--They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strength
About each spirit, that needs must bide its time,
Living and learning still as years assist
Which wear the thickness thin, and let man see--
With me who hardly am withheld at all,
But shudderingly, scarce a shred between,
Lie bare to the universal prick of light?[30]
True is the lament of the reply to Protus.
We struggle, fain to enlarge
Our bounded physical recipiency,
Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,
Repair the waste of age and sickness. (ll. 244-247.)
All too true. But if, as we are assured, there is no waste in Nature,
whence comes the apparent destruction wrought by age and sickness? What
the design of which it is the evidence? In the words of the Christian
mystic, but to admit "the universal prick of light," to effect the union
of the individual soul with that central fire of which it is an emanation;
when the training and development inseparable from suffering shall have
done their work, since "when pain ends, gain ends too."
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?[31]
The decay, it must be, of its temporal habitation which shall bring to
the soul eternal freedom. To the Greek, on the other hand, with the decay
of the body, passed not only all that made life worth living, but the life
itself. The keener the appreciation of life, the harder, therefore, the
parting of soul from body. He, indeed,
Sees the wider but to sigh the more.
"Most progress is most failure." Failure absolute if death is the end of
life; failure relative and indicative of higher, vaster potentialities of
being, if that dream of a moment's yearning might be true, if death prove
itself but "the throbbing impulse" to a fuller life; if, freed by it, man
bursts "as the worm into the fly," becoming a creature of that future
state
Unlimited in capability
For joy, as this is in desire for joy.
But to the Greek the door of actuality remains fast closed.
Before concluding an examination of this section of the poem which has
suggested, as was inevitable, a comparison between the pagan and the
Christian conception of life; between an estimate into which physical and
intellectual considerations alone enter, and that in which spiritual also
find place, it may not be unprofitable to recall the method by which
Browning has treated the same subject elsewhere, in a different
connection. _Old Pictures in Florence_, published originally in the volume
of the _Men and Women Series_, which likewise contained _Cleon_, is one of
the few poems in which the author may be assumed to speak in his own
person. The contrast there drawn is that between the products of Greek Art
which "ran and reached its goal," and the works of the mediaeval Italian
artists. Having pointed to the Greek statuary, to the figures of Theseus,
of Apollo, of Niobe, and Alexander, the speaker recognizes therein a
re-utterance of
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken,
Which the actual generations garble,
... Soul (which Limbs betoken)
And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.[32]
Here all is perfection, man sees himself as he wishes he were, as he
"might have been," as he "cannot be." In such finished work no room is
left for "man's distinctive mark," progress,--growth. When, then,
according to Browning, did growth once more begin? When was the depression
of Cleon's day out-lived? Vitality, he asserts, once more became apparent
when the eye of the artist was turned from externals to that which
externals may denote or conceal, not outwards but inwards, from the form
betokening the existence of Soul to Soul itself. The mediaeval painters
started on a new and endless path of progress when in answer to the cry of
Greek Art, and what more wish you?
they replied,
To become now self-acquainters,
And paint man man, whatever the issue!
Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray,
New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters:
To bring the invisible full into play!
Let the visible go to the dogs--what matters?[33]
Browning's estimate of Art, as of all departments of work, was necessarily
one which would lead him to sympathize with that form which strives,
however imperfectly, to bring "the invisible full into play," though the
achievement must be effected, not by neglect of, but rather by the
fullest treatment of the visible. The avowed function of Art, in the most
comprehensive acceptation of the term, was with him to achieve "no mere
imagery on the wall," but to present something, whether in Music, Poetry,
or Painting, which should
Mean beyond the facts,
Suffice the eye and save the soul beside.[34]
The more distinctive artistic function (commonly so accepted) of
gratifying the senses is not to be neglected, although it may not--as with
the Greek--be cultivated to the exclusion, whole or partial, of that which
is in its essence more enduring. The monkish painter (1412-69), whilst
defending his realistic methods, yet perceives in vision the immensity of
possible achievement if he "drew higher things with the same truth." To
work thus were "to take the Prior's pulpit-place, interpret God to all of
you."[35] In so far, then, as he strives towards this realization of the
spiritual, the early Italian painter holds, according to Browning, higher
place in the ranks of the artistic hierarchy than the Greek who had
attained already to perfection in his particular department, feeling that
"where he had reached who could do more than reach?" No such perfection of
attainment was possible to him who would "bring the invisible full into
play." His glory lay rather "in daring so much before he well did it."
Thus
The first of the new, in our race's story,
Beats the last of the old.[36]
As with the artist, so with the spectator, growth had only begun when
Looking [his] last on them all,
[He] turned [his] eyes inwardly one fine day
And cried with a start--What if we so small
Be greater and grander the while than they?
Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature?
In both, of such lower types are we
Precisely because of our wider nature;
For time, theirs--ours, for eternity.[37]
* * * * *
They are perfect--how else? they shall never change:
We are faulty--why not? we have time in store.
The Artificer's hand is not arrested
With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished.[38]
Bitter as is to Cleon the realization that "What's come to perfection
perishes," to the Christian artist the same axiom serves but as incentive
to more strenuous effort. In imperfection he recognizes the germ of future
progress.
The help whereby he mounts,
The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall,
_Since all things suffer change save God the Truth_.[39]
As imperfection suggests progress, so to "the heir of immortality" is
failure but a step towards ultimate attainment. With confidence he may
inquire
What is our failure here but a triumph's evidence[40]
For the fulness of the days?
The Greek, with his bounded horizon, realizes but the first aspect of the
truth: that
In man there's failure, only since he left
The lower and inconscious forms of life.
That
Most progress is most failure.
The horizon being bounded by the grave, progress cut short by the
approach of death, failure may become failure absolute, irremediable. What
wonder, then, that the horror should "quicken still from year to year";
until the very terror itself demands relief in the imaginative creation of
a future state. But for this there is no warrant; for the Greek all
attainable satisfaction must be sought through the present phase of
existence alone.
IV. Cleon's answer to the question of Protus with regard to Death's aspect
to the man of thought, whose works outlast his personal existence (ll.
274-335), is but an utterance of the cry of human nature in all times and
in all places. Individuality must be preserved! In a moment of artistic
fervour the poet may acquiesce in the fate by which his friend has become
"a portion of the loveliness which once he made more lovely,"[41] but such
acquiescence can only hold good where poetic imagination has overborne
human affection. The soul of the man first, the poet afterwards, demands
that
Eternal form shall still divide
Eternal soul from all beside,
and that
I shall _know_ him when we meet.[42]
And what he claims for his friend, man requires also for himself. The
individual soul, as at present constituted, cannot conceive of divesting
itself of its own individuality, of becoming "merged in the general
whole." As easy almost is it to conceive of annihilation. In hours of
abstract thought such theories may be evolved, and in accordance with the
mental constitution of the thinker, be rejected or honestly accepted; but
when brought face to face with the issues of Life and Death, the heart,
freeing itself from the trammels of intellectual sophistries, cries out,
"I have felt"; and yearns for a creed which shall allow acceptance of a
tenet involving future recognition and reunion, hence, by implication,
preservation of individuality, and identity. Whatever his nominal creed,
experience teaches us that man at supreme moments of life craves for some
such satisfaction as this.
It is, indeed, the Greek, materialist here rather than artist, who points
out to Protus that, in his estimate of the joy of leaving "living works
behind," he confounds "the accurate view of what joy is with feeling joy."
Confounds
The knowing how
And showing how to live (my faculty)
With actually living. Otherwise
Where is the artist's vantage o'er the king?
