Life of Robert Browning Part 2

"which pa.s.sed alone with wisest ancient books," Pauline's lover incorporated himself in whatsoever he read--was the G.o.d wandering after beauty, the giant standing vast against the sunset-light, the high-crested chief sailing with troops of friends to Tenedos--his second-self cries, "I tell you, nought has ever been so clear as the place, the time, the fas.h.i.+on of those lives." Never for him, then, had there been that alchemy of the soul which turns the inchoate drift of the world into golden ore, not then had come to him the electric awakening flash from "work of lofty art, nor woman's beauty, nor sweet nature's face"--

"Yet, I say, never morn broke clear as those On the dim cl.u.s.tered isles in the blue sea: The deep groves, and white temples, and wet caves-- And nothing ever will surprise me now-- Who stood beside the naked Swift-footed, Who bound my forehead with Proserpine's hair."

Further, the allusion to Plato, and the more remote one to Agamemnon, the

"old lore Loved for itself, and all it shows--the King Treading the purple calmly to his death,"

and the beautiful Andromeda pa.s.sage, afford ample indication of how deeply Browning had drunk of that vital stream whose waters are the surest conserver of the ideal loveliness which we all of us, in some degree, cherish in various guises.

Yet, as in every long poem that he has written (and, it must be admitted, in too many of the shorter pieces of his later period) there is an alloy of prose, of something that is not poetry, so in "Pauline,"

written though it was in the first flush of his genius and under the inspiring stimulus of Sh.e.l.ley, the reader encounters prosaic pa.s.sages, decasyllabically arranged. "Twas in my plan to look on real life, which was all new to me; my theories were firm, so I left them, to look upon men, and their cares, and hopes, and fears, and joys; and, as I pondered on them all, I sought how best life's end might be attained, an end comprising every joy." Again: "Then came a pause, and long restraint chained down my soul, till it was changed. I lost myself, and were it not that I so loathe that time, I could recall how first I learned to turn my mind against itself ... at length I was restored, yet long the influence remained; and nought but the still life I led, apart from all, which left my soul to seek its old delights, could e'er have brought me thus far back to peace." No reader, alert to the subtle and haunting music of rarefied blank verse (and unless it be rarefied it should not be put forward as poetry), could possibly accept these lines as expressionally poetical. It would seem as though, from the first, Browning's ear was keener for the apprehension than for the sustained evocation of the music of verse. Some flaw there was, somewhere. His heart, so to say, beat too fast, and the singing in his ears from the o'er-fevered blood confused the serene rhythm haunting the far perspectives of the brain, "as Arab birds float sleeping in the wind."

I have dwelt at this length upon "Pauline" partly because of its inherent beauty and autopsychical significance, and partly because it is the least familiar of Browning's poems, long overshadowed as it has been by his own too severe strictures: mainly, however, because of its radical importance to the student who would arrive at a broad and true estimate of the power and scope and shaping const.i.tuents of its author's genius. Almost every quality of his after-verse may be found here, in germ or outline. It is, in a word, more physiognomic than any other single poem by Browning, and so must ever possess a peculiar interest quite apart from its many pa.s.sages of haunting beauty.

To these the lover of poetry will always turn with delight. Some will even regard them retrospectively with alien emotion to that wherewith they strive to possess their souls in patience over some one or other of the barbarisms, the t.i.tanic excesses, the poetic ba.n.a.lities recurrent in the later volumes.

How many and how haunting these delicate oases are! Those who know and love "Pauline" will remember the pa.s.sage where the poet, with that pantheistic ecstasy which was possibly inspired by the singer he most loved, tells how he can live the life of plants, content to watch the wild bees flitting to and fro, or to lie absorbent of the ardours of the sun, or, like the night-flowering columbine, to trail up the tree-trunk and through its rustling foliage "look for the dim stars;" or, again, can live the life of the bird, "leaping airily his pyramid of leaves and twisted boughs of some tall mountain-tree;" or be a fish, breathing the morning air in the misty sun-warm water. Close following this is another memorable pa.s.sage, that beginning "Night, and one single ridge of narrow path;" which has a particular interest for two notes of a deeper and broader music to be evolved long afterwards. For, as it seems to me, in

"Thou art so close by me, the roughest swell Of wind in the tree-tops hides not the panting Of thy soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s -----"

(where, by the way, should be noticed the subtle correspondence between the conceptive and the expressional rhythm) we have a hint of that superb scene in "Pippa Pa.s.ses," where, on a sinister night of July, a night of spiritual storm as well as of aerial tempest, Ottima and Sebald lie amid the lightning-searcht forest, with "the thunder like a whole sea overhead." Again, in the lovely Turneresque, or rather Sh.e.l.leyan picture of morning, over "the rocks, and valleys, and old woods," with the high boughs swinging in the wind above the sun-brightened mists, and the golden-coloured spray of the cataract amid the broken rocks, whereover the wild hawks fly to and fro, there is at least a suggestion, an outline, of the truly magnificent burst of morning music in the poet's penultimate volume, beginning--

