a lapse into\nhopeless atheism or the recognition that the conception formed of the god\nwas that of the human mind at an earlier stage of understanding. This\nconception becomes crystallized into an anthropomorphic god; but the mind\nof man goes onward on its way to higher heights, and lo! there comes a day\nwhen the god-ideal of the past is lower than the human ideal of the\npresent. It is such a crisis as this that Ixion has arrived at, and his\nfaith is equal to the strain. Since Zeus is man's own mind-made god,\nIxion's tortures must be the natural consequences of his sin, and not the\narbitrary punishment of a god; and what is Ixion's sin as Browning has\ninterpreted the myth?\n\nThe sin is that of arrogance. Ixion, a mere man, strives to be on an\nequality with gods. In Lucian's dialogue between Hera and Zeus the stress\nis laid upon the arrogance of Ixion. Jupiter declares that Ixion shall pay\nthe \"penalty not of his love--for that surely is not so dreadful a\ncrime--but of his loud boasting.\" Browning raises the sin into a rarer\natmosphere than that of the Greek or Latin. Zeus and Hera may be taken to\nrepresent the attributes of power and love as conceived by man in\nDivinity; and Ixion, symbolic of man, arrogantly supposes that he is\ncapable of putting himself on an equality with Divinity by conceiving the\nentire nature of Divinity, that out of his finite mind he can construct\nthe absolute god, and this is the sin, or, better, the aberration of\nsense, which results in the crystallization of his former inadequate\nconceptions into an anthropomorphic god, and causes his own downfall.\nIxion, now fully aroused to the fact that the god he has been defying is\nbut his own miserable conception of God, realizes that the suffering\ncaused by this conception of God is the very means through which man\nstruggles toward higher ideals: through evil he is brought to a\nrecognition of the good; from his agony is bred the rainbow of hope, which\never shines above him glorified by the light from a Purity far beyond,\nall-unobstructed. Successive conceptions of God must sink; but man,\nhowever misled by them, must finally burst through the obstructions of\nsense, freeing his spirit to aspire forever toward the light.\n\n\"Ixion,\" then, is not merely an argument against eternal punishment, nor\na picture of heroic suffering, though he who will may draw these lessons\nfrom it, but it is a tremendous symbol of the spiritual development of\nman. Pure in its essence, the spirit learns through the obstructions of\nsense to yearn forever for higher attainment, and this constitutes the\nespecial blessedness of man as contrasted with Zeus. He, like the\nPythagorean Father of Number, is the conditioned one; but man is\nprivileged through all aeons of time to break through conditions, and thus\nIxion, triumphant, exclaims:\n\n            \"Where light, where light is, aspiring\n  Thither I rise, whilst thou--Zeus, keep the godship and sink.\"\n\nIn these poems, as in other phases of his work, Browning runs the gamut of\nlife, of art, and of thought. He has set a new standard in regard to the\nhandling of classic material, one which should open the field of classic\nlore afresh to future poets. Instead of trying to ape in more or less\nineffectual imitations the style and thought of the great masters of\nantiquity, or simply use their mythology as a well-spring of romance to be\nclothed in whatever vagaries of style the individual poet might be able to\ninvent, the aim of the future poet should be to reconstruct the life and\nthought of that wonderful civilization. One playwright, at least, has made\na step in the right direction. I refer to Gilbert Murray, whose classical\nscholarship has thrown so much light upon the vexed questions of\nBrowning's attitude toward Euripides, and who, in his \"Andromache,\" has\nwritten a play, not in classical, but in modern form, which seems to bring\nus more into touch with the life of Homer's day than even Homer himself.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nPROPHETIC VISIONS\n\n\nThe division between centuries, though it be an arbitrary one, does\nactually appear to mark fairly definite steps in human development, and\nalready there are indications that the twentieth century is taking on a\ncharacter quite distinct from that of the nineteenth. It looks now as if\nit were to be the century of the realization of mankind's wildest dreams\nin the past. Air navigation, the elixir of life, perpetual motion, are\nsome of them. About the first no one can now have much skepticism, for if\nairships are not as yet common objects of the everyday sky, they, at\nleast, occupy a large share of attention in the magazines, while the\naviator, a being who did not exist in the last century, is now the hero of\nthe hour.\n\nWith regard to the second, though no sparkling elixir distilled from some\nrare flower, such as that Septimius Felton sought in Hawthorne's tale, has\nbeen discovered, the great scientist Metchnikoff has brought to light a\npreserver of youth more in keeping with the science of the day--namely, a\nmicrobe, possessing power to destroy the poison that produces age. Whether\nperpetual youth is to lead to immortality in the flesh will probably be a\nquestion for other centuries to discuss, though if Metchnikoff is right\nthere is no reason why we should not retain our youthfulness all our lives\nin this century. Add to this, machinery run by the perpetual energy of\nradium--a possibility, if radium can ever be obtained in sufficient\nquantities to supply the needed power to keep modern civilization on its\nceaseless \"go\"--and we may picture to ourselves, before the end of the\ntwentieth century, youths of