Section XXII theoretically define the essence of true worship, the spirit

of devotion. Whilst human nature remains untranslated, and man is

possessed of physical perceptions, and of ratiocinative faculties, the

nasal intonation, and logical and grammatical lapses of the preacher,

though they may be condoned, can hardly be ignored. But to the seeker

after truth, so ardent should be the yearning towards the attainment of

the end, that all defects in the means should be cheerfully accepted. It

is perhaps not easy to put the case strongly enough, without going too far

on the other side, and ignoring the means absolutely, thus returning to

the position, already renounced by the soliloquist in Section V, where man

looks direct "through Nature to Nature's God." A condition which, whilst

unquestionably the highest and most purely spiritual, would appear to be

possible to a certain type of mind only, and that in moments of special

illumination. To the average temperament might arise from such a system

the danger lest, whilst dispensing with forms, the spirit should likewise

be forgotten; and worship should thus altogether cease. In accordance with

the capacity for growth inherent in man's nature, with his creed, as with

all else, must be development, if life is to be preserved. The means

appointed for his instruction may not be always those in most complete

adjustment with his inclinations; nevertheless let him not neglect those

vouchsafed him so long as all tend, however indirectly, towards the

attainment of the ultimate goal, the complete realization of Truth.

Seeking to gain for himself further knowledge of the Divine Will, let him

not lose sight of the end in a too critical consideration of the means.

What avails the thirsty traveller the splendour of the marble

drinking-cup, if so be that it is empty:

Better have knelt at the poorest stream

That trickles in pain from the straitest rift! (ll. 1284-1285.)

To the question of main import advanced in the present instance,

Is there water or not to drink? (l. 1288.)

the latest comer to Zion Chapel replies in the affirmative; though he

would fain wish

The flaws were fewer

In the earthen vessel, holding treasure

Which lies as safe in a golden ewer. (ll. 1300-1302.)

We are inclined to ask, might he not, too, have returned an affirmative

answer in yet another relation, had he but regarded the celebrants of St.

Peter's in that spirit of tolerance with which he now condones the defects

of the Methodist preacher: since, on his own showing, there prevails in

Zion Chapel the jealous exclusivism resultant from spiritual pride. Was

not some valuable residuum of truth to be found in Rome? Surely so. But

had the soliloquist proved capable of giving this answer, with the change

of personal character thus indicated, would have been transformed, also,

the character of the entire poem.

The reason for his present choice he makes sufficiently clear. That form

of creed shall be his which takes into account the complexity of human

nature. The emotions (so he holds) alone received satisfaction at Rome;

intellectual development being checked. At Göttingen the intellect was

cultivated at the expense of the spiritual faculties. Now in the poverty

and ignorance of Zion Chapel he believes himself to discern provision,

however poor in quality, for all man's requirements and aspirations.

Immeasurably inferior to Rome in beauty of architectural form, in the

impressiveness of its ritual; incomparably below Göttingen in intellectual

attainment, it is yet in some sort superior to both alike. Superior to

Rome in that it allows scope for the development of the intellectual

capacity, coarse and poor as is the quality of the mental pabulum offered

by its minister. Superior to Göttingen in that the preacher would fain

afford some satisfaction to the emotional as well as to the intellectual

cravings of his congregation. To these poor "ruins of humanity," a

personal Saviour is a necessity:

Something more substantial

Than a fable, myth, or personification.

_Some one, not something_, who in the critical hour of life shall do for

him

What no mere man shall,

And stand confessed as the God of salvation. (ll. 1322-1325.)

Clearly to the speaker, in spite of the objectionable character of the

surroundings, they secure a "comfort"--

Which an empire gained, were a loss without. (ll. 1308-1309.)

Thus the choice is made in face of defects seemingly at first hopelessly

repellant. And in leaving the soliloquist of _Christmas Eve_ amidst the

Zion Chapel congregation, our conviction touching the future is based upon

grounds amply justifiable; that he may in spiritual development outgrow

the limits he has for the present assigned himself. Since, despite the

influences of prejudice and of bigotry yet remaining, he has already

proved capable of seeking a position whence, in his own words, direct

reference is made to Him "Who head and heart alike discerns." From such a

position, progress, expansion, as the law of life becomes, not only

possible, but inevitable, since the soul's outlook is at once freed from

limitations by the transference of contemplation

From the gift ... to the giver,

And from the cistern to the river,

And from the finite to infinity,

And from man's dust to God's divinity. (ll. 1012-1015.)

Such deductions as to the intention of _this_ poem are at least fully in

accordance with those suggestions of theories which we have so far

gathered from a consideration of other of Browning's works.

LECTURE V

CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (ii)

LECTURE V

CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (ii)

How very hard it is to be

A Christian!

Thus in the opening lines of _Easter Day_ is suggested the subject

occupying the entire poem: a consideration of the difficulty attendant

upon an acceptance of the Christian faith, sufficiently practical in

character to serve as the mainspring of life. The difficulty is not solved

at the close, since identical in form with the earlier assertion is the

final decision

I find it hard

To be a Christian. (ll. 1030-1031.)

Nevertheless, the nature of the position has been modified. The obstacles

in the way of faith are no longer regretted as a bar to progress, rather

are they welcomed as an impetus towards the increase of spiritual vitality

and growth. It is the work of the intervening reflections and resultant

deductions to effect this change, by supplying a reasonable hypothesis on

which to base an explanation of the existent conditions of life.

As with _Christmas Eve_, so here, for a full appreciation of the arguments

advanced, some understanding is essential of the character of the speaker.

It is at once obvious that he who finds it hard to be a Christian may not

be identified with the critic of the Göttingen lecturer: but, that no

loophole may be left for question, the statement is directly made in

Section XIV.

On such a night three years ago,

It chanced that I had cause to cross

The common, where the chapel was,

Our friend spoke of, the other day. (ll. 372-375.)

Later, in the same Section (ll. 398-418), a descriptive touch is supplied,

recalling curiously Browning's estimate of himself in _Prospice_.

I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,

The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And bade me creep past.

Thus the first speaker in _Easter Day_ refers to his childish aversion to

uncertainty, even though uncertainty meant present safety.

I would always burst

The door ope, know my fate at first. (ll. 417-418.)

This then is the man, a fearless fighter, an uncompromising investigator

who, whilst he would "fain be a Christian," is yet bound to reject a mere

uncritical acceptance of the tenets of Christianity. Opposed to him in the

first twelve Sections is a second speaker to whom, somewhat strangely it

would seem, the designation sceptic has been applied. The title in its

virtual sense, is, indeed, justly applicable, but in the ordinary

acceptation might possibly prove misleading. It is a fact of common

experience that among professing Christians, of whatever form of creed,

are to be found those who, in that peculiar crisis of life when death

removes from sight those dearest to them, go back from the fundamental

tenets of a faith in which hitherto their confidence appeared to have

been unshaken. Even that main pillar of faith, a belief in the immortality

of the soul, lies temporarily shattered. Such failure suggests itself as

the result of an insufficiently considered acceptance of dogma; an

acceptance without question, rather than in spite of doubts and

questionings. This distinction we have seen Bishop Blougram drawing

between the position of the man who implicitly believes, since, his

logical and reasoning faculties being undeveloped or inactive, no cause

for question arises; and the position of him who, in the midst of

spiritual perplexity, makes "doubt occasion still more faith." To

Browning, with whom half-heartedness was the one unpardonable sin, this

so-called faith would necessarily be far more dangerous than downright

acknowledged scepticism. Hence the succeeding argument of _Easter Day_

becomes one, not between a pronounced sceptic and a would-be Christian,

but rather between two nominal Christians whose outward profession may be

similar but the motives inspiring it wholly at variance--This in

accordance with Browning's peculiar attraction towards problems involving

the establishment of connection between motive and action. As in _Bishop

Blougram's Apology_ his psychological analysis would reconcile two

apparently irreconcilable aspects of the mind of a prelate whose position

had perplexed the world. As by a method closely akin to this treatment, he

offers explanation of the presence, amongst the illiterate and bigoted

congregation of Zion Chapel, of a man whose intellectual capacity should

have led him to assume a position of wider tolerance: so here, too, he

would discover and reveal the link between the outward form of creed and

the widely differing spiritual acceptance of the same in two individual

cases.

