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font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Browning’s England, by Helen Archibald Clarke</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Browning’s England<br /> + A Study in English Influences in Browning</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Helen Archibald Clarke</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 10, 2009 [eBook #29365]<br /> +[Most recently updated: October 24, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni (music), Katherine Ward and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROWNING’S ENGLAND ***</div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_1" id="linki_1"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus001.jpg" width="295" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="center"> +<h1>Browning's England</h1> + +<p>A STUDY OF<br /> +ENGLISH INFLUENCES IN BROWNING</p> + +<p class="padtop"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br /> +<span class="larger">HELEN ARCHIBALD CLARKE</span><br /> +<span class="smaller">Author of "<i>Browning's Italy</i>"</span></p> + +<p class="padtop">NEW YORK<br /> +THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY<br /> +MCMVIII</p> + +<p class="padtop smaller"><i>Copyright, 1908, by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">The Baker & Taylor Company</span></p> + +<p class="smaller">Published, October, 1908</p> + +<p class="padtop smaller"><i>The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.</i></p> + +<hr class="short" /> +<p class="padtop" style="line-height: 1.5em;"><b>To</b><br /> +MY COLLEAGUE IN PLEASANT LITERARY PATHS<br /> +<span class="smcap">and</span><br /> +MANY YEARS FRIEND<br /> +<span class="larger">CHARLOTTE PORTER</span></p> + +</div> +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' width='100%' summary='Contents'> +<tr> + <td align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'><span class="smaller">CHAPTER</span></td> + <td></td> + <td align='right'><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>I.</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class="smcap">English Poets, Friends, and Enthusiasms</span></td> + <td valign='middle' align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a><br /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>II.</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class="smcap">Shakespeare's Portrait</span></td> + <td valign='middle' align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">42</a><br /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>III.</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class="smcap">A Crucial Period in English History</span></td> + <td valign='middle' align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">79</a><br /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IV.</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class="smcap">Social Aspects of English Life</span></td> + <td valign='middle' align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">211</a><br /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>V.</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class="smcap">Religious Thought in the Nineteenth Century</span></td> + <td valign='middle' align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">322</a><br /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VI.</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span class="smcap">Art Criticism Inspired by the English Musician, Avison</span></td> + <td valign='middle' align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">420</a><br /></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr /> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<table border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' width='100%' summary='Illustration List'> +<tr><td align='left'>Browning at 23</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_1"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td /><td align='right'><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Percy Bysshe Shelley</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_2">4</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>John Keats</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_3">10</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>William Wordsworth</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_4">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Rydal Mount, the Home of Wordsworth</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_5">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>An English Lane</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_6">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>First Folio Portrait of Shakespeare</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_7">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Charles I in Scene of Impeachment</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_8">80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_9">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Charles I</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_10">114</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Whitehall</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_11">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Westminster Hall</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_12">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Tower, London</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_13">170</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Tower, Traitors' Gate</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_14">183</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>An English Manor House</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_15">222</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>An English Park</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_16">240</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>John Bunyan</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_17">274</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>An English Inn</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_18">288</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Cardinal Wiseman</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_19">336</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sacred Heart</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_20">342</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Nativity</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_21">351</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Transfiguration</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_22">366</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Handel</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_23">426</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Avison's March</td><td align='right'><a href="#linki_24">446</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">ENGLISH POETS, FRIENDS AND ENTHUSIASMS</p> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">To</span> any one casually trying to recall what +England has given Robert Browning +by way of direct poetical inspiration, it is +more than likely that the little poem about +Shelley, "Memorabilia" would at once occur:</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And did he stop and speak to you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And did you speak to him again?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How strange it seems and new!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"But you were living before that,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And also you are living after;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the memory I started at—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My starting moves your laughter!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I crossed a moor, with a name of its own<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And a certain use in the world, no doubt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Mid the blank miles round about:<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For there I picked up on the heather<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And there I put inside my breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Well, I forget the rest."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It puts into a mood and a symbol the almost +worshipful admiration felt by Browning for +the poet in his youth, which he had, many +years before this little lyric was written, recorded +in a finely appreciative passage in +"Pauline."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou are gone from us; years go by and spring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet thy songs come not, other bards arise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But none like thee: they stand, thy majesties,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like mighty works which tell some spirit there<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till, its long task completed, it hath risen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And left us, never to return, and all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The air seems bright with thy past presence yet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But thou art still for me as thou hast been<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I have stood with thee as on a throne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With all thy dim creations gathered round<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like mountains, and I felt of mould like them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with them creatures of my own were mixed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like things, half-lived, catching and giving life.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But thou art still for me who have adored<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tho' single, panting but to hear thy name<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span> +<span class="i0">Which I believed a spell to me alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scarce deeming thou wast as a star to men!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As one should worship long a sacred spring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scarce worth a moth's flitting, which long grasses cross,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And one small tree embowers droopingly—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Joying to see some wandering insect won<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To live in its few rushes, or some locust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To pasture on its boughs, or some wild bird<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then should find it but the fountain-head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long lost, of some great river washing towns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And towers, and seeing old woods which will live<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But by its banks untrod of human foot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In light as some thing lieth half of life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before God's foot, waiting a wondrous change;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its course in vain, for it does ever spread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a sea's arm as it goes rolling on,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being the pulse of some great country—so<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wast thou to me, and art thou to the world!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I am not what I have been to thee:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a girl one has silently loved long<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In her first loneliness in some retreat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, late emerged, all gaze and glow to view<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her fresh eyes and soft hair and lips which bloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a mountain berry: doubtless it is sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To see her thus adored, but there have been<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moments when all the world was in our praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweeter than any pride of after hours.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet, sun-treader, all hail! From my heart's heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I bid thee hail! E'en in my wildest dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I proudly feel I would have thrown to dust<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> +<span class="i0">The wreaths of fame which seemed o'erhanging me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To see thee for a moment as thou art."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Browning was only fourteen when Shelley +first came into his literary life. The story has +often been told of how the young Robert, +passing a bookstall one day spied in a box of +second-hand volumes, a shabby little edition +of Shelley advertised "Mr. Shelley's Atheistical +Poems: very scarce." It seems almost +incredible to us now that the name was an absolutely +new one to him, and that only by +questioning the bookseller did he learn that +Shelley had written a number of volumes of +poetry and that he was now dead. This accident +was sufficient to inspire the incipient poet's +curiosity, and he never rested until he was the +owner of Shelley's works. They were hard +to get hold of in those early days but the persistent +searching of his mother finally unearthed +them at Olliers' in Vere Street, London. +She brought him also three volumes of Keats, +who became a treasure second only to Shelley.</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_2" id="linki_2"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus002.jpg" width="335" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Percy Bysshe Shelley</p> +<p class="center">"Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever."</p> +</div> + +<p>The question of Shelley's influence on +Browning's art has been one often discussed. +There are many traces of Shelleyan music +and idea in his early poems "Pauline," "Paracelsus," +and "Sordello," but no marked nor +lasting impression was made upon Browning's +development as a poet by Shelley. Upon<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span> +Browning's personal development Shelley exerted +a short-lived though somewhat intense +influence. We see the young enthusiast professing +the atheism of his idol as the liberal +views of Shelley were then interpreted, and +even becoming a vegetarian. As time went +on the discipleship vanished, and in its place +came the recognition on Browning's part of a +poetic spirit akin yet different from his own. +The last trace of the disciple appears in +"Sordello" when the poet addresses Shelley +among the audience of dead great ones he has +mustered to listen to the story of Sordello:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—"Stay—thou, spirit, come not near<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now—not this time desert thy cloudy place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To scare me, thus employed, with that pure face!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I need not fear this audience, I make free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With them, but then this is no place for thee!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up out of memories of Marathon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would echo like his own sword's grinding screech<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Braying a Persian shield,—the silver speech<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turn intense as a trumpet sounding in<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Knights to tilt,—wert thou to hear!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Shelley appears in the work of Browning +once more in the prose essay on Shelley +which was written to a volume of spurious +letters of that poet published in 1851. In +this is summed up in a masterful paragraph<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> +reflecting Browning's unusual penetration into +the secret paths of the poetic mind, the characteristics +of a poet of Shelley's order. The +paragraph is as follows:</p> + +<p>"We turn with stronger needs to the genius +of an opposite tendency—the subjective poet +of modern classification. He, gifted like the +objective poet, with the fuller perception of +nature and man, is impelled to embody the +thing he perceives, not so much with reference +to the many below as to the One above him, +the supreme Intelligence which apprehends +all things in their absolute truth,—an ultimate +view ever aspired to, if but partially +attained, by the poet's own soul. Not what +man sees, but what God sees,—the <i>Ideas</i> of +Plato, seeds of creation lying burningly on +the Divine Hand,—it is toward these that +he struggles. Not with the combination +of humanity in action, but with the primal +elements of humanity, he has to do; and +he digs where he stands,—preferring to seek +them in his own soul as the nearest reflex of +that absolute Mind, according to the intuitions +of which he desires to perceive and speak. +Such a poet does not deal habitually with the +picturesque groupings and tempestuous tossings +of the forest-trees, but with their roots +and fibers naked to the chalk and stone. He<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> +does not paint pictures and hang them on the +walls, but rather carries them on the retina of +his own eyes: we must look deep into his +human eyes, to see those pictures on them. He +is rather a seer, accordingly, than a fashioner, +and what he produces will be less a work than +an effluence. That effluence cannot be easily +considered in abstraction from his personality,—being +indeed the very radiance and aroma +of his personality, projected from it but not +separated. Therefore, in our approach to +the poetry, we necessarily approach the personality +of the poet; in apprehending it, we +apprehend him, and certainly we cannot love +it without loving him. Both for love's and for +understanding's sake we desire to know him, +and, as readers of his poetry, must be readers +of his biography too."</p> + +<p>Finally, the little "Memorabilia" lyric gives +a mood of cherished memory of the Sun-Treader, +who beaconed him upon the heights +in his youth, and has now become a molted +eagle-feather held close to his heart.</p> + +<p>Keats' lesser but assured place in the poet's +affections comes out in the pugnacious lyric, +"Popularity," one of the old-time bits of +ammunition shot from the guns of those who +found Browning "obscure." The poem is an +"apology" for any unappreciated poet with<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> +the true stuff in him, but the allusion to Keats +shows him to have been the fuse that fired this +mild explosion against the dullards who pass +by unknowing and uncaring of a genius, +though he pluck with one hand thoughts +from the stars, and with the other fight off +want.</p> + +<h3>POPULARITY</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Stand still, true poet that you are!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I know you; let me try and draw you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some night you'll fail us: when afar<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You rise, remember one man saw you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knew you, and named a star!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That loving hand of his which leads you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet locks you safe from end to end<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of this dark world, unless he needs you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just saves your light to spend?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">His clenched hand shall unclose at last,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I know, and let out all the beauty:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My poet holds the future fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Accepts the coming ages' duty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their present for this past.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That day, the earth's feast-master's brow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> +<span class="i0">"Others give best at first, but thou<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Forever set'st our table praising,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Keep'st the good wine till now!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">V</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With few or none to watch and wonder:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll say—a fisher, on the sand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A netful, brought to land.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who has not heard how Tyrian shells<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereof one drop worked miracles,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And colored like Astarte's eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Raw silk the merchant sells?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And each bystander of them all<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Could criticise, and quote tradition<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How depths of blue sublimed some pall<br /></span> +<span class="i2">—To get which, pricked a king's ambition;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worth sceptre, crown and ball.