ninety starting forth on voyages of thirty\nyears in radium ships, which, like the fairy watch of the Princess\nRossetta, will never go wrong and will never need to be wound up,\nmetaphorically speaking. It would almost seem as if some method of\nenlarging the earth, or of arranging voyages to the moon and Mars, would\nbe necessary in order to give the new radium machinery sufficient scope\nfor its activities. However, at present it seems unlikely that it will\never be possible to produce more than half an ounce of radium a year. As\nit would take a ton to run one ship for thirty years, and the expense\nwould be something almost incalculable, it is a dream only to be realized\nby the inventing of methods by which the feeble radio-activity known to\nexist in many other substances can be utilized. These methods have not yet\nbeen invented, but it is a good deal that they have been thought of, for\nwhat man thinks of he generally seems to have the indomitable energy to\naccomplish.\n\nHow such inventions as these, even if very far from attaining success, may\naffect the social and thought ideals of the century it is impossible to\nsay. The automobile is said to have brought about a change, not altogether\nbeneficial, to the intellectual and artistic growth of society to-day. It\nhas taken such powerful possession of the minds of humanity that homes\nhave been mortgaged, music and books and pictures have been sacrificed, in\norder that all the money procurable could be put into the machines and\ntheir running. You hear complaints against the automobile from writers,\nmusicians, and artists. The only thing that really has a good sale is the\nautomobile. What effect rushing about so constantly at high speed in the\nopen air is to have on the brain-power is another interesting problem.\nPerhaps it is this growing subjective delight in motion which is causing\nthe development of an artistic taste dependent upon motion as its chief\nelement. Motion pictures and dancing appeal to the public with such\ninsistence that plays will not hold successfully without an almost\nexaggerated attention to action and dancing, which, whenever it is at all\npossible, make a part of the \"show.\"\n\nThe pictures of the new school of painters, the futurists, also reveal the\ncraze for motion. They try to put into their pictures the successive and\ndecidedly blurred impressions, from the illustrations I have seen, of\nscenes in motion, with a result that is certainly startling and\ninteresting, but which it is difficult to believe is beautiful. One has a\nhorrible suspicion that all this emphasis upon motion in art is a running\nto seed of the art which appeals to the eye and with a psychological\ncontent derived principally from sensation. Perhaps in some other century,\nfatuous humanity will like to listen to operas or to plays in a pitch-dark\ntheatre. This will represent the going to seed of the art which appeals to\nthe ear, and a psychological content derived principally from sentiment.\n\nWhile movement seems to be the keynote of the century thus far, in its\neveryday life and in its art manifestation, very interesting developments\nare taking place in scientific theories and in philosophy, as well as in\nthe world of education and sociology.\n\nIn relation to Browning and the other chief poets of the nineteenth\ncentury, the only aspects of interest are in the region of thought and\nsocial ideals.\n\nWith the exception of Tennyson, no other of the chief poets of the century\nneed be considered in this connection with Browning, because, as we have\nseen in a previous chapter, they reflected on the whole the prevalent\ndisbelief and doubt of the century which came with the revelations of\nscience. Many people have regarded Tennyson as the chief prophet of the\ncentury. He seems, however, to the present writer to have held an attitude\nwhich reflected the general tone of religious aspiration in the century,\nrather than one which struck a new note indicating the direction in which\nfuture religious aspiration might turn.\n\nThe conflict in his mind is between doubt and belief. To doubt he has\noften given the most poignant expression, as in his poem called \"Despair.\"\nThe story is of a man and his wife who have lost all religious faith\nthrough the reading of scientific books:\n\n  \"Have I crazed myself over their horrible infidel writings? O, yes,\n  For these are the new dark ages, you see, of the popular press,\n  When the bat comes out of his cave, and the owls are whooping at noon,\n  And doubt is the lord of the dunghill, and crows to the sun and the moon,\n  Till the sun and the moon of our science are both of them turned into\n      blood.\n  And hope will have broken her heart, running after a shadow of good;\n  For their knowing and know-nothing books are scatter'd from hand to\n      hand--\n  _We_ have knelt in your know-all chapel, too, looking over the sand.\"\n\nIf the effect of science was bad upon this weak-minded pair, the effect of\nreligion as it had been taught them was no better. The absolute\nhopelessness of a blasted faith in all things reaches its climax in the\nfollowing stanzas:\n\n  \"And the suns of the limitless universe sparkled and shone in the sky,\n  Flashing with fires as of God, but we knew that their light was a lie--\n  Bright as with deathless hope--but, however they sparkled and shone,\n  The dark little worlds running round them were worlds of woe like our\n      own--\n  No soul in the heaven above, no soul on the earth below,\n  A fiery scroll written over with lamentation and woe.\n\n  \"See, we were nursed in the drear nightfold of your fatalist creed,\n  And we turn'd to the growing dawn, we had hoped for a dawn indeed,\n  When the light of a sun that was coming would scatter the ghosts of the\n      past.