I. The arguments of Sections I to XII are not always easy to follow

closely; but, in passing with Section XIII to the history of the Vision,

all obscurity vanishes, and we have no difficulty in tracing the line of

thought of the first speaker, resulting in his willing reconcilement to

the uncertainties inseparable from human life as at present constituted. A

brief attempt to follow the preceding course of argument will afford an

explanation of the speaker's position at the opening of Section XIII. (1)

The difficulty advanced at the outset of attaining to even a moderate

realization of the possibilities of the Christian life is ascribed by the

first speaker (at the close of Section I) to the essential indefiniteness

in things spiritual implied in the very suggestion of advance, of growth.

That which we believed yesterday to be the mountain-top proves to-day but

the vantage-ground for a yet higher ascent:

And where we looked for crowns to fall,

We find the tug's to come. (ll. 27-28.)

In reply, the second speaker admits the existence of difficulty, but of

one differing somewhat in character from that recognized by his

interlocutor. The Christian life were a sufficiently straightforward

matter, if belief pure and simple were possible: if, as he puts the case,

the relative worth of things temporal and eternal were once rendered clear

and unmistakable. Even martyrdom itself would then become as nothing to

the believer.

(2) The first speaker, or the soliloquist (since he it is who actually

advances the arguments consistent with the position of his imaginary

companion), whilst accepting the truth of the proposition, reasserts the

theory, little more than suggested in Section I, that such fixity and

definiteness of belief is, under existing conditions, an impossibility. If

not in the visible world, granting so much, yet beyond it, is that which

may not be grasped by the finite intelligence. Such limitations may

perchance serve for the term of mortal life; but in the light thrown upon

life by the approach of death a change will inevitably pass over the

aspect of all things, and

Eyes, late wide, begin to wink

Nor see the path so well. (ll. 57-58.)

Again, the Christian who does not wish his position of moderate faith to

be disturbed, agrees; but attributes the shifting ground of belief to the

self-evident truth that faith would no longer be faith were the objects

with which it deals mere matters of common and proved knowledge, belief in

them as inevitable as the necessity of breath to the living creature.

You must mix some uncertainty

With faith, if you would have faith be. (ll. 71-72.)

Even in the intercourse of everyday life, faith is a necessity. Now, had

the easy-going Christian paused at this stage of the discussion, with line

82, his argument would have had the weight which attaches to an

elaboration of the same theory given by Browning elsewhere--in _An Epistle

of Karshish_. But even he, upon whom these considerations are forced for

what one may well believe to be the first time, finds that any individual

proposition requires constant modification, that a doubt will "peep

unexpectedly." Thus, though faith, with its attendant uncertainty, may

well obtain in the relations between man and man, yet, between the Creator

and his creation, is it not possible that more clearly defined regulations

shall subsist?

(3) The thinker who is anxious to rightly adjust his own position in the

world of faith interposes before the argument has passed to its final

stage, and points to the conditions prevailing in the world of lower

animal life where the entire creation "travails and groans"--reverting

again to the assurance which, as the conclusion of the poem is to show,

had been indelibly stamped upon his mind by the experience of the

Vision--the assurance already referred to in Sections I and II, that could

these conditions be changed, then, too, would be altered the character of

human life, its purpose--as Browning ever regards it--would be annulled.

This is not the place to discuss the question of the probationary

character of life and its educative purpose; it is sufficient to recognize

that in Nature is discoverable no definite and final answer to the

questionings of doubt. Hence, with Section VI, the second speaker shifts

his ground; and admitting that this suggested "scientific faith," is

impracticable, declares himself none the more prepared, therefore, to

yield such faith as may yet be possible to him. All he would ask is that

the greater probability may rest upon the side of that creed which he

professes. His belief, such as it is, affords him satisfaction, and will

continue, so he holds, sufficient for his needs until its "curtain is

furled away by death." And he would at once meet the arguments which he

sees his companion prepared to advance in favour of asceticism. To give up

the world for Eternity is surely an act sufficiently easy of

accomplishment, since the renunciation is daily effected for causes of

small moment. Whilst the would-be Christian shrinks at prospect of the

hardships involved in self-denial, his worldly neighbour is adopting that

self-same life of abstention that he may attain an object no more

important than that of acquiring a record collection of beetles or of

snuff-boxes. In short, in the speaker's own words, by subduing the demands

of the flesh, he would be

Doing that alone,

To gain a palm-branch and a throne,

Which fifty people undertake

To do, and gladly, for the sake

Of giving a Semitic guess,

Or playing pawns at blindfold chess. (ll. 165-170.)

(4) The second speaker then, having declared himself satisfied with a

minimum of evidence as to the truth of his creed, a balance, merely, in

favour of its probability, there follows the scornful comment of the man

who would take nothing upon trust, investigation of which is possible--

As is your sort of mind,

So is your sort of search: you'll find

What you desire, and that's to be

A Christian. (ll. 173-176.)

To such a nature belief is easy where belief is desirable; the very reason

which would hinder faith on the part of his opponent. The search made

either for intellectual or emotional satisfaction will meet with equal

result. Whether for historical confirmation of the Scriptural narrative,

or in a philosophic attempt to adapt the Christian creed to the wants of

the human heart. Where, indeed, this satisfaction is found for spiritual

cravings, the intellectual may be disregarded; when

Faith plucks such substantial fruit

* * * * *

She little needs to look beyond. (ll. 190-192.)

So Bishop Blougram in a somewhat different connection--

If you desire faith--then you've faith enough:

What else seeks God--nay, what else seek ourselves?

(_B. B. A._, ll. 634-635.)

In the concluding lines of Section VII and in Section VIII is presented

the contrast between the two opposing views. On the one hand, that of the

man who is glad to accept the Christian faith as that best calculated for

his advantage both in this world and in that to which he looks in the

future. On the other hand, the view of the man who will take nothing on

trust, who is "ever a fighter," and who, having fought, and partially,

though by no means wholly, vanquished his doubts, is prepared "to mount

hardly to eternal life," at whatever cost of sacrifice and self-denial may

be demanded of him. The criticism of the second speaker touching this

proposed life of asceticism is that it is to be deprecated, not on account

of the self-denial involved, but because such life ignores the bountiful

provision of the Creator as evidenced in Nature. To abstain from the

enjoyment of the gifts offered is an act of ingratitude towards the

Provider. On the contrary, the Christian, whilst discerning love in every

gift, should seek from his creed intensification rather than diminution of

the joys of life: and in time of adversity when

Sorrows and privations take

The place of joy,

the truths of Christianity shall throw upon the darkness the light of

revelation, and

The thing that seems

Mere misery, under human schemes,

Becomes, regarded by the light

Of love, as very near, or quite

As good a gift as joy before. (ll. 216-221.)

(5) The arguments of this and the Section following are of special

importance, since on them are based the charges of a too great asceticism

which have been urged against the poem. Here, too, the dramatic element is

more pronounced than elsewhere. The life of ease, physical and spiritual,

to the second speaker a source of supreme gratification and happiness, to

the man of sterner mould presents itself as an impossibility. "The

all-stupendous tale" of the Gospel leaves him "pale and heartstruck." The

belief that the sufferings there recorded were undergone for the purpose

of intensifying the joys of life and affording consolation for its ills,

is to him an explanation so inadequate as to approach the verge of

profanity. This being so he would demand of the advocate of the life of

ease,

How do you counsel in the case?

The answer is characteristic:

I'd take, by all means, in your place,

The _safe_ side, since it so appears:

Deny myself, a few brief years,

The natural pleasure. (ll. 267-271.)

That the eternal reward will outweigh the temporal suffering to the

exclusion even of recollection, the testimony of the martyr of the

catacombs affords ample proof.

For me, I have forgot it all. (l. 288.)

(6) _If_ this be so, then indeed there remains a direct and certain means

of escape from sin, of fulfilment of the purposes of life--self-denial,

renunciation. But, as the reply of Section X points out, the argument has

been conducted in a circle, and the starting-point on the circumference

has now been reached. The original statement has never been satisfactorily

controverted. "How hard it is to be a Christian"; hard on account of the

uncertainty bound to be attendant on all matters in which faith is

requisite. It is hard to be a Christian since the difficulty but shifts

its ground and is not actually removed by any venture of faith. After all

argument, all reasoning, the possibility remains that the Christian's hope

is a mistaken one; that death is not the gateway to fuller life but the

annihilation of life; in short that the Christian has renounced life

For the sake

Of death and nothing else. (ll. 296-297.)

