A Handbook to the Works of Browning Part 15

"And what," he asked, "is the glory, what the greatness, which this foolish nation seeks? That of making every other small; not that of holding its place among others which are themselves great. Shall such a thing be possible as that the nation which earth loves best--a people so aspiring, so endowed; so magnetic in its attraction for its fellow-men--shall think its primacy endangered because another selects a ruler it has not patronized, or chooses to sell steel untaxed?"

"But this does not mean that Hohenstiel is to relinquish the power of war. The aggressiveness which is d.a.m.nable in herself is to be condemned in others, and to be punished in them. Therefore, for the sake of Austria who sins, of Italy who suffers, of Hohenstiel-Schw.a.n.gau who has a duty to perform, the war which SAGACITY deprecates must be waged, and Austria smitten till Italy is free."

"At least," rejoins SAGACITY, "you secure some reward from the country you have freed; say, the cession of Nice and Savoy; something to satisfy those at home who doubt the market-value of right and truth."

"No," is the reply, "you may preach that to Metternich and remain with him." And so the Prince worked on; determined that neither fear, nor treachery, nor much less blundering, on his part, should imperil the precarious balance of the world's life.

Once more, and for the last time, SAGACITY lifts up her voice. "You were the fittest man to rule. Give solidity to your life's work by leaving a fit successor to carry it on. Secure yourself this successor in a son.

The world is open to you for the choice of your bride."

And again the ideal Prince retorts on the suggestion. "The fit successor is not secured in this way. All experience proves it. The spark of genius is dropped where G.o.d will. It may find hereditary (hence acc.u.mulated) faculties ready to be ignited. It may fire the barren rock." And, changing the metaphor,

"... The seed o' the apple-tree Brings forth another tree which bears a crab: 'Tis the great gardener grafts the excellence On wildings where he will." (p. 203.)

He ends by calling up the vision of an Italian wayside temple, in which, as the legend declares, succession was carried on after a very different principle. Each successive high priest has become so by murdering his predecessor, his qualification being found in that simple fact; or in the qualities of cunning or courage of which it has been the test.[56]

And now the dream is lived through, and Prince Hohenstiel-Schw.a.n.gau awakens in his own palace: not much better pleased with his own plain speaking than with the imaginary heroics of Messrs. Hugo and Thiers.

"One's case is so much stronger before it is put into words. Motives which seem sufficient in the semi-darkness of one's own consciousness, are so feeble in the light of day. When we reason with ourselves, we subordinate outward claims without appearing to do so: since the necessity of making the best of life for our own sake supplies unconsciously to ourselves the point of view from which all our reasonings proceed. When forced to think aloud, we stoop to what is probably an untruth. We say that our motives were--what they should have been; what perhaps we have fancied them to be."

These closing pages convey the author's comment on Prince Hohenstiel's defence. They present it, in his well-known manner, as what such a man might be tempted to say; rather than what this particular man was justified in saying. But he takes the Prince's part in the lines beginning,

"Alack, one lies oneself Even in the stating that one's end was truth," (p. 209.)

for they farther declare that though we aim at truth, our words cannot always be trusted to hit it. The best cannon ever rifled will sometimes deflect. Words do this also. We recognize the conviction of the inadequacy of language which was so forcibly expressed in the Pope's soliloquy in "The Ring and the Book," but in what seems a more defined form.

"BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY."

"Bishop Blougram's Apology" is a defence of religious conformity in those cases in which the doctrines to which we conform exceed our powers of belief, but ate not throughout opposed to them; its point of view being that of a Roman Catholic churchman, who has secured his preferment by this kind of compromise. It is addressed to a semi-freethinker, who is supposed to have declared that a man who could thus identify himself with Romish superst.i.tions must be despised as either knave or fool; and Bishop Blougram has undertaken to prove that he is not to be thus despised; and least of all by the person before him.

