Browning and His Century

ct in its broader aspects, more as he treated it in "Paracelsus," yet with a marked difference in temper. God is no longer conceived of merely as a divine creator, joying in the

nature and mind carrying forward development until he can picture a time when the evil shall become null and void, but the human, feeling being sees the misery and the unloveliness of evil. It does not satisfy him to know that it is lack of development or the outcome of la

e infinite, Browning's latter-day thought revolves as it d

ems, especially "Ferishtah's Fancies," and "The Parleyings," not only as expressions of the poet's own spiritual growth, but as showing his

the poet's books were chiefly valuable as keeping alive popular interest in him, and as leading fresh generations of readers to what he had already published. Fortunately it has long been admitted that Homer sometimes nods, though not wi

Take, too, such poems, as "Donald." This man's dastardly sportsmanship is so vividly portrayed that it has the power to arouse strong emotion in strong men, who have been known literally to break down in the middle of it through excess of feeling; "Ivan Ivanovitch," in which is embodied such fear and horror that weak hearts cannot st

imaginative world if Balaustion were blotted out?-the exquisite lyric girl,

thou hast out-Homered Homer, and thy nod hath take

cepted. There are others, however, such as "The Red Cotton Night-cap Country," "The Inn Album," "Aristophanes' Apology," "Fifine at the Fair," which ar

This last criticism may easily be disposed of by admitting it is in part true. The mind whose highest reaches of poetic inspiration are ministered unto by such simple and easily understandable lyrics as "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," might not at once grasp the sig

f an eye-after a proper amount of study and hard thinking-into an eleva

l pleasures. They fall upon the spirit like the "sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odor," but shall we never return from the land where it is always afternoon? Is it only in such a land as this that we realize the true power of emotion? Rather does it conduce to the slumber of emotion, for pro

any other date. It may be said of him, not as of Whitman, "he who reads my book touches a man

. They are like a final synthesis of the problems of existence which he has previously portrayed and analyzed from

ers, we obtain a direct glimpse of the poet's own artistic temperament, and may literally acq

himself, the poe

f an inten

ear idea of

inct from all

ons, passions, f

t exists, if t

in me to se

a center t

o create and

ings to min

es with all the emotions and aspirations of humanity-interprets their actions through

a soul constituted as his? It means that the way has been cleared for the birth of that greater, broader love of the fully developed

his large human sympathy may be supplemented by the theory of man'

painted for us in "Pauline" is the same poet who sympathetically presents a whole world of human experiences to us, and the philosopher whose

istic sympathy with return to enrich his completed view of the problems of life, when, like his own Rabbi

e saved from didacticism, for the poet expresses his opinions as an individual, and not in his own person as a seer, trying to implant his theories in the minds of disciples. Second,

in danger of never realizing-namely, that the law of evolution is differentiation, in art as well as in cosmic, organic, and social life. It is just as prejudiced and unforeseeing in these days to limit poetry to this or that

character are entirely synchronous; and those in which the action means more than appears upon the surface, like Hauptmann's "Sunken Bell," or Ibsen

the intellectual ferment of the nineteenth century. As the man in "Half Rome" says, "Facts are

torian England in its thought phases lives just as surely in these poems as Renaissance Italy in its art phases in "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Andrea del Sarto," and the

hly familiar with these later poems to pass quickly in review t

e will of man, whether it be in the last analysis absolutely free or not, is a prime factor in the working of these laws. Such people will hesitate, therefore, to throw in their voices upon either side in the solution of great national problems, because, things being bound to follow the laws of development, what matters a single voice! Such arguments were frequently heard among the wise in our own country during the Cuban and Philippine campaigns. Upon this attitude of mind the poet gives his opinion in the first of "Ferishtah's Fancies," "The Eagle." It is a strong p

h's questioners that punishment for sins (the manifestations of inherited tendencies for which the sinners are not responsible) is no longer admissible. Ferishtah's answer amounts to this. That no matter what causes for beneficent ends may be visible to the Divine mind in the allowance of the existence of sin, nor yet the fact that Divine love demands that punishment shall n

in which oneself is not to be excluded. With this doctrine Browning shows himself in full sympathy in "Two Camels," wherein Ferishtah contends that only through the development of individual happiness

must be understood in two ways: first, that good and evil are relative to the state of society in which they exist. What may be good according to the ethics of a Fejee Islander would not hold in the civilized society of to-day. This is the evil of lack of development which in the long run becomes less. On the other hand, there i