\n  And the cramping creeds that had madden'd the peoples would vanish at\n      last,\n  And we broke away from the Christ, our human brother and friend,\n  For He spoke, or it seemed that He spoke, of a hell without help,\n      without end.\n\n  \"Hoped for a dawn, and it came, but the promise had faded away;\n  We had passed from a cheerless night to the glare of a drearier day;\n  He is only a cloud and a smoke who was once a pillar of fire,\n  The guess of a worm in the dust and the shadow of its desire--\n  Of a worm as it writhes in a world of the weak trodden down by the\n      strong,\n  Of a dying worm in a world, all massacre, murder and wrong.\"\n\nThere are many hopeful passages in Tennyson to offset such deep pessimism\nas is expressed in this one, which, moreover, being a dramatic utterance\nit must be remembered, does not reflect any settled conviction on the\npoet's part, though it shows him liable to moods of the most extreme\ndoubt. In \"The Ancient Sage\" the agnostic spirit of the century is fully\ndescribed, but instead of leading to a mood of despair, the mood is one\nof clinging to faith in the face of all doubt. The sage speaking, says:\n\n  \"Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son,\n  Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in,\n  Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone,\n  Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one.\n  Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no,\n  Nor yet that thou art mortal--nay, my son,\n  Thou canst not prove that I who speak with thee,\n  Are not thyself in converse with thyself,\n  For nothing worthy proving can be proven,\n  Nor yet disproven. Wherefore thou be wise,\n  Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,\n  And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith!\n  She reels not in the storm of warring words,\n  She brightens at the clash of 'Yes' and 'No.'\n  She sees the best that glimmers thro' the worst,\n  She feels the sun is hid but for a night,\n  She spies the summer thro' the winter bud,\n  She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,\n  She hears the lark within the songless egg,\n  She finds the fountain where they wail'd Mirage!\"\n\nThere is nothing here more reassuring than a statement made by the sage,\nbased upon no argument, nor revelation, nor intuition--nothing but the\nutilitarian doctrine that it will be wiser to cling to Faith beyond Faith!\nThis is a sample of the sort of assurance in the reality of God and of\nimmortality which Tennyson was in the habit of giving. In the poem called\n\"Vastness\" he presents with genuine power a pessimistic view of humanity\nand civilization in all its various phases--all of no use, neither the\ngood any more than the bad, \"if we all of us end but in being our own\ncorpse-coffins at last?\" The effect of the dismal atmosphere of the poem\nas a whole is supposed to be dissipated by the last stanza:\n\n  \"Peace, let it be! for I loved him, and love him forever: the dead are\n      not dead but alive.\"\n\nThe conviction here of immortality through personal love is born of the\nfeeling that his friend whom he has loved must live forever. The note of\n\"In Memoriam\" is sounded again. Tennyson's philosophy, in a nutshell,\nseems to be that doubts are not so much overcome as quieted by a\nstruggling faith in the truths of religion, of which the chief assurance\nlies in the thought of personal love. Not as in Browning, that human love,\nbecause of its beauty and ecstasy, is a symbol of divine love, but because\nof its wish to be reunited to the one beloved is an earnest of continued\nexistence. While Tennyson's poetry is saturated with allusions to the\nscience of the century, it seems to be ever the dark side of the doctrine\nof evolution that is dwelt upon by him, while his religion is held to in\nspite of the truths of science, not because the truths of science have\ngiven him in any way a new revelation of beauty.\n\nMuch more emphasis has been laid upon Tennyson's importance as a prophet\nin religious matters than seems to the present writer warranted. He did\nnot even keep pace with the thought of the century, though his poetry\nundoubtedly reflected the liberalized theology of the earlier years of the\nsecond half of the century. As Joseph Jacobs says, \"In Memoriam\" has been\nto the Broad Church Movement what the \"Christian Year\" has been to the\nHigh Church. But where is the Broad Church now? Tennyson was, on the\nwhole, adverse to evolution, which has been almost an instinct in English\nspeculation for the last quarter of a century. So far as he was the voice\nof his age in speculative matters, he only represented the thought of the\n\"sixties.\"\n\nWhat vision Tennyson did have came not through intuition or the higher\nreason, but through his psychic power of self-hypnotism. In \"The Ancient\nSage\" is a passage describing the sort of trance into which he could\nevidently cause himself to fall:\n\n                          \"For more than once when I\n  Sat all alone, revolving in myself\n  The word that is the symbol of myself,\n  The mortal limit of the self was loosed,\n  And passed into the Nameless, as a cloud\n  Melts into Heaven. I touch'd my limbs, the limbs\n  Were strange, not mine--and yet no shade of doubt,\n  But utter clearness, and thro' loss of self,\n  The gain of such large life as match'd with ours\n  Were sun to spark--unshadowable in words,\n  Themselves but shadows of a shadow world.\"\n\nSuch trances have been of common occurrence in the religious life of the\nworld, as Professor James has shown so exhaustively in his great book,\n\"Varieties of Religious Experience.