The argument is therefore special-pleading in the full sense of the word; and it is clear from a kind of editor's note with which the poem concludes, that we are meant to take it as such. But it is supposed to lie in the nature of the man who utters, as also in the circ.u.mstance in which it is uttered: for Bishop Blougram was suggested by Cardinal Wiseman;[57] and the literary hack, Gigadibs, is the kind of critic by whom a Cardinal Wiseman is most likely to be a.s.sailed: a man young, shallow, and untried; unused to any but paper warfare; blind to the deeper issues of both conformity and dissent, and as much alive to the distinction of dining in a bishop's palace as Bishop Blougram himself.

The monologue is spoken on such an occasion, and includes everything which Mr. Gigadibs says, or might say, on his own side of the question.

We must therefore treat it as a conversation.

Mr. Gigadibs' reasoning resolves itself into this: "_he_ does not believe in dogmas, and he says so. The Bishop cannot believe in them, but does not say so. He is true to his own convictions: the Bishop is not true to his." And the Bishop's defence is as follows.

"Mr. Gigadibs aims at living his own life: in other words, the ideal life. And this means that he is living no life at all. For a man, in order to live, must make the best of the world he is born in; he must adapt himself to its capabilities as a cabin-pa.s.senger to those of his cabin. He must not load himself with moral and intellectual fittings which the s.h.i.+p cannot carry, and which will therefore have to be thrown overboard. He (the Bishop) has chosen to live a real life; and has equipped himself accordingly."

"And, supposing he displays what Mr. Gigadibs considers the courage of his convictions, and flings his dogmas overboard,--what will he have gained? Simply that his uncertainty has changed sides. Believing, he had shocks of unbelief. Disbelieving, he will have shocks of belief (note a fine pa.s.sage, vol. iv. p. 245): since no certainty in these matters is possible."

"But," says Gigadibs; "on that principle, your belief is worth no more than my unbelief."

"Yes," replies the Bishop, "it is worth much more in practice, if no more in theory. Life cannot be carried on by negations. Least of all will religious negations be tolerated by those we live with. And the more definite the religion affirmed, the better will the purposes of life be advanced by it."

"Not those of a n.o.ble life," argues Gigadibs, "nor in the judgment of the best men. You are debasing your standard by living for the many fools who cannot see through you, instead of the wiser few who can."

To which the Bishop replies that he lives according to the nature which G.o.d has given him, and which is not so ign.o.ble after all; and that he succeeds with wise men as well as with fools, because they do not see through him either: because their judgment is kept in constant suspension as to whether he can believe what he professes or cannot; whether, in short, he is a knave or a fool. The proposition is vividly ill.u.s.trated; and a few more obvious sophistries complete this portion of the argument.

Gigadibs still harps upon the fact that conformity cannot do the work of belief; and the Bishop now changes his ground. "He conforms to Christianity in the _wish_ that it may be true; and he thinks that this wish has all the value of belief, and brings him as near to it as the Creator intends. The human mind cannot bear the full light of truth; and it is only in the struggle with doubt and error that its spiritual powers can be developed." He concedes, in short, that he is much more in earnest than he appeared; and the concession is confirmed when he goes on to declare that we live by our instincts and not by our beliefs. This is proved--he alleges--by such a man as Gigadibs, who has no warrant in his belief for living a moral life, and does so because his instincts compel it. Just so the Bishop's instincts compel a believing life. They demand for him a living, self-proving G.o.d (here the doctrine of expediency re-a.s.serts itself), and they tell him that the good things which his position confers are the gift of that G.o.d, and intended by Him for his enjoyment. "You," he adds, "who live for something which never is, but always is _to be_, are like a traveller, who casts off, in every country he pa.s.ses through, the covering that will be too warm for him in the next; and is comfortable nowhen and nowhere."

One of his latest arguments is the best. Gigadibs has said: "If you must hold a dogmatic faith, at all events reform it. Prune its excrescences away."

"And where," he retorts, "am I to stop, when once that process has begun? I put my knife to the _liquefaction_,[58] and end, like Fichte, by slas.h.i.+ng at G.o.d Himself. And meanwhile, we have to control a ma.s.s of ignorant persons whose obedience is linked to the farthest end of the chain (to the first superst.i.tion which I am called upon to lop off). We have here again a question of making the best of our cabin-fittings, the best of the opportunities which life places to our hand." In conclusion, he draws a contemptuous picture of the obscure and inconsequent existence which Gigadibs accepts, as the apostle without genius and without enthusiasm, of what is, if it be one at all, a _non-working_ truth.

