Part 26 (1/2)

This is the woman--the finest creature Browning drew, young and fair and stately, with her dark hair and amber eyes, lovely--the wild pomegranate flower of a girl--as keen, subtle and true of intellect as she is lovely, able to comment on and check Euripides, to conceive a new play out of his subject, to be his dearest friend, to meet on equality Aristophanes; so full of lyric sympathy, so full of eager impulse that she thrills the despairing into action, enslaves a city with her eloquence, charms her girl-friends by the Ilissus, and so sends her spirit into her husband that, when the Spartans advise the razing of Athens to the ground he saves the city by those famous lines of Euripides, of which Milton sang; so at one with natural beauty, with all beauty, that she makes it live in the souls of men; so clear in judgment that she sees the right even when it seems lost in the wrong, that she sees the justice of the G.o.ds in the ruin of the city she most loved; so poetic of temper that everything speaks to her of life, that she acknowledges the poetry which rises out of the foulness she hates in Aristophanes, that she loves all humanity, bad or good, and Euripides chiefly because of his humanity; so spiritual, that she can soar out of her most overwhelming sorrow into the stormless world where the G.o.ds breathe pure thought and for ever love; and, abiding in its peace, use the griefs of earth for the enn.o.blement of the life of men, because in all her spiritual apartness, however far it bear her from earth, she never loses her close sympathy with the fortunes of mankind. Nay, from her lofty station she is the teacher of truth and love and justice, in splendid prophecy. It is with an impa.s.sioned exaltation, worthy of Sibyl and Pythoness in one, of divine wisdom both Roman and Greek, that she cries to the companions of her voyage words which embody her soul and the soul of all the wise and loving of the earth, when they act for men; bearing their action, thought and feeling beyond man to G.o.d in man--

Speak to the infinite intelligence, Sing to the everlasting sympathy!

CHAPTER XVI

_THE RING AND THE BOOK_

When Browning published _The Ring and the Book_, he was nearly fifty years old. All his powers (except those which create the lyric) are used therein with mastery; and the ease with which he writes is not more remarkable than the exultant pleasure which accompanies the ease. He has, as an artist, a hundred tools in hand, and he uses them with certainty of execution. The wing of his invention does not falter through these twelve books, nor droop below the level at which he began them; and the epilogue is written with as much vigour as the prologue.

The various books demand various powers. In each book the powers are proportionate to the subject; but the mental force behind each exercise of power is equal throughout. He writes as well when he has to make the guilty soul of Guido speak, as when the innocence of Pompilia tells her story. The gain-serving lawyers, each distinctly isolated, tell their worldly thoughts as clearly as Caponsacchi reveals his redeemed and spiritualised soul. The parasite of an aristocratic and thoughtless society in _Tertium Quid_ is not more vividly drawn than the Pope, who has left in his old age the conventions of society behind him, and speaks in his silent chamber face to face with G.o.d. And all the minor characters--of whom there are a great number, ranging from children to old folk, from the peasant to the Cardinal, through every cla.s.s of society in Italy--are drawn, even when they are slashed out in only three lines, with such force, certainty, colour and life that we know them better than our friends. The variousness of the product would seem to exclude an equality of excellence in drawing and invention. But it does not. It reveals and confirms it. The poem is a miracle of intellectual power.

This great length, elaborate detail, and the repet.i.tion so many times of the same story, would naturally suggest to an intending reader that the poem might be wearisome. Browning, suspecting this, and in mercy to a public who does not care for a work of _longue haleine_, published it at first in four volumes, with a month's interval between each volume. He thought that the story told afresh by characters widely different would strike new, if each book were read at intervals of ten days. There were three books in each volume. And if readers desire to realise fully the intellectual _tour de force_ contained in telling the same story twelve times over, and making each telling interesting, they cannot do better than read the book as Browning wished it to be read. ”Give the poem four months, and let ten days elapse between the reading of each book,” is what he meant us to understand. Moreover, to meet this possible weariness, Browning, consciously, or probably unconsciously, since genius does the right thing without asking why, continually used a trick of his own which, at intervals, stings the reader into wakefulness and pleasure, and sends him on to the next page refreshed and happy. After fifty, or it may be a hundred lines of somewhat dry a.n.a.lysis, a vivid ill.u.s.tration, which concentrates all the matter of the previous lines, flashes on the reader as a snake might flash across a traveller's dusty way: or some sudden description of an Italian scene in the country or in the streets of Rome enlivens the well-known tale with fresh humanity. Or a new character leaps up out of the crowd, and calls us to note his ways, his dress, his voice, his very soul in some revealing speech, and then pa.s.ses away from the stage, while we turn, refreshed (and indeed at times we need refreshment), to the main speaker, the leading character.