In which case his gain is less than that of the worldling, since he has,

at least, temporarily possessed the object towards the acquisition of

which his self-denial was directed. Beetles and snuff-boxes may be but

small gains, but gains they are to whomso desires them: and "gain is gain,

however small." Nevertheless, in the spirit of Browning, the wrestler with

his doubts would rather risk all for the vaguest spiritual hope, than rest

satisfied with a life limited to material gratification: rather be the

grasshopper

That spends itself in leaps all day

To reach the sun, (ll. 310-311.)

than the mole groping "amid its veritable muck." When Bishop Blougram

makes the same decision--in favour of faith as opposed to scepticism--the

motive he alleges is one which might well be ascribed to the second

speaker of _Easter Day_. The choice is influenced, not by aspirations

which refuse to be checked, but by considerations of prudence touching a

possible future.

Doubt may be wrong--there's judgment, life to come!

With just that chance, I dare not [_i.e._ relinquish faith].

(ll. 477-478.)

The attitude of the second speaker towards life generally recalls, indeed,

not infrequently the professed opportunism of the Bishop. With Blougram

also he fears the effects upon the stability of his faith of a critical

investigation of its tenets. Hence, the reproach of Section XI, addressed

to the first speaker, whose questionings threaten to disturb the earlier

condition of "trusting ease." The reply of Section XII points out that,

the eyes having been once opened, to close them wilfully, living in a

determined reliance on hopes proved only too probably fallacious, is to

adopt a pagan rather than a Christian conception of life.

II. Section XIII constitutes the introduction to the second part of the

poem in which is given the history of the revelation to which the narrator

ascribes his realization of the momentous nature of the faith which he and

his companion alike profess; and of the life which should be lived upon

the lines of that faith. Vivid as the account of the Vision in _Christmas

Eve_ is the description by the first speaker of the experiences of the

night preceding the dawn of Easter Day, three years ago; when, into the

midst of his reflections touching the possibility of a near approach of a

Day of Judgment, there broke that tremendous conflagration marking the

crisis when man shall awaken to realities from

That insane dream we take

For waking now, because it seems. (ll. 480-481.)

And the portrayal of the Judgment which follows is, in character, just

that which we should expect from the pen of the writer who held that "the

development of a soul, little else is worth study." How far the conception

is indeed Browning's own will be best considered in estimating the extent

of the dramatic element--in Lecture VI. To trace the history of this

particular soul awaiting judgment is our immediate object. In a position

of personal isolation from his kind, face to face with his Creator, to

that lonely soul "began the Judgment Day." The sentence from without was

unnecessary to him who should pass judgment upon himself.

The intuition burned away

All darkness from [his] spirit too; (ll. 550-551.)

and he recognized in that moment of revelation that, whatever the

uncertainty of his position before "the utmost walls of time" should

"tumble in" to "end the world," in that moment was no uncertainty; his

choice of life was fixed irrevocably. Hitherto he had loved the world too

well to relinquish its joys wholly, whilst yet looking for a time when the

renunciation, in which he believed to discern the highest course, should

become possible: when he would at last "reconcile those lips"

To letting the dear remnant pass

... some drops of earthly good

Untasted! (ll. 583-585.)

In the light of that flash of intuition, it at once became clear that such

an attitude of compromise had meant, in fact, a decision in favour of the

world; a choice of things temporal to the virtual exclusion of things

eternal. That he, too, had been doing that which he to-night reproaches

the Christian of placid assurance for doing: he had been but using his

faith "as a condiment" wherewith to "heighten the flavours" of life. The

final issue being assured, the true relations of life and faith became

manifest. The sentence of the voice beside him was unessential to the

revelation

Life is done,

Time ends, Eternity's begun,

And thou art judged for evermore. (ll. 594-596.)

And yet "the shows of things" remain. No longer fire that

Would shrink

And wither off the blasted face

Of heaven, (ll. 524-526.)

but the common yet visible around, and the sky which above

Stretched drear and emptily of life. (l. 601.)

In that vast stillness of earth and heaven, judgment is as emphatically

pronounced as if read from "the opened book," in the presence of "the

small and great," following "the rising of the quick and dead" which all

prior conceptions of the Day of Judgment had led the spectator to

anticipate. But he whose sentence had been passed was not of those whom

Bold and blind,

Terror must burn the truth into. (ll. 659-660.)

For these, _their_ fate: such fate as the old Pope trusted should awaken

the criminal Franceschini to a realization of the horror and brutality of

a deed which he sought to justify to himself and to the world, as an act

of self-defence. Sentence is there passed in lines recalling, though with

intensified force, the description of Section XV. Thus, the result of the

papal reflections--

For the main criminal I have no hope

Except in such a suddenness of fate.

I stood at Naples once, a night so dark

I could have scarce conjectured there was earth

Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all:

But the night's black was burst through by a blaze--

Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,

Through her whole length of mountain visible:

There lay the city thick and plain with spires,

And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.

So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,

And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.[66]

No such violence of retribution is here necessary. To the more finely

tempered nature another fate. The choice between flesh and spirit having

been decided, henceforth for the flesh the things of the flesh; for the

spirit those of the spirit. The line of demarcation remains unalterable.

For him who has chosen "the spirit's fugitive brief gleams," yearning for

fuller light and life, for him shall those transitory gleams expand into

complete and enduring radiance, and he shall "live indeed." For him who

has but employed the spirit as an aid to the gratification of the flesh,

using it to

Star the dome

Of sky, that flesh may miss no peak,

No nook of earth. (ll. 693-695.)

For him, as the inevitable outcome of the choice, shall the heaven of

spirit be shut; the material world delivered over for the full

gratification of the senses. No sudden revelation of terror, no judgment

by fire, but the permission--

Glut

Thy sense upon the world: 'tis thine

For ever--take it. (ll. 697-699.)

The hell designed for this man is one in which externals inevitably take

no part. The world and its inhabitants apparently pursue their course, "as

they were wont to do," before the time of probation was at an end. The

sole difference is to be found in the spiritual outlook. The interest

attaching to these things of time is no longer existent; no longer is the

soul "visited by God's free spirit." Thus is again suggested that central

doctrine of Browning's creed: the superlative worth of the individual soul

in the divine scheme of the universe. "God is, thou art." From this it is

only one step to the assurance,

The rest is hurled to nothingness for thee. (ll. 666-667.)

All upon which the eye rests has become for the spectator but an outward

show, to be regarded with the consciousness that his own period of

probation is for ever ended. It is, of course, in reference to this result

of the judgment that in Section XIII the speaker questions the utility of

a narration of his story; since if, on the one hand, the listener is

actually alive, not to be numbered amongst the outward shows of things,

then this fact is proof sufficient of the illusory character of the

Vision. Yet, on the other hand, should the listener be "what I fear," that

is, the presentation of a man passed already beyond his probationary phase

of existence, then, in good sooth, will the

Warnings fray no one; (ll. 360-361.)

as they will convert no one. With him, the speaker, alone rests the

knowledge of the nature of his surroundings, and at times he, too,

experiences the old uncertainty as to their true character.

And what the results following the Judgment? (_a_) At first, joy that all

is now free of access where heretofore part only was attainable. _Nature_

lies open not merely for the gratification of the senses, but to be

studied by aid of science--

I stooped and picked a leaf of fern,

And recollected I might learn

From books, how many myriad sorts

Of ferns exist (etc.). (ll. 738-741.)

Will not the vistas of "earth's resources," thus opening out before the

lover of nature, prove composed of "vast exhaustless beauty, endless

change of wonder?" Yes: but the Judgment has taught that which the term of

probation failed to teach--that a genuine appreciation of these beauties

was even then a possibility. Absolute renunciation was not essential to

spiritual development: for that alone was needed the insight capable of

looking beyond "the gift to the giver," beyond "the finite to infinity."

Which could recognize in

All partial beauty--a pledge

Of beauty in its plenitude. (ll. 769-770.)

The cause of life's failure, justifying condemnation, lay in an acceptance

of the means as the end, of the pledge in place of the ultimate

fulfilment. Now, absolute satiety being attained, the soul's ambition

being bounded by the limits of earth, the plenitude of "those who looked

above" is not for it.

(_b_) But if Nature refuses to yield the satisfaction demanded, the seeker

for consolation would turn thence to a contemplation of _Art_, the works

of which he holds as "supplanting," mainly giving worth to Nature: Art

which bears upon it the impress of human labour. And here again recurs the

teaching of _Andrea del Sarto_, of _A Toccata of Galuppi's_, of _Old

Pictures in Florence_, of _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, of _Cleon_: in short, of

almost any of the more characteristic poems. In so far as these artists,

to whom the lover of earth looks for satisfaction in his search for the

beautiful, refused to recognize as binding the limitations imposed upon

their work by temporary conditions: in so far was a sphere of higher

development prepared for and awaiting them elsewhere. Undesirous of

contemporary appreciation, the true artist is represented as fearing lest

judgment should be passed upon that which he realizes to be but the

imperfection denoting "perfection hid, reserved in part to grace" that

after-time of labour, the existence of which the world ignores. He was

Afraid

His fellow men should give him rank

By mere tentatives which he shrank

Smitten at heart from, all the more,

That gazers pressed in to adore. (ll. 791-795.)