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sea has only just o'er-whispered!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As if they still the water's lisp heard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thro' foam the rock-weeds thresh.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">IX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Enough to furnish Solomon<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Such hangings for his cedar-house,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, when gold-robed he took the throne<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In that abyss of blue, the Spouse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might swear his presence shone<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">X</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Most like the centre-spike of gold<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which burns deep in the blue-bell's womb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What time, with ardors manifold,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The bee goes singing to her groom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drunken and overbold.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till cunning come to pound and squeeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And clarify,—refine to proof<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The liquor filtered by degrees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the world stands aloof.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And there's the extract, flasked and fine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And priced and salable at last!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To paint the future from the past,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Put blue into their line.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hobbs hints blue,—straight he turtle eats:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nobbs prints blue,—claret crowns his cup:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Both gorge. Who fished the murex up?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What porridge had John <a name='TC_1'></a><ins title="Removed extra quote after Keats">Keats?</ins><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_3" id="linki_3"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus003.jpg" width="337" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">John Keats</p> + +<table style='margin: auto;' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +"Who fished the murex up?<br /> +What porridge had John Keats?"</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span> +Wordsworth, it appears, was, so to speak, +the inverse inspiration of the stirring lines +"The Lost Leader." Browning's strong sympathies +with the Liberal cause are here portrayed +with an ardor which is fairly intoxicating +poetically, but one feels it is scarcely just +to the mild-eyed, exemplary Wordsworth, and +perhaps exaggeratedly sure of Shakespeare's +attitude on this point. It is only fair to Browning, +to point out how he himself felt later that +his artistic mood had here run away with +him, whereupon he made amends honorable in +a letter in reply to the question whether he had +Wordsworth in mind: "I can only answer, +with something of shame and contrition, that +I undoubtedly had Wordsworth in my mind—but +simply as a model; you know an artist +takes one or two striking traits in the features +of his 'model,' and uses them to start his fancy +on a flight which may end far enough from the +good man or woman who happens to be sitting +for nose and eye. I thought of the great Poet's +abandonment of liberalism at an unlucky juncture, +and no repaying consequence that I +could ever see. But, once call my fancy-portrait +<i>Wordsworth</i>—and how much more +ought one to say!"</p> + +<p>The defection of Wordsworth from liberal +sympathies is one of the commonplaces of<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> +literary history. There was a time when he +figured in his poetry as a patriotic leader of +the people, when in clarion tones he exhorted +his countrymen to "arm and combine in defense +of their common birthright." But this +was in the enthusiasm of his youth when he +and Southey and Coleridge were metaphorically +waving their red caps for the principles of +the French Revolution. The unbridled actions +of the French Revolutionists, quickly +cooled off their ardor, and as Taine cleverly +puts it, "at the end of a few years, the three, +brought back into the pale of State and Church, +were, Coleridge, a Pittite journalist, Wordsworth, +a distributor of stamps, and Southey, +poet-laureate; all converted zealots, decided +Anglicans, and intolerant conservatives." +The "handful of silver" for which the patriot +in the poem is supposed to have left the cause +included besides the post of "distributor of +stamps," given to him by Lord Lonsdale in +1813, a pension of three hundred pounds a +year in 1842, and the poet-laureateship in +1843.</p> + +<p>The first of these offices was received so long +after the cooling of Wordsworth's "Revolution" +ardors which the events of 1793 had +brought about that it can scarcely be said to +have influenced his change of mind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span>It was during Wordsworth's residence in +France, from November 1791 to December +1792, that his enthusiasm for the French +Revolution reached white heat. How the +change was wrought in his feelings is shown +with much penetration and sympathy by +Edward Dowden in his "French Revolution +and English Literature." "When war between +France and England was declared +Wordsworth's nature underwent the most +violent strain it had ever experienced. He +loved his native land yet he could wish for +nothing but disaster to her arms. As the +days passed he found it more and more difficult +to sustain his faith in the Revolution. +First, he abandoned belief in the leaders but +he still trusted to the people, then the people +seemed to have grown insane with the intoxication +of blood. He was driven back from +his defense of the Revolution, in its historical +development, to a bare faith in the abstract +idea. He clung to theories, the free and joyous +movement of his sympathies ceased; +opinions stifled the spontaneous life of the +spirit, these opinions were tested and retested +by the intellect, till, in the end, exhausted by +inward debate, he yielded up moral questions +in despair ... by process of the understanding +alone Wordsworth could attain no<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> +vital body of truth. Rather he felt that +things of far more worth than political opinions—natural +instincts, sympathies, passions, intuitions—were +being disintegrated or denaturalized. +Wordsworth began to suspect +the analytic intellect as a source of moral +wisdom. In place of humanitarian dreams +came a deep interest in the joys and sorrows +of individual men and women; through his +interest in this he was led back to a study of +the mind of man and those laws which connect +the work of the creative imagination +with the play of the passions. He had begun +again to think nobly of the world and human +life." He was, in fact, a more thorough +Democrat socially than any but Burns of +the band of poets mentioned in Browning's +gallant company, not even excepting Browning +himself.</p> + +<h3>THE LOST LEADER</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Just for a handful of silver he left us,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Just for a riband to stick in his coat—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lost all the others, she lets us devote;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So much was theirs who so little allowed:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How all our copper had gone for his service!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span> +<span class="i0">We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Made him our pattern to live and to die!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watch from their graves!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He alone breaks from the van and the freeman,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">—He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We shall march prospering,—not thro' his presence<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Never glad confident morning again!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gallantly,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Menace our hearts ere we master his own;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Whether an artist is justified in taking the +most doubtful feature of his model's physiognomy +and building up from it a repellent +portrait is question for debate, especially +when he admits its incompleteness. But we<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span> +may balance against this incompleteness, the +fine fire of enthusiasm for the "cause" in the +poem, and the fact that Wordsworth has +not been at all harmed by it. The worst +that has happened is the raising in our +minds of a question touching Browning's +good taste.</p> + +<p>Just here it will be interesting to speak of a +bit of purely personal expression on the subject +of Browning's known liberal standpoint, +written by him in answer to the question propounded +to a number of English men of letters +and printed together with other replies in a +volume edited by Andrew Reid in 1885.</p> + +<h3>"Why I am a Liberal."</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Why?' Because all I haply can and do,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All that I am now, all I hope to be,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whence comes it save from fortune setting free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Body and soul the purpose to pursue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">These shall I bid men—each in his degree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Also God-guided—bear, and gayly too?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"But little do or can the best of us:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That little is achieved thro' Liberty.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who then dares hold, emancipated thus,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His fellow shall continue bound? Not I,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A brother's right to freedom. That is 'Why.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_4" id="linki_4"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus004.jpg" width="346" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">William Wordsworth</p> + +<table style='margin: auto;' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +"How all our copper had gone for his service.<br /> +Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proved."</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span> +Enthusiasm for liberal views comes out +again and again in the poetry of Browning.</p> + +<p>His fullest treatment of the cause of political +liberty is in "Strafford," to be considered +in the third chapter, but many are +the hints strewn about his verse that bring +home with no uncertain touch the fact that +Browning lived man's "lover" and never +man's "hater." Take as an example "The +Englishman in Italy," where the sarcastic +turn he gives to the last stanza shows clearly +where his sympathies lie:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—"Such trifles!" you say?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fortù, in my England at home,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Men meet gravely to-day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And debate, if abolishing Corn-laws<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Be righteous and wise!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—If 't were proper, Scirocco should vanish<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In black from the skies!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>More the ordinary note of patriotism is +struck in "Home-thoughts, from the Sea," +wherein the scenes of England's victories as +they come before the poet arouse pride in her +military achievements.</p> + +<h3>HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> +<span class="i0">Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the dimmest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"—say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In two instances Browning celebrates English +friends in his poetry. The poems are +"Waring" and "May and Death."</p> + +<p>Waring, who stands for Alfred Domett, is +an interesting figure in Colonial history as +well as a minor light among poets. But it is +highly probable that he would not have been +put into verse by Browning any more than +many other of the poet's warm friends if it +had not been for the incident described in +the poem which actually took place, and +made a strong enough impression to inspire a +creative if not exactly an exalted mood on +Browning's part. The incident is recorded in +Thomas Powell's "Living Authors of England," +who writes of Domett, "We have a +vivid recollection of the last time we saw him. +It was at an evening party a few days before +he sailed from England; his intimate friend, +Mr. Browning, was also present. It happened +that the latter was introduced that +evening for the first time to a young author<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> +who had just then appeared in the literary +world [Powell, himself]. This, consequently, +prevented the two friends from conversation, +and they parted from each other without +the slightest idea on Mr. Browning's part that +he was seeing his old friend Domett for the +last time. Some days after when he found +that Domett had sailed, he expressed in +strong terms to the writer of this sketch the +self-reproach he felt at having preferred the +conversation of a stranger to that of his old +associate."</p> + +<p>This happened in 1842, when with no good-bys, +Domett sailed for New Zealand where +he lived for thirty years, and held during that +time many important official posts. Upon his +return to England, Browning and he met again, +and in his poem "Ranolf and Amohia," published +the year after, he wrote the often quoted +line so aptly appreciative of Browning's +genius,—"Subtlest assertor of the soul in +song."</p> + +<p>The poem belongs to the <i>vers de société</i> +order, albeit the lightness is of a somewhat +ponderous variety. It, however, has +much interest as a character sketch from +the life, and is said by those who had the +opportunity of knowing to be a capital portrait.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span></p> + +<h3>WARING</h3> + +<h4 class="poemctr">I</h4> +<h5 class="sidenote">I</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What's become of Waring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since he gave us all the slip,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chose land-travel or seafaring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Boots and chest or staff and scrip,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rather than pace up and down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Any longer London town?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h5 class="sidenote">II</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who'd have guessed it from his lip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or his brow's accustomed bearing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the night he thus took ship<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or started landward?—little caring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For us, it seems, who supped together<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Friends of his too, I remember)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And walked home thro' the merry weather,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The snowiest in all December.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I left his arm that night myself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For what's-his-name's, the new prose-poet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who wrote the book there, on the shelf—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How, forsooth, was I to know it<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If Waring meant to glide away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a ghost at break of day?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never looked he half so gay!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h5 class="sidenote">III</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He was prouder than the devil:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How he must have cursed our revel!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay and many other meetings,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span> +<span class="i0">Indoor visits, outdoor greetings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As up and down he paced this London,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With no work done, but great works undone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where scarce twenty knew his name.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why not, then, have earlier spoken,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Written, bustled? Who's to blame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If your silence kept unbroken?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"True, but there were sundry jottings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stray-leaves, fragments, <a name='TC_2'></a><ins title="Was 'blurrs'">blurs</ins> and blottings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Certain first steps were achieved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Already which"—(is that your meaning?)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Had well borne out whoe'er believed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In more to come!" But who goes gleaning<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hedgeside chance-glades, while full-sheaved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stand cornfields by him? Pride, o'erweening<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pride alone, puts forth such claims<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the day's distinguished names.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h5 class="sidenote">IV</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Meantime, how much I loved him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I find out now I've lost him.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I who cared not if I moved him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who could so carelessly accost him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Henceforth never shall get free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his ghostly company,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His eyes that just a little wink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As deep I go into the merit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of this and that distinguished spirit—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His cheeks' raised color, soon to sink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As long I dwell on some stupendous<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tremendous (Heaven defend us!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Demoniaco-seraphic<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Penman's latest piece of graphic.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, my very wrist grows warm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his dragging weight of arm.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">E'en so, swimmingly appears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through one's after-supper musings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some lost lady of old years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With her beauteous vain endeavor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And goodness unrepaid as ever;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The face, accustomed to refusings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We, puppies that we were.... Oh never<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being aught like false, forsooth, to?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Telling aught but honest truth to?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What a sin, had we centupled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its possessor's grace and sweetness!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No! she heard in its completeness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth, for truth's a weighty matter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And truth, at issue, we can't flatter!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, 'tis done with; she's exempt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From damning us thro' such a sally;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so she glides, as down a valley,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taking up with her contempt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Past our reach; and in, the flowers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shut her unregarded hours.