ay that good really grows out of evil, there is still the query, shall evil be encouraged in order that good may be evolved? "No!" Ferishtah declares, man bound by man's conditions is obliged

e, in brief, that man shall use that will-power of which he feels himself possessed-the power really distinguishing him from the brute c

he golden is but lacquered ignorance, as gain to be mistrusted. Curiously enough, this contention of Browning's has been the cause of most of the criticisms against him as a thinker, yet the deepest thinkers of to-day as well as many in the past have held the opinion in some form or another that the intellect was unable to solve the mysterious problems of the universe. Even the metaphysicians who build their unstable air castles on à pri

erishtah in "A Pi

ust it! Nor as

arn by: cast

at seemed ore as

gold's worth,

precious could

p to test o

n the process:

ed assuran

is somehow st

cold abstractions. Though Job said thousands of years ago, "Who by searching can find out God," mankind still continues to search. They long to know something o

ny times has he thought he had found him, but with enlarged perceptions he discovered la

This search for God, Browning calls love, meaning by that the moving, aspiring force of the whole universe in its multifarious manifestations, from the love that goes forth in thanks for benefits received, through the aspira

as ever developed toward broader conceptions of human love, it is only reasonable to infer that in his nature

ve the existence of God. This book was "Through Nature to God," by John Fiske, whose earlier work, "Cosmic P

from the evolution of organic life in following out the law of the adjustment of inner to outer relations. For example, since the eye has through ?ons of time gradually adjusted itself into harmony wit

rt Sp

a is thus not a new one. Yet in Browning's treatment of it the conception has taken on new life, partly because of the intensity of conviction w

rishtah argues that life in spite of the evil in it seems to him on the whole good. He cannot belie

s underlying all phenomena, but adds to it the positive proof based upon emotion. The true basis of belief is the intuition of God that comes from the direc

in his recognition of the part evil plays in the development of good, and through Mahometanism for the Fatalism Ferishtah learned to cast from him. The Persian atmosphere is preserved throughout

n. These clever stories make the poems lively reading in spite of their ethical content. Ferishtah is drawn with strong strokes. Wise and clever

or "Rose Garden" of the poet Sa'di. Indeed Browning evidently derived the hint for his humorous prologue in which he likens the poems to follow to an Italian dish made of ortolans on toast with a bitter sage leaf, symbolizing sense, sight, and song from Sa'di's preface to the "Rose Garden," wherein he says, "Yet will men of light and learning, from whom

es to Mrs. Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese." In these the sunrise of a great love is portrayed with intense and exalted passion, while the lyrics in "Ferishtah's Fancies" reflect the subsequent development of such a love, through th

nt, while he, with all the vigor of splendid health, could with truth have frequently said, "In the soul of me sits sluggishness." These exquisite lyrics, which, whether they conform to Elizabethan models or not, are as fine as anything ever done in this form, are crowned by the ep

cs could have been chosen to bring home the poet's conviction of th

hought. Four out of the seven were inspired by artist, poet or musician. The forgotten worthies whom Brown

relativity of good and evil. This subject, though so fully treated in the "Fancies," still continued to fascinate Browning, who seemed to feel the need of thinking his way through all its implications

h the one in "Paracelsus" brings out very clearly the exact measure of the advance in the poet's thought during the fifty years between which they were written-1835 and 1887. While in the "Paracelsus" passage it is the thought of the joy in the creator's soul for his creations, and the participation of mankind in this joy of progression while pleasur

ery

owledge Sun's

the heart of th

quid, no spar

al gleamed, but

e inrush-glad n

s gaze, forest

ea, the whole vast

l world of c

ficence, alik

an's mind is satisfied. He drew sun's rays into a focus plain and true. The very sun in little: made fire burn and henceforth do man service. Denuded of its scientific and mystical symbolism, Browning th

ould not compare with a real woman the poet knows. The romantic story of the lady is told in Browning's most fascinating narrative style, so rapid and direct that it has all the force of a dramatic sketch. The heroine's claim upo

uman love, which he considers so clearly a revelation that any treatment of it n

good than that of the State-a proposition so preposterous in his case that nobody would believe it. The poet then presents what purports to be the correct method of successful statesmanship-namely, to pose as a superior being endowed with the divine right to rule, treating everybody as his puppet, and entirely scornful of any criticisms against himself. If he will adopt this attitude he may change his tactics every year and the people, instead of suspecting

ether Browning actually agreed with the conclusions of the critics, since the episode is used merely as a text for discussing the problem of beauty versus truth in art. Should the poet's province be simply to record his vision of the beauty and the strength of nature and the universe-visi

to heaven by its means, not investigate the heavens first. Diligent

er believe the tale told by Baldinicci that Furini ordered all his pictures in which there were nude figures

ivered before a London audience. It is a long and recondite speech in which the scientific and the intuitional methods of arriving at trut

