1869-1880
"I am strong in the spirit, deep-thoughted, clear-eyed;
I could walk, step for step, with an angel beside,
On the heaven-heights of truth.
Oh, the soul keeps its youth
* * * * *
"'Twixt the heavens and the earth _can_ a poet despond?
O Life, O Beyond,
Thou art strange, thou art sweet!"
IN SCOTLAND WITH THE STORYS--BROWNING'S CONVERSATION--AN AMUSING
INCIDENT--WITH MILSAND AT ST. AUBIN'S--"RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP
COUNTRY"--ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING'S GIFT FOR ART--ALFRED DOMETT
("WARING")--"BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE"--BROWNING AND TENNYSON--
"PACCHIAROTTO"--VISITS JOWETT AT OXFORD--DECLINES LORD RECTORSHIP OF
ST. ANDREWS--"LA SAISIAZ"--ITALY REVISITED--THE DREAM OF ASOLO--
"IVANOVITCH"--PRIDE IN HIS SON'S SUCCESS--"DRAMATIC IDYLLS."
In the summer of 1869 the Storys, with their daughter, came from Rome and
joined Browning with his sister and his son, for a holiday in Scotland.
They passed some time at a little inn on Loch Achnault, where Lady Marian
Alford also came, and there are still vivid reminiscences of picnic
lunches on the heather, and of readings by the poet from "The Ring and the
Book." Chapters from "Rob Roy" also contributed to the enjoyment of
evenings when the three ladies of the party--Mrs. Story, Lady Marian, and
the lovely young girl, Miss Edith Story--were glad to draw a little nearer
to the blazing fire which, even in August, is not infrequently to be
desired in Scotland. Lord Dufferin was also a friend of those days, and
for the tower he had built at Clandeboye in the memory of his mother,
Helen, Countess of Gifford, Browning wrote, soon after, his poem entitled
"Helen's Tower." Mrs. Orr speaks of this poem as little known, and not
included in his published works; but it is now to be found in all the
complete editions of Browning. After this Arcadian sojourn Browning and
his son, with Miss Browning, were the guests of Lady Ashburton at Loch
Luichart Lodge.
For two or three years after the publication of "The Ring and the Book,"
Browning wrote little. The demands of friends and of an always enormous
correspondence occupied much time; his son was growing into young manhood,
and already manifesting his intense love of art, and his gifts as both
painter and sculptor.
Browning's conversation was always fascinating. It was full of glancing
allusion, wit, sparkle, and with that constant undertone of significance
that may be serious or gay, but which always lingers with a certain
impressiveness to haunt the mind of the listener. Dr. Hiram Corson, who
may perhaps be regarded as Browning's greatest interpreter, speaks of one
of his visits to the poet, in London, where the conversation turned from
Shelley to Shakespeare. "He spoke with regret of the strangely limited
reading of the Plays, even by those who believe themselves habitual and
devoted readers," says Dr. Corson.
"At luncheon," continues Dr. Corson, "his talk was, as usual with him,
rapid and off-hand. He gave but a _coup d'oeil_ to every subject
that came up. In all subsequent talks with him, I never got the
slightest impression from him of pride of intellect, though his was
certainly one of the subtlest and most comprehensive intellects of his
time. He was absolutely free from it; was saved from it by his
spiritual vitality. His intellectual and his spiritual nature jointly
operated. Nor did he ever show to me any pride of authorship; never
made any independent allusion to his poetry. One might have supposed
that his poetry, great and extensive as it was, was a parergon, a
by-work, with him.
"I have no recollection of any saying of his, such as might be
recorded for its wisdom or profundity. Never a brilliant thought
crystallized in a single sentence. His talk was especially
characterized by its cordiality and rapid flow. The 'member of
society' and the poet seemed to be quite distinct.
"One day when Mrs. Corson and I were lunching with him in Warwick
Crescent," said Dr. Corson, "he told us a most amusing incident. On
that morning Browning was particularly 'an embodied joy.' He told
several good stories, one of which showed that the enigmatical
character attributed to his poetry by some of his critics was to him a
good joke. I have no doubt he must have enjoyed the Douglas Jerrold
story, that Jerrold, in endeavoring to read 'Sordello,' thought he had
lost his mind.
"But to Browning's story. He said, 'I was visited by the Chinese
minister and his attaches, without having been previously informed of
their coming. Before they entered, I had noticed from my window a
crowd in the street, which had been attracted by the celestials in
their national rigs, who were just then getting out of their
carriages, I not knowing then what manner of visitors I was to have.