Gigadibs is silenced, and, as it proves, impressed; but the Bishop is too clever to be very proud of his victory; for he knows it has been a personal, much more than a real one. His strength has lain chiefly in the a.s.sumption (which only the entire monologue can justify or even convey) that his opponent would change places with him if he could; and he knows that in arguing from this point of view he has been only half sincere. His reasonings have been good enough for the occasion. That is the best he can say for them.

MR. SLUDGE, THE MEDIUM.

"Sludge, the Medium," is intended to show that even so ign.o.ble a person as a sham medium may have something to say in his own defence; and so far as argument goes, Sludge defends himself successfully on two separate lines. But in the one case he excuses his imposture: in the other, he in great measure disproves it. And this second part of the monologue has been construed by some readers into a genuine plea for the theory and practice of "spiritualism." Nothing, however, could be more opposed to the general tenour of Mr. Browning's work. He is simply showing us what such a man might say in his own behalf, supposing that the credulity of others had tempted him into a cheat, or that his own credulity had made him a self-deceiver; or, what was equally possible, in even the present case, that both processes had gone on at the same time. The amount of abstract truth which the monologue is intended to convey is in itself small, and more diluted with exaggeration and falsehood than in any other poem of this group.

Sludge has been found cheating in the house of his princ.i.p.al patron and dupe. The raps indicating the presence of a departed mother have been distinctly traced to the medium's toes. There is no lying himself out of it this time, so he offers to confess, on condition that the means of leaving the country are secured to him. There is a little bargaining on this subject, and he then begins:--

"He never meant to cheat. It is the gentlefolk who have teased him into doing it; they _would_ be taken in. If a poor boy like him tells a lie about money, or anything else in which they are 'up,' they are ready enough to thrash it out of him; but when it is something out of their way, like saying: he has had a vision--he has seen a ghost--it's 'Oh, how curious! Tell us all about it. Sit down, my boy. Don't be frightened, &c. &c.;' and so they lead him on. Presently he is obliged to invent. They have found out he is a medium. A medium he has got to be. 'Couldn't you hear this? Didn't you see that? Try again. Other mediums have done it, perhaps you may.' And, of course, the next night he sees and hears what is expected of him."

"He gets well into his work. He sees visions; peeps into the gla.s.s ball; makes spirits write and rap, and the rest of it. There is nothing to stop him. If he mixes up Bacon and Cromwell, it only proves that they are both trying to speak through him at once. If he makes Locke talk gibberish, and Beethoven play the Shakers' hymn, and a dozen other such things: 'Oh! the spirits are using him and suiting themselves out of his stock.' When he guesses right, it shows his truth. When he doesn't, it shows his honesty. A hit is good and a miss is better. When he boggles outright, 'he is confused with the phenomena.' And when this has gone on for weeks, and he has been clothed and cosseted, and his patrons have staked their penetration upon him; how is he to turn round and say he has been cheating all the time? 'I should like to see you do it!' It isn't that he wouldn't often have liked to be in the gutter again!"

This amusing account is diversified with expressions of Sludge's hearty contempt for all the men and women he has imposed upon: above all, for their absurd fancy that any sc.r.a.p of unexpected information must have come to him in a supernatural way. "As if a man could hold his nose out of doors, and one s.m.u.t out of the millions not stick to it; sit still for a whole day, and one atom of news not drift into his ear!" This idea recurs in various forms.

Well! he owns that he has cheated; and now that he has done so, he is not at all sure that it _was_ all cheating, that there wasn't something real in it after all. "We are all taught to believe that there is another world; and the Bible shows that men have had dealings with it.

We are told this can't happen now, because we are under another law. But I don't believe we are under another law. Some men 'see' and others don't, that's the only difference. I see a sign and a message in everything that happens to me; but I take a small message where you want a big one. I am the servant who comes at a tap of his master's knuckle on the wall; you are the servant who only comes when the bell rings. Of course I mistake the sign sometimes. But what does that matter if I sometimes don't mistake? You say: one fact doesn't establish a system.