Lairesse," whom he makes the scapegoat of his strictures, on the score of a book Lairesse wrote in which w

ng became the tomb of Phaeton, and an old cartwheel h

meant to be in derision of a grandiloquent, classically embroidered style but so splendid is the language, so haunting the pictures, the symbolism so profound that it is as if a God were showing some poor weakling mortal how not to do it-and through his omn

a modern poet greets a landscape he flings in th

ows, and whi

with his philosophy, placing as he does the paramount impor

significance

love lies bur

eeks fire f

sion possible to man. Sadness comes to him, however, at the thought of the ephemeralness of its forms, a fact that is borne in on him because of the inadequateness of Avison's old march st

where truth abi

nging it is of absolute value to the time when the spirit found expression in it. Furthermore, in any form

age has had its living, immortal examples, the "broken arcs" which finally will make the perfect round, each ar

iration throw over the events of human existence, without actually giving any assurance of its worth, and the wine of Bacchus symbolizes feeling, by means of which a perception of the absolute is gained. Man's reason, guided by the divine, accepts this revelatio

no new realm of actual, palpable knowledge opened up to man beyond that which his intellect is able to perceive. Once having gained this knowledge of

and de

asymptote spee

s Man-Thee, wh

ed him to

w thy

single om

To the young Browning, the beauty of immortal, joyous life pursuing its heights forever was as a radiant vision, to the Browning who had grappled with the strangling problems of the century this beauty was not so distinctly seen, but its reality was felt with all the depth of an intensely spiritual nature-a nature moreover so absolutely fearless, that it

incapable of any such absurdity as Clifford's dictum that "Reason, intelligence and volition are properties of a complex which is made up of elements, themselves not rational, not intelligent, not conscious." Since Clifford's time, the marked difference

n regard to the characteristics peculiar to man as distinguis

as belonging especially to the phenomena of our inner self-conscious life, and these properties se

periods of unconsciousness, is able to reestablish itself by the wonderful and indefinable property called 'memory'-a center which can only be very imperfectly localize

and, as it were, perpetuates itself in language, literature, science and art, legislation, society, and the like. We have no analogue of this in physical nature, where matter and energy are constant quantities and where the growth and multiplication of living matte

in the early days of the century said the so

s most explicitly the objective or intellectual method and

made to

ution

from depths, you

for discove

sue agreement

ally evolved at last self-conscious man. But after all this investigating on the part of the evolutionist what has been gained? Of power-that is, power to create nature or life, or even to understand it-man possesses no particle, and of knowledge, only just so much as to show that it ends in ignorance on every side. This is the result of the objective search for truth. But begin with man himself, and there is a fact upon which he can take a sure stand, his self-consciousness-a "togetherness," as Merz says, which cannot be explained mathematically by the adding up of atoms; and furthermore an inborn certainty that whatever is felt to be within

nown at any

rogress, such as

ul's instruction

sdom, all tha

at quiets a

supreme. The mystic, instead of allowing the intellectual faculty to lead the way, degrades it to an inferior position and makes it entirely subservient to the feelings. In some moo

d St

other that it is gained by extraordinary supernatural means. On the contrary, truth comes to Browning in pursuance of a regular law or fact of the inward sensibility, wh

because of its very failure in strengthening the sense of the existence of a power transcending human conception. "What is our failure here but a triumph's evidence of the fulness of the days?" And, furthermore, with mystic love already in our hea

to have had a perception of God directly through his own consciousness by means of what the idealist calls the higher reason. His perception, for instance, that w

intuitions of the intellect which finds in the failure of knowledge to probe the secrets of the universe the assurance of a transcendent power beyond human ken, the intuition of the higher reas

e crowded the past century, there is no one who to my knowledge has so completely harmonized the various thought tend

ng its relative character, has yet interpreted it in such a way as to make it subserve the highest ideals in ethics, religion, and art. Far from reflecting any degeneration in Browning's philosophy

site emotion, and grand passages which present in sweeping images now the processes of cosmic evolution, now those of spiritual evolution, until it seems as if we had indeed been conducted to some vast mountain height, whence we can look forth upon the century's turbulent seas of t