Soon the interpreter announced at the drawing-room door, "His
Excellency, the Chinese Minister and his attaches." As they entered,
the interpreter presented them, individually, first, of course, his
Excellency, the Minister, and then the rest in order of rank. It was
quite an impressive occasion. Recovering myself, I said to the
interpreter: "To what am I indebted for this great honor?" He replied:
"You are a distinguished poet in your country, and so is his
Excellency in his." We did obeisance to each other. I then asked the
character of his Excellency's poetry. The interpreter replied,
"Chiefly poetical enigmas." Grasping his Excellency's hand, I said, "I
salute you as a brother."'
"Browning told this story while walking up and down the room. When he
said, 'I salute you as a brother,' he made the motion of a most hearty
hand-shake."
Mrs. Arthur Bronson, than whom Mr. Browning never had a more sympathetic
and all-comprehending friend, said that if she tried to recall Robert
Browning's words it was as though she had talked to a being apart from
other men. "My feeling may seem exaggerated," she smiled, "but it was only
natural, when considering my vivid sense of his moral and intellectual
greatness. His talk was not abstruse and intricate, like some of his
writings. Far from it. As a rule he seemed rather to avoid deep and
serious subjects. There was no loss, for everything he chose to say was
well said. A familiar story, grave or gay, when clothed with his words,
and accentuated by his expressive gestures and the mobility of his
countenance, had all the charm of novelty; while a comic anecdote from his
lips sparkled with wit, born of his own keen sense of humor. I found in
him that most rare combination of a powerful personality united to a
nature tenderly sympathetic."
Another who knew him well perpetrated the _mot_ that "Tennyson hides
behind his laurels, and Browning behind the man of the world." Henry
James, whose gift of subtle analysis was never more felicitously revealed
than in his expressions about Browning, declared that the poet had two
personalities: one, the man of the world, who walked abroad, talked, did
his duty; the other, the Poet,--"an inscrutable personage,--who sat at
home and knew, as well he might, in what quarters of that sphere to look
for suitable company. The poet and the man of the world were disassociated
in him as they can rarely elsewhere have been."
For three or four summers after this sojourn in Scotland the Brownings
were at St. Aubin, in Brittany, where they had a cottage "not two steps
away" from that of his friend Milsand. In the early mornings Browning
would be seen pacing the sands, reading from his little Greek copy of
Homer; and in the late afternoons the two friends would stroll on the
Normandy beach with their arms around each other's shoulders. They are
described as very different in appearance,--Browning vigorous and buoyant,
Milsand nervous, thin, reserved,--but akin in a certain delicate
sensitiveness, a swift susceptibility to impressions. Of Browning Milsand
said that what he really valued most was his kindness, his simple, open,
radiant goodness. "All the chords of sympathy vibrated in his strong
voice," added Milsand. The French critic was very fond of the poet's son,
and in reference to him he once said: "The father has reason to be happy
that in walking before he has opened a path for his son, instead of making
him stumble." As has been seen, in Mrs. Browning's letters, she always
shared her husband's enthusiasm for Milsand, and the latter had said that
he felt in her "that shining superiority always concealing itself under
her unconscious goodness and lovely simplicity."
On Sundays at St. Aubin's, Browning frequently accompanied Milsand to the
little chapel of Chateau-Blagny, for Protestant worshipers. From his
cottage Browning could gaze across the bay to the lighthouse at Havre, and
he "saw with a thrill" the spot where he once passed a summer with his
wife.
Italian recollections sometimes rose before his inner vision. To Isa
Blagden, who had gone to Siena, he wrote that he could "see the fig-tree
under which Ba sat, reading and writing, poor old Landor's oak opposite."
Of Milsand he wrote to a friend: "I never knew or shall know his like
among men," and to Milsand, who had assisted him in some proof-reading, he
wrote acknowledging his "invaluable assistance," and said:
"The fact is, in the case of a writer with my peculiarities and
habits, somebody quite ignorant of what I may have meant to write, and
only occupied with what is really written, ought to supervise the
thing produced. I won't attempt to thank you, dearest friend.... The
poem will reach you in about a fortnight. I look forward with all
confidence and such delight to finding us all together again in the
autumn. All love to your wife and daughter. R. B."