And the speaker has been amongst the throng of spectators who accepted

these "mere tentatives" as the consummation of the artist's powers. Thus

with Art as with Nature, "the pledge sufficed his mood." Hence, in both

relations--failure. Enjoyment, enjoyment to the full, of Art as of Nature

was no impossibility, only, here too, with the sensuous gratification

should have subsisted also the "spirit's hunger,"

Unsated--not unsatable. (ll. 860-861.)

Unsated, until the soul's true sphere shall have been attained. Now is

that judgment pronounced which we find Andrea del Sarto passing upon

himself whilst life and its opportunities yet remained his.

Deride

Their choice now, thou who sit'st outside. (ll. 862-863.)

Their choice, whose guide has been "the spirit's fugitive brief gleams."

So says Andrea of his fellow artists in Florence--

Themselves, I know,

Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,

* * * * *

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.[67]

(_c_) Nature and Art have then alike failed. Wherein may the yearnings of

the soul discover the satisfaction hitherto denied them? Perchance,

through a more complete _intellectual development_.

Mind is best--I will seize mind. (l. 874.)

* * * * *

Oh, let me strive to make the most

Of the poor stinted soul, I nipped

Of budding wings, else now equipped

For voyage from summer isle to isle! (ll. 867-870.)

Here a direct reversal of the theory of Bishop Blougram, implied by his

censure of the traveller whose equipment was ever adapted to the needs of

the future to the neglect of existing requirements. This man, the

soliloquist of _Easter Day_, whose lot is now irrevocably confined to

earth, recognizes too late the fatal character of the mistake perpetrated

in "nipping the budding wings": realizes that, as an inevitable result,

the course of the race and the goal of the ambition are alike limited,

henceforth, by an earthly environment. That "the earth's best is but the

earth's best." The failure to look above is, in fact, here more disastrous

in its results than in either of the earlier instances: since here the

possibilities are also greater. Through the mind alone may come

Those intuitions, grasps of guess,

Which pull the more into the less,

Making the finite comprehend

Infinity. (ll. 905-908.)

To genius have been granted from time to time glimpses of the spiritual

world, made plain in moments of insight, yet not too plain. A world which,

during his sojourn on earth, is intended not for man's permanent

habitation. A world he must "traverse, not remain a guest in." Once

capable of continuing a denizen of the spiritual world, the uses of earth

as a training-ground would be for that man at an end. He who should so

live would become a Lazarus, as the Arabian physician presents him to us;

in Dr. Westcott's phrase, "not a man, but a sign." Brief visions of heaven

are vouchsafed, that he who has once seen may "come back and tell the

world," himself "stung with hunger" for the fuller light. As in Nature, as

in Art, so, too, here in a more purely intellectual sphere, the pledge is

not the plenitude, the symbol not the reality.

Since highest truth, man e'er supplied,

Was ever fable on outside. (ll. 925-926.)

This, too, left unrealized; hence failure also here.

(_d_) The search for sensuous and for intellectual satisfaction having

alike failed, is there no refuge for him whose lot is earth in its

fulness? Yes, there is _Love_, Love which we saw the soliloquist of

_Christmas Eve_ recognizing as the "sole good of life on earth." So now

the wearied soul recalls to mind, in the past,

How love repaired all ill,

Cured wrong, soothed grief, made earth amends

With parents, brothers, children, friends. (ll. 938-940.)

Hence the appeal for "leave to love only," made in full confidence of the

divine approval. In place of approval, however, falls the reproof of

Section XXX: the warning that all now left to the petitioner is "the show

of love," since love itself has passed with the judgment. The "semblance

of a woman," "departed love," "old memories," now alone survive of that

which might have been all in all to the soul during its life's struggle.

And here we find the man who has failed through a too exclusive devotion

to things temporal taught, by this vision of the final judgment, the

truth, at first accepted in _Christmas Eve_ by the man who had looked

through Nature to the God of Nature, and refused to worship in the "narrow

shrines" of the temples made with hands. That love

Shall arise, made perfect, from death's repose of it.

And I shall behold thee, face to face,

O God, and in thy light retrace

How in all I loved here, still wast thou![68]

Thus the voice of judgment before the Easter dawn--

All thou dost enumerate

Of power and beauty in the world,

The mightiness of love was curled

Inextricably round about.

Love lay within it and without,

To clasp thee. (ll. 960-965.)

But we saw the soliloquist of _Christmas Eve_ ultimately rejecting this

universal recognition of love in favour of the narrow shrine of Zion

Chapel: acting, as he believed, with the divine approval. Again proof of

the dramatic character of the poems. The lesson of life is variously

interpreted by its different students.

Yet even here, where love is at length sought as the supreme good, the

Voice of _Easter Day_ proclaims once more--failure--and its cause, the

inability to recognize the divine Love: the object of search is even now

but human love.

Some semblance of a woman yet,

With eyes to help me to forget,

Shall look on me. (ll. 941-943.)

The love of "parents, brothers, children, friends": the seeker has stopped

short of Pippa's final decision,[69] "Best love of all is God's." Why has

he failed to realize this until Time has passed? Why, but because, with

Cleon, he deemed it "a doctrine to be held by no sane man," that divine

Love should prove commensurate with divine Power; that He "who made the

whole," should love the whole, should

Undergo death in thy stead

In flesh like thine. (ll. 974-975.)

But this scepticism, based upon the ground that in the Gospel story is

found "too much love," is illogical, since it suggests by implication the

belief of man that his fellow mortals, in whom he daily discerns abundant

capacity for ill-will, have been yet capable of inventing a scheme of

perfect love such as that involved in the history of the Incarnation. The

doctrine that this was the divine work is assuredly less difficult of

credence than that which assigns it to the invention of the human

imagination? Disbelief on this the ground of "too much love," revealed in

the Gospel story, is dealt with also by the Evangelist in _A Death in the

Desert_. There, too, is presented a position similar to that occupied by

the soliloquist of Easter Day. Through satiety, man

Has turned round on himself and stands,[70]

Which in the course of nature is, to die.

When man demanded proof of the existence of a God, the representative of

Power and Will, evidence of all was granted--

And when man questioned, "What if there be love

Behind the will and might, as real as they?"--

He needed satisfaction God could give,

And did give, as ye have the written word.

But when the written word no longer sufficed, when (following the argument

of this thirtieth Section of _Easter Day_) man believed himself to be the

originator of love, when

Beholding that love everywhere,

He reasons, "Since such love is everywhere,

And since ourselves can love and would be loved,

We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not."

Then, asks the Evangelist,

How shall ye help this man who knows himself,

That he must love and would be loved again,

Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ,

Rejecteth Christ through very need of Him?

The lamp o'erswims with oil, the stomach flags

Loaded with nurture, and that man's soul dies.[71]

The soliloquist of _Easter Day_, experiencing practically the position

imagined by St. John, makes (with the opening of Section XXXI) a final

appeal to the Love of God, that he may be permitted to continue in that

uncertainty which, in the midst of "darkness, hunger, toil, distress," yet

allows room for hope. Better the sufferings of unending struggle than the

deadly calm of despair. To him who has experienced what satiety may bring,

the life of probation offers powerful attractions. Whether the Vision may

have been a reality or the creation of his own imagination, even this

uncertainty is preferable to the judgment that shall grudge "no ease

henceforth," whilst the soul is "condemned to earth for ever."

Thus the poem closes with the inevitable demand of the soul for progress,

for growth; and the collateral recognition of its present life as a state

of probation, hence of essential uncertainty--

Only let me go on, go on,

Still hoping ever and anon

To reach one eve the Better Land! (ll. 1001-1003.)

Feeble as is the hope at times, the dawn of Easter Day yet recalls the

boundless possibilities opening out for human nature. And, for the moment

at least, faith is paramount; no vague, impersonal belief, but that which

looks for its direct inspiration to a living Christ.

Christ rises! Mercy every way

Is Infinite,--and who can say?