But to dwell on the mult.i.tude of portraits with which Browning's keen observation, memory and love of human nature have embellished _The Ring and the Book_ belongs to another part of this chapter. At present the question rises: ”What place does _The Ring and the Book_ hold in Browning's development?” It holds a central place. There was always a struggle in Browning between two pleasures; pleasure in the exercise of his intellect--his wit, in the fullest sense of the word; pleasure in the exercise of his poetic imagination. Sometimes one of these had the upper hand in his poems, sometimes the other, and sometimes both happily worked together. When the exercise of his wit had the upper hand, it tended to drive out both imagination and pa.s.sion. Intellectual play may be without any emotion except its delight in itself. Then its mere cleverness attracts its user, and gives him an easily purchased pleasure. When a poet falls a complete victim to this pleasure, imagination hides her face from him, pa.s.sion runs away, and what he produces resembles, but is not, poetry. And Browning, who had got perilously near to the absence of poetry in _Bishop Blougram's Apology_, succeeded in _Mr. Sludge, the Medium_, in losing poetry altogether. In _The Ring and the Book_ there are whole books, and long pa.s.sages in its other books in which poetry almost ceases to exist and is replaced by brilliant cleverness, keen a.n.a.lysis, vivid description, and a combination of wit and fancy which is rarely rivalled; but no emotion, no imagination such as poets use inflames the coldness of these qualities into the glow of poetry. The indefinable difference which makes imaginative work into poetry is not there. There is abundance of invention; but that, though a part of imagination, belongs as much to the art of prose as to the art of poetry.

Browning could write thus, out of his intellect alone. None of the greater poets could. Their genius could not work without fusing into their intellectual work intensity of feeling; and that combination secured poetic treatment of their subject. It would have been totally impossible for Milton, Shakespeare, Dante, Vergil, or even the great ma.s.s of second-rate poets, to have written some of Browning's so-called poetry--no matter how they tried. There was that in Browning's nature which enabled him to exercise his intellectual powers alone, without pa.s.sion, and so far he almost ceases to deserve the name of poet. And his pleasure in doing this grew upon him, and having done it with dazzling power in part of _The Ring and the Book_, he was carried away by it and produced a number of so-called poems; terrible examples of what a poet can come to when he has allowed his pleasure in clever a.n.a.lysis to tyrannise over him--_Prince Hohenstiel-Schw.a.n.gau_, _The Inn Alb.u.m_, _Red Cotton Nightcap Country_, and a number of shorter poems in the volumes which followed. In these, what Milton meant by pa.s.sion, simplicity and sensuousness were banished, and imagination existed only as it exists in a prose writer.

This condition was slowly arrived at. It had not been fully reached when he wrote _The Ring and the Book_. His poetic powers resisted their enemies for many years, and had the better in the struggle. If it takes a long time to cast a devil out, it takes a longer time to depose an angel. And the devil may be utterly banished, but the angel never. And though the devil of mere wit and the little devils of a.n.a.lytic exercise--devils when they usurp the throne in a poet's soul and enslave imaginative emotion--did get the better of Browning, it was only for a time. Towards the end of his life he recovered, but never as completely as he had once possessed them, the n.o.ble attributes of a poet. The evils of the struggle clung to him; the poisonous pleasure he had pursued still affected him; he was again and again attacked by the old malaria.

He was as a brand plucked from the burning.

_The Ring and the Book_ is the central point of this struggle. It is full of emotion and thought concentrated on the subject, and commingled by imagination to produce beauty. And whenever this is the case, as in the books which treat of Caponsacchi and Pompilia, we are rejoiced by poetry. In their lofty matter of thought and feeling, in their simplicity and n.o.bleness of spiritual beauty, poetry is dominant. In them also his intellectual powers, and his imaginative and pa.s.sionate powers, are fused into one fire. Nor is the presentation of Guido Franceschini under two faces less powerful, or that of the Pope, in his meditative silence. But in these books the poetry is less, and is mingled, as would naturally indeed be the case, with a searching a.n.a.lysis, which intrudes too much into their imaginative work.

Over-dissection makes them cold. In fact, in fully a quarter of this long poem, the a.n.a.lysing understanding, that bustling and self-conscious person, who plays only on the surface of things and separates their elements from one another instead of penetrating to their centre; who is incapable of seeing the whole into which the various elements have combined--is too masterful for the poetry. It is not, then, imaginative, but intellectual pleasure which, as we read, we gain.