Milsand, writing of Browning in the _Revue_, revealed his high
appreciation of the poet when he said: "Browning suggests a power even
greater than his achievement. He speaks like a spirit who is able to do
that which to past centuries has been almost impossible."
It was St. Aubin that furnished Browning with material for his poem, "Red
Cotton Night-cap Country," the title of which was suggested by Miss
Thackeray (now Lady Ritchie) who had a cottage there one summer, near
those of Browning and Milsand. Browning and his sister occupied one of the
most primitive of cottages, but the location was beautiful, perched on the
cliff of St. Aubin, and commanded a changeful panorama of sea and sky.
"The sitting-room door opened to the garden and the sea beyond--a
fresh-swept bare floor, a table, three straw chairs, one book upon the
table,--the only book he had with him. The bedrooms were as bare as the
sitting-room, but there was a little dumb piano standing in a corner, on
which he used to practice in the early morning. Mr. Browning declared they
were perfectly satisfied with their little house; that his brains,
squeezed as dry as a sponge, were only ready for fresh air."[12] As all
Browning readers will remember, "Red Cotton Night-cap Country" is
dedicated to Miss Thackeray.
In the succeeding autumn Browning passed some weeks at Fontainebleau,
where he was absorbed in reading Aeschylus, and in making an especial study
of the great dramatist. It was perhaps at this time that he conceived the
idea of translating the Agamemnon, which, he says in his preface, "was
commanded of me by my venerated friend Thomas Carlyle, and rewarded it
will be if I am permitted to dignify it by the prefatory insertion of his
dear and noble name."
[Illustration: BUST OF ROBERT BROWNING, BY HIS SON,
ROBERT BARRETT BROWNING.
In the possession of the sculptor at his villa near Florence.]
Before the close of this year Browning had also complied with a request
from Tauchnitz to prepare for publication a selection from the poems of
Mrs. Browning. This Tauchnitz Edition of Mrs. Browning will always retain
its interest as representing her husband's favorites among her poems. "The
Rhyme of the Duchess May," with its artistic symmetry and exquisite
execution, was of course included. This poem may be said to exhibit all
Mrs. Browning's poetic characteristics.
Encouraged by Millais, Robert Barrett Browning had seriously entered on
the study of painting, his first master being M. Heyermans in Antwerp. In
1875 Frederick Lehmann had expressed high appreciation of a work of the
young artist, the study of a monk absorbed in reading a book,--a picture
that he liked so well as subsequently to purchase it. Another picture by
Barrett Browning was entitled "The Armorer," and found a place in the
Royal Academy of that year, and was purchased by a Member of Parliament
who was also something of a connoisseur in art. In this season was
inaugurated the annual "private view" of the paintings of the poet's son,
which were exhibited in a house in Queen's Gate Gardens and attracted much
attention. In his son's success Browning took great pride and pleasure. On
the sale of the picture to the M. P., Browning wrote to Millais:
19, WARWICK CRESCENT, May 10, 1878.
MY BELOVED MILLAIS,--You will be gladdened in the kind heart of you to
learn that Pen's picture has been bought by Mr. Fielder, a perfect
stranger to both of us. You know what your share has been in his
success, and it cannot but do a world of good to a young fellow whose
fault was never that of being insensible to an obligation.
Ever Affectionately Yours,
ROBERT BROWNING.[13]
In 1871 Browning had been appointed Life Governor of the University of
London, an honor that he particularly appreciated as indicating the
interest of students in his poetry. In the late winter of 1872, after an
absence of thirty years, Alfred Domett again appeared. He had vanished
"like a ghost at break of day,"
and like a ghost he returned, calling at once on his friend in Warwick
Crescent. A letter from Miss Browning to Domett explains itself:
19, WARWICK CRESCENT,
UPPER WESTBOURNE TERRACE, Feb. 1872.
MY DEAR MR. DOMETT,--My brother was so sorry to miss you yesterday; he
is a man of many engagements, and unfortunately is engaged every
evening next week, or I would ask you to join our family dinner as
soon as possible--but meanwhile, as he is impatient to see you, will
you be very kind and come to lunch with us on Monday at one o'clock?
We shall be delighted to meet you. If you cannot come on Monday, name
some other morning.
Always Yours Truly,
SARIANNA BROWNING.
The old friendship between Browning and Domett was renewed with constant
intercourse and interchange of delightful letters. Milsand was in the
habit of passing a part of every spring with Browning in his home in
Warwick Crescent, and with the arrival of Domett a warm and sincere
friendship united all three.