LECTURE VI

CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (iii)

LECTURE VI

CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (iii)

The closer and more unprejudiced the study accorded it, the stronger

becomes the conviction of the essentially dramatic character of the

composition of both _Christmas Eve_ and _Easter Day_. And at first sight

it may, to many readers, be matter of regret that this is so: to those

readers more especially who had at first rejoiced to discover, in the

assertions of the soliloquists, what they held to be an immediate

assurance that Browning's faith was that form of dogmatic belief which was

also theirs. If, in all honesty, we are compelled to renounce our original

acceptance of the less complex nature of the poems, what is the worth, it

may be asked, of the arguments which would unquestionably, were they the

direct expression of the writer's feelings, stamp him as a devout

Christian, prepared to make even "doubt occasion still more faith"?

Nevertheless, further reflection minimizes the cause for regret. Although

we may not accept without question, as Browning's own, the criticisms of

the soliloquist of _Christmas Eve_, directed against the arguments of the

humanitarian Lecturer, or the reasoning of the concluding Sections of

_Easter Day_, in favour of belief in the Gospel story and in the

essentially probationary character of human life; yet that which we have

already had occasion to notice as true concerning all dramatic work, is

true also here. The expression of the author's own opinions is not

necessarily excluded, as it is not necessarily implied. Thus, in the

present instance, occur not a few passages in which it seems almost

impossible that we should be in error in discerning Browning's own

personality beneath the disguise of the speaker; the immediate expression

of his own vital belief, in the theories advanced. And the passages

seemingly thus directly inspired are those dealing with the permanent

truths of life, which find at once embodiment and limitation in the dogma

of various religious bodies. How far such passages may justly be accepted

as non-dramatic in character can only be ascertained by reference to and

comparison with treatment of these and similar subjects elsewhere in the

works. We may not judge from one poem alone as to the writer's intention;

evidence so obtained is insufficient.

I. In both _Christmas Eve_ and _Easter Day_ the most prominent position in

the thoughts and dissertations of the soliloquist is necessarily--so the

title would suggest--afforded the Doctrine of the Incarnation. Its

introduction may not, in the single instance, be incontrovertibly

significant as to Browning's attitude towards Christianity. But, when we

find the same subject dealt with repeatedly from different points of view,

by speakers widely separated from one another by time, place, nationality,

and personal character; and when, in spite of the variety of external

conditions, we yet find the arguments employed ever converging towards the

same goal; here even the hypercritical student is surely bound to conclude

that Browning did, indeed, realize, and was anxious to make plain his

realization of, the value to the individual life of the belief involved,

and of the intelligibility and reasonableness of such belief. To notice a

few amongst the numerous aspects in which this Doctrine of the Incarnation

has been presented. In _Saul_, the logical inevitableness of its

acceptance by the seeker after God, as revealed, first in Nature, then in

His dealings with Humanity, is traced by the seer of a remote past before

the historic fact has been accomplished. In _Cleon_, the demand for a

direct revelation of God in man is the result of the cravings of a nature

unable to rest satisfied in the merely deistic creed hitherto responsible

for its theories of life. The very pagan character of the treatment of

subject by the soliloquist, in this instance, is so handled by the poet as

to lend additional force to the negative deductions from the suggestions

advanced. In _An Epistle of Karshish_, once more as in _Saul_, the

speaker, though an onlooker only where Christianity is concerned, is yet a

believer in a divine order of the universe, and in a personal God revealed

in His creation. The subject of which Karshish treats in his letter is no

longer, however, as with David, an expectation to be realized in a distant

future, but a matter comprehending a series of historic events recently

enacted. Nevertheless, he too, whilst nominally rejecting the evidence of

the witnesses as to fact, forces upon the reader the conviction that not

only is it possible, but inevitable, that the "All-Great" shall be "the

All-Loving too"; and must have revealed His love through the life lived by

the Physician of Galilee, whose deeds Lazarus reported. Later, when that

Life has become still further a thing of the past, when "what first were

guessed as points," have become known as "stars," in _A Death in the

Desert_ are put into the mouth of the dying Evangelist, St. John,

arguments which reach the final culmination towards which those of David

and of Cleon alike tended. And St. John, in imagination confronting

opponents of Christianity, sees not only his own contemporaries, but those

of Browning: his reasoning would refute not so much the heresy of the

Gnostics of the first and second centuries of the Christian era as the

criticisms of German literary men of the nineteenth. And here, too, is

attained the same result as that of the foregoing instances--proof of the

inevitableness of an Incarnation, and of such an Incarnation as that of

the Gospel story, in any definite and clearly formulated scheme of human

life. Thus then, when we turn to _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_ to find

again, in the conclusions reached, not only the outcome of the suggestions

and arguments of David, of Karshish, and of Cleon, but, further, a

position occupied by the speaker closely akin to that held in imagination

by the Evangelist; we can hardly fail to be justified in believing that

Browning cared sufficiently for the subject under consideration to wish to

present it to his public in those varying lights which should afford proof

of its universal import, and confirm, if possible, credence in its

absolute truth. To refuse, indeed, to allow due weight to the evidence

thus obtained, would be to neglect the best available opportunities for

estimating the true nature of the beliefs of a dramatic author; since it

is necessarily by such indirect and comparative methods alone that it is

possible to ascertain their character. In this exposition, then, of the

fundamental truths of Christianity, as set forth by the soliloquist in

either poem, we may reasonably believe ourselves to be listening to

authorized assertions and arguments.

II. Again is the voice of Browning himself unmistakably heard in the

acceptance by both speakers in _Easter Day_ (although with different

practical results in each case) of the inevitable extinction of faith as a

necessary consequence of absolute certainty in matters spiritual. It is,

in fact, but another form of the constantly advanced theory of the

progressive character of human nature, involving a recognition of the

world as a training-ground, mortal life as a probation. A theory finding

expression in terms more or less pronounced throughout Browning's

literary career; from the suggestions, dramatic in form, of _Pauline_,

1833, to the direct personal assertions of the _Asolando Epilogue_ in

1889. Whether it be in the _individual_ aspiration of 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? (ll. 634-636.)

or in the final estimate of _the race_ by Paracelsus--

Upward tending all though weak,

Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,

But dream of him, and guess where he may be,

And do their best to climb and get to him. (_Par._, v, ll. 883-886.)

The same belief, whilst it inspires the utterances of Pompilia and of Abt

Vogler, of the Grammarian and the lover of _Evelyn Hope_, is likewise

discernible as underlying, though possibly less consciously instigating

the reflections of Luria and of the organist of _Master Hugues of

Saxe-Gotha_, of Andrea del Sarto and of the victim of a prudence

outweighing love, in _Dîs Aliter Visum_. And progress is the recognized

law of Faith as of Life. The existence of Truth, absolute, does not

preclude its gradual revelation and realization. In the _Epilogue_ to the

_Dramatis Personae_, Browning, by the mouth of the "Third Speaker," would

point out that the lamentation of Rénan over a vanished faith is

unwarranted by fact since, Truth existing in its entirety, the peculiar

revelations of Truth are adapted to each successive stage of the

development of the human race. Hence "that Face," the vestige even of

which the "Second Speaker" held to be "lost in the night at last,"

That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,

Or decomposes but to recompose,

Become my universe that feels and knows.

A fuller realization of Truth has become possible in these later days than

in the past of Jewish ritual, when

The presence of the Lord,

_In the glory of His cloud_,

Had filled the House of the Lord.

Of _Easter Day_ it has been remarked in this connection, "If Mr. Browning

has meant to say ... that religious certainties are required for the

undeveloped mind, but that the growing intelligence walks best by a

receding light, he denies the positive basis of Christian belief."[72]

Comparing this criticism with the treatment in _A Death in the Desert_ of

the subject of faith in relation to the Incarnation, it becomes

sufficiently clear that an acceptance of "the positive basis of Christian

belief" was to Browning's mind perfectly compatible, not indeed with "a

receding light," but with that absence of certainty in matters spiritual

which the First Speaker of _Easter Day_ accepts as inevitable. And surely

the suggestion in _Easter Day_, as elsewhere in Browning, is that the

development of the "religious intelligence" is best advanced, not by _a

receding light_, but by that ever-increasing illuminative power which

shall effect gradually the revelation presented in the Vision of the

Judgment as the work of a moment. The revelation of the true relation

between things temporal and spiritual, between the divine and the human.

For, whilst St. John bases his arguments upon the central assurance that

"God the Truth" is, of all things, alone unchangeable, immediately upon

the assurance follows the assertion--

Man apprehends Him newly at each stage

Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done.[73]

Since "such progress" as is the peculiar characteristic of human nature

Could no more attend his soul

Were all it struggles after found at first

And guesses changed to knowledge absolute,

Than motion wait his body, were all else

Than it the solid earth on every side,

Where now through space he moves from rest to rest.[74]

Thus with Christianity itself

Will [man] give up fire

For gold or purple once he knows its worth?