Because in my great epos I display
How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act--
Is this as though I acted? If I paint,
Carve the young Phoebus, am I therefore young?
Methinks I'm older that I bowed myself
The many years of pain that taught me art!
* * * * *
* * * * *
I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king! (ll. 281-300.)
All the Greek love of life, of physical beauty is here, intensified by the
consciousness of the brief and transitory character of its existence. If
death ends all things, then the poet and philosopher, whilst acquiring the
knowledge "how to live," has sacrificed the power of living. Yet a
sacrifice even greater than this is enthusiastically welcomed by the
Grammarian of the Revival of Learning, greater since in this case the
devotion of a lifetime leaves behind it no monument of fame. Yet, having
counted the cost,
Oh! such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it.
* * * *
_Sooner, he spurned it._[43]
We can almost detect the voice of Cleon in the urgency of the student's
contemporaries. "Live now or never," since "time escapes." In the reply
lies the clue to the immensity of difference between the two positions--
Leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever.[44]
In the one instance, life being lived in the light of the "Forever," it is
possible to perceive with Pompilia that "No work begun shall ever pause
for death":[45] and life, whatever its trials and limitations, becomes to
the believer in immortality very well worth the living. Thus the Christian
conception of human life transcends the pagan as the designs of the
Italian painters surpass in their suggestive inspiration the perfection of
the more purely technical achievements of Greek art. The whole discussion
is so peculiarly characteristic of Browning's work that it seemed
impossible to omit this comparison in the present connection, even though
we shall be again obliged to revert to the Grammarian, and the theory
exemplified in his history, in analyzing the defence of Bishop Blougram.
In passing, then, to the concluding section of Cleon's reply to Protus, we
are met by no exclusively Greek utterance; the voice is the voice of
humanity unfettered by limitations of race or mental training.
"But," sayest thou ...
... "What
Thou writest, paintest, stays; that does not die:
Sappho survives, because we sing her songs,
And Æschylus, because we read his plays!"
Why, if they live still, let them come and take
Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup,
Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive? (ll. 301-308.)
It is self-abnegation, carried to an extent rendering impossible the
preservation of the race, which can look to happiness, or even to
satisfaction, in the prospect of annihilation so long as posterity shall
enjoy the fruits of a life of labour--which may express all its yearnings
towards immortality in the petition:
O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: ...
* * * * *
_So to live is heaven_:
* * * * *
_This is life to come_
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven ...
* * * * *
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
Yet the mind which originated these nobly philosophic lines found it
impossible to continue literary work when severed from the human
comradeship and sympathy, criticism and inspiration to which the heart,
even more than the brain, had grown accustomed. After the death of Mr. G.
H. Lewes we are told--in the author's own words--that "The writing seems
all trivial stuff," ... and that work is resorted to as "a means of saving
the mind from imbecility."[46] We shall find Browning himself refusing,
in the hour of bereavement, to admit the satisfaction to be derived from a
contemplation of the progress of the race through individual sacrifice and
loss of personal identity; the satisfaction of the knowledge that
Somewhere new existence led by men and women new,
Possibly attains perfection coveted by me and you;
* * * * *
[Whilst we] working ne'er shall know if work bear fruit.
Others reap and garner--
We, creative thought, must cease
In created word, thought's echo, due to impulse long since sped!
Poor is the comfort
There's ever someone lives although ourselves be dead.[47]
Something more than this, more even than "the thought of what was" is
demanded for the satisfaction of the soul, yet this is all the Greek has
to offer to his correspondent.
Before leaving this section of the poem, one further comparison of
striking interest claims at least a brief consideration--a comparison also
of the life of the man of action with that of the man of thought: of
Salinguerra, the Ghibelline leader and Sordello, the poet and dreamer,
Ghibelline by antecedents, Guelph by conviction; the visionary and
dreamer, but the dreamer whose dreams should remain a legacy to posterity,
the visionary who held that "the poet must be earth's essential king." The
comparison is especially interesting, since in this case also it is drawn
(Bk. iv) by the poet himself. To Sordello, however, the recognition of a
future existence has at times a very potent influence upon the present.
For him, moreover, in his moments of insight, _service_ not _happiness_,
is the inspiration of life. Lofty as is the estimation in which he holds
the office of poet, he yet deems Salinguerra
One of happier fate, and all I should have done,
He does; the people's good being paramount
With him.[48]
Here is
A nature made to serve, excel
In serving, only feel by service well![49]
To the poet of the Middle Ages then, as to the Greek, though for different
reasons, the man of action has the happier fate. But where the Greek
shudders before the approach of death, the Italian issues triumphantly
from the final struggle of life--the supreme temptation--through the
realization
That death, I fly, revealed
So oft a better life this life concealed,
And which sage, champion, martyr, through each path
Have hunted fearlessly.[50]
Only he would crave the consciousness which served as inspiration to sage,
champion, martyr, and he, too, will hunt death fearlessly, will demand,
"Let what masters life disclose itself!"
V. The concluding lines of the poem (336-353) contain a curiously
suggestive contrast between the influences of an effete pagan culture, and
of Christianity in its infancy. On the one hand, the Greek philosopher
surrounded by evidences of marvellous physical and intellectual
achievements, admitting the experience of an overwhelming horror, in face
of the approach of "a deadly fate." On the other hand, "a mere barbarian
Jew" and "certain slaves," pioneers of that faith which should offer
solution to the problems before which Greek learning shrank confessedly
powerless. A contrast between two stages of that development in the life
of man, indicated by the theory of St. John's teaching, given in the
interpolated note introductory to the main arguments of _A Death in the
Desert_:
The doctrine he was wont to teach,
How divers persons witness in each man,
Three souls which make up one soul.
(1) The lower or animal life, distinguished as "What Does," (2) The
intellect inspiring which "useth the first with its collected use," and is
defined as "What Knows," that which _Cleon_ calls Soul. (3) Finally, the
union of both for the service of the third and highest element, which is
in itself capable of existence apart from either:
Subsisting whether they assist or no,
designated as "What Is," that which _Browning_ calls Soul in _Old Pictures
in Florence_.
Life, in the person of Cleon, would appear to have reached the second of
the stages thus distinguished--physical development, combined with
intellectual pre-eminence, marking "an age of light, light without love."
With Paulus life has passed beyond, and the spiritual energy has attained
to its position of predominance over the lower elements constituting this
Trinity of human nature. The barbarian Jew heralds a new phase in the
world's history. The entire conclusion may well serve as commentary on the
lines already quoted from _Old Pictures in Florence_:
The first of the new in our race's story
Beats the last of the old.[51]
LECTURE III
BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY
LECTURE III
BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY
In _Bishop Blougram's Apology_ we are afforded yet another striking
illustration of Browning's methods of working by means of dramatic
machinery. On some occasions we have already found him relying on the
arguments of his imaginary soliloquists to support an apparently favourite
theory, on others we have noticed him employing these arguments to expose
the weak points of a system of which he personally disapproves. More
rarely two conflicting theories are placed side by side, the decision as
to the author's own relation to either being left to the judgment of the
reader. Thus with the Bishop and the Journalist of the present
instance--who may assert with confidence to which side Browning's
sympathies incline? How are we to judge of his actual feelings in the
case? Would he hold up to severer opprobrium the representative of honest
scepticism or the advocate of opportunism? Does he intend us to accept the
scepticism of the Journalist as genuine, the justification of the Bishop
as offered in entire good faith? Do his sympathies indeed belong wholly to
either side? To hold that he necessarily sets forth a direct expression of
his own opinions is to misunderstand the spirit in which he is accustomed
to approach his subject. As well believe Caliban to give utterance to his
conception of a Supreme Being as the personification of irresponsible and
capricious power; and Cleon to estimate his recognition of Christianity as
"a doctrine to be held by no sane man."