Once, in Scotland, as the guest of Ernest Benzon, when Browning missed
part of a visit from Milsand, the poet said: "No words can express the
love I have for Milsand, increasingly precious as he is." The Benzons were
at that time in the hills above Loch Tummel, where Jowett was staying,
Swinburne also with the Master of Balliol. Had there been a phonograph to
register the conversation of such a trio as Jowett, Browning, and
Swinburne, its records would be eagerly sought.
A fragmentary record, indeed, remains in a note made by Edwin Harrison,
who was with Jowett at this time. In his diary Mr. Harrison recorded:
"R. B. was in the neighborhood, staying at Little Milton, above Loch
Tummel, where he was perpetrating 'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau' at the
rate of so many lines a day, neither more nor less. He walked over to
see Jowett one afternoon, very keen about a fanciful rendering he had
imagined for lines in the Alcestis. A few evenings later we met him
and his son at dinner at Altaine House, by the foot of the loch. You
may be sure that where Jowett and Browning were, the conversation was
animated and interesting."
In "Balaustion's Adventure" the poet seemed to take captive the popular
appreciation of the day, for more than three thousand copies had been sold
within the first six months, and his sister told Domett that she regarded
it as the most swiftly appreciated poem of all her brother's works.
Certainly it is one of the most alluring of Browning's works,--this
delightful treatment of the interwoven life of mortals and of the immortal
gods.
The June of 1872 brought to Browning the sad news of the death of his
wife's dearest friend, Isa Blagden. "A little volume of Isabella Blagden's
poems was published after her death," writes Thomas Adolphus Trollope.
"They are not such as would take the world by storm, but it is impossible
to read them without perceiving how choice a spirit their author must
have been, and understanding how she was especially honored with the
friendship of Mrs. Browning."[14]
On the publication of "Red Cotton Night-cap Country," Browning sent a
first copy to Tennyson, and the Laureate's son says of it: "Among the
lines which my father liked were
'Palatial, gloomy chambers for parade,
And passage lengths of lost significance';
and he praised the simile about the man with his dead comrade in the
lighthouse. He wrote to Mr. Browning: 'My wife has just cut the leaves. I
have yet again to thank you, and feel rather ashamed that I have nothing
of my own to send you back.'"
An entry in Tennyson's diary in the following December notes: "Mr.
Browning dined with us. He was very affectionate and delightful. It was a
great pleasure to hear his words,--that he had not had so happy a time for
a long while as since we have been in town."
Tennyson's "Queen Mary" was published in 1875, and on receiving a copy
from the author Browning wrote expressing thanks for the gift, and even
more for "Queen Mary the poem." He found it "astonishingly fine"; and he
adds: "What a joy that such a poem should be, and be yours." The relations
between the two great poets of the Victorian age were always ideally
beautiful, in their cordial friendship and their warm mutual appreciation.
In a note dated in the Christmas days of 1876 Browning writes:
MY DEAR TENNYSON,--True thanks again, this time for the best of
Christmas presents, another great work, wise, good, and beautiful. The
scene where Harold is overborne to take the oath is perfect, for one
instance. What a fine new ray of light you are entwining with your
many-colored wreath!...
All happiness befall you and yours this good season and ever.[15]
The present Lord Tennyson, in his biography of his father, makes many
interesting allusions to the friendship and the pleasant intercourse
between the poets. "Browning frequently dined with us," he says, "and the
_tete-a-tete_ conversations between him and my father on every imaginable
topic were the best talk I have ever heard, so full of repartee, epigram,
anecdote, depth, and wisdom, too brilliant to be possible to reproduce.
These brother poets were two of the most widely read men of their time,
absolutely without a touch of jealousy, and reveling, as it were, in each
other's power.... Browning had a faculty for absurd and abstruse rhymes,
and I recall a dinner where Jebb, Miss Thackeray, and Browning were all
present, and Browning said he could make a rhyme for every word in the
language. We proposed rhinoceros, and without pause he said,
'O, if you should see a rhinoceros
And a tree be in sight,
Climb quick, for his might
Is a match for the gods,--he can toss Eros.'"
A London friend relates that on one occasion Browning chanced upon a
literal translation some one had made from the Norwegian:
"The soul where love abideth not resembles
A house by night, without a fire or torch,"
and remarked how easy it would be to put this into rhyme; and immediately
transmuted it into the couplet,
"What seems the soul when love's outside the porch?