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_5" id="linki_5"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus005.jpg" width="500" height="323" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Rydal Mount, the Home of Wordsworth</p> +</div> + +<h5 class="sidenote">V</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, could I have him back once more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This Waring, but one half-day more!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Back, with the quiet face of yore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So hungry for acknowledgment<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like mine! I'd fool him to his bent.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Feed, should not he, to heart's content?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd say, "to only have conceived,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Planned your great works, apart from progress,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surpasses little works achieved!"<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> +<span class="i0">I'd lie so, I should be believed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd make such havoc of the claims<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the day's distinguished names<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To feast him with, as feasts an ogress<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or as one feasts a creature rarely<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Captured here, unreconciled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To capture; and completely gives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its pettish humors license, barely<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Requiring that it lives.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h5 class="sidenote">VI</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ichabod, Ichabod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The glory is departed!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Travels Waring East away?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reports a man upstarted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Somewhere as a god,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hordes grown European-hearted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Millions of the wild made tame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On a sudden at his fame?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Vishnu-land what Avatar?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the demurest of footfalls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the Kremlin's pavement bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With serpentine and syenite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Steps, with five other Generals<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That simultaneously take snuff,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For each to have pretext enough<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And kerchiefwise unfold his sash<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And leave the grand white neck no gash?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waring in Moscow, to those rough<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> +<span class="i0">Cold northern natures born perhaps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the lambwhite maiden dear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the circle of mute kings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unable to repress the tear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each as his sceptre down he flings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To Dian's fane at Taurica,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where now a captive priestess, she alway<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amid their barbarous twitter!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That we and Waring meet again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its stiff gold blazing pall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From some black coffin-lid.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, best of all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I love to think<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The leaving us was just a feint;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Back here to London did he slink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now works on without a wink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sleep, and we are on the brink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of something great in fresco-paint:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up and down and o'er and o'er<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He splashes, as none splashed before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since great Caldara Polidore.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or Music means this land of ours<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some favor yet, to pity won<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span> +<span class="i0">By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Give me my so-long promised son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let Waring end what I begun!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then down he creeps and out he steals<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only when the night conceals<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His face; in Kent 'tis cherry-time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or hops are picking: or at prime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of March he wanders as, too happy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Years ago when he was young,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some mild eve when woods grew sappy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the early moths had sprung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To life from many a trembling sheath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Woven the warm boughs beneath;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While small birds said to themselves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What should soon be actual song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And young gnats, by tens and twelves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made as if they were the throng<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That crowd around and carry aloft<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of a myriad noises soft,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into a tone that can endure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amid the noise of a July noon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When all God's creatures crave their boon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All at once and all in tune,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And get it, happy as Waring then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Having first within his ken<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What a man might do with men:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And far too glad, in the even-glow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To mix with the world he meant to take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into his hand, he told you, so—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And out of it his world to make,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To contract and to expand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As he shut or oped his hand.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh Waring, what's to really be?<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> +<span class="i0">A clear stage and a crowd to see!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some Garrick, say, out shall not he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some Junius—am I right?—shall tuck<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some Chatterton shall have the luck<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of calling Rowley into life!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some one shall somehow run a muck<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With this old world for want of strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To rouse us, Waring! Who's alive?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our men scarce seem in earnest now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distinguished names!—but 'tis, somehow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if they played at being names<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still more distinguished, like the games<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of children. Turn our sport to earnest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a visage of the sternest!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bring the real times back, confessed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still better than our very best!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4 class="poemctr">II</h4> +<h5 class="sidenote">I</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When I last saw Waring...."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(How all turned to him who spoke!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You saw Waring? Truth or joke?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In land-travel or sea-faring?)<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h5 class="sidenote">II</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"We were sailing by Triest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where a day or two we harbored:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sunset was in the West,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, looking over the vessel's side,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span> +<span class="i0">One of our company espied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sudden speck to larboard.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as a sea-duck flies and swims<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At once, so came the light craft up,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With its sole lateen sail that trims<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And turns (the water round its rims<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dancing, as round a sinking cup)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And by us like a fish it curled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And drew itself up close beside,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its great sail on the instant furled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Buy wine of us, you English Brig?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A pilot for you to Triest?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without one, look you ne'er so big,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They'll never let you up the bay!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We natives should know best.'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our captain said, 'The 'long-shore thieves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are laughing at us in their sleeves.'<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h5 class="sidenote">III</h5> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And one, half-hidden by his side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under the furled sail, soon I spied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With great grass hat and kerchief black,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who looked up with his kingly throat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said somewhat, while the other shook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His hair back from his eyes to look<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their longest at us; then the boat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know not how, turned sharply round,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laying her whole side on the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a leaping fish does; from the lee<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> +<span class="i0">Into the weather, cut somehow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her sparkling path beneath our bow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so went off, as with a bound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the rosy and golden half<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O' the sky, to overtake the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And reach the shore, like the sea-calf<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its singing cave; yet I caught one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glance ere away the boat quite passed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And neither time nor toil could mar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those features: so I saw the last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Waring!"—You? Oh, never star<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was lost here but it rose afar!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look East, where whole new thousands are!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Vishnu-land what Avatar?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"May and Death" is perhaps more interesting +for the glimpse it gives of Browning's +appreciation of English Nature than for +its expression of grief for the death of a friend.</p> + +<h3>MAY AND DEATH</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I wish that when you died last May,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Charles, there had died along with you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three parts of spring's delightful things;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There must be many a pair of friends<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Moon-births and the long evening-ends.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, for their sake, be May still May!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Let their new time, as mine of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do all it did for me: I bid<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Only, one little sight, one plant,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Woods have in May, that starts up green<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save a sole streak which, so to speak,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between,—<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">V</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That, they might spare; a certain wood<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Might miss the plant; their loss were small:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I,—whene'er the leaf grows there,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its drop comes from my heart, that's all.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The poet's one truly enthusiastic outburst +in connection with English Nature he sings +out in his longing for an English spring in +the incomparable little lyric "Home-thoughts, +from Abroad."</p> + +<h3>HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, to be in England<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now that April's there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And whoever wakes in England<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sees, some morning, unaware,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span> +<span class="i0">That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In England—now!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And after April, when May follows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leans to the field and scatters on the clover<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lest you should think he never could recapture<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The first fine careless rapture!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All will be gay when noontide wakes anew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The buttercups, the little children's dower<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>After this it seems hardly possible that +Browning, himself speaks in "De Gustibus," +yet long and happy living away from England +doubtless dimmed his sense of the beauty of +English landscape. "De Gustibus" was published +ten years later than "Home-Thoughts +from Abroad," when Italy and he had indeed +become "lovers old." A deeper reason than +mere delight in its scenery is also reflected +in the poem; the sympathy shared with Mrs. +Browning, for the cause of Italian independence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span></p> +<h3>"DE GUSTIBUS——"</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">(If our loves remain)<br /></span> +<span class="i6">In an English lane,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hark, those two in the hazel coppice—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Making love, say,—<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The happier they!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And let them pass, as they will too soon,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">With the bean-flower's boon,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And the blackbird's tune,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And May, and June!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What I love best in all the world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is a castle, precipice-encurled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or look for me, old fellow of mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(If I get my head from out the mouth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And come again to the land of lands)—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a sea-side house to the farther South,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the baked cicala dies of drouth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And one sharp tree—'tis a cypress—stands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the many hundred years red-rusted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My sentinel to guard the sands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the water's edge. For, what expands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before the house, but the great opaque<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> +<span class="i0">Blue breadth of sea without a break?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While, in the house, for ever crumbles<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some fragment of the frescoed walls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And says there's news to-day—the king<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—She hopes they have not caught the felons.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Italy, my Italy!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Queen Mary's saying serves for me—<br /></span> +<span class="i6">(When fortune's malice<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Lost her—Calais)—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Open my heart and you will see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Graved inside of it, "Italy."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such lovers old are I and she:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So it always was, so shall ever be!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Two or three English artists called forth +appreciation in verse from Browning. There +is the exquisite bit called "Deaf and Dumb," +after a group of statuary by Woolner, of Constance +and Arthur—the deaf and dumb +children of Sir Thomas Fairbairn.</p> + +<h3>DEAF AND DUMB</h3> + +<p class="poemctr">A GROUP BY WOOLNER.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Only the prism's obstruction shows aright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So may a glory from defect arise:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span> +<span class="i0">Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its insuppressive sense on brow and cheek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only by Dumbness adequately speak<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As favored mouth could never, through the eyes.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_6" id="linki_6"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus006.jpg" width="500" height="388" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">An English Lane</p> +</div> + +<p>There is also the beautiful description in +"Balaustion's Adventure" of the Alkestis by +Sir Frederick Leighton.</p> + +<p>The flagrant anachronism of making a +Greek girl at the time of the Fall of Athens +describe an English picture cannot but be +forgiven, since the artistic effect gained is so +fine. The poet quite convinces the reader +that Sir Frederick Leighton ought to have +been a Kaunian painter, if he was not, and +that Balaustion or no one was qualified to +appreciate his picture at its full worth.