Could he give Christ up were His worth as plain?

Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift,

Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact,

And straightway in his life acknowledge it,

As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire.[75]

The effect on human nature and life of the change of "guesses" to

"knowledge absolute" is elsewhere exhibited in concrete form where

Lazarus, in _An Epistle of Karshish_, is represented, as Browning's

imagination would visualize him, in the years succeeding his resurrection

from the dead. There the need for faith is accounted as no longer

existing. During those four days of the spirit's sojourn beyond the limits

of the visible world, the unveiled light of eternity had thrown into their

true relative positions the things of time. Thenceforth, for him who had

once _known_, the hopes and fears attendant upon uncertainty were no

longer a possibility. In view of that which is eternal, temporal

prosperity or adversity had become of small moment. The advance of a

hostile force upon the sacred city, centre of the national life, was to

the risen nature an event trifling as "the passing of a mule with gourds."

Sickness, death, were alike met by the imperturbable "God wills." Yet

this apparently immovable serenity was at once overthrown by contact with

"ignorance and carelessness and sin." To the non-Christian onlooker, the

attitude thus attained was attributable to the peculiar condition of life

by which heaven was

Opened to a soul while yet on earth,

Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven.

The man capable of this two-fold vision had indeed become but "a sign,"

noteworthy it is true, yet of little value as a practical example to his

fellows, since what held good in this single and unprecedented case must

be of no avail as a criterion for the multitude.

The importance, as an educative instrument, of the demands on faith made

by the absence of overwhelmingly conclusive and unalterable evidence in

matters spiritual, is again illustrated in that remarkable little poem

_Fears and Scruples_, following _Easter Day_ after an interval of more

than a quarter of a century (pub. 1876). The writer there declares his

personal preference for the condition of life ultimately the choice of the

First Speaker, in which uncertainty may admit of hope, even though the

future should prove such hope fallacious. The old theory is advanced

beneath the illustration of relationship to an absent friend, proofs of

whose affection, of whose very existence, rest upon the evidence of

letters, the genuineness of which has been called in question by experts.

Nevertheless, the friend at home, the soliloquist of the poem, refuses to

yield credence to calumny. His faith in the friend, if misplaced, has been

hitherto a source of spiritual elevation and inspiration. Even though the

truth be ultimately proved but falsehood, he is yet the better for those

days in which he deemed it truth. Therefore,

One thing's sure enough: 'tis neither frost,

No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me

Thanks for truth--though falsehood, gained--though lost.

All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier,

For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill

Through and through me as I thought "The gladlier

Lives my friend because I love him still!"

The parallel is enforced by the suggestion at the close--

Hush, I pray you!

What if this friend happen to be--God? (_F. and S._, viii, ix, xii.)

III. In considering the position of the First Speaker in _Easter Day_, we

have already noticed the character of the final judgment, the nature of

the Hell designed for the punishment of him who had chosen the things of

the flesh in preference to the things of the spirit.--A Hell consisting in

absolute future exclusion from opportunities of spiritual satisfaction and

development.--A judgment which we remarked in passing, as peculiarly

characteristic in its conception of Browning's usual treatment of matters

relative to the spiritual life of man. In _Ferishtah's Fancies_, we are

able to obtain direct confirmation of this suggestion, with reference to

the subject actually in question. In reading this collection of poems, the

work of the author's later life (pub. 1884), we hardly need his warning

(or so at least we believe) to avoid the assumption that "there is more

than a thin disguise of a few Persian names and allusions." Sheltering

himself thus behind the imagined personality of the Persian historian,

Browning, in his seventy-second year, gave freer utterance than was

customary with him to his own opinions and beliefs touching certain

momentous questions of Life and Faith. _A Camel-driver_ is devoted to a

discussion of the doctrine of Judgment and Future Punishment of the sins

committed in the flesh. Ferishtah, as Dervish, submits that here, as in

all allied matters, man with finite capacities cannot conceive of the

infinite purpose. Knowing "but man's trick to teach," he does but reason

from the character of his own dealings, in this respect, with the animals,

as creatures of lower intelligence, employed in his service. The general

conclusions from the arguments thus deduced are, in brief: (1) The

punishment as regards the sufferer is not designed to be retributive only,

but remedial and reformatory in character. (2) With respect to the sinner

and his fellow mortals, it must be deterrent. (3) Hence, to be effective,

its infliction should be immediate rather than future. By postponement,

the exemplary effect of punishment is rendered void: the connection

between offence and penalty is obscured, and sympathy with the sufferer

will result, rather than avoidance of the offence for which the suffering

is inflicted. Such is the estimate by Ferishtah, or Browning, of the

punishment of a future Hell of fire. From a merely human point of view it

is illogical. For the purification of the sinner, or for the admonition of

the onlooker, it is alike useless. And the deduction? Man can but work

and, therefore, teach as man, and not as God. At best he may but see a

little way into the Eternal purpose: into that portion alone which is

revealed through the experiences of mortal life. Here he must be content

to rest without further speculation.

Before man's First, and after man's poor Last,

God operated, and will operate,

is the assertion of Reason. To which adds Ferishtah,

Process of which man merely knows this much,--

That nowise it resembles man's at all,

Teaching or punishing.

For the character of the divine process:--as in _Easter Day_, so here the

penalty is immediately adjusted to the peculiar requirements of the nature

to be "taught or punished." To the man of spiritual discernment, of right

thought and purpose, but of imperfect performance, no hell is needed

beyond that to be found in the comparison of the Might-have-been with the

Has-been and the Is. And in this sadness of retrospect are to be

remembered, too, the sins of ignorance; even forgiveness is powerless to

efface wholly the misery of remorse. Thus shall Omnipotence deal with the

individual soul. Thus does the work of judgment and of education differ

essentially from that of man who "lumps his kind i' the mass," passing

upon the mass sentence, involving a uniformity of punishment, which must

fall in individual cases with varying degrees of intensity, by no means

proportionate to the magnitude of the offences committed. That which to

the sensitive soul is torture unfathomable, to the "bold and blind" is as

naught. By some other method must be forced on _him_ the recognition and

realization of past sin. Terror may "burn in the truth," where the

recollection of irremediable evil has failed to create remorse. Only a

mind incapable of spiritual discernment would award a similar penalty for

a life's faults of omission and commission to the several inmates of the

Morgue, and to the onlooker who would see, in the temporary despair which

had caused the end, failure apparent, not absolute. For his part he could

but deem that the misery which had resulted in an overwhelming abhorrence

of life had, in itself, been punishment sufficient; he could but think

"their sin's atoned."[76] Yet in his own case, even though he held that

"we fall to rise," those falls from which no human life may be wholly

exempt, were in themselves cause more than adequate for remorseful anguish

without the super-addition of external penalty:

Forgiveness? rather grant

Forgetfulness! The past is past and lost.

However near I stand in his regard,

So much the nearer had I stood by steps

Offered the feet which rashly spurned their help.

That I call Hell; why further punishment?[77]

IV. So far we have only treated of conclusions which, by comparison with

other poems obviously dramatic, and with his more avowedly confessed

opinions elsewhere, we have felt ourselves justified in accepting as

Browning's own. Turning to the questions yet remaining for consideration,

we are upon more debatable ground. But here, too, pursuing similar

methods, we may expect the results to be also decisive in so far as our

means of investigation will allow. To what extent did personal feeling

influence the criticism of Roman Catholic ritual contained in _Christmas

Eve_? In what degree may Browning be held to have sympathized with the

final decision in favour of the creed of Zion Chapel? An answer to the

first question involves at least a partial answer to the second.

Browning's attitude, could it be accurately estimated, towards Roman

Catholicism, might be decisive as to how far it was possible for him to

concur in the conclusions attributed to the soliloquist as the result of

his night's experience.