\" And in that book, too, it is\nmaintained, against the scientific conclusions, that such ecstasies\n\"signify nothing but suggested and imitated hypnoid states, on an\nintellectual basis of superstition, and a corporal one of degeneration and\nhysteria,\" that mystical states have an actual value as revelations of the\ntruth. After passing in review many examples of ecstasy and trance, from\nthe occasional experiences of the poets to the constant experiences of the\nmediaeval mystics and the Hindu Yogis, he finally comes to the interesting\nconclusion that:\n\n    \"This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and\n    the absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we\n    both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our one-ness.\n    This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly\n    altered by differences of clime or creed. In Hinduism, in\n    Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, in Whitmanism, we\n    find the same recurring note, so that there is about mystical\n    utterances an eternal unanimity--which ought to make a critic stop and\n    think, and which brings it about that the mystical classics have, as\n    has been said, neither birthday nor native land.\"\n\nThe witness given religion in Tennyson's mystical trances is then his most\nvaluable contribution to the speculative thought of the century, and in a\nsense is prophetic of the twentieth century, because in this century\nrevelations attained in this way have been given a credence long denied\nthem except in the case of the uneducated and super-emotional, by a man of\nthe sound scholarship and good judgment of Professor James.\n\nHow fully Browning was a representative of the thought of this time,\ncombining as he did an intuitional with a scientific outlook has already\nbeen shown. Evolution means for him the progress toward the infinite, and\nis full of beauty and promise. The failures in nature and life which fill\nTennyson with despair furnish to Browning's mind a proof of the existence\nof the absolute, or a somewhere beyond, where things will be righted.\nObservation shows him everywhere in the universe the existence of power\nand mystery. The mystery is either that of the incomprehensibleness of\ncauses, or is emphasized in the existence of evil. The first leads to awe\nand wonder, and is a constant spur to mankind to seek further knowledge,\nbut the poet insists that the knowledge so accumulated is not actual gain,\nbut only a means to gain in so far as it keeps bringing home to the human\nmind the fact of its own inadequacy in the discovery of truth. The\nexistence of evil leads to the constant effort to overcome it, and to\nsympathy and pity, and as the failure of knowledge proves a future of\ntruth to be won, so the failure of mankind to attain perfection in moral\naction proves a future of goodness to be realized. All this may be found\neither explicitly or implied in the synthetic philosophy of Herbert\nSpencer, whose fundamental principles, despite the fire of criticism to\nwhich he has been subjected from all sides--science, religion,\nmetaphysics, each of which felt it could not claim him exclusively as its\nown, yet resenting his inclusion of the other two--are now, in the first\ndecade of the twentieth century, receiving the fullest recognition by such\nmasters of the history of nineteenth-century thought as Theodore Merz and\nEmile Boutroux.\n\nPeople often forget that while Spencer spent his life upon the knowledge\nor scientific side of human experience, he frequently asserted that there\nwas in the human consciousness an intuition of the absolute which was the\nonly certain knowledge possessed by man. Here again Browning was at one\nwith Spencer. Discussing the problem of a future life in \"La Saisiaz,\" he\ndeclares that God and the soul are the only facts of which he is\nabsolutely certain:\n\n  \"I have questioned and am answered. Question, answer presuppose\n  Two points: that the thing itself which questions, answers--_is_, it\n      knows;\n  As it also knows the thing perceived outside itself--a force\n  Actual ere its own beginning, operative through its course,\n  Unaffected by its end--that this thing likewise needs must be;\n  Call this--God, then, call that--soul, and both--the only facts for me.\n  Prove them facts? That they o'erpass my power of proving, proves them\n      such.\"\n\nTo this scientific and metaphysical side Browning adds, as has also\nalready been pointed out, a mystical side based upon feeling. His\nrevelations of divinity do not come by means of self-induced trances, as\nTennyson's seem to have come, but through the mystery of feeling. This\nmystical state seems to have been his habitual one, if we may judge by its\nprominence in his poetry. He occasionally descends to the realm of reason,\nas he has in \"La Saisiaz,\" but the true plane of his existence is up among\nthe exaltations of aspiration and love. His cosmic sense is a sense of God\nas Love, and is the quality most characteristic of the man. It is like,\nthough perhaps not identical with, the mysticism of Whitman, which seems\nto have been an habitual state. He writes: \"There is, apart from mere\nintellect, in the make-up of every superior human identity, a wondrous\nsomething that realizes without argument, frequently without what is\ncalled education (though I think it the goal and apex of all education\ndeserving the name), an intuition of the absolute balance, in time and\nspace, of the whole of this multifariousness, this revel of fools, and\nincredible make-believe and general unsettledness we call _the world_; a\nsoul-sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the whole\ncongeries of things, all history and time, and all events, however\ntrivial, however momentous, like a leashed dog in the hand of the\nhunter.