This and the two foregoing dramatic poems have been chosen as leading step
by step from the earlier and cruder forms of religious belief, to the
later and more complex: before approaching the debatable ground of
_Christmas Eve and Easter Day_, and the unquestionably personal expression
of feeling in _La Saisiaz_. A wide gulf seemed indeed, at first sight, to
be fixed between Caliban and Cleon, but yet wider is the actually existent
distance dividing Cleon from Blougram. Less marked the change in outward
circumstances, the inherent difference becomes the more striking. The
beauties of Greek art and culture are but replaced by the nineteenth
century luxury surrounding a dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church.
"Greek busts, Venetian paintings, Roman walls, and English books ... bound
in gold"; the central figures, the Bishop and his companion dallying with
the pleasures of the table, discoursing of momentous truths over the wine
and olives. Surely the distance between this and Cleon is less to traverse
than that between the Greek, surrounded by the proofs of the munificence
of Protus, and Caliban revelling in his mire. The superficial difference
less, the inherent difference so wide that the idea at first suggested
itself of taking as an intermediate and connecting link the poem
immediately preceding this in the collected edition of the works, _The
Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church_. On more mature
consideration it would seem, however, that the prelate of the nineteenth
century sufficiently approaches the type of the Renaissance churchman to
render the added link unnecessary. All, therefore, that remains for
consideration before analyzing the Bishop's Apology, is a brief survey of
the changes effected in the outlook of the civilized world, in so far as
they relate to the subject before us, during the eighteen centuries which
had elapsed between the letter of Cleon to Protus and the monologue of
Blougram addressed to the unfortunate owner of the name of Gigadibs. In
the first century of the Christian era in which Cleon wrote, the Greek
world had, as we have noticed, come into contact with Christianity only at
its extreme edge: to Cleon, student and representative of Greek
philosophic thought, its tenets were impossible of credence. The
difficulty of faith _then_ was that involved in the acceptance of any
formulated theory which should include an assertion of the immortality of
the soul and its future state of existence. The difficulties which demand
the defence of Blougram are of a character wholly different. Christianity
has become the creed of the civilized world: during the intervening
centuries the simplicity of the mediaeval faith has given place to the
more logical reasoning following the freedom of thought which accompanied
the Renaissance; whilst this has, in its turn, been superseded by the more
purely critical attitude of mind, resulting in the scepticism, and
consequent casuistry, attendant on the dogmatism of the earlier years of
the nineteenth century. The Bishop's definition of his position is
sufficiently descriptive of the situation. He is put upon his defence, in
truth, solely on account of the peculiar conditions of the environment in
which his lot has fallen. Three centuries earlier who would have
questioned the genuineness of his faith? Twice as many decades later who
would require that his acceptance of the creed he professes should be
implicit and detailed? His defence is made merely before the tribunal of
his fellow men; the character of this tribunal having changed from the
warmth of unquestioning faith to the barren coldness of scepticism, the
nature of the attack has likewise changed.
Your picked twelve, you'll find,
Profess themselves indignant, scandalized
At thus being unable to explain
How a superior man who disbelieves
May not believe as well: that's Schelling's way!
It's through my coming in the tail of time,
Nicking the minute with a happy tact.
Had I been born three hundred years ago
They'd say, "What's strange? Blougram of course believes;"
And, seventy years since, "disbelieves of course."
But now, "He may believe; and yet, and yet
How can he?" All eyes turn with interest. (ll. 407-418.)
* * * * *
I, the man of sense and learning too,
The able to think yet act, the this, the that,
I, to believe at this late time of day!
Enough; you see, I need not fear contempt. (ll. 428-431.)
In short, the Bishop's is a figure claiming the interest of his
contemporaries in that his position is one not readily definable: he may
be a saint and a whole-hearted churchman; it is yet more probable, so says
the world, that his conventional orthodoxy may be but the cloak of an
underlying scepticism.
The identity of Bishop Blougram with Cardinal Wiseman was, as every one
knows, established from the first. That this should have been so was
inevitable from the various external indications introduced with obvious
intention into the poem; to the unprejudiced student it does not, however,
appear equally inevitable that the character sketch thus outlined should
be commonly estimated as conceived in a spirit hostile to the original.
Yet such would seem to be the case. In his _Browning Cyclopaedia_, Dr.
Berdoe quotes from a review contributed to _The Rambler_ of January,
1856, "which," he adds, "is credibly supposed to have been written by the
Cardinal himself." This article referred to the Bishop's portrait as "that
of an arch-hypocrite and the frankest of fools." Apparently accepting this
criticism, the author of the _Cyclopaedia_ not unnaturally observes that
"it is necessary to say that the description is to the last degree untrue,
as must have been obvious to any one personally acquainted with the
Cardinal." A similar opinion is expressed by no less an authority than Mr.
Wilfrid Ward, who characterizes the portrait as "quite unlike all that
Wiseman's letters and the recollections of his friends show him to have
been. Subtle and true as the sketch is in itself, it really depicts
someone else."[52] Is this so? May it not rather be the case that the true
character of Browning's prelate has not been fairly estimated? Does the
Bishop occupy the position assigned him by Mr. Ward when he continues,
"Blougram acquiesces in the judgment that Catholicism and Christianity are
doubtful, and yet that they are no more provable as false than as true;
that in one mood they seem true, in another false; that either the moods
of faith or the moods of doubt may prove to correspond with the truth, and
that in this state of things circumstances and external advantage may be
allowed to decide his vocation, and to justify him in professing
consistently as true, what in his heart of hearts he only regards as
possible?"[53] Again, "The sceptical element which had tried Wiseman in
his early years was something wholly different from Blougram's
scepticism."[54] Is there not something more than this to be said for the
Bishop's Apology? It is, indeed, the main difficulty of the poem to decide
to what extent the speaker is, or is not, serious in his assertions; but
if we come to the conclusion that he is either "an arch-hypocrite," or
"the frankest of fools," we shall assuredly be very far from having read
the defence aright. Browning himself has, according to report, had
something to say on this subject.[55] When accused by Sir Charles Gavin
Duffy and Mr. John Forster of abhorrence of the Roman Catholic faith on
the grounds of the then recent publication of this poem, containing, as
was alleged, a portrait of a sophistical and self-indulgent priest,
intended as a satire on Cardinal Wiseman, Browning met the charge with
what would appear to have been genuine astonishment; and, whilst admitting
his intention of employing the Cardinal as a model, concluded, "But I do
not consider it a satire, there is nothing hostile about it." And, looked
at more closely, it is questionable whether much of the alleged hostility
is to be detected. At least our feelings towards the Bishop contain no
element of either aversion or contempt as we conclude our study of his
defence!
The external indications of identity are scattered, as if incidentally,
throughout the poem, according to the method habitual to Browning. (1)
Cardinal in 1850, Wiseman had been already consecrated bishop in 1840, and
sent to England as Vicar Apostolic of the Central District in conjunction
with Bishop Walsh. The year of his appointment as Cardinal was also the
date of the papal bull assigning territorial titles to Roman Catholic
bishops in England, a measure, rightly or wrongly, attributed popularly to
the influence of Wiseman. His episcopal title from 1840 had been that of
"Melipotamus in _partibus infidelium_," hence
Sylvester Blougram, styled _in partibus
Episcopus, nec non_--(the deuce knows what
It's changed to by our novel hierarchy). (ll. 972-974.)