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As Herakles, though rosy with a robe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of grace that softens down the sinewy strength:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he has made a picture of it all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There lies Alkestis dead, beneath the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She longed to look her last upon, beside<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To come trip over its white waste of waves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And try escape from earth, and fleet as free.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behind the body, I suppose there bends<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Pheres in his hoary impotence;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And women-wailers, in a corner crouch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Four, beautiful as you four—yes, indeed!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Close, each to other, agonizing all,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> +<span class="i0">As fastened, in fear's rhythmic sympathy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To two contending opposite. There strains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The might o' the hero 'gainst his more than match,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but like<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The envenomed substance that exudes some dew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereby the merely honest flesh and blood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will fester up and run to ruin straight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere they can close with, clasp and overcome<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The poisonous impalpability<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That simulates a form beneath the flow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of those grey garments; I pronounce that piece<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worthy to set up in our Poikilé!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And all came,—glory of the golden verse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And passion of the picture, and that fine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frank outgush of the human gratitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Away from you, friends, while I told my tale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—It all came of this play that gained no prize!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Once before had Sir Frederick Leighton +inspired the poet in the exquisite lines on +Eurydice.</p> + +<h3>EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS</h3> + +<p class="poemctr">A PICTURE BY LEIGHTON</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let them once more absorb me! One look now<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Will lap me round for ever, not to pass<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> +<span class="i0">Hold me but safe again within the bond<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of one immortal look! All woe that was,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgotten, and all terror that may be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Defied,—no past is mine, no future: look at me!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Beautiful as these lines are, they do not +impress me as fully interpreting Leighton's +picture. The expression of Eurydice is +rather one of unthinking confiding affection—as +if she were really unconscious or +ignorant of the danger; while that of Orpheus +is one of passionate agony as he tries +to hold her off.</p> + +<p>Though English art could not fascinate the +poet as Italian art did, for the fully sufficient +reason that it does not stand for a great epoch +of intellectual awakening, yet with what fair +alchemy he has touched those few artists he +has chosen to honor. Notwithstanding his +avowed devotion to Italy, expressed in "De +Gustibus," one cannot help feeling that in +the poems mentioned in this chapter, there is +that ecstasy of sympathy which goes only to +the most potent influences in the formation +of character. Something of what I mean is +expressed in one of his latest poems, "Development." +In this we certainly get a real +peep at young Robert Browning, led by his +wise father into the delights of Homer, by +slow degrees, where all is truth at first, to<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span> +end up with the devastating criticism of Wolf. +In spite of it all the dream stays and is the +reality. Nothing can obliterate the magic of +a strong early enthusiasm, as "fact still held" +"Spite of new Knowledge," in his "heart of +hearts."</p> + +<h3>DEVELOPMENT</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My Father was a scholar and knew Greek.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I was five years old, I asked him once<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"What do you read about?"<br /></span> +<span class="i18">"The siege of Troy."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"What is a siege and what is Troy?"<br /></span> +<span class="i22">Whereat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He piled up chairs and tables for a town,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Helen, enticed away from home (he said)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under the footstool, being cowardly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But whom—since she was worth the pains, poor puss—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Towzer and Tray,—our dogs, the Atreidai,—sought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By taking Troy to get possession of<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(My pony in the stable)—forth would prance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And put to flight Hector—our page-boy's self.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This taught me who was who and what was what:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So far I rightly understood the case<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At five years old: a huge delight it proved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And still proves—thanks to that instructor sage<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My Father, who knew better than turn straight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Learning's full flare on weak-eyed ignorance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sand-blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Content with darkness and vacuity.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> +<span class="i0">It happened, two or three years afterward,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That—I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My Father came upon our make-believe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"How would you like to read yourself the tale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Properly told, of which I gave you first<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Merely such notion as a boy could bear?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pope, now, would give you the precise account<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of what, some day, by dint of scholarship,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You'll hear—who knows?—from Homer's very mouth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Learn Greek by all means, read the 'Blind Old Man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweetest of Singers'—<i>tuphlos</i> which means 'blind,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Hedistos</i> which means 'sweetest.' Time enough!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Try, anyhow, to master him some day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until when, take what serves for substitute,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Read Pope, by all means!"<br /></span> +<span class="i18">So I ran through Pope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enjoyed the tale—what history so true?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Also attacked my Primer, duly drudged,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grew fitter thus for what was promised next—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The very thing itself, the actual words,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I could turn—say, Buttmann to account.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Time passed, I ripened somewhat: one fine day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's Heine, where the big books block the shelf:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't skip a word, thumb well the Lexicon!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I thumbed well and skipped nowise till I learned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who was who, what was what, from Homer's tongue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there an end of learning. Had you asked<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The all-accomplished scholar, twelve years old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Who was it wrote the Iliad?"—what a laugh!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Why, Homer, all the world knows: of his life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doubtless some facts exist: it's everywhere:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span> +<span class="i0">We have not settled, though, his place of birth:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He begged, for certain, and was blind beside:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seven cites claimed him—Scio, with best right,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thinks Byron. What he wrote? Those Hymns we have.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then there's the 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's all—unless they dig 'Margites' up<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(I'd like that) nothing more remains to know."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus did youth spend a comfortable time;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until—"What's this the Germans say is fact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That Wolf found out first? It's unpleasant work<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their chop and change, unsettling one's belief:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the same, while we live, we learn, that's sure."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, I bent brow o'er <i>Prolegomena</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, after Wolf, a dozen of his like<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proved there was never any Troy at all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Neither Besiegers nor Besieged,—nay, worse,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No actual Homer, no authentic text,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No warrant for the fiction I, as fact,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had treasured in my heart and soul so long—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, mark you! and as fact held still, still hold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spite of new knowledge, in my heart of hearts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From accidental fancy's guardian sheath.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Assuredly thenceforward—thank my stars!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">However it got there, deprive who could—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wring from the shrine my precious tenantry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Helen, Ulysses, Hector and his Spouse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Achilles and his Friend?—though Wolf—ah, Wolf!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why must he needs come doubting, spoil a dream?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But then "No dream's worth waking"—Browning says:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here's the reason why I tell thus much<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, now mature man, you anticipate,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> +<span class="i0">May blame my Father justifiably<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For letting me dream out my nonage thus,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And only by such slow and sure degrees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Permitting me to sift the grain from chaff,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Get truth and falsehood known and named as such.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why did he ever let me dream at all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not bid me taste the story in its strength?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suppose my childhood was scarce qualified<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To rightly understand mythology,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silence at least was in his power to keep:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I might have—somehow—correspondingly—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, who knows by what method, gained my gains,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Been taught, by forthrights not meanderings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus's son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A lie as Hell's Gate, love my wedded wife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like Hector, and so on with all the rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could not I have excogitated this<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without believing such men really were?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That is—he might have put into my hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The "Ethics"? In translation, if you please,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exact, no pretty lying that improves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To suit the modern taste: no more, no less—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The "Ethics": 'tis a treatise I find hard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To read aright now that my hair is grey,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I can manage the original.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At five years old—how ill had fared its leaves!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, growing double o'er the Stagirite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At least I soil no page with bread and milk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor crumple, dogsear and deface—boys' way.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This chapter would not be complete without +Browning's tribute to dog Tray, whose +traits may not be peculiar to English dogs<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> +but whose name is proverbially English. Besides +it touches a subject upon which the poet +had strong feelings. Vivisection he abhorred, +and in the controversies which were tearing +the scientific and philanthropic world asunder +in the last years of his life, no one was a more +determined opponent of vivisection than he.</p> + +<h3>TRAY</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of soul, ye bards!<br /></span> +<span class="i16">Quoth Bard the first:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His helm and eke his habergeon...."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sir Olaf and his bard——!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My hero to some steep, beneath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which precipice smiled tempting death...."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You too without your host have reckoned!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A beggar-child" (let's hear this third!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sang to herself at careless play,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'And fell into the stream. Dismay!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Bystanders reason, think of wives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And children ere they risk their lives.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the balustrade has bounced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A mere instinctive dog, and pounced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> +<span class="i0">"'Up he comes with the child, see, tight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A depth of ten feet—twelve, I bet!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good dog! What, off again? There's yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Another child to save? All right!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'How strange we saw no other fall!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's instinct in the animal.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good dog! But he's a long while under:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If he got drowned I should not wonder—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strong current, that against the wall!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—What may the thing be? Well, that's prime!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, did you ever? Reason reigns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In man alone, since all Tray's pains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have fished—the child's doll from the slime!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And so, amid the laughter gay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trotted my hero off,—old Tray,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till somebody, prerogatived<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His brain would show us, I should say.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'John, go and catch—or, if needs be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Purchase—that animal for me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By vivisection, at expense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAIT</p> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Once</span> and once only did Browning depart +from his custom of choosing people of +minor note to figure in his dramatic monologues. +In "At the 'Mermaid'" he ventures +upon the consecrated ground of a heart-to-heart +talk between Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, +and the wits who gathered at the classic +"Mermaid" Tavern in Cheapside, following +this up with further glimpses into the inner +recesses of Shakespeare's mind in the monologues +"House" and "Shop." It is a particularly +daring feat in the case of Shakespeare, +for as all the world knows any attempt at +getting in touch with the real man, Shakespeare, +must, per force, be woven out of such +"stuff as dreams are made on."</p> + +<p>In interpreting this portraiture of one great +poet by another it will be of interest to +glance at the actual facts as far as they are +known in regard to the relations which +existed between Shakespeare and Jonson. +Praise and blame both are recorded on Jon<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>son's +part when writing of Shakespeare, yet +the praise shows such undisguised admiration +that the blame sinks into insignificance. Jonson's +"learned socks" to which Milton refers +probably tripped the critic up occasionally by +reason of their weight.</p> + +<p>There is a charming story told of the +friendship between the two men recorded by +Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, within a very few +years of Shakespeare's death, who attributed +it to Dr. Donne. The story goes that +"Shakespeare was godfather to one of Ben +Jonson's children, and after the christening, +being in a deep study, Jonson came +to cheer him up and asked him why he was +so melancholy. 'No, faith, Ben,' says he, +'not I, but I have been considering a great +while what should be the fittest gift for me +to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved +at last.' 'I prythee what?' says he. +'I'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen good +Lattin spoons, and thou shalt translate them.'" +If this must be taken with a grain of salt, +there is another even more to the honor of +Shakespeare reported by Rowe and considered +credible by such Shakespearian scholars as +Halliwell Phillipps and Sidney Lee. "His +acquaintance with Ben Jonson" writes Rowe, +"began with a remarkable piece of humanity<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> +and good nature; Mr. Jonson, who was at +that time altogether unknown to the world, +had offered one of his plays to the players in +order to have it acted, and the persons into +whose hands it was put, after having turned +it carelessly and superciliously over, were +just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured +answer that it would be of no service +to their company, when Shakespeare +luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something +so well in it as to engage him first to +read it through, and afterwards to recommend +Mr. Jonson and his writings to the +public." The play in question was the famous +comedy of "Every Man in His Humour," +which was brought out in September, 1598, +by the Lord Chamberlain's company, Shakespeare +himself being one of the leading actors +upon the occasion.