\"\n\nThis mystic mood of Browning's which underlies his whole work--even a work\nlike \"The Ring and the Book,\" where evil in various forms is rampant and\nseems for the time being to conquer--is nowhere more fully, and at the\nsame time more concisely, expressed than in his poem \"Reverie,\" one of his\nlast, which ends with a full revelation of this mystical feeling, from\nwhich the less inspired reasoning of \"La Saisiaz\" is a descent:\n\n  \"Even as the world its life,\n      So have I lived my own--\n  Power seen with Love at strife,\n      That sure, this dimly shown--\n  Good rare and evil rife\n\n  \"Whereof the effect be--faith\n      That, some far day, were found\n  Ripeness in things now rathe,\n      Wrong righted, each chain unbound,\n  Renewal born out of scathe.\n\n  \"Why faith--but to lift the load,\n      To leaven the lump, where lies\n  Mind prostrate through knowledge owed\n      To the loveless Power it tries\n  To withstand, how vain! In flowed\n\n  \"Ever resistless fact:\n      No more than the passive clay\n  Disputes the potter's act,\n      Could the whelmed mind disobey\n  Knowledge the cataract.\n\n  \"But, perfect in every part,\n      Has the potter's moulded shape,\n  Leap of man's quickened heart,\n      Throe of his thought's escape,\n  Stings of his soul which dart,\n\n  \"Through the barrier of flesh, till keen\n      She climbs from the calm and clear,\n  Through turbidity all between\n      From the known to the unknown here,\n  Heaven's 'Shall be' from Earth's 'Has been'?\n\n  \"Then life is--to wake not sleep,\n      Rise and not rest, but press\n  From earth's level where blindly creep\n      Things perfected more or less,\n  To the heaven's height, far and steep,\n\n  \"Where, amid what strifes and storms\n      May wait the adventurous quest,\n  Power is Love--transports, transforms,\n      Who aspired from worst to best,\n  Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms!\n\n  \"I have faith such end shall be:\n      From the first, Power was--I knew.\n  Life has made clear to me\n      That, strive but for closer view,\n  Love were as plain to see.\n\n  \"When see? When there dawns a day,\n      If not on the homely earth,\n  Then yonder, worlds away,\n      Where the strange and new have birth\n  And Power comes full in play.\"\n\nBrowning has, far more than Tennyson, put religious speculation upon a\nbasis where it may stand irrespective of a belief in the revelations of\nhistorical Christianity. For the central doctrine of Christianity he had\nso profound a reverence that he recurs to it again and again in his\npoetry, and at times his feeling seems to carry him to the verge of\northodox belief. So near does he come to it that many religious critics\nhave been convinced that he might be claimed as a Christian in the\northodox sense of the word.\n\nA more careful reading, however, of such poems as \"The Death in the\nDesert,\" and \"Christmas Eve and Easter Day,\" upon which rest principally\nthe claim of the poet's orthodoxy, will reveal that no certain assertion\nof a belief in supernaturalism is made, even though the poems are dramatic\nand it might be made without necessarily expressing the feeling of the\npoet. What Browning felt was that in historical Christianity the highest\nsymbol of divine love had been reached. Though he may at times have had\nmoods in which he would fain have believed true an ideal which held for\nhim great beauty, his worth for his age was in saving religion, _not_ upon\na basis of faith, but upon the ground of logical arguments deduced from\nthe failure of knowledge, of his personal intuition of God and his\nmystical vision in regard to the nature of God.\n\nSo complete a synthesis is this that only in the present century is its\nfull purport likely to be realized. The thought of the century is showing\neverywhere a strong reaction away from materialism and toward religious\nthought.\n\nEven in the latest stronghold of science, psychology, as we have already\nseen, there is no formula which will explain the existence of\nindividuality. While the scientists themselves plod on, often quite\nunconscious that they are not dealing with ultimates, the thinkers are no\nlonger satisfied with a philosophy of materialism, and once more it is\nbeing recognized that the province of philosophy is to give us God, the\nsoul and immortality.\n\nIt is especially interesting in this connection to observe that Germany,\nthe land of destructive biblical criticism, which Browning before the\nmiddle of the century handled with the consummate skill characteristic of\nhim, by accepting its historical conclusions while conserving the spirit\nof Christianity, has now in the person of Professor Rudolf Eucken done an\nalmost similar thing. Like Browning, he is a strong individualist and\nbelieves that the development of the soul is the one thing of supreme\nmoment. \"There is a spontaneous springing up of the individual spiritual\nlife,\" he writes, \"only within the soul of the individual. All social and\nall historical life that does not unceasingly draw from this source falls\nirrecoverably into a state of stagnation and desolation. The individual\ncan never be reduced to the position of a mere member of society, of a\nchurch, of a state; notwithstanding all external subordination, he must\nassert an inner superiority; each spiritual individual is more than the\nwhole external world.