(2) The reference in lines 957-960 to the Bishop's influence in the
literary world, in particular with the editors of Reviews, "whether here,
in Dublin or New York," recalls the fact that _The Dublin Review_ had been
founded by Cardinal Wiseman in 1836.
(3) Again, in the opening lines, the allusion to Augustus Welby Pugin, the
genius of ecclesiastical architecture of the last century. When Wiseman,
in 1840, became President of Oscott College, Pugin was alarmed for the
results of his influence in architectural matters; since the Cardinal's
tastes had been formed in Rome, whilst the design of Pugin included a
Gothic revival in ecclesiastical architecture and vestments, as well as
the universal adoption of Gregorian chants in the services of the Church.
In spite, however, of the architect's fears, and some preliminary
collisions, the two men subsequently succeeded in preserving amicable
relations. Hence the Bishop's tolerant, but half-satirical comment,
We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.
It's different, preaching in basilicas,
And doing duty in some masterpiece
Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart!
I doubt if they're half-baked, those chalk rosettes,
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere. (ll. 3-8.)
(4) Any considerations of internal evidences, especially those touching
the question of scepticism, will necessarily be repeated in following the
Bishop's arguments: but it may be well to refer briefly in this place to
the most noted characteristics of the Cardinal as estimated by the
contemporary world.
(_a_) By some, even among his own clergy, he is reported to have been
opposed on account of his ultramontane tendencies and innovating zeal, in
particular with regard to the introduction of sacred images into the
churches, and the adoption of certain devotional exercises not hitherto
in use amongst English members of the Roman Catholic community. Thus we
find the Bishop asserting, "I ...
... would die rather than avow my fear
The Naples' liquefaction may be false,
When set to happen by the palace-clock
According to the clouds or dinner-time. (ll. 727-730.)
Browning thus suggests the fact obvious to the world at large,--the
apparently implicit acceptance by the Cardinal of miracles which to the
average mind are impossible of credence; at the same time he allows
opportunity for an explanation of the position: the prelate fears the
effect upon the main articles of his faith of questioning that which is
least.
First cut the Liquefaction, what comes last
But Fichte's clever cut at God himself? (ll. 743-744.)
(_b_) Whilst, however, preserving these extreme views with regard to the
position and tenets of the Church, the Cardinal, with statesmanlike
wisdom, recognized that, in accordance with its genius as implied in the
attribute Catholic, it must likewise keep pace with the intellectual
advance of the age, not holding aloof from, but, where possible,
assimilating the highest results of contemporary thought. Now it is easy
to perceive that the onlooker of that day may have found these apparently
conflicting tendencies in the Cardinal's mind difficult of reconcilement,
and only to be accounted for by the supposition already suggested that the
man capable of assuming such an attitude towards his creed must be, if not
a fool, then an arch-hypocrite. It has been the work of Browning to show
how, without detriment to his intellectual capacity, the Bishop may
justify his position. To what extent, if at all, his moral character is
affected thereby must depend upon the degree of sincerity which we allow
to the entire exposition.
It is no part of the present plan to attempt a vindication of Browning's
treatment of the character of Cardinal Wiseman; the issues suggested by
the Apology lie deeper, and are far broader than those involved in such a
discussion. One object, at least, of the design would appear to be that of
a defence of belief in those tenets of a creed which transcend the powers
of reason; the particular religious body to which the speaker belongs
being of little import to the real issue. It seemed, however, that any
treatment of the poem would be incomplete which did not contain some brief
comparison such as has been here attempted. And even now there is danger
lest the attempt may prove misleading. Whether or not Browning has given
us the true character of the Cardinal is not the question; the only fact
in that connection which we shall do well to bear in mind is that, working
from the materials at his command--the outward and visible manifestations
afforded by Wiseman's life as known to his contemporaries--the author of
the Apology has given what may be a possible interpretation of character,
sufficiently reasonable, at any rate, to account for, and to reconcile
seeming inconsistencies, without laying its owner open to the charge of
either folly or knavery.
In approaching a more detailed examination of the poem we must not neglect
to take into account the peculiar conditions of religious life and thought
prevailing in England at the time of the publication, 1855. Fourteen years
earlier had appeared the celebrated No. 90 of _Tracts for the Times_.
After an interval of six years, in 1847, had followed the secession of J.
H. Newman to the Church of Rome, in 1853 that of Cardinal Manning. It was
a time of anxiety and sorrow amongst all those most deeply attached to the
Church of England, and of general unrest and uneasiness throughout the
country. Sufficient evidence of the universal unsettlement and anxiety is
afforded by the alarm, amounting almost to panic, excited by the Bull of
1850 announcing the territorial titles scheme. In a letter to Dean Stanley
on the question of the Oxford University Reform Bill of 1854, Mr.
Gladstone wrote, "The very words which you have let fall upon your paper
'Roman Catholics,' used in this connection (_i.e._, of extending full
University privileges to students other than members of the Church of
England) were enough to burn it through and through, considering we have a
parliament which, _were the measure of 1829 not law at this moment, would,
I think, probably refuse to make it law_."[56] Such was the spirit of the
times in England at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth
century, and the existence of this spirit must not be left out of account
in dealing with Bishop Blougram and his Apology.
That Browning did not wholly escape its influence, even though removed
from direct contact, is readily conceivable. And in spite of his own
expressed surprise at the suggestion that he did not favourably regard the
Roman Catholic creed, his natural sympathies would certainly appear to
have inclined towards a Puritanic form of worship rather than to a more
ornate ritual; setting aside questions of doctrine of which these may be
the outward manifestations. This being the case, ample reason is at once
discoverable for the resolve to examine the position more thoroughly,
ascertaining how far it was possible to make out a case for the other
side. For, whilst on the one hand, we have every right, despite his
cosmopolitanism and his Italian sympathies to claim the author of the
_Apology_ as a genuine Englishman, with a fair proportion of the
Englishman's characteristics, on the other hand, we may exonerate him, if
not wholly, yet to a very large extent, from insular prejudices and
narrow-minded judgments. Had he designed to present Blougram either as
fool or hypocrite, he might assuredly have attained his object with equal
certainty by writing something less than the thousand and odd lines
devoted to the work of psychological analysis: for, in making his defence,
the Bishop is likewise revealing himself--to him who has eyes to see.
Here, as elsewhere, it is Browning's intent to present to his readers not
what man sees but "what _this_ man sees"; to lead them to judge of cause
rather than of effect, of motive rather than of action, or of action by
the recognition of motive. We may attempt to classify his characters, if
we will: a Browning society may write and read papers on the "villains" or
the "hypocrites" of Browning as distinguished from his saints. Such a
classification is perhaps fairly possible in the case of a character
delineator such as Dickens, whose lines of demarcation are stronger and
broader, purposely so, than those of actual life; but it is questionable
whether Browning himself could have thus labelled his people and separated
them into distinct compartments. For if the complexity of human nature and
character is fully recognized by any writer whether poet, novelist, or
biographer, it has surely been so recognized by the author of
_Paracelsus_, of _Sordello_, of _The Ring and the Book_. It has been so
frequently remarked that it seems but reiterating a truism to repeat the
assertion that he writes of the individual, not of the race, not of _man_
but of _men_; of men with much indeed which is common to the race, but
with peculiar attention also to those idiosyncrasies which establish
individuality. Hence the choice of soliloquists for the dramatic poems is
most frequently made amongst those the interpretation of whose actions has
presented special difficulty to the world at large. Thus to Browning was
left the vindication of Paracelsus, and for the bombast, the quack, the
drunkard, of contemporary biography has been substituted the pioneer and
martyr of science, failing, but on account of the magnitude of his
designs; recognizing even in defeat the divine nature of the mission
entrusted to his charge. For an Andrea del Sarto--to a less profound
student of character appearing as "an easy-going plebeian" satisfied with
a social life among his compeers, as an artist "resting content in the
sense of his superlative powers as an executant"--is offered the Andrea of
the poem bearing his name; a sometime aspiring nature, now embittered by
the struggle, wellnigh ended within the soul, between yearnings towards
future greatness and the desire for present gain; a nature of insight
sufficient to realize that the bonds of materialism are galling, of moral
force inadequate to effect their rupture. The more subtle, the more
outwardly misleading the character, the stronger the attraction it would
appear to have borne for Browning. It is no matter for surprise that in
_Prince Hohenstiel Schwangau_ he should have devoted over 2,000 lines to a
study of that mysterious, if disappointing, figure in European politics of
the middle of the last century--"at once the sabre of revolution and the
trumpet of order." And if conflicting elements of character constituted
the main attraction of the personality of Napoleon III, a similar cause of
fascination, as we have already noticed, exists in the instance before us;
viz., the possibility of reconciling the extreme opinions professed in
matters of Church ritual and doctrine, with the erudition, the political
ability, and width of intellectual outlook notably characteristic of
Cardinal Wiseman.
