103. _God's task_, etc. He neglected the body, magnified the mind, and
believed that the full realization of his aspirations would come in "the
heavenly period."
113. _That low man_. This comparison between the "low man" and the "high
man" could be effectively illustrated from "Andrea del Sarto." Andrea is
the "low man" who with his skillful hand "goes on adding one to one"
till he attains his "hundred," or excellence of technique. But the other
painters, the ones with the "truer light of God" in them, reach the
heaven above and take their place there although what they see
transcends the power of their art to tell. They miss the "unit" of an
adequate technique, but they gain the "million" of spiritual insight.
129. _Hoti ... Oun ... De._ Points in Greek grammar concerning which
there was much learned discussion.
"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"
Mrs. Orr (_Handbook of Browning's Works_, p. 274) says of this poem: "We
can connect no idea of definite pursuit or attainment with a series of
facts so dream-like and so disjointed: still less extract from it a
definite moral; and we are reduced to taking the poem as a simple work
of fancy, built up of picturesque impressions which have, separately or
collectively, produced themselves in the author's mind." And she adds in
a note: "I may venture to state that these picturesque materials
included a tower which Mr. Browning once saw in the Carrara Mountains, a
painting which caught his eye years later in Paris; and the figure of a
horse in the tapestry in his own drawing-room--welded together in the
remembrance of the line from '_King Lear_,' which forms the heading of
the poem." The possible allegorical signification of the poem has been
the subject of much, and often of singularly futile discussion. Dr.
Furnivall said he had asked Browning if it was an allegory, and in
answer had on three separate occasions received an emphatic statement
that it was simply a dramatic creation called forth by a line of
Shakspere's. (Porter-Clarke, _Study Programmes_, p. 406.) Yet
allegorical interpretations continue to be made. According to one line
of interpretation the pilgrim is a "truth-seeker, misdirected by the
lying spirit" (the hoary cripple), and when he blows the slug-horn it is
as a warning to others that he has failed in his quest, and that the way
to the dark tower is the way of destruction and death. (Berdoe,
_Browning Cyclopædia_, p. 105) According to other readings of the tale
the blast which the pilgrim blows at the end of his quest is one of
"spiritual victory and incitement to others." When the Rev. John S.
Chadwick visited the poet and asked him if constancy to an ideal--"He
that endureth to the end shall be saved"--was not a sufficient
understanding of the central purpose of the poem, Browning said: "Yes,
just about that." With constancy to an ideal as the central purpose, the
details of this poem, without being minutely interpreted, may yet serve
as a representation of the depression, the hopelessness, the dullness
and deadness of soul, the doubt and terror even of the man who travels
the last stages of a difficult journey to a long-sought but unknown
goal. His victory consists in the unfaltering persistence of his search.
The "squat tower," when he reaches it, is prosaic and ugly, but finding
it is after all not the essential point. The essential element of his
success is that, encircled by the last temptations to despair, he holds
heart and brain steady, and carries out his quest to its last detail.
(See an article in _The Critic_, May 3, 1886, by Mr. Arlo Bates, in
opposition to any definite allegory. Mr. Nettleship in _Robert Browning_
[p. 89] devotes a chapter to a paraphrase and an allegorical
explanation.)
Mr. Herford (_Life of Browning_, p. 94) calls the poem "a great romantic
legend" and emphasizes its intensity and boldness of invention. He
compares its "horror-world" with that of Coleridge in "The Ancient
Mariner." "What 'The Ancient Mariner' is in the poetry of the mysterious
terrors and splendors of the sea, that 'Childe Roland' is in the poetry
of bodeful horror, of haunted desolation, of waste and plague, ragged
distortion, and rotting ugliness in landscape. The Childe, like the
Mariner, advances through an atmosphere and scenery of steadily
gathering menace."
Mr. Chesterton says of the scenery: "It is ... the poetry of the shabby
and hungry aspect of the earth itself. Daring poets who wished to escape
from the conventional gardens and orchards had long been in the habit of
celebrating the poetry of rugged and gloomy landscapes, but Browning is
not content with this. He insists on celebrating the poetry of mean
landscapes. That sense of scrubbiness in nature, as of a man unshaved,
had never been conveyed with this enthusiasm and primeval gusto before."
(_Robert Browning_, p. 159.)