\"\n\n[Illustration: BROWNING AT 77 (1889)]\n\nHe calls his system \"activism,\" which merely seems to be another way of\nsaying that the soul-life is one of aspiration toward moral ideals and the\nwill to carry them out. Such a life, he thinks, demands a new world and a\nnew character in man, and is entirely at variance with nature. \"Our whole\nlife is an indefatigable seeking and pressing forward. In\nself-consciousness the framework is given which has to be filled; in it we\nhave acquired only the basis upon which the superstructure has to be\nraised. We have to find experience in life itself to reveal something new,\nto develop life, to increase its range and depth. The endeavor to advance\nin spirituality, to win through struggle, is the soul of the life of the\nindividual and the work of universal history.\" Readers of Browning will\ncertainly not feel that there is anything new in this.\n\nIn so far, however, as he finds the spiritual life at variance with nature\nhe parts company with Browning, showing himself to be under the influence\nof the dualism of the past which regarded matter and spirit as\nantagonistic. In Browning's view, matter and spirit are the two aspects of\nGod, in the one, power being manifested; in the other, love.\n\nIt follows naturally from this, that Eucken does not think of evil as a\nmeans by which good is developed. He prefers to regard it as unexplained,\nand forever with us to be overcome. Its reduction to a means of realizing\nthe good leads, he thinks, \"to a weakening which threatens to transform\nthe mighty world-struggle into an artistic arrangement of things and into\nan effeminate play, and which takes away that bitterness from evil without\nwhich there is no strenuousness in the struggle and no vitality in life.\nThus it remains true that religion does not so much explain as presuppose\nevil.\" An attempt to explain evil, he says, belongs to speculation rather\nthan to religion. That he has an inkling of the region to which\nspeculation might lead him is shown when it is realized, that upon his\nexplanation, as one critic of him has said, it might be possible to find\n\"some reconciliation in the fact that this world with its negations had\nawakened the spiritual life to its absolute affirmation, which could,\ntherefore, not be in absolute opposition.\"\n\nIn leaving aside speculation and confining himself to what he considers\nthe religious aspects of life, he no doubt strengthens himself as a leader\nof those whose speculative powers have not yet been developed, or who can\nput one side of the mind to sleep and accept with the other half-truths.\nThe more developed mind, however, will prefer Browning's greater\ninclusiveness. To possess a complete view of life, man must live his own\nlife as a human being struggling to overcome the evil, at the same time\nkeeping in mind the fact that evil is in a sense the raw material provided\nby God, or the Absolute, or whatever name one chooses to give to the\nall-powerful and all-loving, from which the active soul of man is to\nderive a richness of beauty and harmony of development not otherwise\npossible. Eucken's attitude toward Jesus is summed up in a way which\nreminds one strongly of the position taken in the comment made at the end\nof \"The Death in the Desert.\" He writes: \"The position of the believer in\nthe universal Christian Church is grounded upon a relation to God whose\nuniqueness emerges from the essential divinity of Jesus; only on this\nsupposition can the personality of Christ stand as the unconditional Lord\nand Master to whom the ages must do homage. And while the person of Jesus\nretains a wonderful majesty apart from dogma, its greatness is confined to\nthe realm of humanity, and whatever of new and divine life it brings to us\nmust be potential and capable of realization in us all. We therefore see\nno more in this figure the normative and universally valid type of all\nhuman life, but merely an incomparable individuality which cannot be\ndirectly imitated. At any rate the figure of Jesus, thus understood in all\nits height and pure humanity, can no longer be an object of faith and\ndivine honor. All attempts to take shelter in a mediating position are\nshattered against a relentless either--or. Between man and God there is no\nintermediate form of being for us, for we cannot sink back into the\nancient cult of heroes. If Jesus, therefore, is not God, if Christ is not\nthe second person in the Trinity, then he is a man; not a man like any\naverage man among ourselves, but still man. We can therefore honor him as\na leader, a hero, a martyr, but we cannot directly bind ourselves to him\nor root ourselves in him; we cannot submit to him unconditionally. Still\nless can we make him the centre of a cult. To do so from our point of view\nwould be nothing else than an intolerable deification of a human being.\"\nThe comment at the end of \"The Death in the Desert\" puts a similar\nquestion, and answers, \"Call Christ, then, the illimitable God, Or Lost!\"\nBut the final word which casts a light back upon the previous conclusion\nis \"But, 'twas Cerinthus that is lost\"--the man, in other words, who held\nthe heresy that the Christ part only resided in Jesus, who was merely\nhuman, and that the divine part was not crucified, having flown away\nbefore. Thus it is implied that neither those who believe Jesus divine,\nnor those who believe him human, are lost, but those who try as Cerinthus\ndid to make a compromise. The same note is struck in \"Christmas Eve,\" and\nnow Professor Eucken takes an exactly similar ground in regard to any sort\nof compromise, coming out boldly, however, as Browning does not in this\npoem, though he makes no strong argument against it--in the acceptance of\nChrist as human. Browning's own attitude is expressed as clearly as it is\nanywhere in his work in the epilogue to \"Dramatis Personae,\" in which the\nconclusion is entirely in sympathy with that of Eucken:\n\n  \"When you see what I tell you--nature dance\n  About each man of us, retire, advance,\n  As though the pageant's end were to enhance\n\n  \"His worth, and--once the life, his product gained--\n  Roll away elsewhere, keep the strife sustained,\n  And show thus real, a thing the North but feigned--\n\n  \"When you acknowledge that one world could do\n  All the diverse work, old yet ever new,\n  Divide us, each from other, me from you--\n\n  \"Why, where's the need of Temple, when the walls\n  O' the world are that? What use of swells and falls\n  From Levites' choir, Priests' cries, and trumpet calls?