</p> + +<p>Authentic history records a theater war in +which Jonson and Shakespeare figured, on +opposite sides, but if allusions in Jonson's +play the "Poetaster" have been properly +interpreted, their friendly relations were not +deeply disturbed. The trouble began in the +first place by the London of 1600 suddenly +rushing into a fad for the company of boy +players, recruited chiefly from the choristers +of the Chapel Royal, and known as the "Chil<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>dren +of the Chapel." They had been acting +at the new theater in Blackfriars since 1597, +and their vogue became so great as actually +to threaten Shakespeare's company and other +companies of adult actors. Just at this time +Ben Jonson was having a personal quarrel +with his fellow dramatists, Marston and +Dekker, and as he received little sympathy +from the actors, he took his revenge by joining +his forces with those of the Children of +the Chapel. They brought out for him in +1600 his satire of "Cynthia's Revels," in +which he held up to ridicule Marston, Dekker +and their friends the actors. Marston and +Dekker, with the actors of Shakespeare's +company, prepared to retaliate, but Jonson +hearing of it forestalled them with his play +the "Poetaster" in which he spared neither +dramatists nor actors. Shakespeare's company +continued the fray by bringing out at +the Globe Theatre, in the following year, +Dekker and Marston's "Satiro-Mastix, or +The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," and +as Ward remarks, "the quarrel had now become +too hot to last." The excitement, +however, continued for sometime, theater-goers +took sides and watched with interest +"the actors and dramatists' boisterous war +of personalities," to quote Mr. Lee, who<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span> +goes on to point out that on May 10, 1601, +the Privy Council called the attention of the +Middlesex magistrates to the abuse covertly +leveled by the actors of the "Curtain" at +gentlemen "of good desert and quality," and +directed the magistrates to examine all plays +before they were produced.</p> + +<p>Jonson, himself, finally made apologies in +verses appended to printed copies of the "Poetaster."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Now for the players 'tis true I tax'd them<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet but some, and those so sparingly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As all the rest might have sat still unquestioned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had they but had the wit or conscience<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To think well of themselves. But impotent they<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thought each man's vice belonged to their whole tribe;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And much good do it them. What they have done against me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am not moved with, if it gave them meat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or got them clothes, 'tis well: that was their end,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only amongst them I was sorry for<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some better natures by the rest so drawn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To run in that vile line."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Sidney Lee cleverly deduces Shakespeare's +attitude in the quarrel in allusions to it in +"Hamlet," wherein he "protested against the +abusive comments on the men-actors of 'the +common' stages or public theaters which +were put into the children's mouths. Rosencrantz +declared that the children 'so berattle<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> +[<i>i.e.</i> assail] the common stages—so they call +them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid +of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither +[<i>i.e.</i> to the public theaters].' Hamlet in pursuit +of the theme pointed out that the writers +who encouraged the vogue of the 'child actors' +did them a poor service, because when +the boys should reach men's estate they would +run the risk, if they continued on the stage, +of the same insults and neglect which now +threatened their seniors.</p> + +<p>"'<i>Hamlet.</i> What are they children? Who +maintains 'em? How are they escorted [<i>i.e.</i> +paid]? Will they pursue the quality [<i>i.e.</i> the +actor's profession] no longer than they can sing? +Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow +themselves to common players—as it is most +like, if their means are no better—their writers +do them wrong to make them exclaim against +their own succession?</p> + +<p>"'<i>Rosencrantz.</i> Faith, there has been much +to do on both sides, and the nation holds it +no sin to tarre [<i>i.e.</i> incite] them to controversy; +there was for a while no money bid +for argument, unless the poet and the player +went to cuffs in the question.'"</p> + +<p>This certainly does not reflect a very belligerent +attitude since it merely puts in a +word for the grown-up actors rather than<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span> +casting any slurs upon the children. Further +indications of Shakespeare's mildness in regard +to the whole matter are given in the +Prologue to "Troylus and Cressida," where, +as Mr. Lee says, he made specific reference +to the strife between Ben Jonson and the +players in the lines</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"And hither am I come<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Prologue arm'd, but not in confidence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Authors' pen, or Actors' voyce."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The most interesting bit of evidence to show +that Shakespeare and Jonson remained friends, +even in the heat of the conflict, may be gained +from the "Poetaster" itself if we admit that +the Virgil of the play, who is chosen peacemaker +stands for Shakespeare; and who so fit to be +peacemaker as Shakespeare for his amiable +qualities seem to have impressed themselves +upon all who knew him.</p> + +<p>Following Mr. Lee's lead, "Jonson figures +personally in the 'Poetaster' under the name +of Horace. Episodically Horace and his +friends, Tibullus and Gallus, eulogize the +work and genius of another character, Virgil, +in terms so closely resembling those which +Jonson is known to have applied to Shakespeare +that they may be regarded as intended +to apply to him (Act V, Scene I). Jonson points<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> +out that Virgil, by his penetrating intuition, +achieved the great effects which others laboriously +sought to reach through rules of art.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'His learning labors not the school-like gloss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That most consists of echoing words and terms ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wrapt in the curious generalities of arts—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But a direct and analytic sum<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all the worth and first effects of art.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That it shall gather strength of life with being,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And live hereafter, more admired than now.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><a name='TC_3'></a><ins title="Paragraph continued, no quote needed">Tibullus</ins> gives Virgil equal credit for having +in his writings touched with telling truth +upon every vicissitude of human existence:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'That which he hath writ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is with such judgment labored and distilled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through all the needful uses of our lives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, could a man remember but his lines,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He should not touch at any serious point<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But he might breathe his spirit out of him.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Finally, Virgil in the play is nominated by +Cæsar to act as judge between Horace and +his libellers, and he advises the administration +of purging pills to the offenders."</p> + +<p>This neat little chain of evidence would +have no weak link, if it were not for a passage +in the play, "The Return from Parnassus,"<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> +acted by the students in St. John's College +the same year, 1601. In this there is a dialogue +between Shakespeare's fellow-actors, +Burbage and Kempe. Speaking of the University +dramatists, Kempe says:</p> + +<p>"Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts +them all down; aye, and Ben Jonson, too. +O! that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow. He +brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill; +but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him +a purge that made him bewray his credit." +Burbage continues, "He is a shrewd fellow +indeed." This has, of course, been taken to +mean that Shakespeare was actively against +Jonson in the Dramatists' and Actors' war. +But as everything else points, as we have +seen, to the contrary, one accepts gladly the +loophole of escape offered by Mr. Lee. +"The words quoted from 'The Return from +Parnassus' hardly admit of a literal interpretation. +Probably the 'purge' that Shakespeare +was alleged by the author of 'The +Return from Parnassus' to have given Jonson +meant no more than that Shakespeare had +signally outstripped Jonson in popular esteem." +That this was an actual fact is proved +by the lines of Leonard Digges, an admiring +contemporary of Shakespeare's, printed in the +1640 edition of Shakespeare's poems, com<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span>paring +"Julius Cæsar" and Jonson's play +"Cataline:"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"So have I seen when Cæsar would appear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on the stage at half-sword parley were<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brutus and Cassius—oh, how the audience<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were ravish'd, with what wonder they went thence;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When some new day they would not brook a line<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of tedious, though well-labored, Cataline."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This reminds one of the famous witticism +attributed to Eudymion Porter that "Shakespeare +was sent from Heaven and Ben from +College."</p> + +<p>If Jonson's criticisms of Shakespeare's work +were sometime not wholly appreciative, the +fact may be set down to the distinction between +the two here so humorously indicated. +"A Winter's Tale" and the "Tempest" both +called forth some sarcasms from Jonson, +the first for its error about the Coast of Bohemia +which Shakespeare borrowed from +Greene. Jonson wrote in the Induction to +"Bartholemew Fair;" "If there be never a +servant-monster in the Fair, who can help it +he says? Nor a nest of Antics. He is loth +to make nature afraid in his plays like those +that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like +Drolleries." The allusions here are very evidently +to Caliban and the satyrs who figure in<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span> +the sheep-shearing feast in "A Winter's Tale." +The worst blast of all, however, occurs in +Jonson's "Timber," but the blows are evidently +given with a loving hand. He writes +"I remember, the players have often mentioned +it as an honor to Shakespeare that, in his +writing, whatsoever he penn'd, hee never +blotted out line. My answer hath beene, +would he had blotted a thousand;—which +they thought a malevolent speech. I had not +told posterity this, but for their ignorance +who choose that circumstance to commend +their friend by wherein he most faulted; and +to justifie mine owne candor,—for I lov'd +the man, and doe honor his memory, on +this side idolatry, as much as any. Hee was, +indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; +had an excellent phantasie; brave notions +and gentle expressions; wherein hee +flow'd with that facility that sometime it was +necessary he should be stop'd;—<i>sufflaminandus +erat</i>, as Augustus said of Haterius. His +wit was in his owne power;—would the rule +of it had beene so too! Many times he fell +into those things, could not escape laughter; +as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one +speaking to him,—Cæsar thou dost me wrong; +hee replyed,—Cæsar did never wrong but +with just cause; and such like; which were<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> +ridiculous. But hee redeemed his vices with +his virtues. There was ever more in him to +be praysed then to be pardoned."</p> + +<p>And even this criticism is altogether controverted +by the wholly eulogistic lines Jonson +wrote for the First Folio edition of <a name='TC_4'></a><ins title="Was 'Shakesspeare'">Shakespeare</ins> +printed in 1623, "To the memory of +my beloved, The Author Mr. William Shakespeare +and what he hath left us."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>For the same edition he also wrote the +following lines for the portrait reproduced in +this volume, which it is safe to regard as the +Shakespeare Ben Jonson remembered:</p> + +<h3>"TO THE READER</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This Figure, that thou here seest put,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein the Graver had a strife<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With Nature, to out-doo the life:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O, could he but have drawne his wit<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As well in brasse, as he hath hit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His face; the Print would then surpasse<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All, that was ever writ in brasse.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, since he cannot, Reader, looke<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not on his Picture, but his Booke.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="i30"> </span><a name='TC_5'></a><ins title="Was 'B. I.'">B. J.</ins>"</p> + +<p>Shakespeare's talk in "At the <a name='TC_6'></a><ins title="Added single quotes">'Mermaid'</ins>" +grows out of the supposition, not touched upon<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> +until the very last line that Ben Jonson had been +calling him "Next Poet," a supposition quite +justifiable in the light of Ben's praises of him. +The poem also reflects the love and admiration +in which Shakespeare the man was held +by all who have left any record of their impressions +of him. As for the portraiture of +the poet's attitude of mind, it is deduced indirectly +from his work. That he did not +desire to become "Next Poet" may be argued +from the fact that after his first outburst of +poem and sonnet writing in the manner of the +poets of the age, he gave up the career of +gentleman-poet to devote himself wholly to +the more independent if not so socially distinguished +one of actor-playwright. "Venus +and Adonis" and "Lucrece" were the only +poems of his published under his supervision +and the only works with the dedication to a +patron such as it was customary to write at +that time.</p> + +<p>I have before me as I write the recent Clarendon +Press fac-similes of "Venus and Adonis" +and "Lucrece," published respectively in 1593 +and 1594,—beautiful little quartos with exquisitely +artistic designs in the title-pages, +headpieces and initials; altogether worthy of +a poet who might have designs upon Fame. +The dedication to the first reads:—</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> +"<span class="smcap">to the right honorable</span><br /> +Henry Wriothesley, Earle of Southampton<br /> +and Baron of Litchfield</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Right Honourable, I know not how I shall +offend in dedicating my unpolisht lines to your +Lordship, nor how the worlde will censure mee +for choosing so strong a proppe to support so +weake a burthen, onelye if your Honour seeme +but pleased, I account my selfe highly praised, +and vowe to take advantage of all idle houres, +till I have honoured you with some great +labour. But if the first heire of my invention +prove deformed, I shall be sorie it had so noble a +god-father: and never after eare so barren a +land, for feare it yield me still so bad a harvest, +I leave it to your Honourable Survey, and your +Honor to your hearts content, which I wish +may alwaies answere your owne wish, and the +worlds hopeful expectation.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p class="center"> +Your Honors in all dutie<br /> +<span class="in4 smcap">William Shakespeare</span>."</p> + +<p>The second reads:—</p> + +<p class="center"> +"<span class="larger">TO THE RIGHT</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">honorable, henry</span><br /> +Wriothesley, Earle of Southampton<br /> +and Baron of Litchfield</p> + +<blockquote><p>The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without +end: wherof this Pamphlet without be<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span>ginning +is a superfluous Moiety. The warrant +I have of your Honourable disposition, +nor the worth of my untutored Lines makes +it assured of acceptance. What I have done +is yours, what I have to doe is yours, being +part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my +worth greater, my duety would shew greater, +meane time, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship; +To whom I wish long life still lengthened +with all happinesse.</p></blockquote> + +<p class="center"> +Your Lordships in all duety.<br /> +<span class="in4 smcap">William Shakespeare."</span></p> + +<p>No more after this does Shakespeare appear +in the light of a poet with a patron. Even +the sonnets, some of which evidently celebrate +Southampton, were issued by a piratical +publisher without Shakespeare's consent, while +his plays found their way into print at the +hands of other pirates who cribbed them from +stage copies.</p> + +<p>Such hints as these have been worked up +by Browning into a consistent characterization +of a man who regards himself as having +foregone his chances of laureateship or "Next +Poet" by devoting himself to a form of +literary art which would not appeal to the +powers that be as fitting him for any such position. +Such honors he claims do not go to<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> +the dramatic poet, who has never allowed the +world to slip inside his breast, but has simply +portrayed the joy and the sorrow of life as he +saw it around him, and with an art which turns +even sorrow into beauty.—"Do I stoop? I +pluck a posy, do I stand and stare? all's +blue;"—but to the subjective, introspective +poet, out of tune with himself and with the +universe. The allusions Shakespeare makes +to the last "King" are not very definite, but, +on the whole, they fit Edmund Spenser, whose +poems from first to last are dedicated to people +of distinction in court circles. His work, +moreover, is full of wailing and woe in various +keys, and also full of self-revelation. He allowed +the world to slip inside his breast upon +almost every occasion, and perhaps he may +be said to have bought "his laurel," for it +was no doubt extremely gratifying to Queen +Elizabeth to see herself in the guise of the +Faerie Queene, and even his dedication of the +"Faerie Queene" to her, used as she was to flattery, +must have been as music in her ears. +"To the most high, mightie, and magnificent +Empresse, renouned for piety, vertue, and all +gratious government, Elizabeth, by the Grace +of God, Queene of England, Frahnce, and +Ireland and of Virginia. Defender of the +Faith, &c. Her most humble servant Edmund<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span> +Spenser doth in all humilitie, Dedicate, present, +and consecrate These his labours, To +live with the eternity of her Fame." The +next year Spenser received a pension from the +crown of fifty pounds per annum.</p> + +<p>It is a careful touch on Browning's part to +use the phrase "Next Poet," for the "laureateship" +at that time was not a recognized +official position. The term, "laureate," seems +to have been used to designate poets who had +attained fame and Royal favor, since Nash +speaks of Spenser in his "Supplication of +Piers Pennilesse" the same year the "Faerie +Queene" was published as next laureate.</p> + +<p>The first really officially appointed Poet +Laureate was Ben Jonson, himself, who in +either 1616 or 1619 received the post from +James I., later ratified by Charles I., who +increased the annuity to one hundred pounds +a year and a butt of wine from the King's +cellars.</p> + +<p>Probably the allusion "Your Pilgrim" in the +twelfth stanza of "At the Mermaid" is to +"The Return from Parnassus" in which the +pilgrims to Parnassus who figure in an earlier +play "The Pilgrimage to Parnassus" discover +the world to be about as dismal a place +as it is described in this stanza.</p> + +<p>At first sight it might seem that the position<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> +taken by Shakespeare in the poem is almost +too modest, yet upon second thoughts it will +be remembered that though Shakespeare had +a tremendous following among the people, +attested by the frequency with which his +plays were acted; that though there are instances +of his being highly appreciated by +contemporaries of importance; that though +his plays were given before the Queen, he +did not have the universal acceptance among +learned and court circles which was accorded +to Spenser.