I. For avoidance of misunderstanding as to the intention of the Apology it
is well to read the Epilogue as Prologue, although, even with this
introduction, it is not easy to decide how far the speaker is serious in
his assertions--a definite answer to the question would probably have
presented (so Browning would suggest) some difficulty to the Bishop
himself.
For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke.
The other portion, as he shaped it thus
For argumentatory purposes,
He felt his foe was foolish to dispute.
Some arbitrary accidental thoughts
That crossed his mind, amusing because new,
He chose to represent as fixtures there,
Invariable convictions (such they seemed
Beside his interlocutor's loose cards
Flung daily down, and not the same way twice)
While certain hell-deep instincts, man's weak tongue
Is never bold to utter in their truth
Because styled hell-deep ('tis an old mistake
To place hell at the bottom of the earth)
He ignored these--not having in readiness
Their nomenclature and philosophy:
He said true things, but called them by wrong names.
"On the whole," he thought, "I justify myself
On every point where cavillers like this
Oppugn my life: he tries one kind of fence,
I close, he's worsted, that's enough for him.
He's on the ground: if ground should break away
I take my stand on, there's a firmer yet
Beneath it, both of us may sink and reach.
His ground was over mine and broke the first." (ll. 980-1004.)
II. Thus the Bishop believed himself to realize the weakness of his
opponent; his superficiality in spite of his appeal to the ideal; the
worldliness which would esteem this hour of intercourse with the prelate
the highest honour of his life,
The thing, you'll crown yourself with, all your days.
An incident which he would not fail to turn to
Capital account;
"When somebody, through years and years to come,
Hints of the bishop,--names me--that's enough:
Blougram? I knew him"--(into it you slide)
"Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day,
All alone, we two: he's a clever man:
And after dinner,--why, the wine you know,--
Oh, there was wine, and good!--what with the wine ...
'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!
He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen
Something of mine he relished, some review:
He's quite above their humbug in his heart,
Half-said as much, indeed--the thing's his trade.
I warrant, Blougram's sceptical at times:
How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!" (ll. 31-44.)
Just or unjust, such is the Bishop's estimate of his companion--(if the
opportunist is "quite above their humbug in his heart," not so the
would-be idealist!) And, accepting this view, the futility of casting
pearls before swine restrains him from a free expression of those deeper
thoughts which rise to the surface only here and there throughout the
monologue, evidence of the man beneath the prelate. There are problems
which do not admit of discussion "to you, and over the wine." Hence
Blougram holds himself justified in exercising that "reserve or economy of
truth" recognized[57] by a contemporary writer of his own community as
permissible under given conditions, within one class of which he may
reasonably account as falling, his interview with Gigadibs; viz., that in
which the listener is incapable of understanding truth stated exactly,
when it may be presented in the nearest form likely to appeal to his
comprehension. The journalist is thus from the first accepted by the
Bishop as representative of his world--that portion of the lay world to
which the position of this particular prelate of the Roman Catholic Church
is one requiring justification. Scepticism is so easy to this special
intellectual type of man, faith so difficult, that it is to him
incomprehensible that the Bishop may be genuine in his profession. On
these grounds Blougram bases the necessity for his defence.
III. Taking himself then at his critics' estimate, _i.e._, as a sceptic
masquerading in the garb of an ecclesiastical dignitary, he opens his
exposition by a comparison of his life as actually lived with the ideal
life advocated by the critic and his compeers. Pursuing the
subject--having attained even to the supreme honour to which his calling
admits, having ascended the papal throne, the position would yet be but
one of _outward_ splendour, incomparable with "the grand, simple life" a
man _may_ lead; grand, because essentially genuine--"imperial, plain and
true." Nevertheless, he would submit, it is better for a man so to order
his life that it may be lived to his satisfaction in Rome or Paris of the
nineteenth century, rather than to dissipate his powers in the evolution
of some ideal scheme, impossible of practical execution. As illustration,
follows the incident of the outward-bound vessel in which are provided
cabins of equal dimensions for the accommodation of all passengers. One
would fain fill his "six feet square" with all the luxuries which the mode
of life hitherto pursued has rendered essential to his comfort. His
neighbour, meanwhile, has limited his requirements to the possibilities of
the space allotted; with the result that the man content with little finds
himself satisfactorily equipped for the voyage; whilst he of great, but
impracticable aspirations, is left with a bare cabin, one after the other
the articles of his proposed outfit having been rejected by the ship's
steward. Hence the deduction, that the man of moderate requirements is
better fitted for life, as life now is, than he of the "artist nature."
Later on (l. 763) the speaker again reverts to the same simile, passing to
the further illustration of the traveller providing his equipment in
advance, in each case adapting it to a climate to be subsequently
reached, rather than to that in which he is at the moment living.
As when a traveller, bound from North to South,
Scouts fur in Russia: what's its use in France?
In France spurns flannel: where's its need in Spain?
In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers! (ll. 790-793.)
The question not unreasonably follows, "When, through his journey, was the
fool at ease?"
Thus, according to the Bishop, he who can most completely accommodate
himself to the exigencies of the present life, evinces his capability for
adapting himself to that which is to come. A theory, in direct opposition,
it would appear, to Browning's usual doctrine, repeated in so many of the
familiar poems. It is difficult to imagine a figure affording more
striking contrast to the prosperous prelate than that of the Grammarian,
once the "Lyric Apollo, electing to live nameless," occupied with the
pursuit of an abstract good; only paving the way for the attainment of his
successors; and in death throwing on God the task of making "the heavenly
period perfect the earthen," that incomplete phase of existence, full of
unsatisfied aspirations, of unfinished attempts. Of him the poet gives us
the assurance that he shall find the God whom he has sought: whilst for
the worldling who
Has the world here--should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
In _Cleon_, in _A Death in the Desert_, in _Dîs Aliter Visum_, and perhaps
above all in _Abt Vogler_ (to refer to only a few illustrations out of the
many possible), the fact that man is incapable of accommodating himself to
his environment is treated as a proof that this is not his true sphere of
existence; that he was designed, and is still destined, for something
higher. So asks the lover of Pauline:
How should this earth's life prove my only sphere?
Can I so narrow sense but that in life
Soul still exceeds it?