"But morning's laugh sets all the crags alight Above the baffled tempest: tree and tree Stir themselves from the stupor of the night, And every strangled branch resumes its right To breathe, shakes loose dark's clinging dregs, waves free In dripping glory. p.r.o.ne the runnels plunge, While earth, distent with moisture like a sponge, Smokes up, and leaves each plant its gem to see, Each gra.s.s-blade's glory-glitter," etc.

Who that has ever read "Pauline" will forget the masterful poetry descriptive of the lover's wild-wood retreat, the exquisite lines beginning "Walled in with a sloped mound of matted shrubs, tangled, old and green"? There is indeed a new, an unmistakable voice here.

"And tongues of bank go shelving in the waters, Where the pale-throated snake reclines his head, And old grey stones lie making eddies there; The wild mice cross them dry-shod"....

What lovelier image in modern poetry than that depictive of the forest-pool in depths of savage woodlands, unvisited but by the shadows of pa.s.sing clouds,--

"the trees bend O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl."

How the pa.s.sionate s.e.xual emotion, always deep and true in Browning, finds lovely utterance in the lines where Pauline's lover speaks of the blood in her lips pulsing like a living thing, while her neck is as "marble misted o'er with love-breath," and

"... her delicious eyes as clear as heaven, When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist, And clouds float white in the sun like broods of swans."

In the quotations I have made, and in others that might be selected (_e.g._, "Her fresh eyes, and soft hair, and _lips which bleed like a mountain berry_"), it is easy to note how intimate an observer of nature the youthful poet was, and with what conscious but not obtrusive art he brings forward his new and striking imagery. Browning, indeed, is the poet of new symbols.

"Pauline" concludes with lines which must have been in the minds of many on that sad day when the tidings from Venice sent a thrill of startled, half-incredulous, bewildered pain throughout the English nations--

"Sun-treader, I believe in G.o.d, and truth, And love; ...

... but chiefly when I die ...

All in whom this wakes pleasant thoughts of me, Know my last state is happy--free from doubt, Or touch of fear."

Never again was Browning to write a poem with such conceptive crudeness, never again to tread the byways of thought so falteringly or so negligently: but never again, perhaps, was he to show so much over-rapturing joy in the world's loveliness, such Bacchic abandon to the ideal beauty which the true poet sees glowing upon the forlornest height and brooding in the shadow-haunted hollows of the hills. The Browning who might have been is here: henceforth the Browning we know and love stands unique among all the lords of song. But sometimes do we not turn longingly, wonderingly at least, to the young Dionysos upon whose forehead was the light of another destiny than that which descended upon him? The Icelanders say there is a land where all the rainbows that have ever been, or are yet to be, forever drift to and fro, evanis.h.i.+ng and reappearing, like immortal flowers of vapour. In that far country, it may be, are also the unfulfilled dreams, the visions too perfect to be fas.h.i.+oned into song, of the young poets who have gained the laurel.

We close the little book lovingly:

"And I had dimly shaped my first attempt, And many a thought did I build up on thought, As the wild bee hangs cell to cell--in vain; For I must still go on: my mind rests not."

CHAPTER III.

It has been commonly a.s.serted that "Pauline" was almost wholly disregarded, and swiftly lapsed into oblivion.

This must be accepted with qualification. It is like the other general a.s.sertion, that Browning had to live fifty years before he gained recognition--a statement as ludicrous when examined as it is unjust to the many discreet judges who awarded, publicly and privately, that intelligent sympathy which is the best suns.h.i.+ne for the flower of a poet's genius. If by "before he gained recognition" is meant a general and indiscriminate acclaim, no doubt Browning had, still has indeed, longer to wait than many other eminent writers have had to do: but it is absurd to a.s.sert that from the very outset of his poetic career he was met by nothing but neglect, if not scornful derision. None who knows the true artistic temperament will fall into any such mistake.