</p> + +<p>It is quite fitting that the scene should be +set in the "Mermaid." No record exists to +show that Shakespeare was ever there, it is +true, but the "Mermaid" was a favorite haunt +of Ben Jonson and his circle of wits, whose +meetings there were immortalized by Beaumont +in his poetical letter to Jonson:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"What things have we seen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Done at the Mermaid? heard words that have been<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So nimble and so full of subtle flame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if that every one from whence they came<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And had resolved to live a fool the rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his dull life."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Add to this what Fuller wrote in his +"Worthies," 1662, "Many were the wit-combats +betwixt him and Ben Jonson, which<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> +two I behold like a Spanish great galleon +and an English man-of-war; Master Jonson +(like the former) was built far higher in learning, +solid but slow in his performances. +Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, +lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could +turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage +of all winds by the quickness of his wit +and invention," and there is sufficient poetic +warrant for the "Mermaid" setting.</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_7" id="linki_7"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus007.jpg" width="382" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">First Folio Portrait of Shakespeare</p> +<table style='margin: auto;' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +"Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.<br /> +Do I stand and stare? All's blue."</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>The final touch is given in the hint that all +the time Shakespeare is aware of his own +greatness, perhaps to be recognized by a +future age.</p> + +<p>Let Browning, himself, now show what he +has done with the material.</p> + +<h3>AT THE "MERMAID"</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza smaller"> +<span class="i4">The figure that thou here seest.... Tut!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Was it for gentle Shakespeare put?<br /></span> +<span class="i18"><span class="smcap">B. Jonson.</span> (<i>Adapted.</i>)</span> +</div></div> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I—"Next Poet?" No, my hearties,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I nor am nor fain would be!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Choose your chiefs and pick your parties,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not one soul revolt to me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, forsooth, sow song-sedition?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I, a schism in verse provoke?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, blown up by bard's ambition,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Burst—your bubble-king? You joke.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Come, be grave! The sherris mantling<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still about each mouth, mayhap,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breeds you insight—just a scantling—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Brings me truth out—just a scrap.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look and tell me! Written, spoken,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Here's my life-long work: and where<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Where's your warrant or my token<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm the dead king's son and heir?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here's my work: does work discover—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What was rest from work—my life?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did I live man's hater, lover?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Leave the world at peace, at strife?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Call earth ugliness or beauty?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">See things there in large or small?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Use to pay its Lord my duty?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Use to own a lord at all?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Blank of such a record, truly<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Here's the work I hand, this scroll,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yours to take or leave; as duly,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mine remains the unproffered soul.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So much, no whit more, my debtors—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How should one like me lay claim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To that largess elders, betters<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sell you cheap their souls for—fame?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">V</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Which of you did I enable<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Once to slip inside my breast,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span> +<span class="i0">There to catalogue and label<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What I like least, what love best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hope and fear, believe and doubt of,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seek and shun, respect—deride?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who has right to make a rout of<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rarities he found inside?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Rarities or, as he'd rather,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rubbish such as stocks his own:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Need and greed (O strange) the Father<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fashioned not for him alone!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whence—the comfort set a-strutting,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whence—the outcry "Haste, behold!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bard's breast open wide, past shutting,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shows what brass we took for gold!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Friends, I doubt not he'd display you<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Brass—myself call orichalc,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Furnish much amusement; pray you<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Therefore, be content I balk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Him and you, and bar my portal!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Here's my work outside: opine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What's inside me mean and mortal!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Take your pleasure, leave me mine!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Which is—not to buy your laurel<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As last king did, nothing loth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tale adorned and pointed moral<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gained him praise and pity both.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> +<span class="i0">Out rushed sighs and groans by dozens,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Forth by scores oaths, curses flew:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proving you were cater-cousins,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Kith and kindred, king and you!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whereas do I ne'er so little<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(Thanks to sherris) leave ajar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bosom's gate—no jot nor tittle<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Grow we nearer than we are.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sinning, sorrowing, despairing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Body-ruined, spirit-wrecked,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should I give my woes an airing,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where's one plague that claims respect?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">X</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Have you found your life distasteful?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My life did, and does, smack sweet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mine I saved and hold complete.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do your joys with age diminish?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When mine fail me, I'll complain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must in death your daylight finish?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My sun sets to rise again.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What, like you, he proved—your Pilgrim—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">This our world a wilderness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth still grey and heaven still grim,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not a hand there his might press,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not a heart his own might throb to,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Men all rogues and women—say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dolls which boys' heads duck and bob to,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Grown folk drop or throw away?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">XII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My experience being other,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How should I contribute verse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worthy of your king and brother?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Balaam-like I bless, not curse.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I find earth not grey but rosy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Heaven not grim but fair of hue.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Do I stand and stare? All's blue.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Doubtless I am pushed and shoved by<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rogues and fools enough: the more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good luck mine, I love, am loved by<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some few honest to the core.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scan the near high, scout the far low!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"But the low come close:" what then?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Simpletons? My match is Marlowe;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sciolists? My mate is Ben.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Womankind—"the cat-like nature,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">False and fickle, vain and weak"—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What of this sad nomenclature<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Suits my tongue, if I must speak?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Does the sex invite, repulse so,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tempt, betray, by fits and starts?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So becalm but to convulse so,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Decking heads and breaking hearts?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Well may you blaspheme at fortune!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I "threw Venus" (Ben, expound!)<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> +<span class="i0">Never did I need importune<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her, of all the Olympian round.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blessings on my benefactress!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cursings suit—for aught I know—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those who twitched her by the back tress,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tugged and thought to turn her—so!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Therefore, since no leg to stand on<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thus I'm left with,—joy or grief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be the issue,—I abandon<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hope or care you name me Chief!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chief and king and Lord's anointed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I?—who never once have wished<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death before the day appointed:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lived and liked, not poohed and pished!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ah, but so I shall not enter,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Scroll in hand, the common heart—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stopped at surface: since at centre<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Song should reach <i>Welt-schmerz</i>, world-smart!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Enter in the heart?" Its shelly<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cuirass guard mine, fore and aft!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such song "enters in the belly<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And is cast out in the draught."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Back then to our sherris-brewage!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Kingship" quotha? I shall wait—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waive the present time: some new age ...<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But let fools anticipate!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> +<span class="i0">Meanwhile greet me—"friend, good fellow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gentle Will," my merry men!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As for making Envy yellow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With "Next Poet"—(Manners, Ben!)<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The first stanza of "House"—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Do I live in a house you would like to see?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?'"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>brings one face to face with the interminable +controversies upon the autobiographical significance +of Shakespeare's Sonnets. As volumes +upon the subject have been written, +it is not possible even adequately to review +the various theories here. The controversialists +may be broadly divided into those +who read complicated autobiographical details +into the sonnets, those who scout the +idea of their being autobiographical at all, and +those who take a middle ground. Of the +first there are two factions: one of these +believes that the opening sonnets were addressed +to Lord William Herbert, Earl of +Pembroke, and the other that they were addressed +to Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of +Southampton. The first theory dates back +as far as 1832 when it was started by James +Boaden, a journalist and the biographer of<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span> +Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. This theory has +had many supporters and is associated to-day +with the name of Thomas Tyler, who, in his +edition of the Sonnets published in 1890, +claimed to have identified the dark lady of +the Sonnets with a lady of the Court, Mary +Fitton and the mistress of the Earl of Pembroke. +The theory, like most things of the +sort, has its fascinations, and few people can +read the Sonnets without being more or less +impressed by it. It is based, however, upon +a supposition so unlikely that it may be said +to be proved incorrect, namely, that the dedication +of the Sonnets to their "Onlie Begettor, +Mr. W. H." is intended for "Mr. William +Herbert." There was a Mr. William Hall, +later a master printer, and the friend of +Thomas Thorpe, the publisher of the Sonnets, +who is much more likely to be the person +meant. Lord Herbert was far too important a +person to be addressed as Mr. W. H. As Mr. +Lee points out, when Thorpe did dedicate +books to Herbert he was careful to give full +prominence to the titles and distinction of his +patron. The Sonnets as we have already +seen were not published with Shakespeare's +sanction. In those days the author had no +protection, and if a manuscript fell into the +hands of a printer he could print it if he felt<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> +so disposed. Mr. William Hall was in the +habit of looking out for manuscripts and before +he became a printer, in 1606, had one +published by Southwell of which he himself +wrote the dedication, to the "Vertuous Gentleman, +Mathew Saunders, Esquire W. H. +wisheth, with long life, a prosperous achievement +of his good desires." "There is little +doubt," writes Mr. Lee, "that the W. H. of +the Southwell volume was Mr. William Hall, +who, when he procured that manuscript for +publication, was an humble auxiliary in the +publishing army." To sum up in Mr. Lee's +words his interesting and convincing chapter +on "Thomas Thorpe and Mr. 'W. H.'" +"'Mr. W. H.,' whom Thorpe described as the +'only begetter of these ensuing sonnets,' was +in all probability the acquirer or procurer +of the manuscript, who, figuratively speaking, +brought the book into being either by +first placing the manuscript in Thorpe's +hands or by pointing out the means by which +a copy might be acquired. To assign such +significance to the word 'begetter' was entirely +in Thorpe's vein. Thorpe described +his rôle in the piratical enterprise of the +'Sonnets' as that of 'the well-wishing adventurer +in setting forth,' <i>i.e.</i>, the hopeful speculator +in the scheme. 'Mr. W. H.' doubtless<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span> +played the almost equally important part—one +as well known then as now in commercial +operations—of the 'vender' of the property +to be exploited."</p> + +<p>The Southampton theory is reared into a +fine air-castle by Gerald Massey in his lengthy +book on the Sonnets—truly entertaining +reading but too ingenious to be convincing.</p> + +<p>Finally Mr. Lee in his book looks at the +subject in an unbiased and perfectly sane way. +He thinks the opening Sonnets are to the Earl +of Southampton, known to be <a name='TC_7'></a><ins title="Was 'Shakepeare's'">Shakespeare's</ins> +patron, but he warns us that exaggerated devotion +was the hall-mark of the Sonnets of +the age, and therefore what Shakespeare +says of his young patron in these Sonnets +need not be taken too literally as expressing +the poet's sentiments, though he admits there +may be a note of genuine feeling in them. +Also he thinks that some of the sonnets reflecting +moods of melancholy or a sense of +sin may reveal the writer's inner consciousness. +Possibly, too, the story of the "dark +lady" may have some basis in fact, though he +insists, "There is no clue to the lady's identity, +and speculation on the topic is useless." +Furthermore, he thinks it doubtful whether +all the words in these Sonnets are to be +taken with the seriousness implied, the affair<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> +probably belonging only to the annals of gallantry.</p> + +<p>It will be seen from the poem that Browning +took the uncompromisingly non-autobiographical +view of the Sonnets. In this +stand present authoritative opinion would not +justify him, but it speaks well for his insight +and sympathy that he was not fascinated by the +William Herbert theory which, at the time he +wrote the poem, was very much in the air.</p> + +<p>In "Shop" is given, in a way, the obverse +side of the idea. If it is proved that +the dramatic poet does not allow himself to +appear in his work, the step toward regarding +him as having no individuality aside from +his work is an easy one. The allusions in +the poem to the mercenariness of the "Shop-Keeper" +seem to hit at the criticisms of Shakespeare's +thrift, which enabled him to buy a +home in his native place and retire there to +live some years before the end of his life. In +some quarters it has been customary to regard +Shakespeare as devoting himself to dramatic +literature in order to make money, as if this +were a terrible slur on his character. The superiority +of such an independent spirit over +that of those who constantly sought patrons +was quite manifest to Browning's mind or he +would not have written this sarcastic bit of<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> +symbolism, between the lines of which can +be read that Browning was on Shakespeare's +side.</p> + +<h3>HOUSE</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Do I live in a house you would like to see?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Unlock my heart with a sonnet key?"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Invite the world, as my betters have done?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Take notice: this building remains on view,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its suites of reception every one,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its private apartment and bedroom too;<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For a ticket, apply to the Publisher."<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No: thanking the public, I must decline.