With regard to external evidence touching Browning's opinions on any given

question, it is usually of so conflicting a character as to leave us still

in the condition of mental indecision in which we began the enquiry. In

the present instance we have the report to which reference has been

already made of the author's own assertion respecting _Bishop Blougram's

Apology_; that he intended no hostility, and felt none towards the Roman

Catholic Church. On the other side of the argument has to be reckoned the

reply to Miss Barrett's wish, expressed in the early days of their

acquaintance, that he would give direct utterance to his own opinions, not

sheltering himself behind his various _dramatis personae_. Whilst

promising to accede to the request, he adds, "I don't think I shall let

_you_ hear, after all, the savage things about Popes and imaginative

religions that I must say." This correspondence took place five years

before _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_ was published. To the year of

publication is to be referred the author's satirical observation on the

premature proclivities evinced by his infant son, during a visit to Siena,

towards church interiors and ritual. "It is as well," he remarked, "to

have the eye-teeth and the Puseyistical crisis over together." Of this

comment writes Professor Dowden, to whom we have been recently indebted

for so much valuable light on Browning's life and work: "Although no more

than a passing word spoken in play [it] gives a correct indication of

Browning's feeling, fully shared by his wife, towards the religious

movement in England, which was altering the face of the Established

Church. 'Puseyism' was for them a kind of child's play, which

unfortunately had religion for its playground; they viewed it with a

superior smile, in which there was more of pity than of anger."[78] It

was, indeed, as we have already had occasion to notice, in the nature of

things unlikely that Browning should have remained uninfluenced by the

spirit of anxiety and unrest, agitating the minds of English churchmen of

all grades of thought during the years which succeeded the Tractarian

movement. That this should have led him to assume an attitude of distrust

towards the Roman Catholic Church is hardly matter for surprise; that it

was one of hostility he himself denies. And it is a satisfaction to

believe that _The Pope_ section of _The Ring and the Book_ was the more

matured expression of his feeling in this connection. The most valuable

_internal_ evidence on the subject is probably to be derived from a

comparison of this poem and _Bishop Blougram's Apology_, with Section

X-XII, and XXII of _Christmas Eve_.

In _Bishop Blougram's Apology_, as in _The Pope_, all direct reference to

the Church is made from _within_, not from _without_. The speaker is no

critical onlooker, but, as we have seen, a prelate noted alike for his

ultramontane tendencies, and for the breadth of his views with regard to

the adaptability of his Church to the developments of contemporary

intellectual life. This man is a leading member of the religious community

for which Browning is accused of having in _Christmas Eve_ expressed his

aversion. But, although a leading member, he is not therefore to be judged

as a typical representative; his marked individuality being doubtless a

main cause of the author's choice of subject. And what does this man say

in defence of his Church? He points out that a profession before the world

of faith, clearly defined and absolute, is essential to his influence and

authority. Whatever the searchings of heart, the doubts and questionings

inevitable to a keenly logical and analytic intellect, these must be

concealed, lest the priest should be accounted a pretender, his profession

a cloak of hypocrisy. His belief in the latest ecclesiastical miracle must

be as avowedly absolute as that in a God as Creator and Supreme Ruler of

the Universe. Thus he stands firm upon the ground which he has chosen. The

question is throughout a personal one, and the implication is clearly not

intended that the Roman Catholic Church would _necessarily_ demand of its

members this implicit credence, would thus closely fetter the intellectual

faculties.

Turning to _Christmas Eve_, we find the case reversed, and the soliloquist

occupying the position of one of those outsiders to whom the Bishop

believed himself compelled to present an unquestioning and unquestionable

orthodoxy. For the Prelate is substituted the man of active critical

instinct, inclined to pass judgment with data insufficient to prove a

satisfactory basis for the decision: of perceptions readily responsive to

the glories of nature and their inspiration: but, we surely are not wrong

in adding, of imaginative faculty unequal to the realization of those

spiritual suggestions afforded to minds of different calibre by the

symbolism of a ritualistic worship. The solemn silence of the vast crowd

assembled in the cathedral makes stronger appeal to his sympathies than

does the gorgeous display of ritual following. Hence it is a not illogical

outcome of the position that he will but hear in the music of the service

"hog-grunts and horse-neighings" that he will but see in the ceremonial

observed "buffoonery--posturings and petticoatings." This man of spiritual

and intellectual capacity so far developed is yet numbered amongst the

congregation of the Calvinistic meeting-house, where the preacher is

without erudition, the flock of mental outlook metaphorically as limited

as the space bounded by the four walls within which they are assembled.

How is the presence of this presumably unsympathetic personality to be

accounted for in their midst? How otherwise than by the recognition of

this peculiar deficiency in the nature which, whilst leaving it capable of

looking directly upwards to the God of all creeds, yet renders it unable,

in looking downwards, to see below the surface, and realize the worth of

symbolism in worship where spiritual insight is not of the keenest. The

utterance of the _Third Speaker_ of the _Epilogue_[79] may well be his as

he awaits the coming of the Vision on the common without the Chapel:

Why, where's the need of Temple, when the walls

O' the world are that?

And in his anxiety to avoid the "narrow shrines" of man's erection, he is

ultimately driven to worship at one of the narrowest, chosen because the

veil of ritual there interposed between the worshipper and his God is of

the thinnest. The urgency of the desire to be freed from all outward

ceremonial causes him to overlook the real faults of spiritual pride and

exclusiveness characteristic of the Calvinistic congregation. True of

heart, he would reject all shows of things; but there is in his nature a

Puritanic strain which refuses to be eradicated, and this it is which

finally leads him to become a member of the religious community whose

failings he at first unsparingly condemned.

V. No stronger proof of the dramatic power of the poem is, perhaps, to be

found than that afforded by the criticism quoted below, to which it has

seemed almost impossible to avoid reference, bearing as it does the

highest literary authority. Browning appears here to be regarded as

occupying the position assigned by him to the soliloquist, so completely

has he succeeded in identifying himself with his _dramatis persona_. "Of

English nonconformity in its humblest forms Browning can write, as it

were, from within" [the soliloquist has become a member of the Calvinistic

congregation when he narrates his experiences]; "he writes of Roman

Catholic forms of worship as one who stands outside" [the position

literally and metaphorically assigned to the critic on the threshold-stone

of St. Peter's]; "his sympathy with the prostrate multitude in St. Peter's

at Rome is of an impersonal kind, founded rather upon the recognition of

an objective fact than springing from an instinctive feeling" [May not the

sympathy capable of inspiring the closing lines of Section X be taken as

indicative of something deeper than this?]. "For a moment he is carried

away by the tide of their devout enthusiasms; but he recovers himself to

find, indeed, that love is also here, and therefore Christ is present, but

the worshippers fallen under 'Rome's gross yoke,' are very infants in

their need of these sacred buffooneries and posturings and

petticoatings.... And this, though the time has come when love would have

them no longer infantile, but capable of standing and walking, 'not to

speak of trying to climb.' Such a short and easy method of dealing with

Roman Catholic dogma and ritual cannot be commended for its intelligence;

it is quite possible to be on the same side as Browning without being as

crude as he is in misconception. He does not seriously consider the

Catholic idea which regards things of sense as made luminous by the spirit

of which they are the envoys and the ministers. It is enough for him to

declare his own creed, which treats any intermediary between the human

soul and the Divine as an obstruction or a veil." Then after quoting the

passage describing the soliloquist's final choice: "This was the creed of

Milton and of Bunyan; and yet with both Milton and Bunyan the imagery of

the senses is employed as the means, not of concealing, but revealing the

things of the spirit."[80] Was it not just this inability to seriously

consider the things of sense as made luminous by the spirit which Browning

wishes to represent as accounting for the otherwise unaccountable presence

of the man of culture and intellect in Zion Chapel? Surely to the

characteristic weaknesses of the soliloquist, not to the crude

misconception of the author, is attributable the intolerance of the

criticism, whether directed, as in the earlier Sections, against the

congregation of Zion Chapel, or, in the later, against that of St.

Peter's?

This belief in the strength of the dramatic element in _Christmas Eve_ is

confirmed when we turn to _The Ring and the Book_, and the question

suggests itself--Would the critic of the earlier poem have been capable of

representing any member of the Church which he condemns in the light in

which Browning gives us Innocent XII? A nature to which is possible in age

the purity and simplicity of a childlike personal faith.

O God,

Who shall pluck sheep Thou holdest, from Thy hand?

(_The Pope_, ll. 641-642.)

Of a tenderness which yearns in memory over the defenceless member of his

flock, lately the victim of brutality and disappointed avarice.

Pompilia, then as now

Perfect in whiteness.... (ll. 1005-1006.)

... My flower,

My rose, I gather for the breast of God. (ll. 1046-1047.)

With tenderness is coupled that humility which can say to this child of

the Faith:

Go past me

And get thy praise,--and be not far to seek

Presently when I follow if I may! (ll. 1092-1094.)

* * * * *

Stoop thou down, my child,

Give one good moment to the poor old Pope

Heart-sick at having all his world to blame. (ll. 1006-1008.)

