CHAPTER XIII ROBERT BROWNING [Born at Camberwell, London, May 7, 1812. "Pauline" published 1832. Married Elizabeth Barrett September 12, 1846. "The Ring and the Book" published 1868. "Asolando," his last volume, 1889. Died in Venice, December 12, 1889. Buried in Westminster Abbey, December 31, 1889.] The two greatest figures in the world of modern poetry are Tennyson and Browning. To each has been accorded. old age; both have been keenly alive to the intellectual and social movements of their time, and have endeavored to reflect them. Each also has been an observant student of life, as all true poets must be, and each has constructed a huge gallery of human portraits, representing many types, and arranged with artistic instinct and consummate skill. But while Tennyson has proved himself the greater artist, Browning has proved himself the greater mind. He has brought to the work of the poet a keen and subtle intellect, a penetrating insight, the experience of a citizen of the world, and in all things the original force of a powerful individuality. The result of his artistic deficiency is, that he has entirely failed to obtain popularity. He has not known how to deliver his message to the popular ear, and it may be doubted if he has ever cared to try. With a touch of justifiable scorn, he has declared that he never intended his poetry to be a substitute for a cigar or a game of dominoes to an idle man. The grace and music of Tennyson's verse have compelled delight, but in Browning there is no attempt at verbal music. It is with him an unstudied, perhaps an uncoveted, art. When David sought to express the consummate union of the opposite qualities which constitute perfection, he said, "Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary." In Browning we have the strength, in Tennyson the beauty. And the result of this artistic deficiency, this inability to clothe his thoughts in forms of grace, is, that Browning has failed in any large degree to charm the ear of that wide public who care less for the thought that is uttered than for the manner of its utterance. It is, however, necessary to remember another fact about Browning's poetry; viz., that to the first minds of the age, the men who lead and govern the world of thought, Browning has been and is a potent and inspiring force. He has disseminated ideas, he has pervaded the literature of his time with his influence. He has found an audience, few but fitting, and to them has addressed himself, knowing that through them he could effectually reach the world at large. The test of popularity is at all times an imperfect test, and in Browning's case is wholly inadequate and unsatisfactory as an index of his true position in the literature of his day. The influence of a poet is often out of all proportion to his popularity, and is by no means to be measured by the number of his readers, or the poverty or copiousness of public praise. If mere popularity were to become the solitary test of influence, we should have to rank Longfellow above Dante, and Martin Tupper above Tennyson. But while popularity is in itself a testimony to the possession of certain service able qualities, or a certain happy combination of qualities, it fails wholly as a just measurement of the real formative force which a writer may be able to exercise upon his time, and still more hopelessly as an indication of the position such a writer may take up in the unknown judgments of posterity. A man may catch the ear of the public, and win its empty plaudits, without touching in more than an infinitesimal degree the public conscience or the public thought. The deeper and diviner waves of intellectual life indeed have more often than not owed their origin to men who have quarreled with their age, and received from their contemporaries little but the thorn-crown of derision and the sponge of gall and vinegar-men wandering in the bitterness of exile like Dante, or starving in the scholar's garret like Spinoza. Most truly great writers, to whom has been committed the creative genius which opens new wells of thought and new methods of utterance, have had need to steel themselves against the indifference of their time, and to learn how to say: "None of these things move me." They have appealed from the contemptuous ignorance of their contemporaries to the certain praises of posterity, and not in vain. Where such men find readers they make disciples, and each heart upon which the fire. of their genius falls becomes consecrated to their service. Theirs it is to found a secular apostolate, a school of prophets united by a common faith, and pledged by the sacredness of an intense conviction to urge on the teaching of the new doctrine and the new name, till the world acknowledges the claim and gives adhesion to the master whom they love and reverence. Let us grant, then, that we have in Robert Browning undoubtedly a great poet, but also an undoubtedly unpopular poet. With the exception of the "Ride from Ghent to Aix," the "Pied Piper of Hamelin," and the tender and pathetic "Evelyn Hope," few or none of his poems have won the ear of the general public. Yet he has produced no fewer than twenty-four volumes, the latest of which was not long since everywhere discussed. No writer of our time has manifested greater fecundity of genius, versatility of style, or capacity of industry. Few writers have ever had a firmer faith in themselves, and have trusted more fully to the secure awards of time. Now that the poetry of Browning has become a cult, his less known works have probably found readers; but at the time of their publication, few but the reviewers had the courage to read them. There is a story told of Leigh Hunt's having "Sordello" sent him for review at a time when he was in weak health and low spirits. After an hour's fruitless effort, he flung the book aside, crying: "My brain is failing! I must be mad! I have not understood a word." His wife then took the book up, and it was agreed that upon the test of her ability to understand it the question of her husband's sanity must turn. She at length flung it down, saying: "My dear, don't be alarmed. You're not mad; but the man who wrote it is!" Many persons have closed "Sordello" with the same angry comment, and there are isolated passages in Browning more difficult than anything in "Sordello." How is it, then, that the man whose mastery of humor is so finely displayed in the "Pied Piper," whose pathos and power of narrative have such splendid attestations as "Evelyn Hope" and the "Ride from Ghent to Aix," who can write with such terseness, simplicity, and vigor as these poems display, is, nevertheless, to the bulk of English readers a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence? The answer to this question is not difficult. Let it at once be granted that Robert Browning can write as clearly as any English poet when he likes, for he has done it. Open Browning at random, and it will be hard if, in half an hour, you do not come upon a score of noble thoughts, admirably expressed in clear-ringing English, with delicate attention to phrase and perfect adherence to the laws of construction. Yet it must be owned that in the same halfhour it is quite possible to alight on passages where the nominative has lost its verb beyond hope of recovery, and phrases seem to have been jerked out haphazard, in a sort of volcanic eruption of thought and temper. What is the underlying cause of these defects of style? There are two main causes. The first springs from Browning's theory of poetry. Browning's theory of poetry is a serious one. Like all truly great artists, he has uniformly recognized the dignity and responsibility of art. With him poetry is not the manufacture of a melodious jingle, nor the elaboration of pretty conceits: it is as serious as life, and is to be approached with reverent and righteous purpose. It is, moreover, the noblest of all intellectual labors, and should therefore minister to the intellect not less than to the emotion. Into his poetry Browning has put his subtlest and deepest thought, and he uniformly puts a higher value on the thought than the method or manner of its expression. In "Pauline," his earliest poem, published in 1832, he says, with a true forecast of his own powers and limitations: So will I sing on, fast as fancies come; |