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A peep through my window, if folk prefer;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have mixed with a crowd and heard free talk<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In a foreign land where an earthquake chanced:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a house stood gaping, nought to balk<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Man's eye wherever he gazed or glanced.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">V</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The whole of the frontage shaven sheer,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The inside gaped: exposed to day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Right and wrong and common and queer,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Bare, as the palm of your hand, it lay.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">VI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The owner? Oh, he had been crushed, no doubt!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Odd tables and chairs for a man of wealth!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What a parcel of musty old books about!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He smoked,—no wonder he lost his health!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I doubt if he bathed before he dressed.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A brasier?—the pagan, he burned perfumes!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You see it is proved, what the neighbors guessed:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His wife and himself had separate rooms."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Friends, the goodman of the house at least<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Kept house to himself till an earthquake came:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis the fall of its frontage permits you feast<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On the inside arrangement you praise or blame.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Outside should suffice for evidence:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And whoso desires to penetrate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No optics like yours, at any rate!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">X</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hoity toity! A street to explore,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Your house the exception! '<i>With this same key</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Shakespeare unlocked his heart</i>,' once more!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>SHOP</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, friend, your shop was all your house!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its front, astonishing the street,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> +<span class="i0">Invited view from man and mouse<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To what diversity of treat<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Behind its glass—the single sheet!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What gimcracks, genuine Japanese:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gape-jaw and goggle-eye, the frog;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dragons, owls, monkeys, beetles, geese;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some crush-nosed, human-hearted dog:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Queer names, too, such a catalogue!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I thought "And he who owns the wealth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which blocks the window's vastitude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Ah, could I peep at him by stealth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Behind his ware, pass shop, intrude<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On house itself, what scenes were viewed!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"If wide and showy thus the shop,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What must the habitation prove?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The true house with no name a-top—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mansion, distant one remove,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Once get him off his traffic-groove!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">V</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Pictures he likes, or books perhaps;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And as for buying most and best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Commend me to these City chaps!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or else he's social, takes his rest<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On Sundays, with a Lord for guest.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Some suburb-palace, parked about<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And gated grandly, built last year:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> +<span class="i0">The four-mile walk to keep off gout;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or big seat sold by bankrupt peer:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But then he takes the rail, that's clear.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Or, stop! I wager, taste selects<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some out o' the way, some all-unknown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Retreat: the neighborhood suspects<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Little that he who rambles lone<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Makes Rothschild tremble on his throne!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nowise! Nor Mayfair residence<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fit to receive and entertain,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor Hampstead villa's kind defence<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From noise and crowd, from dust and drain,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor country-box was soul's domain!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nowise! At back of all that spread<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of merchandize, woe's me, I find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A hole i' the wall where, heels by head,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The owner couched, his ware behind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">—In cupboard suited to his mind.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">X</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For why? He saw no use of life<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But, while he drove a roaring trade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To chuckle "Customers are rife!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To chafe "So much hard cash outlaid<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet zero in my profits made!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"This novelty costs pains, but—takes?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cumbers my counter! Stock no more!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span> +<span class="i0">This article, no such great shakes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fizzes like wildfire? Underscore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The cheap thing—thousands to the fore!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Twas lodging best to live most nigh<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(Cramp, coffinlike as crib might be)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Receipt of Custom; ear and eye<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wanted no outworld: "Hear and see<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The bustle in the shop!" quoth he.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My fancy of a merchant-prince<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was different. Through his wares we groped<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our darkling way to—not to mince<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The matter—no black den where moped<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The master if we interloped!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Shop was shop only: household-stuff?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What did he want with comforts there?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Walls, ceiling, floor, stay blank and rough,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So goods on sale show rich and rare!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'<i>Sell and scud home</i>' be shop's affair!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What might he deal in? Gems, suppose!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Since somehow business must be done<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At cost of trouble,—see, he throws<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You choice of jewels, everyone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Good, better, best, star, moon and sun!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Which lies within your power of purse?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">This ruby that would tip aright<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> +<span class="i0">Solomon's sceptre? Oh, your nurse<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wants simply coral, the delight<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of teething baby,—stuff to bite!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Howe'er your choice fell, straight you took<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Your purchase, prompt your money rang<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On counter,—scarce the man forsook<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His study of the "Times," just swang<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till-ward his hand that stopped the clang,—<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then off made buyer with a prize,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then seller to his "Times" returned;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so did day wear, wear, till eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Brightened apace, for rest was earned:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He locked door long ere candle burned.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And whither went he? Ask himself,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not me! To change of scene, I think.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once sold the ware and pursed the pelf,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Chaffer was scarce his meat and drink,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor all his music—money-chink.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Because a man has shop to mind<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In time and place, since flesh must live,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Needs spirit lack all life behind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All loves except what trade can give?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I want to know a butcher paints,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A baker rhymes for his pursuit,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> +<span class="i0">Candlestick-maker much acquaints<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His soul with song, or, haply mute,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Blows out his brains upon the flute!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But—shop each day and all day long!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Friend, your good angel slept, your star<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suffered eclipse, fate did you wrong!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From where these sorts of treasures are,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There should our hearts be—Christ, how far!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>These poems are valuable not only for +furnishing an interesting interpretation of +Shakespeare's character as a man and artist, +but for the glimpses they give into Browning's +stand toward his own art. He wished +to be regarded primarily as a dramatic artist, +presenting and interpreting the souls of his +characters, and he must have felt keenly the +stupid attitude which insisted always in reading +"Browning's Philosophy" into all his +poems. The fact that his objective material +was of the soul rather than of the external +actions of life has no doubt lent force to the +supposition that Browning himself can be +seen in everything he writes. It is true, nevertheless, +that while much of his work is Shakespearian +in its dramatic intensity, he had too +forceful a philosophy of life to keep it from +sometimes coming to the front. Besides he<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> +has written many things avowedly personal +as this chapter amply illustrates.</p> + +<p>To what intensity of feeling Browning could +rise when contemplating the genius of Shakespeare +is revealed in his direct and outspoken +tribute. Here there breathes an almost reverential +attitude toward the one supremely great +man he has ventured to portray.</p> + +<h3>THE NAMES</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Shakespeare!—to such name's sounding, what succeeds<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Act follows word, the speaker knows full well;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor tampers with its magic more than needs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With his soul only: if from lips it fell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would own, "Thou didst create us!" Naught impedes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We voice the other name, man's most of might,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mutely await their working, leave to sight<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All of the issue as—below—above—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shakespeare's creation rises: one remove,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though dread—this finite from that infinite.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">A CRUCIAL PERIOD IN ENGLISH HISTORY</p> + +<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">W</span><span class="dcap">hom</span> the gods destroy they first +make mad." Of no one in English +history is this truer than of King Charles I. +Just at a time when the nation was feeling +the strength of its wings both in Church and +State, when individuals were claiming the +right to freedom of conscience in their form +of worship and the people were growing more +insistent for the recognition of their ancient +rights and liberties, secured to them, in the +first place, by the Magna Charta,—just at +this time looms up the obstruction of a King +so imbued with the defunct ideal of the divine +right of Kings that he is blind to the tendencies +of the age. What wonder, then, if +the swirling waters of discontent should rise +higher and higher until he became engulfed +in their fury.</p> + +<p>The history of the reign of Charles I. is +one full of involved details, yet the broader +aspects of it, the great events which chiseled +into shape the future of England stand out<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span> +in bold relief in front of a background of +interminable bickerings. There was constant +quarreling between the factions within the +English church, and between the Protestants +and the Catholics, complicated by the discontent +of the people and at times the nobles +because of the autocratic, vacillating policy +of the King.</p> + +<p>Among these epoch-bringing events were +the emergence of the Puritans from the +chaos of internecine church squabbles, the +determined raising of the voice of the people +in the Long Parliament, where King and +people finally came to an open clash in the +impeachment of the King's most devoted +minister, Wentworth, Earl Strafford, by Pym, +the great leader in the House of Commons, +ending in Strafford's execution; the Grand +Remonstrance, which sounded in no uncertain +tones the tocsin of the coming revolution; and +finally the King's impeachment of Pym, +Hampden, Holles, Hazelrigg and Strode, one +of the many ill-advised moves of this Monarch +which at once precipitated the Revolution.</p> + +<p>These cataclysms at home were further +intensified by the Scottish Invasion and the +Irish Rebellion.</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_8" id="linki_8"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus008.jpg" width="500" height="355" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Charles I in Scene of Impeachment</p> +</div> + +<p>It is not surprising that Browning should<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span> +have been attracted to this period of English +history, when he contemplated the writing of +a play on an English subject. His liberty-loving +mind would naturally find congenial +occupation in depicting this great English +struggle for liberty. Yet the hero of the play +is not Pym, the leader of the people, but +<a name='TC_8'></a><ins title="Added comma after Strafford">Strafford,</ins> the supporter of the King. The +dramatic reasons are sufficient to account for +this. Strafford's career was picturesque and +tragic and his personality so striking that more +than one interpretation of his remarkable life +is possible.</p> + +<p>The interpretation will differ according to +whether one is partisan in hatred or admiration +of his character and policy, or possesses +the larger quality of sympathetic appreciation +of the man and the problems with which +he had to deal. Any one coming to judge him +in this latter spirit would undoubtedly perceive +all the fine points in Strafford's nature and +would balance these against his theories of +government to the better understanding of +this extraordinary man.</p> + +<p>It is almost needless to say that Browning's +perception of Strafford's character was +penetrating and sympathetic. Strafford's devotion +to his King had in it not only the +element of loyalty to the liege, but an element<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span> +of personal love which would make an especial +appeal to Browning. He, in consequence, +seizes upon this trait as the key-note of his +portrayal of Strafford.</p> + +<p>The play is, on the whole, accurate in its +historical details, though the poet's imagination +has added many a flying buttress to the +structure.</p> + +<p>Forster's lives of the English Statesmen in +Lardner's Cyclopædia furnished plenty of +material, and he was besides familiar with +some if not all of Forster's materials for the +lives. One of the interesting surprises in +connection with Browning's literary career +was the fact divulged some years ago that he +had actually helped Forster in the preparation +of the Life of Strafford. Indeed it is +thought that he wrote it almost entirely from +the notes of Forster. Dr. Furnivall first called +attention to this, and later the life of Strafford +was reprinted as "Robert Browning's +Prose Life of Strafford."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> In his Forewords +to this volume, Dr. Furnivall, who, among +many other claims to distinction, was the +president of the "London Browning Society," +writes, "Three times during his life +did Browning speak to me about his prose +'Life of Strafford.' The first time he said<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> +only—in the course of chat—that very few +people had any idea of how much he had +helped John Forster in it. The second time +he told me at length that one day he went to +see Forster and found him very ill, and anxious +about the 'Life of Strafford,' which he had +promised to write at once, to complete a +volume of 'Lives of Eminent British Statesmen' +for Lardner's 'Cabinet Cyclopædia.' +Forster had finished the 'Life of Eliot'—the +first in the volume—and had just begun +that of Strafford, for which he had made full +collections and extracts; but illness had come +on, he couldn't work, the book ought to be +completed forthwith, as it was due in the +serial issue of volumes; what <i>was</i> he to do? +'Oh,' said Browning, 'don't trouble about it. +I'll take your papers and do it for you.' +Forster thanked his young friend heartily, +Browning put the Strafford papers under his +arm, walked off, worked hard, finished the +Life, and it came out to time in 1836, to +Forster's great relief, and passed under his +name." Professor Gardiner, the historian, was +of the opinion from internal evidence that the +Life was more Browning's than Forster's. +He said to Furnivall, "It is not a historian's +conception of the character but a poet's. I +am certain that it's not Forster's. Yes, it<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> +makes mistakes in facts and dates, but, it has +got the man—in the main." In this opinion +Furnivall concurs. Of the last paragraph in +the history he exclaims, "I could swear it +was Browning's":—The paragraph in question +sums up the character of Strafford and is +interesting in this connection, as giving hints, +though not the complete picture of the Strafford +of the Drama.