Yet, in spite of the heart-sickness, is present also the moral rectitude

which refuses to shrink from the task demanding fulfilment--the censure of

"all his world"--from the archbishop who repulsed the injured wife's

appeal for protection, "the hireling who did turn and flee," through the

entire list of offenders to the "fox-faced, horrible priest, this

brother-brute, the Abate," and the chief criminal, Guido, for whom also

his friends would claim clerical immunity from the penalty attaching to

his offence. Realizing to the full the character of his office, the weight

of authority and historical continuity lying behind, the old Pope might

well be tempted to grant to the miscreants that shelter which they crave.

But the very fact which leads him to magnify the dignity of his official

position, "next under God," leads him also to recognize the immensity of

personal responsibility attaching thereto. The sentence to be passed is

the outcome of a _personal_ decision.

How should I dare die, this man let live?

Yet whilst laying bare before his mental vision the evils existent in his

Church, obvious alike in the individual even though he should himself

"have armed and decked him for the fight"; and in the communal life of

convent and monastery; whilst rejoicing that Caponsacchi should have had

the necessary courage to break through ecclesiastical convention and

Let light into the world

Through that irregular breach o' the boundary: (ll. 1205-1206.)

he yet points to the strength of the Church as safeguarding, by her rule

as "a law of life," those whose natural impulses may not be relied on to

lead them to follow the course of Caponsacchi, and to whom it would not be

safe to grant the permission: "Ask _your_ hearts as _I_ asked mine." To

these and such as these the law of life laid down by the Church's rule is

essential. Whatever the traditions of the past, whatever the possibilities

of ecclesiastical modifications and developments in the future, in the

present no considerations of personal interest or compassion must be

permitted to warp the judgment of him who is armed

With Paul's sword as with Peter's key.

And it is to be remembered, that the man who could thus reason, thus

decide, was head of that Church which excited the mocking condemnation of

the soliloquist of _Christmas Eve_: and that Caponsacchi, "the

warrior-priest, the soldier-saint," bore likewise the title of Canon. To

so remember may serve to cast new light upon Browning's supposed attitude

towards Roman Catholicism.

VI. The most important subject of discussion in relation to _Easter Day_

is that touching its so-called asceticism. Here also, as in _Christmas

Eve_, two interdependent questions must be asked: (1) What is the _nature_

of the asceticism advocated by the First Speaker? (2) How far may it be

regarded as the expression of Browning's own theory of life? A plain

answer to the first question is necessary in order that, by comparison

with the treatment of the same subject elsewhere, it may be possible to

determine the extent to which the opinions advanced are in agreement:

whether Browning was desirous of advocating renunciation even in the

degree held essential by the First Speaker. The key to the position seems

to be contained in two recorded comments on the poem by the poet and his

wife. When Mrs. Browning complained of the "asceticism," her husband

answered, that it stated "_one side_ of the question." Her supplementary

observation adds, "It is his way to _see_ things as passionately as other

people _feel_ them."[81] It was by the exercise of this exceptionally

powerful imaginative faculty that the author of _Easter Day_ has

dramatically stated the case which he perceived might be made out for

renunciation, as well as for grateful acceptance and enjoyment of the

gifts of life. If we admit the accuracy of the criticism which would

define the spirit of the poem as refusing to recognize, "in poetry or art,

or the attainments of the intellect, or even in the best human love, any

practical correspondence with religion,"[82] then indeed we are bound to

acknowledge that it stands absolutely alone in Browning's work and is in

direct opposition to his theory of life. I venture to think, however, that

a careful study of this particular aspect of the poem will result in the

conviction that the First Speaker is represented as realizing that,

desirable as is renunciation in his own case, it is not the highest course

possible to human nature.

Sections VIII, XVI, XX, XXIV, XXX, are those which deal chiefly with this

question of asceticism. Taken in sequence, they present in outline the

history of the spiritual life of the First Speaker. This it is desirable

to notice very briefly before comparing the rule of life thus indicated

with that suggested by references to Browning's work elsewhere. In Section

VIII is depicted the attitude of the First Speaker towards the Gospel

story; the attitude of "the fighter" who would not only wrestle with evil,

but would search for any possibly existent danger and bring it to light

(Section XIV). To such a nature the intellectual belief in the

Incarnation--"the all-stupendous tale--that Birth, that Life, that Death!"

is productive of heartstruck horror: whilst for a practical acceptance of

the faith, life must be regulated in accordance with Scriptural teaching,

expressed in

Certain words, broad, plain,

Uttered again and yet again,

Hard to mistake or overgloss--(_E. D._, viii, ll. 257-259.)

words which declare that the loss of things temporal is the gain of things

spiritual and eternal. But the asceticism thus advocated does not find

full explanation until Section XXX. The gradual revelation begins with

Section XVI where, before judgment has been pronounced from without,

conscience passes sentence upon itself; realizing that that which it had

deemed in life a mere temporizing, had in fact been a final choice. That,

dallying with the good things of life, whilst believing renunciation the

higher course, had meant a practical decision in favour of things temporal

to the exclusion of things spiritual. In that exclusion lay the error. And

the recognition of failure here is in entire accordance with Browning's

usual attitude towards life. Condemnation is merited not on account of

indulgence, but because that indulgence had meant running counter to the

convictions of the man who held that, for him, renunciation was the higher

course. Not possessing the courage of his opinions, he had chosen that

which he recognized as the lower course, the path of compromise: enjoyment

in the present, renunciation before it was too late. Therefore for him who

had so chosen--the Hell of Satiety.

Now, as we have already noticed,[83] the experience of the results of the

Judgment tended to exhibit the true worth, both absolute and relative, of

the things amid which life had been hitherto passed. Satiety checked

enjoyment of the beauties of Nature. Why should this be? In Section XXIV

is given the answer:

All partial beauty was a pledge

Of beauty in its plenitude.

But, engrossed in contemplation of the partial beauty the spectator had

found that "the pledge sufficed [his] mood." Therefore, the plenitude was

not for him, but for those only who had looked above and beyond the

pledge, seeking that of which it was a proof. And in each of the

successive attempts towards happiness by an appeal to art, and to the

exercise of the higher intellectual faculties, the same explanation of

failure is vouchsafed by the Judge. The symbol has been accepted for the

reality, the pledge for the fulfilment. After the final choice has been

made in favour of Love, "leave to love only," the fuller explanation

follows; the secret of life's success or failure. Failure through the

inability to recognize the Divine Love in the visible creation, or in the

more immediate revelation to man: in either case ample proof being

afforded to him who had eyes to see, intelligence to grasp, and heart to

respond to the Love so taught. Yet the soliloquist of _Easter Day_ had

proved himself incapable of such recognition of the highest truth. The

world of sense had been used not to subserve but to supersede the world of

spirit. To the nature which thus found in all externals a temptation to

rest content with "the level and the night," asceticism was as essential

to the preservation of the spiritual life as, under certain conditions,

amputation may be to the preservation of physical life.

But it must not be overlooked that the necessity for amputation implies

the existence of mortal disease. Hence, whilst realizing this personal

necessity for renunciation, the speaker recalls the teaching of the divine

Judge of the Vision as pointing to a higher standard of life for him who

should be able to attain to it. A life in which all things should be not

avoided as a snare, but accepted as cause for thankfulness; the relation

of the gift to the Giver being recognized as constituting its primary

value. To the lover of the beautiful is pointed out how

All thou dost enumerate

Of power and beauty in the world,

The mightiness of love was curled

Inextricably round about.

Love lay within it and without,

To clasp thee,--but in vain! (_E. D._, xxx, ll. 960-965.)

In this passage may be found the solution to the whole question of the

asceticism advocated. When the love thus expressed had been realized, the

step was not a difficult one to the acceptance of the fuller revelation of

Love in the Incarnation. And in this realization the highest aspect of

life temporal would have been reached. Love, not abrogating the law would

have served as its fulfilment. As the statements of Bishop Blougram are

personal in relation to the treatment of doubt, so the speaker in _Easter

Day_ would make out a case for personal asceticism. Not advocating it as

the ideal universal course, he would yet claim for it highest value as

safeguarding his individual life. To him who is incapable of moderation,

renunciation may become a necessity; yet, through renunciation, may be

attained that higher life consisting in a grateful enjoyment and generous

communication of all gifts of the Divine Love.

Of the other poems dealing with this subject indirectly or directly,

_Paracelsus_, 1835, _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, 1864, _Ferishtah's Fancies_, 1884,

are sufficiently representative of the different periods of the poet's

literary life to render them valuable as illustrations of his mode of

treatment. In the last, at least, we may be fairly confident that the

decision given is his own.