It is quite certain that neither Shakspere nor Milton ever met with such enthusiastic praise and welcome as Browning encountered on the publication of "Pauline" and "Paracelsus." Sh.e.l.ley, as far above Browning in poetic music as the author of so many parleyings with other people's souls is the superior in psychic insight and intellectual strength, had throughout his too brief life not one such review of praiseful welcome as the Rev. W.J. Fox wrote on the publication of "Pauline" (or, it may be added, as Allan Cunningham's equally kindly but less able review in the _Athenaeum_), or as John Forster wrote in _The Examiner_ concerning "Paracelsus," and later in the _New Monthly Magazine_, where he had the courage to say of the young and quite unknown poet, "without the slightest hesitation we name Mr. Robert Browning at once with Sh.e.l.ley, Coleridge, Wordsworth." His plays even (which are commonly said to have "fallen flat") were certainly not failures. There is something effeminate, undignified, and certainly uncritical, in this confusion as to what is and what is not failure in literature. So enthusiastic was the applause he encountered, indeed, that had his not been too strong a nature to be thwarted by adulation any more than by contemptuous neglect, he might well have become spoilt--so enthusiastic, that were it not for the heavy and prolonged counterbalancing dead weight of public indifference, a huge amorphous ma.s.s only of late years moulded into harmony with the keenest minds of the century, we might well be suspicious of so much and long-continued eulogium, and fear the same reversal of judgment towards him on the part of those who come after us as we ourselves have meted to many an one among the high G.o.ds of our fathers.

Fortunately the deep humanity of his work in the ma.s.s conserves it against the mere veerings of taste. A reaction against it will inevitably come; but this will pa.s.s: what, in the future, when the unborn readers of Browning will look back with clear eyes untroubled by the dust of our footsteps, not to subside till long after we too are dust, will be the place given to this poet, we know not, nor can more than speculatively estimate. That it will, however, be a high one, so far as his weightiest (in bulk, it may possibly be but a relatively slender) accomplishment is concerned, we may rest well a.s.sured: for indeed "It lives, If precious be the soul of man to man."

So far as has been ascertained there were only three reviews or notices of "Pauline": the very favourable article by Mr. Fox in the _Monthly Repository_, the kindly paper by Allan Cunningham in the _Athenaeum_, and, in _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_, the succinctly expressed impression of either an indolent or an incapable reviewer: "Pauline; a Fragment of a Confession; a piece of pure bewilderment"--a "criticism" which antic.i.p.ated and thus prevented the insertion of a highly favourable review which John Stuart Mill voluntarily wrote.

Browning must have regarded his first book with mingled feelings. It was a bid for literary fortune, in one sense, but a bid so handicapped by the circ.u.mstances of its publication as to be almost certainly of no avail. Probably, however, he was well content that it should have mere existence. Already the fever of an abnormal intellectual curiosity was upon him: already he had schemed more potent and more vital poems: already, even, he had developed towards a more individualistic method.

So indifferent was he to an easily gained reputation that he seems to have been really urgent upon his relatives and intimate acquaintances not to betray his authors.h.i.+p. The Miss Flower, how ever, to whom allusion has already been made, could not repress her admiration to the extent of depriving her friend, Mr. Fox, of a pleasure similar to that she had herself enjoyed. The result was the generous notice in the _Monthly Repository_. The poet never forgot his indebtedness to Mr. Fox, to whose sympathy and kindness much direct and indirect good is traceable. The friends.h.i.+p then begun was lifelong, and was continued with the distinguished Unitarian's family when Mr. Fox himself ended his active and beneficent career.

But after a time the few admirers of "Pauline" forgot to speak about it: the poet himself never alluded to it: and in a year or two it was almost as though it had never been written. Many years after, when articles upon Robert Browning were as numerous as they once had been scarce, never a word betrayed that their authors knew of the existence of "Pauline." There was, however, yet another friends.h.i.+p to come out of this book, though not until long after it was practically forgotten by its author.

One day a young poet-painter came upon a copy of the book in the British Museum Library, and was at once captivated by its beauty. One of the earliest admirers of Browning's poetry, Dante Gabriel Rossetti--for it was he--felt certain that "Pauline" could be by none other than the author of "Paracelsus." He himself informed me that he had never heard this authors.h.i.+p suggested, though some one had spoken to him of a poem of remarkable promise, called "Pauline," which he ought to read. If I remember aright, Rossetti told me that it was on the forenoon of the day when the "Burden of Nineveh" was begun, conceived rather, that he read this story of a soul by the soul's ablest historian. So delighted was he with it, and so strong his opinion it was by Browning, that he wrote to the poet, then in Florence, for confirmation, stating at the same time that his admiration for "Pauline" had led him to transcribe the whole of it.

Concerning this episode, Robert Browning wrote to me, some seven years ago, as follows:--

"St. Pierre de Chartreuse, Isere, France.