Then again there is throughout a great part of the poem a dangerous indulgence of his wit; the amus.e.m.e.nt of remote a.n.a.logies; the use of far-fetched ill.u.s.trations; quips and cranks and wanton wiles of the reasoning fancy in deviating self-indulgence; and an allusiveness which sets commentators into note-making effervescence. All these, and more, which belong to wit, are often quite ungoverned, allowed to disport themselves as they please. Such matters delight the unpoetic readers of Browning, and indeed they are excellent entertainment. But let us call them by their true name; let us not call them poetry, nor mistake their art for the art of poetry. Writing them in blank verse does not make them poetry. In _Half-Rome_, in _The Other Half-Rome_, and in _Tertium Quid_, these elements of a.n.a.lysis and wit are exhibited in three-fourths of the verse; but the other fourth--in description of scenes, in vivid portraiture, in transient outbursts out of which pa.s.sion, in glimpses, breaks--rises into the realm of poetry. In the books which sketch the lawyers and their pleadings, there is wit in its finest brilliancy, a.n.a.lysis in its keenest veracity, but they are scarcely a poet's work.

The whole book is then a mixed book, extremely mixed. All that was poetical in Browning's previous work is represented in it, and all the unpoetical elements which had gradually been winning power in him, and which showed themselves previously in _Bishop Blougram_ and _Mr.

Sludge_, are also there in full blast. It was, as I have said, the central battlefield of two powers in him. And when _The Ring and the Book_ was finished, the inferior power had for a time the victory.

To sum up then, there are books in the poem where matter of pa.s.sion and matter of thought are imaginatively wrought together. There are others where psychological thought and metaphysical reasoning are dominant, but where pa.s.sionate feeling has also a high place. There are others where a.n.a.lysis and wit far excel the elements of imaginative emotion; and there are others where every kind of imagination is absent, save that which is consistent throughout and which never fails--the power of creating men and women into distinct individualities. That is left, but it is a power which is not special to a poet. A prose writer may possess it with the same fulness as a poet. Carlyle had it as remarkably as Browning, or nearly as remarkably. He also had wit--a heavier wit than Browning's, less lambent, less piercing, but as forcible.

One thing more may be said. The poem is far too long, and the subject does not bear its length. The long poems of the world (I do not speak of those by inferior poets) have a great subject, are concerned with manifold fates of men, and are naturally full of various events and varied scenery. They interest us with new things from book to book. In _The Ring and the Book_ the subject is not great, the fates concerned are not important, and the same event runs through twelve books and is described twelve times. However we may admire the intellectual force which actually makes the work interesting, and the pa.s.sion which often thrills us in it--this is more than the subject bears, and than we can always endure. Each book is spun out far beyond what is necessary; a great deal is inserted which would be wisely left out. No one could be more concise than Browning when he pleased. His power of flas.h.i.+ng a situation or a thought into a few words is well known. But he did not always use this power. And in _The Ring and the Book_, as in some of the poems that followed it, he seems now and then to despise that power.

And now for the poem itself. Browning tells the story eight times by different persons, each from a different point of view, and twice more by the same person before and after his condemnation and, of course, from two points of view. Then he practically tells it twice more in the prologue and the epilogue--twelve times in all--and in spite of what I have said about the too great length of the poem, this is an intellectual victory that no one else but Browning could have won against its difficulties. Whether it was worth the creation by himself of the difficulty is another question. He chose to do it, and we had better submit to him and get the good of his work. At least we may avoid some of the weariness he himself feared by reading it in the way I have mentioned, as Browning meant it to be read. Poems--being the highest product of the highest genius of which man is capable--ought to be approached with some reverence. And a part of that reverence is to read them in accordance with the intention and desire of the writer.

We ought not to forget the date of the tale when we read the book. It is just two hundred years ago. The murder of Pompilia took place in 1698; and the book completes his studies of the Renaissance in its decay. If _Sordello_ is worth our careful reading as a study of the thirteenth century in North Italy, this book is as valuable as a record of the society of its date. It is, in truth, a mine of gold; pure crude ore is secreted from man's life, then moulded into figures of living men and women by the insight and pa.s.sion of the poet. In it is set down Rome as she was--her customs, opinions, cla.s.ses of society; her dress, houses, streets, lanes, byeways and squares; her architecture, fountains, statues, courts of law, convents, gardens; her fas.h.i.+on and its drawing-rooms, the various professions and their habits, high life and middle cla.s.s, tradesmen and beggars, priest, friar, lay-ecclesiastic, cardinal and Pope. Nowhere is this pictorial and individualising part of Browning's genius more delighted with its work. Every description is written by a lover of humanity, and with joy.