In _Dîs Aliter Visum_, the assertion
What's whole, can increase no more,
Is dwarfed and dies, since here's its sphere;
has especial reference to love,
The sole spark from God's life "at strife"
With death, so, sure of range above
The limits here.
but there is a recognition of the general principle that that work alone
is worth beginning here and now, which "cannot grow complete," and which
"heaven (not earth) must finish." Even where, as in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_,
Browning lays strongest emphasis upon "the unity of life"; where age is
regarded as the completion of the physical life begun in youth, the
question is put, and left unanswered:
Thy body at its best,
How far can it project thy soul on its lone way?
These years of mortal life are to be devoted to the best use, so that it
shall not be possible to say that "soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh
helps soul." Nevertheless, the final result is to be that man, in yielding
his physical life, passes
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a god though in the germ.
It cannot be denied that the Bishop is taking a distinctly lower position
than that suggested by any of the theories thus advanced. Nevertheless, he
holds himself, and probably with reason, to be upon higher ground than
that occupied by his critic. Recognizing his incapacity for experiencing
the enthusiasm of a Luther, he does not, therefore, feel constrained to
adopt the coldly critical attitude of a Strauss. In his own words--
My business is not to remake myself,
But make the absolute best of what God made. (ll. 355-356.)
So Luigi, in calculating his fitness for the office of assassin assigned
him, is found reckoning his very insignificance as of greater worth, under
the given conditions, than his strength--extending his philosophy in a
general application to human life.
Every one knows for what his excellence
Will serve, but no one ever will consider
For what his worst defect might serve: and yet
Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder
In search of a distorted ash? I find
The wry, spoilt branch, a natural, perfect bow.[58]
There is a possible vocation in life for a Blougram as for a Luther.
IV. Admitting then the wide difference between the ideal life proposed by
his critics, and the practical life which he has himself adopted, with
line 144 the Bishop passes to a consideration of the possibility of
effecting any form of reconciliation between the two theories. What
restrained his college friend from seeking the position occupied by his
comrade? What but his incapacity for belief, or, more accurately speaking,
his incapacity for accepting any fixed and markedly defined creed. This
difficulty the Bishop assumes himself to share: his faith is relative
rather than absolute; hence, having adopted the position of unbelievers,
so-called, the question remains, how may each in his several station, lead
a life consistent with such profession? The prelate holds that to preserve
a fixed attitude of unbelief is a feat of even greater difficulty than
that of maintaining the opposed position of faith--neither being in fact
absolutely and unalterably defined. It is easy enough for the onlooker to
imagine that the creed of the Church is a matter straightforward and
unperplexing for those living within the fold, admitting of no
questioning, no error; faith or unfaith; no half measures possible. Not
so; even within the Church the believer has his difficulties wherewith to
contend, his doubts, his hesitations.
That way
Over the mountain, which who stands upon
Is apt to doubt if it be meant for road;
While, if he views it from the waste itself,
Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow,
Not vague, mistakeable! what's a break or two
Seen from the unbroken desert either side? (ll. 197-203.)
The Bishop would go yet further, and suggest that the inevitable doubts
and questionings of the earnest believer are in themselves but a means of
strengthening faith: this being so, what should restrain him from entering
the Church's fold?
What if the breaks themselves should prove at last
The most consummate of contrivances
To train a man's eye, teach him what is faith?
And so we stumble at truth's very test! (ll. 205-208.)
Since consistent unbelief is at least as impossible as consistent faith,
the conclusion follows that life must be either one of "faith diversified
by doubt," or of "doubt diversified by faith." Well, he has chosen one,
let Gigadibs enjoy the other--if he can.
V. Which life is preferable, that which calls the chess-board white, the
life of faith (in so far as faith is possible); or that which calls the
chess-board black, the life of doubt? The predominating (though by no
means absolute) influence of belief or of unbelief, determines the lines
on which character and life alike shall develop. Now, the Bishop asserts
that for him belief will bring, nay, has indeed brought, what he most
desires in life--"power, peace, pleasantness, and length of days." If
Gigadibs suggests that in his case unbelief will bring the satisfaction
which belief affords his companion of the dinner-table, then the Bishop
demurs. The faith of which he makes profession is calculated to meet all
exigencies--faith is in short his "waking life." The scepticism of the
journalist is, on the contrary, void of all practical utility. Should he
wish to live consistently he must cut himself off from those everyday
demands of life to which faith is an absolute requisite. He must "live to
sleep." And here the Bishop emphasizes an obvious, though not commonly
recognized fact--a powerful argument in favour of faith--in the abstract,
at least. He who professes himself a sceptic in matters spiritual, is yet
compelled to the exercise of faith in each act of practical life. Mutual
confidence abolished between man and man, business transactions become
impossible, and mercantile activity is brought to a standstill. Belief
involved in matters such as these, must, would the sceptic prove
consistent, be cast overboard with the other faiths of his childhood: and
the active man of the world becomes "bed-ridden." Amongst the temporal
advantages which the Bishop accounts as resulting from his profession,
first rank is accorded "the world's estimation, which is half the fight,"
to gain which nothing less than a positive confession of unswerving faith
is required. Hence circumstances have forced from him the assertions:
Friends,
I absolutely and peremptorily
Believe! (ll. 243-245.)
* * * * *
I say, I see all,
And swear to each detail the most minute
In what I think a Pan's face--you, mere cloud:
I swear I hear him speak and see him wink,
For fear, if once I drop the emphasis,
Mankind may doubt there's any cloud at all. (ll. 866-871.)
The world has decided that with regard to
Certain points, left wholly to himself,
When once a man has arbitrated on,
... he must succeed there or go hang. (ll. 289-291.)
And of the most important of these "points" is
The form of faith his conscience holds the best,
Whate'er the process of conviction was. (ll. 296-297.)
The Roman Catholic faith is that in which the Bishop was born and
educated. It had been decided from childhood that he should become a
priest: hence his choice of vocation. And this faith is, for him, one in
which power temporal, as well as spiritual, puts forth its claims. Its
undaunted champion may assert "I have loved justice and hated iniquity,
therefore I die in exile," but in drawing the distinction between "Peter's
creed" and that of Hildebrand, Blougram recognizes by implication the
political aspect of the cause for which the struggle thus closing had been
sustained.
VI. If then, in satisfaction of the demands of those uncompromising
advocates of truth of whom Gigadibs is representative, the prelate of the
nineteenth century shall renounce his position as confessor of the creed
of the eleventh, in what rank of life may he take his stand? From what
career may faith be, without injurious effects, wholly excluded? For if
faith, to merit its title, is to be unmixed with doubt, equally must
unbelief be unalloyed in quality. A life apart from faith? That of
Napoleon? If so, then does the critic claim that Napoleon shares with him
the "common primal element of unbelief," belief being an impossibility.
Yet to such an admission the Corsican's whole career would give the lie.
Whatever the character of the faith which sustained him, faith there was,
sufficient to lead him on to colossal deeds: his trust may have been
"crazy," "God knows through what, or in what"; but to all intents and
purposes it was faith, possessing the essential element of faith, _life_,
and the inspiration of life:
It's alive
And shines and leads him, and that's all we want.
But to the Bishop such a life would have been impossible, since he has not
the clue to Napoleon's faith. "The noisy years" would not have offered him
his ideal, even were this life all. And he does not himself believe that
this life _is_ all: although he will not assert that to him a future state
of existence is matter of absolute certainty. If the career of "the
world's victor" is not then possible without faith of some kind, what of
that of the artist, of the poet? With a return to the earlier cynical
recognition of his own limitations, the Bishop enquires of what use an
attempt on his part to emulate Shakespeare when endowed by nature with
neither dramatic nor poetic faculty? Nevertheless he finds that he has
much in life which Shakespeare would have been glad to possess. The author
of _Hamlet_ and of _Othello_ might in truth enjoy the good things of earth
by the mere exercise of imagination; yet, strange anomaly, he built
himself
The trimmest house in Stratford town;
Saves money, spends it, owns the worth of _things_.
