Part 17 (1/2)

You supposed that few or none had known and loved you in the world: May be! flower that's full-blown tempts the b.u.t.terfly, not flower that's furled.

But more learned sense unlocked you, loosed the sheath and let expand Bud to bell and out-spread flower-shape at the least warm touch of hand --Maybe, throb of heart, beneath which,--quickening farther than it knew,-- Treasure oft was disembosomed, scent all strange and unguessed hue.

Disembosomed, re-embosomed,--must one memory suffice, Prove I knew an Alpine-rose which all beside named Edelweiss?

(ll. 123-130.)

At the time of the chief intercourse between the two friends, Browning's health rendered it necessary for him to leave England during a part of each year, and for four successive summers Miss Egerton-Smith had been the companion of the brother and sister in their foreign sojourns, when that of 1877 was interrupted by her sudden death from heart disease on the night of September 14th. The villa ”La Saisiaz” (in the Savoyard dialect ”the Sun”), at which the party was staying, was situated above Geneva, and almost immediately beneath La Saleve, the summit of which was the destination of the expedition occupying Miss Egerton-Smith's thoughts at the time of her death. The shock to her friends was wholly unexpected, as she had been in better health than was usual to her during the days immediately preceding. To Browning it would appear to have been at first overwhelming. It was not long, however, before the emotional and intellectual faculties were sufficiently under control to render the arguments of _La Saisiaz_ a possibility. When he added the concluding lines in ”London's mid-November,” only six weeks had elapsed since that ”summons” in the Swiss village which had meant for him temporary bereavement of affection and friends.h.i.+p.

_A._ The first 400 lines of the poem proper--exclusive of the prologue--const.i.tute a prelude to the formal debate conducted between Fancy and Reason, designed as a rational and logical course of argument by which the writer would a.s.sure himself of the immortality of the soul as a no less reasonable hypothesis than is the self-evident fact of the mortality of the body: that the a.s.sumption with which instinct forces him to start is also the goal to which reason ultimately draws him. The a.s.sumption--

That's Collonge, henceforth your dwelling. All the same, howe'er disjoints Past from present, no less certain you are here, not there. (ll. 24-25.)

The conclusion--that even though

O'er our heaven again cloud closes ...

Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its gloom.

(ll. 542-543.)

Line 44 may be not unfitly taken as significant of the whole course of thought

What will be the morning glory, when at dusk thus gleams the lake?

(i) The first part of the prelude (if we may so call it), occupying 139 lines, calls for little more comment than that already necessitated by the foregoing consideration of the circ.u.mstances giving rise to the poem. (ii) In taking the solitary walk to the summit of La Saleve five days after Miss Egerton-Smith's death, the poet recalls the circ.u.mstances of their last climb together; and as he stands looking down upon Collonge, that final resting-place of the body, the question recurs--

Here I stand: but you--where?

The heart has already a.s.sured itself that, in spite of the occupation of that dwelling-place at Collonge, the certainty remains, ”you are here, not there.” But this a.s.surance has proved transitory as the feeling which engendered it. No ”mere surmise” will suffice concerning a matter ”the truth of which must rest upon no legend, that is no man's experience but our own.”[92] So to the author of _La Saisiaz_ the suggestion as to proofs of spiritual survival presents itself only to be rejected.

What though I nor see nor hear them? Others do, the proofs abound!

Such second-hand evidence is inadmissible.

My own experience--that is knowledge. (l. 264.)

Knowledge stands on my experience: all outside its narrow hem, Free surmise may sport and welcome! (ll. 272-273.)

Here, as with the uncompromising investigator of _Easter Day_, the fact that credence in a certain tenet is desirable, is advantageous, proves cause for rejection rather than acceptance. All evidence must be sifted with the utmost care. Thus the question is stated in line 144, the answer, or attempted answer to which, is to occupy the entire poem--

Does the soul survive the body?

The second part of the question is on a different platform--

Is there G.o.d's self, no or yes?

The existence of G.o.d is accepted at the outset of the enquiry as a premise on which the subsequent argument may be based: as is also the existence of the soul: it is the condition of immortality alone which is to be proved.

And the poet puts the question, determined to face the truth--whether it meets his ”hopes or fears.” It would be difficult to find a more characteristic a.s.sertion of Browning's usual att.i.tude than that of lines 149-150.

Weakness never need be falseness: truth is truth in each degree --Thunderpealed by G.o.d to Nature, whispered by my soul to me.

(iii) But the events of the preceding days have converted the abstract enquiry, ”Does the soul survive the body?” into one of vital personal import.

Was ending ending once and always, when you died? (l. 172.)