A house by night, without a fire or torch."
When Browning's "Inn Album" appeared, and he sent a copy to Tennyson, the
Laureate responded:
"MY DEAR BROWNING,--You are the most brotherly of poets, and your
brother in the muses thanks you with the affection of a brother. She
would thank you too, if she could put hand to pen."
Tennyson once remarked to his son, Hallam, that he wished he had written
Browning's lines:
"The little more, and how much it is,
The little less, and what worlds away."
There was an interval of twelve years between the appearance of the
"Dramatis Personae" (in 1864) and the publication of "Pacchiarotto." In
this collection Browning's amusing play of rhyme is much in evidence.
Among Mr. Browning's most enjoyable experiences were his frequent visits
to Oxford and Cambridge, in both of which he was an honored guest. In the
spring of 1877 he had an especially delightful stay at Oxford, the
pleasure even beginning on the train, "full of men, all my friends," he
wrote of it; and continued: "I was welcomed on arrival by a Fellow who
installed me in my rooms--then came the pleasant meeting with Jowett, who
at once took me to tea with his other guests, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Dean of Westminster, Lord Airlie,
and others."
There was a banquet and much postprandial eloquence that night, and
Browning mentions among the speakers Lord Coleridge, Professor Smith, Mr.
Green (on science and literature with a most complimentary appreciation of
Browning), and "a more rightly-directed one," says the poet, "on Arnold,
Swinburne, and the old pride of Balliol, Clough, which was cleverly and
almost touchingly answered by dear Matthew Arnold." The Dean of
Westminster responded to the toast of "The Fellows and the Scholars," and
the entire affair lasted over six hours. "But the whole thing," said
Browning, "was brilliant, genial, and there was a warmth, earnestness, and
refinement about it which I never experienced in any previous public
dinner."
The profound impression that Browning made both by his personality and his
poetic work is further attested by his being again chosen Lord Rector of
the University of Glasgow. Dr. William Knight, the Professor of Moral
Philosophy at St. Andrews, urges Browning's acceptance of this office, and
begs the poet to realize "how the thoughtful youth of Scotland" estimate
his work. Professor Knight closes by saying that his own obligations to
Browning, "and to the author of 'Aurora Leigh' are such that of them
silence is golden." While Mr. Browning was deeply touched by this
testimonial of esteem, he still, for the second time, declined the honor.
Many readers and lovers of Robert Browning's poem "La Saisiaz" little
dream of the singular story connected with it. "La Saisiaz" is a chalet
above Geneva, high up in the Savoyard mountains, looking down on Geneva
and Lake Leman. It is a tall, white house, with a red roof that attracted
the lovers of beauty, solitude, and seclusion. Among the few habitues for
many years were Robert Browning and his sister, Sarianna, and their
friend, Miss Egerton-Smith. It was the bond of music that especially
united Browning and this lady, and in London they were apt to frequent
concerts together. "La Saisiaz" is surrounded by tall poplar trees, but
the balcony from a third-floor window, which was Browning's room, looked
through a space in the trees out on the blue lake, and on this balcony he
would draw out his chair and writing desk. Back of the chalet a steep
path ran up the mountains, where the three friends often climbed, to enjoy
a gorgeous and unrivaled sunset spectacle.
In 1877 they were all there as usual in August, and one evening had
planned that the next day they would start early in the morning and pass
the day on the mountain, going by carriage, a servant accompanying them
carrying the basket of luncheon. In the early evening Browning and Miss
Egerton-Smith were out, pacing up and down the "grass-grown path," and
talking of the infinite life which includes death and that which is beyond
death. The next morning she did not appear, and Browning and his sister
waited for her. They sat out on the terrace after having morning coffee,
expecting to see the "tall white figure," and finally Miss Browning went
to her room to ask if she were ill, and she lay dead on the floor. Miss
Egerton-Smith was buried in the neighboring cemetery of Collonge, where
her grave, over which a wonderful willow tree bends, is still seen--a
place of frequent pilgrimage to visitors in this region. Five days after
her death Browning made the excursion up the mountain alone,
"But a bitter touched its sweetness, for the thought stung 'Even so
Both of us had loved and wondered just the same, five days ago!'"