Even a Shakespeare, then, may be more or less of a materialist. Thus the
successful churchman who has attained the object of his ambition, whose
life is one of pleasantness and peace, may with confidence, turning to
the poet, ask him--
If this life's all, who wins the game?
VII. If, however, the existence of another life _is_ to be recognized; if
belief is to be allowed to take the place of scepticism, then the face of
the argument is at once changed, and the Bishop is as ready as is his
critic to admit that enthusiasm is the grandest inspiration of human
nature. But he is--or so he would have his listener believe--no more
capable of the enthusiastic faith of Luther than of the strategic
achievements of Napoleon or the dramatic creations of Shakespeare.
Nevertheless, the negations of the sceptic's creed bear for him no
attraction. In either case remains the risk that faith or absence of faith
may prove error. The uncertainty on both sides being equal, it is _not_ as
well to be Strauss as Luther. Better even the mere desire for belief in
the story of the Gospels, than a dispassionately critical attempt to
reconcile discrepencies in that which has no personal interest for the
enquirer: the one means spiritual vitality, the other stagnation.
VIII. With line 647, once more reverting to his earlier demonstration of
the impossibility of a "pure faith," the Bishop would submit that the
Divine Presence is veiled rather than revealed by Nature, until such time
as man shall have become capable of being "confronted with the truth of
him." But what of the mediaeval days, "that age of simple faith"? Were men
the better for their simplicity of belief? By no means, replies the
casuist of the nineteenth century, whose faith "means perpetual unbelief."
The simple faith proved itself unequal to the task of inspiring a life of
outward morality: men could and did
Lie, kill, rob, fornicate
Full in beliefs face
Rather the lifelong struggle with doubt, than this childish credulity
empty of practical result. And in spite of his doubts, Blougram holds his
faith "sufficient," since it just suffices to keep the doubts in check.
Nevertheless he will not incur the risk of shaking unduly such faith as he
possesses. He must not, therefore, begin to question even the most
questionable of ecclesiastical miracles. Whilst he cannot trust himself to
criticize things spiritual, he may yet prevent himself from taking the
first step in that direction. And here Browning has been accused of
implying that the Roman Catholic Church demands of its members acceptance
of miracles, such as that held to affect the blood of S. Januarius,
referred to as "the Naples' liquefaction." The Bishop is obviously
intended to suggest no universal obligation; with him the matter is purely
personal. He has not, as he has already admitted, sufficient confidence in
the calibre of his faith to allow reason to step in and question the
reliability of that which he would fain hold implicitly as truth. He fears
to take the first step on the road of criticism which ends in the
definition of God as "the moral order of the universe." Is not this,
allowing for the assumed scepticism of the Bishop, consistent with what we
find Cardinal Wiseman writing of his experiences in the early days of
struggle with doubts and questionings which cost him so much? Thus he
writes to a nephew twenty years after the worst of the conflict was over;
"During the struggle the simple submission of faith is the only remedy.
Thoughts against faith must be treated at the time like temptations
against any other virtue--put away--though in cooler moments they may be
safely analysed and unravelled."[59]
In conclusion, the prelate emphatically reasserts the _practical_
superiority of his choice of a career over that of this particular
sceptic, since it is in fact impossible for the journalist to live his
life of negation. He obeys the dictates of reason only where these do not
run counter too markedly to the prejudices of others: there he is forced
to yield to some extent. Thus he "grazes" through life, with "not one
lie," escaping the censure of his fellow men, but not gaining their esteem
or admiration, essentials to the happiness of his companion. So the Bishop
remains victorious on all counts, and emphasizes the superiority of his
position by bestowing upon his guest practical proof in the "three words"
of introduction to publishers in London, Dublin, or New York, securing
Such terms as never [he] aspired to get
In all our own reviews and some not ours.
IX. A few supplementary observations upon those points at which the
Apologist touches the firmer ground which he recognizes as existing
beneath the surface on which he bases his defence. That he is not entirely
satisfied with the conditions of his existence is obvious from the
character of the apology, which suggests, from time to time, thoughts
higher than those to which he gives direct utterance. Opportunist as he
would present himself to be, lines 693-698, are unmistakably the
expression of inmost experience--
When the fight begins within himself,
A man's worth something. God stoops o'er his head,
Satan looks up between his feet--both tug--
He's left, himself, i' the middle: the soul wakes
And grows. Prolong that battle through his life!
Never leave growing till the life to come!
It is here almost as if Browning cannot restrain the expression of his own
personal feeling, so markedly characteristic is this passage of his
general teaching. That which holds good of all struggle is applicable
also to the contest between faith and doubt. That implicit faith of
mediaeval times, which exerted too little influence on practical life, was
in character less virile, a factor less potent for good than is the
Bishop's own limited belief, constantly assailed by doubt. Good
strengthened by the contest with evil, faith increased by the conflict
with doubt. The creed of Browning, in brief:
I shew you doubt, to prove that faith exists.
The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,
If faith o'ercomes doubt. How I know it does?
By life and man's free will, God gave for that! (ll. 602-605.)
* * * * *
Let doubt occasion still more faith. (l. 675.)
Words recalling Tennyson's reference to the spiritual struggles of a more
finely tempered nature than that of Blougram:
He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them: thus he came at length
To find a stronger faith his own.[60]
And the Bishop may not unjustly claim
The sum of all is--yes, my doubt is great,
My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough. (ll. 724-725.)
These higher utterances, intermingled as they are with the openly
expressed tenets of the opportunist; whilst testifying most clearly to the
genius of Browning in its penetrative comprehension of human nature, that
admixture of noble aspiration and base compromise; find their counterpart
in the memorable advice of Polonius to Laertes, constituted for the main
part of prudential maxims regulating the social comportment of the
successful worldling; then, almost suddenly, as it were, at the close,
breaking through to deeper ground and striking upon that unalterable
principle of life, of universal import, of inexhaustible illuminative
power, since it treats only of that which is in its essence infinite--
To thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Though the life which the Bishop defends may not be the highest measured
by the standard of his own ideal, yet, "truth is truth, and justifies
itself in undreamed ways." And there _is_ truth in the recognition that
the faith to which he looks for inspiration and guidance is a faith barely
capable of holding its own in face of the battalion of assailant doubts.
It may yet be that "the dayspring's faith" shall finally crush "the
midnight doubt." Some solution of the problems of life must be sought, and
why should that alone be rejected which alone offers a satisfactory clue?
There is perhaps no finer passage in Browning, certainly none more
melodious, than that in which Blougram, after comparing the relative
positions of faith and unbelief as influencing life, concludes with this
query.
Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower bell, some one's death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides,--
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as nature's self,
To rap and knock and enter in our soul,
Take hands and dance there, fantastic ring,
Round the ancient idol, on his base again,--
The grand Perhaps! We look on helplessly.
There the old misgivings, crooked questions are--
This good God,--what he could do, if he would,
Would, if he could--then must have done long since:
If so, when, where and how? Some way must be,--
Once feel about, and soon or late you hit
Some sense, in which it might be, after all.
Why not, "The Way, the Truth, the Life?" (ll. 182-197.)