Nor is he less vivid in the _mise-en-scene_ in which he places this mult.i.tude of personages. In _Half-Rome_ we mingle with the crowd between Palazzo Fiano and Ruspoli, and pa.s.s into the church of Lorenzo in Lucina where the murdered bodies are exposed. The mingled humours of the crowd, the various persons and their characters are combined with and enhanced by the scenery. Then there is the Market Place by the Capucin convent of the Piazza Barberini, with the fountains leaping; then the _Reunion_ at a palace, and the fine fas.h.i.+onable folk among the mirrors and the chandeliers, each with their view of the question; then the Courthouse, with all its paraphernalia, where Guido and Caponsacchi plead; then, the sketches, as new matters turn up, of the obscure streets of Rome, of the country round Arezzo, of Arezzo itself, of the post road from Arezzo to Rome and the country inn near Rome, of the garden house in the suburbs, of the households of the two advocates and their different ways of living; of the Pope in his closet and of Guido in the prison cell; and last, the full description of the streets and the Piazza del Popolo on the day of the execution--all with a hundred vivifying, illuminating, minute details attached to them by this keen-eyed, observant, questing poet who remembered everything he saw, and was able to use each detail where it was most wanted. Memories are good, but good usage of them is the fine power. The _mise-en-scene_ is then excellent, and Browning was always careful to make it right, fitting and enlivening. Nowhere is this better done than in the Introduction where he finds the book on a stall in the Square of San Lorenzo, and describes modern Florence in his walk from the Square past the Strozzi, the Pillar and the Bridge to Casa Guidi on the other side of the Arno opposite the little church of San Felice. During the walk he read the book through, yet saw everything he pa.s.sed by. The description will show how keen were his eyes, how masterly his execution.

That memorable day, (June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square) I leaned a little and overlooked my prize By the low railing round the fountain-source Close to the statue, where a step descends: While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place For marketmen glad to pitch basket down, Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet, And whisk their faded fresh. And on I read Presently, though my path grew perilous Between the outspread straw-work, piles of plait Soon to be flapping, each o'er two black eyes And swathe of Tuscan hair, on festas fine: Through fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves, Skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe-drawers agape, Rows of tall slim bra.s.s lamps with dangling gear,-- And worse, cast clothes a-sweetening in the sun: None of them took my eye from off my prize.

Still read I on, from written t.i.tle page To written index, on, through street and street, At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge; Till, by the time I stood at home again In Casa Guidi by Felice Church, Under the doorway where the black begins With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold, I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth Gathered together, bound up in this book, Print three-fifths, written supplement the rest.

This power, combined with his power of portraiture, makes this long poem alive. No other man of his century could paint like him the to and fro of a city, the hurly-burly of humanity, the crowd, the movement, the changing pa.s.sions, the loud or quiet clash of thoughts, the gestures, the dress, the interweaving of expression on the face, the whole play of humanity in war or peace. As we read, we move with men and women; we are pressed everywhere by mankind. We listen to the sound of humanity, sinking sometimes to the murmur we hear at night from some high window in London; swelling sometimes, as in _Sordello_, into a roar of violence, wrath, revenge, and war. And it was all contained in that little body, brain and heart; and given to us, who can feel it, but not give it. This is the power which above all endears him to us as a poet.

We feel in each poem not only the waves of the special event of which he writes, but also the large vibration of the ocean of humanity.

He was not unaware of this power of his. We are told in _Sordello_ that he dedicated himself to the picturing of humanity; and he came to think that a Power beyond ours had accepted this dedication, and directed his work. He declares in the introduction that he felt a Hand (”always above my shoulder--mark the predestination”), that pushed him to the stall where he found the fated book in whose womb lay his child--_The Ring and the Book_. And he believed that he had certain G.o.d-given qualities which fitted him for this work. These he sets forth in this introduction, and the self-criticism is of the greatest interest.

The first pa.s.sage is, when he describes how, having finished the book and got into him all the gold of its fact, he added from himself that to the gold which made it workable--added to it his live soul, informed, transpierced it through and through with imagination; and then, standing on his balcony over the street, saw the whole story from the beginning shape itself out on the night, alive and clear, not in dead memory but in living movement; saw right away out on the Roman road to Arezzo, and all that there befell; then pa.s.sed to Rome again with the actors in the tragedy, a presence with them who heard them speak and think and act.

The ”life in him abolished the death of things--deep calling unto deep.”

For ”a spirit laughed and leaped through his every limb, and lit his eye, and lifted him by the hair, and let him have his will” with Pompilia, Guido, Caponsacchi, the lawyers, the Pope, and the whole of Rome. And they rose from the dead; the old woe stepped on the stage again at the magician's command; and the rough gold of fact was rounded to a ring by art. But the ring should have a posy, and he makes that in a pa.s.sionate cry to his dead wife--a lovely spell where high thinking and full feeling meet and mingle like two deep rivers. Whoso reads it feels how her spirit, living still for him, brooded over and blest his masterpiece:

O lyric Love, half angel and half bird And all a wonder and a wild desire,-- Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, Took sanctuary within the holier blue, And sang a kindred soul out to his face,-- Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart-- When the first summons from the darkling earth Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue, And bared them of the glory--to drop down, To toil for man, to suffer or to die,-- This is the same voice: can thy soul know change Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!