La Saleve, the mountain overlooking the Arve and the Rhone Valley, is one
of the most wildly picturesque points in all the Alpine region. The chalet
of "La Saisiaz" was perched on this mountain spur, about half-way up the
mountain, on a shelving terrace, with vast and threatening rocks rising
behind. The poem called "La Saisiaz" is one of Browning's greatest. It is
full of mystical questioning and of his positive and radiant assertions of
faith; it abounds in vivid and exquisite scenic effects, and it has the
personal touches of tenderness. The morning after her death is thus
pictured:
"No, the terrace showed no figure, tall, white, leaning through the
wreaths,
Tangle-twine of leaf and bloom that intercept the air one breathes."
Browning and Miss Egerton-Smith had first met in Florence. She was an
English lady of means (being part proprietor of the _Liverpool Mercury_)
and of a reserve of temperament which kept her aloof from people in
general. With the poet and his sister she was seen in all that cordial
sweetness of her nature which her sensitive reserve veiled from strangers.
Italy again! A sapphire sky bending over hills and peaks and terraces
swimming in violet shadows; villas, and sudden views, and arching
_pianterreni_, and winding roads between low stone walls hidden in their
riotous overgrowth of roses! And the soft air, the tall black cypresses
against the sky, the sunsets and the stars, and golden lights, and dear
Italian phrases! The trailing ivy vines all in a tangle; the wayside
shrine, the vast white monastery perched on an isolated mountain top; the
flaming scarlet of the poppies in the grass, the castles and battlements
dimly caught on the far horizon,--the poetry, the loveliness, the
ineffable beauty of Italy! Seventeen years had passed since that midsummer
day when the dear form of his "Lyric Love" had been laid under the
Florentine lilies, when Browning, in the spring of 1878, returned to his
Italy. What dreams and associations thronged upon him!
"Places are too much,
Or else too little for immortal man,--
* * * * *
... thinking how two hands before
Had held up what is left to only one."
Seventeen years had passed, but Venice, the ethereal city, the mystic
dream of sea and sky, was unchanged, and, however unconsciously, the poet
was now to initiate another era, another new "state" in his life. He
never again went farther south than Venice; he could never see Florence
or Rome again, where _she_ had lived beside him; but the dream city now
became for him a second and dearer home. With his sister Sarianna, he
broke the journey by lingering in a hotel on the summit of the Spluegen,
where he indulged himself in those long walks which he loved, Miss
Browning often accompanying him down the Via Cala Mala, or to the summit
where they could look down into Lombardy. Browning was at work on his
"Dramatic Idyls," and not only "Ivan Ivanovitch," but several others were
written on the Spluegen. Pausing at Lago di Como, and a day in Verona, they
made their way to Asolo, "my very own of all Italian cities," the poet
would say of it. Asolo, which from its rocky hilltop, has an outlook over
all Veneto,--over all Italy, it would almost seem, for the towers and
domes of Venice are visible on a clear day,--gave its full measure of joy
to Browning, and when they descended into Venice they were domiciled in
the Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, on the Grand Canal, near the Accademia. In
Venice he met a Russian lady whom he consulted about some of the names he
was giving to the characters in his "Ivan Ivanovitch."
The success of his son in the Paris Salon and other exhibitions was a
continual happiness to Mr. Browning. Both in Paris and in London the
pictures of Barrett Browning were accorded an honorable place "on the
line"; he received a medal from the Salon, and there was not wanting,
either, that commercial side of success that sustains its theory. The
young artist had now seriously entered on sculpture, under Rodin, with
much prestige and promise.
The first series of "Dramatic Idyls" was published in the autumn of 1872,
closely following "La Saisiaz" and the "Two Poets of Croisic." The devoted
student of Browning could hardly fail to be impressed by one feature of
his poetry which, though a prominent one, has received little attention
from the critics. This feature is his doctrine of the sub-self, as the
source of man's highest spiritual knowledge. He has given his fullest
expression of this belief in his "Paracelsus," and it appears in
"Sordello" (especially in the fifth book), in "A Death in the Desert," in
"Fifine," and in "Christopher Smart," and is largely developed in "The
Ring and the Book." Again, in "Beatrice Signorini," contained in
"Asolando," published only on the day of his death, this theory is again
apparent, and these instances are only partial out of the many in which
the doctrine is touched or elaborated, showing how vital it was with him
from the earliest to the latest period of his work. Another striking
quality in Browning is that of the homogeneous spirit of his entire poetic
expression. It is the great unity in an equally great variety. It is
always clear as to the direction in which Browning is moving, and as to
the supreme message of his philosophy of life.