It must be left to the individual decision to acquit or condemn the
Bishop. The decision may perhaps depend upon the acceptance or rejection
of the alternative, "Whole faith or none?" And "whole faith" as defined by
the Apology is that which accepts all things, from the existence of a God
down to the latest ecclesiastical miracle. Such an attitude is possible
only to the uncritical mind. The spheres of faith and reason are not
identical. The childlike intelligence may receive without question or
effort of faith all that is offered it of things spiritual. It sees no
cause for question, hence doubt does not arise. The logical and critical
faculties have not been developed. But in the mind of the thinker, the
logician, the metaphysician, reason will assert itself; judgment will not
be blindfolded. If the postulates of faith are capable of proof by reason,
then is faith no longer necessary; its sphere is usurped by reason which
has become all-sufficient. To the man, therefore, whose intellect
questions, analyses, dissects truths as they present themselves to him, a
proportionately stronger faith is a necessity: the doubts so arising
being, "the most consummate of contrivances to teach men faith."
Having once satisfied the insistent yearning of a nature which declares, I
...
want, am made for, and must have a God
... No mere name
Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth,
To wit, a relation from that thing to me,
Touching from head to foot--which touch I feel. (ll. 846-850.)
(With this compare Mr. W. Ward on Cardinal Wiseman, "his own early doubts
... had been the alternative to a passionate, mystical, and absorbing
faith.") This relation having been attained, the speaker is prepared
To take the rest, this life of ours.
Faith in the greatest having been assured, faith in that which is less may
or may not follow. He who feels in touch with the Divine may well endure
the existence of doubts and questionings inevitable in matters of less
vital import. To the child "who knows his father near" tears are not an
unalloyed bitterness; or, to adopt the Bishop's own simile, so be it the
path leads to the mountain top, a break or two by the way matters little.
LECTURE IV
CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (i)
LECTURE IV
CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (i)
No poems of Browning's have probably excited more widely-spread interest
(the question of admiration being set aside) than those which we have
before us for consideration in this and the two following Lectures. The
interest so excited is due, one believes, less to artistic merit than to
the character of the subjects treated--unfailing in their attraction for
the speculative tendencies of the human intellect. The form in which they
now make appeal is no longer identical with that in which they presented
themselves when _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_ appeared in the middle of
the last century: fifty years hence the embodiment of thoughts thus
suggested may well differ yet more widely from that obtaining at the
present day. Nevertheless, beneath all external variations, that which is
essentially permanent remains: and in this enduring interest of subject
inevitably subsists the immortality of that literary work, whether poetry
or prose, in which it has found, or is destined to find, a vehicle of
expression. If it were permissible to suggest a division where the author
clearly intended no division should be, it might on the foregoing
hypothesis be reasonable to prognosticate for _Easter Day_ a more enduring
interest than for the companion poem; since, whilst the dramatic
attraction is less powerful than in _Christmas Eve_, the treatment of
subject goes deeper, and is more independent of temporary accessaries. In
a memorable phrase Professor Dowden has defined the subjects of the two
poems as "the spiritual life individual, and the spiritual life
corporate."[61] Both indeed deal with faith in its relation to life: the
first with faith as found incorporated in typical religious communities of
the civilized world; the second with faith as it makes direct appeal to
the individual apart from the influence of external formulae. The one
aspect of the subject is obviously regarded by Browning as complementary
to the other. "Easter Day" is essential to the completion of "Christmas
Eve." Both poems were originally published in one volume (1850), and still
remain united by the joint title standing at the head of both. Individual
faith is necessary to the vitality of faith corporate. The considerations
engaging the attention of the soliloquist of _Christmas Eve_ are confined
to a decision as to which of the forms of creed presented for choice shall
receive his adherence; or whether it may be justly yielded to that which
he finally accounts no creed, the theory of life based upon the teaching
of the Professor of Göttingen? In _Easter Day_ the debate in the mind of
the speaker goes deeper yet, and relates mainly to the difficulties
attendant upon a practical and consistent acceptance of Christian belief
in its simplest form: an acceptance involving a necessary reconstruction
of life on the lines of faith. In another sense also are the two poems
complementary. As indicated by the sequence of names in the title, the
love and universal tolerance suggested by the Peace and Goodwill of
Christmas find their fuller development, their essential, practical
outcome in the personal faith, implying a personal acceptance of the
sacrifice of which Easter Day marks the triumphant culmination. Hence the
more notable _asceticism_, if we are so to term it, of the second poem as
compared with the first. Rightly, he who would fain be a Christian stands
in awe before
The all-stupendous tale,--that Birth,
That Life, that Death! (_E. D._, ll. 233-234.)
Thus in _Easter Day_ is to be found no trace of that "easy tolerance" in
matters spiritual which suggests itself--only, however, to be finally
rejected--to the soliloquist of _Christmas Eve_ as the result of his
night's experiences. But a comparison of the two poems will be more
satisfactorily made after a brief separate consideration of each in this
and Lecture V. Lecture VI will be mainly occupied with a discussion of
criticisms relating to both, as well as to the question of vital
importance touching Browning's own position--How far must the conclusions
of either or both be regarded as dramatic in character?
From a merely artistic point of view _Christmas Eve_ presents its own
peculiar interest. Having once read it, in whatever degree our minds may
have become impressed by its theological or dogmatic arguments, externals
have been so forcibly presented, that Zion Chapel and the common outside
"at the edge of which the Chapel stands," always thereafter bear for us a
curious kind of familiarity similar to that which attaches itself to
remembered haunts of our childish days. The first three Sections of the
Poem contain what may certainly be classed amongst the most grimly
realistic descriptions in English literature. It may, indeed, be objected
that these opening stanzas are _perilously_ realistic in character where
poetry is concerned, fitted rather for the pages of Dickens or of Gissing
than for their present position.
The fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones.
Then "the many-tattered little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother,"
"the sickly babe with its spotted face," and the
Tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief. (ll. 48-82.)
In short, read the second Section in its entirety. Such description is
certainly not "poetic." But Browning knew well what he was doing.
Influenced doubtless by his love of striking effects, we cannot but feel
that he makes the unpleasing characteristics of the congregation assembled
within the walls of Zion Chapel the more repellant, that the transition
from the mundane to the divine may strike the reader with greater force.
From the flock sniffing
Its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle.
the soliloquist of the poem calls us to follow him as he "flings out of
the little chapel"; and with Section IV we have passed into the boundless
waste of the common, where is
A lull in the rain, a lull
In the wind too; the moon ... risen
[Which] would have shone out pure and full,
But for the ramparted cloud-prison,
Block on block built up in the West. (ll. 185-189.)
The scene thus outlined prepares us for the culmination of Section VI.
For lo, what think you? suddenly
The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky
Received at once the full fruition
Of the moon's consummate apparition.
The black cloud-barricade was riven,
Ruined beneath her feet, and driven
Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,
North and South and East lay ready
For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,
Sprang across them and stood steady.
'Twas a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect.
* * * * *
* * * * *
But above night too, like only the next,
The second of a wondrous sequence,
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,
Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed,
Another rainbow rose, a mightier,
Fainter, flushier and flightier,--
Rapture dying along its verge. (ll. 373-399.)
So the poet leads us to the climax--to the silence awaiting the answer to
the speaker's query
Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge? (l. 400.)
Then follow Sections VII and VIII, revealing the vision.
The too-much glory, as it seemed,
Passing from out me to the ground,
Then palely serpentining round
Into the dark with mazy error.
* * * * *
All at once I looked up with terror.
He was there.
He himself with his human air.
On the narrow pathway, just before.
But the writer keeps strictly within the bounds of reverence:
I saw the back of him, no more. (ll. 424-432.)
This treatment in itself may, I believe, be not unjustly taken as
indicative of Browning's devotional attitude towards the subject. When, in