\n\n  \"That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,\n  Or decomposes but to recompose,\n  Become my universe that feels and knows.\"\n\nThe hold which the philosophy of Eucken seems to have taken upon the minds\nof many people all over the world shows that it must have great elements\nof strength. That there is a partial resemblance between his thought,\nwhich belongs to the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the\ntwentieth century, and Browning's is certain, but the fact remains that\nthe poet made a synthesis of the elements which must go to the forming of\nany complete religious conceptions of the future so far in advance of his\nown century that even Eucken is in some respects behind it.\n\nAnother interesting instance of Browning's presenting a line of reasoning\nwhich resembles very strongly one phase of present-day philosophy is to be\nfound in \"Bishop Blougram's Apology.\" The worldly Bishop gives voice to\ngood pragmatic doctrine, which in a nutshell is, \"believe in, or rather\nfollow, that ideal which will be of the most use to you, and if it turns\nout not to be successful, then try another one.\" The poet declares that\nBlougram said good things but called them by wrong names. If the ideal is\na high one there is no great danger in such reasoning, but it can very\neasily be turned into sophistical arguments for an ideal of living to\nthoroughly selfish ends, as Blougram actually did. The poem might almost\nbe taken as a prophetic criticism of the weak aspects of pragmatism.\n\nThe belief in immortality which pervades Browning's work often comes out\nin a form suggesting the idea of reincarnation. His future for the human\nsoul is not a heaven of bliss, but life in other worlds full of activity\nand aspiration. This note is struck in \"Paracelsus,\" where life's destiny\nis described to be the climbing of pleasure's heights forever the seeking\nof a flying point of bliss remote. In his last volume the idea is more\nfully brought out in \"Rephan.\" In this it is held that a state of perfect\nbliss might grow monotonous, and that a preferable state would be to\naspire, yet never attain, to the object aimed at. The transmigration is\nfrom \"Rephan,\" where all was merged in a neutral Best to Earth, where the\nsoul which had been stagnating would have an opportunity to strive, not\nrest. The most beautiful expression, however, of the idea of a future of\nmany lives is found in \"One Word More\":\n\n  \"So it seems: I stand on my attainment.\n  This of verse, alone, one life allows me;\n  Verse and nothing else have I to give you.\n  Other heights in other lives, God willing:\n  All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!\"\n\nThough the theory of reincarnation is so ancient a one, and one entirely\ndiscredited by Christianity, Browning was again expressing an ideal which\nwas to be revived in our own day. Oriental thought has made it almost a\ncommonplace of talk. Many people doubtless speak of what they mean to do\nin their next incarnation without having the thought very deeply imbedded\nin their consciousness, yet the mere fact that one hears the remark so\noften proves what a hold the theory has on the imagination of mankind. As\nBrowning gives it in \"One Word More,\" the successive incarnations take one\non to higher heights--\"other lives in other worlds.\" Thus regarded, it is\nthe final outcome of evolution and progress, a process to be carried\nforward in other worlds than our own, and has no degrading suggestion of a\ndegenerating, because of sin, into lower forms of existence. The movement\nis always upward. Thus it has been effected by the idea that progress is\nthe law of life, and that evolution means, on the whole, progress.\n\nAgain, in the liberality of his social ideals, combined with an intensest\nbelief in the supremacy of genuine love, he was the forerunner of Ibsen,\nwho, the world is beginning to discover, was not a subverter of high moral\nideals, as it had thought, but a prophet of the new day, when to be untrue\nto the highest ideal of love will be accounted the greatest crime of one\nhuman being against another. From \"The Doll's House\" to \"When We That Are\nDead Awaken\" the same lesson is taught. Few people realize that this is\nthe keynote of Browning's teaching, or would be ready to regard him as a\nprophet of an ideal of love which shall come to be seen as the true one\nafter the science of eugenics, the latest of the exact sciences, has found\nitself as powerless as all other sciences have been to touch the reality\nof life, because amid all the mysteries of the universe none is greater\nthan the spiritual mystery of love. Among writers who are to-day\nrecognizing a part of the truth, at least, is Ellen Key, but neither she\nnor Ibsen has insisted in the way that Browning has upon the mystical\nsource of human love. That Browning is the poet who has given the world\nthe utmost certainty of God, the soul and immortality, and the