You are like the Indian who picked up a sc.r.a.p of gold, and never dug for more. You pick up one sparkling fact, and let it go again. I pick up one such, then another and another, and let go the dirt which makes up the rest of life."

Sludge combats the probable objection that the heavenly powers are too great, and he is too small for the kind of services he expects of them.

Everything, he delares, serves a small purpose as well as a great one.

Moreover, nothing nowadays _is_ small. It is at all events the lesser things and not the greater which are spoken of with awe. The simple creature which is only a sac is the nearest to the creative power; and since also man's filial relation to the Creator is that most insisted on, the more familiar and confiding att.i.tude is the right one.

He lastly declares and ill.u.s.trates his view that many a truth may stagnate for want of a lie to set it going, and thinks it likely enough that G.o.d allows him to imagine he is wielding a sham power, because he would die of fright if he knew it was a real one. He adds one or two somewhat irrelevant items to his defence; then finding his patron unconvinced, discharges on him a volley of abuse, and decides to try his luck elsewhere. "There must be plenty more fools in other parts of the world."

ARGUMENTATIVE POEMS CONTINUED.

(REFLECTIONS.)

To the second cla.s.s of these poems, which are of the nature of reflections, belong--taking them in the order of their importance:--

"Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day." (1850.) "La Saisiaz." (1878.) "Cleon." ("Men and Women.") (1855.) "An Epistle containing the strange medical experience of Kars.h.i.+sh, the Arab physician." ("Men and Women.") (1855.) "Caliban upon Setebos; or Natural Theology in the Island."

(Dramatis Personae.) (1864.)

CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY are two distinct poems, printed under this one head: and each describing a spiritual experience appropriate to the day, and lived through in a vision of Christ. This vision presents itself to the reader as a probable or obvious hallucination, or even a simple dream; but its utterances are more or less dogmatic; they contain much which is in harmony with Mr. Browning's known views; and it is difficult at first sight to regard them in either case as proceeding from an imaginary person who is only feeling his way to the truth. This, however, they prove themselves to be.

The first poem is a narrative. Its various scenes are enacted on a stormy Christmas Eve; and it opens with a humorous description of a little dissenting chapel, supposed to stand at the edge of a common; and of the various types of squalid but self-satisfied humanity which find their spiritual pasture within its walls. The narrator has just "burst out" of it. He never meant to go in. But the rain had forced him to take shelter in its porch, as evening service was about to begin: and the defiant looks of the elect as they pushed past him one by one, had impelled him to a.s.sert his rights as a Christian, and push in too. The stupid ranting irreverence of the pastor, and the snuffling satisfaction of the flock, were soon, however, too much for him, and in a very short time he was again--where we find him--out in the fresh night air.

Free from the constraint of the chapel, he takes a more tolerant view of what he has seen and heard there. He gives the preacher credit for having said a great deal that was true, and in the manner most convincing to the already convinced who were a.s.sembled to hear him. For his own part, he declares, Nature is his church, as she has been his teacher; and he surrenders himself with a joyful sense of relief to the religious influences of the solitude and the night: his heart glowing with the consciousness of the unseen Love which everywhere appeals to him in the visible power of the Creator. Suddenly a mighty spectacle unfolds itself. The rain and wind have ceased. The barricade of cloud which veiled the moon's pa.s.sage up the western sky has sunk riven at her feet. She herself s.h.i.+nes forth in unbroken radiance, and a double lunar rainbow, in all its spectral grandeur, spans the vault of heaven. There is a sense as of a heavenly presence about to emerge upon the arc. Then the rapture overflows the spectator's brain, and the Master, arrayed in a serpentining garment, appears in the path before him.

But the Face is averted. "Has he despised the friends of Christ? and is this his punishment?" He prostrates himself before Him; grasps the hem of the garment; entreats forgiveness for what was only due to the reverence of his love, to his desire that his Lord should be wors.h.i.+pped in all spiritual beauty and truth.

The Face turns towards him in a flood of light. The vesture encloses him in its folds, and he is borne onwards till he finds himself at Rome, and in front of St. Peter's Church. He sees the interior without entering.

It swarms with wors.h.i.+ppers, packed into it as in the hollow of a hive.