"Rossetti's 'Pauline' letter was addressed to me at Florence more than thirty years ago. I have preserved it, but, even were I at home, should be unable to find it without troublesome searching. It was to the effect that the writer, personally and altogether unknown to me, had come upon a poem in the British Museum, which he copied the whole of, from its being not otherwise procurable--that he judged it to be mine, but could not be sure, and wished me to p.r.o.nounce in the matter--which I did. A year or two after, I had a visit in London from Mr. (William) Allingham and a friend--who proved to be Rossetti. When I heard he was a painter I insisted on calling on him, though he declared he had nothing to show me--which was far enough from the case. Subsequently, on another of my returns to London, he painted my portrait, not, I fancy, in oils, but water-colours, and finished it in Paris shortly after. This must have been in the year when Tennyson published 'Maud,' for I remember Tennyson reading the poem one evening while Rossetti made a rapid pen-and-ink sketch of him, very good, from one obscure corner of vantage, which I still possess, and duly value. This was before Rossetti's marriage."[8]

[Footnote 8: The highly interesting and excellent portrait of Browning here alluded to has never been exhibited.]

As a matter of fact, as recorded on the back of the original drawing, the eventful reading took place at 13 Dorset Street, Portman Square, on the 27th of September 1855, and those present, besides the Poet-Laureate, Browning, and Rossetti, were Mrs. E. Barrett Browning and Miss Arabella Barrett.

When, a year or two ago, the poet learned that a copy of his first work, which in 1833 could not find a dozen purchasers at a few s.h.i.+llings, went at a public sale for twenty-five guineas, he remarked that had his dear old aunt been living he could have returned to her, much to her incredulous astonishment, no doubt, he smilingly averred, the cost of the book's publication, less 3 15s. It was about the time of the publication of "Pauline" that Browning began to see something of the literary and artistic life for which he had such an inborn taste. For a brief period he went often to the British Museum, particularly the Library, and to the National Gallery. At the British Museum Reading Room he perused with great industry and research those works in philosophy and medical history which are the bases of "Paracelsus," and those Italian Records bearing upon the story of Sordello. Residence in Camberwell, in 1833, rendered night engagements often impracticable: but nevertheless he managed to mix a good deal in congenial society. It is not commonly known that he was familiar to these early a.s.sociates as a musician and artist rather than as a poet. Among them, and they comprised many well-known workers in the several arts, were Charles d.i.c.kens and "Ion" Talfourd. Mr. Fox, whom Browning had met once or twice in his early youth, after the former had been shown the Byronic verses which had in one way gratified and in another way perturbed the poet's father, saw something more of his young friend after the publication of "Pauline." He very kindly offered to print in his magazine any short poems the author of that book should see fit to send--an offer, however, which was not put to the test for some time.

Practically simultaneously with the publication of "Pauline" appeared another small volume, containing the "Palace of Art," "Oenone,"

"Mariana," etc. Those early books of Tennyson and Browning have frequently, and somewhat uncritically, been contrasted. Unquestionably, however, the elder poet showed a consummate and continuous mastery of his art altogether beyond the intermittent expressional power of Browning in his most rhythmic emotion at any time of his life. To affirm that there is more intellectual fibre, what Rossetti called fundamental brain-work, in the product of the younger poet, would be beside the mark. The insistence on the supremacy of Browning over all poets since Shakspere because he has the highest "message" to deliver, because his intellect is the most subtle and comprehensive, because his poems have this or that dynamic effect upon dormant or sluggish or other active minds, is to be seriously and energetically deprecated. It is with presentment that the artist has, fundamentally, to concern himself. If he cannot _present_ poetically then he is not, in effect, a poet, though he may be a poetic thinker, or a great writer. Browning's eminence is not because of his detachment from what some one has foolishly called "the mere handiwork, the furnisher's business, of the poet." It is the delight of the true artist that the product of his talent should be wrought to a high technique equally by the shaping brain and the dexterous hand. Browning is great because of his formative energy: because, despite the excess of burning and compulsive thought--

"Thoughts swarming thro' the myriad-chambered brain Like mult.i.tudes of bees i' the innumerous cells, Each staggering 'neath the undelivered freight--"

he strikes from the _furor_ of words an electric flash so transcendently illuminative that what is commonplace becomes radiant with that light which dwells not in nature, but only in the visionary eye of man. Form for the mere beauty of form, is a playing with the wind, the acceptance of a shadow for the substance. If nothing animate it, it may possibly be fair of aspect, but only as the frozen smile upon a dead face.

We know little of Browning's inner or outer life in 1833 and 1834. It was a secretive, not a productive period. One by one certain pinnacles of his fair snow-mountain of t.i.tanic aim melted away. He began to realise the first disenchantment of the artist: the sense of dreams never to be accomplished. That land of the great unwritten poems, the great unpainted pictures: what a heritance there for the enfranchised spirits of great dreamers!

In the autumn of 1833 he went forth to his University, that of the world of men and women. It was ever a favourite answer of his, when asked if he had been at either Oxford or Cambridge,--"Italy was my University."