most\ninspiring ideals of human love, will be more completely recognized in the\nfuture. As time goes on he will emerge above the tumultuous intellectual\nlife of the present, which, with its enormous increase of knowledge of\nphenomena, bringing with it a fairly titanic mastery of the forces of\nnature, and its generation of multitudes of ideas upon every conceivable\nsubject, many of them trite, many of them puerile, and some of them no\ndoubt of genuine value, obscures for the time being the greatness of any\none voice. A little later, when the winnowing of ideas shall come,\nBrowning will be recognized as one of the greatest men of his own age or\nany age--a man combining knowledge, wisdom, aspiration, and vision to a\nmarvelous degree. He belongs to the master-order of poets, who write some\nthings which will pass into the popular knowledge of the day, but whose\nserious achievements will be read and studied by the cultured and\nscholarly of all time. No students of Greek literature will feel that they\ncan omit from their reading his Greek poems, no students of sociology will\nfeel that they can omit from their reading \"The Ring and the Book.\" Lovers\nof the drama must ever respond to the beauty of \"The Blot in the\n'Scutcheon\" and \"Pippa Passes.\" Even the student of verse technique will\nnot be able to leave Browning out of account, and making allowances for\nthe fact that the individuality of his style sometimes overasserts itself,\nhe will realize more and more its freshness and its vividness, its power\nof suggestion, and its depths of emotional fervor. When the romanticism of\na Keats or a Shelley has completely worked itself out in musical\nefflorescence; from which all thought-content has disappeared, there may\ngrow up a school of poets which shall, without direct imitation, develop\npoetry along the lines of vigor and strength in form, and which shall have\nfor its content a tremendous sense of the worth of humanity and an\nunshakable belief in the splendor of its destiny. _Virilists_ might well\nbe the name of this future school of poets who would hark back to Browning\nas their inspiration, and a most pleasant contrast would they be to the\nsentimental namby-pambyism which passes muster as poetry in much of the\nwork of to-day.\n\nIn closing this volume which has been inspired by a deep sense of the\nabiding greatness of Robert Browning, it has been my desire to put on\nrecord in some way my personal indebtedness to his poetry as an\ninspiration not only to high thinking and living, but as a genuine\nrevelation to me of the rare possibilities in poetic art, for I may almost\nsay that Browning was my first poet, and through him, strange as it may\nseem, I came to an appreciation of all other poets. His poetry,\nfortunately for me an early influence in my life, awakened my, until then,\ndormant faculty for poetic appreciation. I owe him, therefore, a double\ndebt of gratitude: Not only has he given me the joy of knowing his own\ngreat work, but through him I have entered the land of all poesie, led as\nI truly think by his sympathy with the scientific dispensation into which\nI was born. His thought has always seemed so naturally akin to my own\nthat it has never seemed to me obscure. Finding such thoughts expressed\nthrough the medium of great poetic genius, the beauty of poetic expression\nwas brought home to me as it never had been before, and hence the poetic\nexpression of all thought became a deep pleasure to me.\n\nSo much interpretation and criticism of Browning has been given to the\nworld during the last twenty years, that further work in that direction\nseems hardly necessary for the present. There will for many a day to come\nbe those who feel him to be among the greatest poets the world has seen,\nand those who find much more to blame in his work than to praise.\n\nI have tried to give a few suggestions in regard to what Robert Browning\nactually was in relation to his time. The nineteenth century was so\nremarkable a one in the complexity of its growth, both in practical\naffairs and in intellectual developments, that it has been possible in the\nspace of one volume to touch only upon the most important aspects under\neach division, and to try to show what measure of influence important\nmovements had in the molding of the poet's genius.\n\nThough in the nature of the case the treatment could not be exhaustive, I\nhope to have opened out a sufficient number of pathways into the\nfascinating vistas of the nineteenth century in its relation to Browning\nto inspire others to make further excursions for themselves; and, above\nall, I hope I may have added at least one stone to the cairn which many,\npast and to come, are building to his fame.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\nTHE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] The influence of the \"Prometheus Unbound\" upon the conception of\nAprile's character was first brought forward by the writer in a paper read\nbefore the Boston Browning Society, March 15, 1910, a typewritten copy of\nwhich was placed in the Browning alcove in the Boston Public Library. In\nthe \"Life of Browning,\" published the same year and not read by the writer\nuntil recently, Mr. Hall Griffin touches upon the same thought in the\nfollowing words: \"From some elements in the myth of Prometheus Browning\nunmistakably evolved the conception of his Aprile as not only the lover\nand the poet but as the potential sculptor, painter, orator, and\nmusician.\"\n\n[2] See the author's \"Browning's England.\"\n\n[3] See Introduction to \"Ring and Book\"--Camberwell Browning.","title":"Browning and His Century","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":79238}