</p> + +<p>"A great lesson is written in the life of this +truly extraordinary person. In the career of +Strafford is to be sought the justification of +the world's 'appeal from tyranny to God.' +In him Despotism had at length obtained an +instrument with mind to comprehend, and +resolution to act upon, her principles in their +length and breadth,—and enough of her +purposes were effected by him, to enable mankind +to 'see as from a tower the end of all.' +I cannot discern one false step in Strafford's +public conduct, one glimpse of a recognition +of an alien principle, one instance of a dereliction +of the law of his being, which can come +in to dispute the decisive result of the experiment, +or explain away its failure. The least +vivid fancy will have no difficulty in taking +up the interrupted design, and by wholly +enfeebling, or materially emboldening, the +insignificant nature of Charles; and by accord<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span>ing +some half-dozen years of immunity to the +'fretted tenement' of Strafford's 'fiery <a name='TC_9'></a><ins title="Added end quote">soul'</ins>,—contemplate +then, for itself, the perfect +realization of the scheme of 'making the prince +the most absolute lord in Christendom.' +That done,—let it pursue the same course +with respect to Eliot's noble imaginings, or +to young Vane's dreamy aspirings, and apply +in like manner a fit machinery to the working +out the projects which made the dungeon of +the one a holy place, and sustained the other +in his self-imposed exile.—The result is great +and decisive! It establishes, in renewed force, +those principles of political conduct which +have endured, and must continue to endure, +'like truth from age to age.'" The history, +on the whole, lacks the grasp in the portrayal +of Wentworth to be found in the drama. +C. H. Firth, commenting upon this says truly, +"One might almost say that in the first, +Strafford was represented as he appeared to +his opponents, and in the second as he appeared +to himself; or that, having painted +Strafford as he was, Browning painted him +again as he wished to be. In the biography +Strafford is exhibited as a man of rare gifts +and noble qualities; yet in his political capacity, +merely the conscious, the devoted tool +of a tyrant. In the tragedy, on the other<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span> +hand, Strafford is the champion of the King's +will against the people's, but yet looks forward +to the ultimate reconciliation of Charles +and his subjects, and strives for it after his +own fashion. He loves the master he serves, +and dies for him, but when the end comes he +can proudly answer his accusers, 'I have +loved England too.'"</p> + +<p>The play opens at the important moment of +Wentworth's return to London from Ireland, +where for some time he had been governor. +The occasion of his return, according to +Gardiner, was a personal quarrel with the +Chancellor Loftus, of Ireland. Both men +were allowed to come to England to plead their +cause, which resulted in the victory of Wentworth. +In the play Pym says, "Ay, the Court +gives out His own concerns have brought him +back: I know 'tis the King calls him." The +authority for this remark is found in the +Forster-Browning Life. "In the danger threatened +by the Scots' Covenant, Wentworth was +Charles's only hope; the King sent for him, saying +he desired his personal counsel and attendance. +He wrote: 'The Scots' Covenant begins +to spread too far, yet, for all this, I will not +have you take notice that I have sent for you, +but pretend some other occasion of business.'" +Certain it is that from this time Wentworth<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> +became the most trusted counsellor of Charles, +that is, as far as Charles was capable of trusting +any one. The condition of affairs to +which Wentworth returned is brought out in +the play in a thoroughly alive and human +manner. We are introduced to the principal +actors in the struggle for their rights and +privileges against the government of Charles +meeting in a house near Whitehall. Among +the "great-hearted" men are Hampden, Hollis, +the younger Vane, Rudyard, Fiennes—all +leaders in the "Faction,"—Presbyterians, +Loudon and other members of the Scots' commissioners. +A bit of history has been drawn +upon for this opening scene, for according +to the Forster-Browning Life, "There is no +doubt that a close correspondence with the +Scotch commissioners, headed by Lords Loudon +and Dumferling, was entered into under +the management of Pym and Hampden. +Whenever necessity obliged the meetings to +be held in London, they took place at Pym's +house in Gray's Inn Lane." In the talk between +these men the political situation in +England at the time from the point of view +of the liberal party is brought vividly before +the reader.</p> + +<p>There has been no Parliament in England +for ten years, hence the people have had no<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> +say in the direction of the government. The +growing dissatisfaction of the people at being +thus deprived of their rights focussed itself +upon the question of "ship-money." The +taxes levied by the King for the maintainance +of a fleet were loudly objected to upon all +sides. That a fleet was a necessary means +of protection in those threatening times is not +to be doubted, but the objections of the people +were grounded upon the fact that the King +levied these taxes upon his own authority. +"Ship-money, it was loudly declared," says +Gardiner, "was undeniably a tax, and the ancient +customs of the realm, recently embodied +in the Petition of Right, had announced with +no doubtful voice that no tax could be levied +without consent of Parliament. Even this +objection was not the full measure of the evil. +If Charles could take this money without the +consent of Parliament, he need not, unless +some unforeseen emergency arose, ever summon +a Parliament again. The true question +at issue was whether Parliament formed +an integral part of the Constitution or not." +Other taxes were objected to on the same +grounds, and the more determined the King +was not to summon a Parliament, the greater +became the political ferment.</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_9" id="linki_9"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus009.jpg" width="326" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford</p> +</div> + +<p>At the same time the religious ferment was<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> +centering itself upon hatred of Laud, the +Archbishop of Canterbury. His policy was +to silence opposition to the methods of worship +then followed by the Church of England, +by the terrors of the Star Chamber. The +Puritans were smarting under the sentence +which had been passed upon the three pamphleteers, +William Prynne, Henry Burton, +and John Bastwick, who had expressed their +opinions of the practises of the church with +great outspokenness. Prynne called upon +pious King Charles "to do justice on the +whole Episcopal order by which he had been +robbed of the love of God and of his people, +and which aimed at plucking the crown from +his head, that they might set it on their own +ambitious pates." Burton hinted that "the +sooner the office of the Bishops was abolished +the better it would be for the nation." Bastwick, +who had been brought up in the straitest +principles of Puritanism, had ended his pamphlet +"<i>Flagellum Pontificis</i>," with this outburst, +"Take notice, so far am I from flying +or fearing, as I resolve to make war against +the Beast, and every hint of Antichrist, all +the days of my life. If I die in that battle, +so much the sooner I shall be sent in a chariot +of triumph to heaven; and when I come there, +I will, with those that are under the altar cry,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> +'How long, Lord, holy and true, dost Thou +not judge and avenge our blood upon them +that dwell upon the earth?'"</p> + +<p>These men were called before the Star +Chamber upon a charge of libel. The sentence +was a foregone conclusion, and was so +outrageous that its result could only be the +strengthening of opposition. The "muckworm" +Cottington, as Browning calls him, +suggested the sentence which was carried out. +The men were condemned to lose their ears, +to pay a fine of £5000 each, and to be imprisoned +for the remainder of their lives in +the castles of Carnarvon, Launceston, and +Lancaster. Finch, not satisfied with this, +added the savage wish that Prynne should be +branded on the cheek with the letters S. L., +to stand for "seditious libeller," and this was +also done.</p> + +<p>The account of the execution of this sentence +is almost too horrible to read. Some +one who recorded the scene wrote, "The +humours of the people were various; some +wept, some laughed, and some were very +reserved." Prynne, whose sufferings had been +greatest for he had been burned as well as +having his ears taken off, was yet able to indulge +in a grim piece of humor touching the +letters S. L. branded on his cheeks. He<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> +called them "Stigmata Laudis," the "Scars of +Laud," on his way back to prison. Popular +demonstrations in favor of the prisoners were +made all along the road when they were taken +to their respective prisons, where they were +allowed neither pen, ink nor books. Fearful +lest they might somehow still disseminate their +heretical doctrines to the outer world, the +council removed them to still more distant +prisons, in the Scilly Isles, in Guernsey and +in Jersey. Retaliation against this treatment +found open expression. "A copy of the Star +Chamber decree was nailed to a board. Its +corners were cut off as the ears of Laud's +victims had been cut off at Westminster. A +broad ink mark was drawn round Laud's +name. An inscription declared that 'The +man that puts the saints of God into a pillory +of wood stands here in a pillory of ink!'"</p> + +<p>Things were brought to a crisis in Scotland +also, through hatred of Laud and the new +prayer-book. The <a name='TC_10'></a><ins title="Capitalized King">King</ins>, upon his visit to +Scotland, had been shocked at the slovenly +appearance and the slovenly ritual of the +Scottish Church, which reflected strongly survivals +of the Presbyterianism of an earlier +time. The King wrote to the Scottish Bishops +soon after his return to England: "We, tendering +the good and peace of that Church by<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> +having good and decent order and discipline +observed therein, whereby religion and God's +worship may increase, and considering that +there is nothing more defective in that Church +than the want of a Book of Common Prayer +and uniform service to be kept in all the +churches thereof, and the want of canons for +the uniformity of the same, we are hereby +pleased to authorise you as the representative +body of that Church, and do herewith will and +require you to condescend upon a form of +Church service to be used therein, and to set +down the canons for the uniformity of the +discipline thereof." Laud, who as Archbishop +of Canterbury had no jurisdiction over +Scottish Bishops, put his finger into the pie +as secretary of the King. As Gardiner says, +"He conveyed instructions to the Bishops, +remonstrated with proceedings which shocked +his sense of order, and held out prospects of +advancement to the zealous. Scotchmen naturally +took offense. They did not trouble +themselves to distinguish between the secretary +and the archbishop. They simply said +that the Pope of Canterbury was as bad as +the Pope of Rome."</p> + +<p>The upshot of it all was that in May, 1637, +the "new Prayer-book" was sent to Scotland, +and every minister was ordered to buy two<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span> +copies on pain of outlawry. Riots followed. It +was finally decided that it must be settled +once for all whether a King had any right to +change the forms of worship without the +sanction of a legislative assembly. Then +came the Scottish Covenant which declared +the intention of the signers to uphold religious +liberty. The account of the signing of this +covenant is one of the most impressive episodes +in all history. The Covenant was carried on +the 28th of February, 1638, to the Grey Friars' +Church to which all the gentlemen present in +Edinburgh had been summoned. The scene +has been most sympathetically described by +Gardiner.</p> + +<p>"At four o'clock in the grey winter evening, +the noblemen, the Earl of Sutherland leading +the way began to sign. Then came the gentlemen, +one after the other until nearly eight. +The next day the ministers were called on to +testify their approval, and nearly three hundred +signatures were obtained before night. The +Commissioners of the boroughs signed at the +same time.</p> + +<p>"On the third day the people of Edinburgh +were called on to attest their devotion to the +cause which was represented by the Covenant. +Tradition long loved to tell how the honored +parchment, carried back to the Grey Friars,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span> +was laid out on a tombstone in the churchyard, +whilst weeping multitudes pressed round +in numbers too great to be contained in any +building. There are moments when the stern +Scottish nature breaks out into an enthusiasm +less passionate, but more enduring, than the +frenzy of a Southern race. As each man and +woman stepped forward in turn, with the +right hand raised to heaven before the pen +was grasped, every one there present knew +that there would be no flinching amongst that +band of brothers till their religion was safe +from intrusive violence.</p> + +<p>"Modern narrators may well turn their attention +to the picturesqueness of the scene, +to the dark rocks of the Castle crag over +against the churchyard, and to the earnest +faces around. The men of the seventeenth +century had no thought to spare for the +earth beneath or for the sky above. What +they saw was their country's faith trodden +under foot, what they felt was the joy of those +who had been long led astray, and had now +returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of their +souls."</p> + +<p>Such were the conditions that brought on +the Scotch war, neither Charles nor Wentworth +being wise enough to make concessions +to the Covenanters.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span> +The grievances against the King's Minister +Wentworth are in this opening scene shown +as being aggravated by the fact that the men +of the "Faction" regard him as a deserter +from their cause, Pym, himself being one of +the number who is loth to think Wentworth +stands for the King's policy.</p> + +<p>The historical ground for the assumption +lies in the fact that Wentworth was one of +the leaders of the opposition in the Parliament +of 1628.</p> + +<p>The reason for this was largely personal, +because of Buckingham's treatment of him. +Wentworth had refused to take part in the +collection of the forced loan of 1626, and was +dismissed from his official posts in consequence. +When he further refused to subscribe +to that loan himself he was imprisoned +in the Marshalsea and at Depford. Regarding +himself as personally attacked by Buckingham, +he joined the opposition. Yet, as +Firth points out, "fiercely as he attacked the +King's ministers, he was careful to exonerate +the King." He concludes his list of grievances +by saying, "This hath not been done +by the King, but by projectors." Again, +"Whether we shall look upon the King or his +people, it did never more behove this great +physician the parliament, to effect a true<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> +consent amongst the parties than now. Both +are injured, both to be cured. By one and +the same thing hath the King and people +been hurt. I speak truly both for the interest +of the King and the people."</p> + +<p>His intention was to find some means of +cooperation which would leave the people +their liberty and yet give the crown its prerogative, +"Let us make what laws we can, +there must—nay, there will be a trust left +in the crown."</p> + +<p>It will be seen by any unbiased critic that +Wentworth was only half for the people even +at this time. On the other hand, it is not +astonishing that men, heart and soul for the +people, should consider Wentworth's subsequent +complete devotion to the cause of the +King sufficient to brand him as an apostate. +The fact that he received so many official +dignities from the King also leant color to the +supposition that personal ambition was a +leading motive with him. With true dramatic +instinct Browning has centered this +feeling and made the most of it in the attitude +of Pym's party, while he offsets it later +in the play by showing us the reality of the +man Strafford.</p> + +<p>There is no very authentic source for the +idea also brought out in this first scene that<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span> +Strafford and Pym had been warm personal +friends. The story is told by Dr. James +Welwood, one of the physicians of William +III., who, in the year 1700, published a +volume entitled "Memoirs, of the most material +transactions in England for the last +hundred years preceding the Revolution of +1688." Without mentioning any source he +tells the following story; "There had been a +long and intimate friendship between Mr. +Pym and him [Wentworth], and they had +gone hand in hand in everything in the +House of Commons. But when Sir Thomas +Wentworth was upon making his peace with +the Court, he sent to Pym to meet him +alone at Greenwich; where he began in a set +speech to sound Mr. Pym about the dangers +they were like to run by the courses +they were in; and what advantages they +might have if they would but listen to some +offers which would probably be made them +from the Court. Pym understanding his +speech stopped him short with this expression: +'You need not use all this art to tell me +you have a mind to leave us; but remember +what I tell you, you are going to be undone. +But remember, that though you leave us now +I will never leave you while your head is +upon your shoulders.'"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> +Though only a tradition this was entirely +too useful a suggestion not to be used. The +intensity of the situation between the leaders +on opposite sides is enhanced tenfold by +bringing into the field a personal sentiment.</p> + +<p>The attitude of Pym's followers is reflected +again in their opinion of Wentworth's Irish +rule. Although Wentworth's policy seemed +to be successful in Ireland, the very fact of its +success would condemn it in the eyes of the +popular party; besides later developments revealed +its weaknesses. How it appeared to +the eyes of a non-fanatical observer at this +time may be gathered from the following letter +of Sir Thomas Roe to the Queen of Bohemia, +written in 1634.</p> + +<p>"The Lord Deputy of Ireland doth great +wonders, and governs like a King, and hath +taught that Kingdom to show us an example +of envy, by having parliaments, and knowing +wisely how to use them; for they have given +the King six subsidies, which will arise to +£240,000, and they are like to have the liberty +we contended for, and grace from his Majesty +worth their gift double; and which is worth +much more, the honor of good intelligence +and love between the King and people, which +I would to God our great wits had had eyes<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> +to see. This is a great service, and to give +your Majesty a character of the man,—he is +severe abroad and in business, and sweet in +private conversation; retired in his friendships, +but very firm; a terrible judge and a strong +enemy; a servant violently zealous in his +Master's ends, and not negligent of his own; +one that will have what he will, and though +of great reason, he can make his will greater +when it may serve him; affecting glory by a +seeming contempt; one that cannot stay long +in the middle region of fortune, being entreprenant; +but will either be the greatest man +in England, or much less than he is; lastly, +one that may (and his nature lies fit for it, +for he is ambitious to do what others will not), +do your Majesty very great service, if you can +make him."</p> + +<p>In order to be in sympathy with the play +throughout and especially with the first scene +all this historical background must be kept +in mind, for the talk gives no direct information, +it merely in an absolutely dramatic +fashion reveals the feelings and opinions of +the men upon the situation, just as friends at +a dinner party might discuss one of our own +less strenuous political situations—all present +being perfectly familiar with the issues at +stake.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span></p> +<div class="drama"> +<h3>STRAFFORD<br /> +<br /> +ACT I</h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>A House near Whitehall.</i></h4> + +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Hampden, Hollis</span>, +the <em>younger</em> <span class="smcap">Vane, Rudyard, <a name='TC_11'></a><ins title="Was 'Finnees'">Fiennes</ins></span> and many +of the Presbyterian Party: <span class="smcap">Loudon</span> and other +Scots' Commissioners.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> I say, if he be here—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard.</i><span class="i14"> </span>(And he is here!)—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i> For England's sake let every man be still<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Nor speak of him, so much as say his name,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Till Pym rejoin us! Rudyard! Henry Vane!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">One rash conclusion may decide our course<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And with it England's fate—think—England's fate!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hampden, for England's sake they should be still!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> You say so, Hollis? Well, I must be still.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">It is indeed too bitter that one man,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Any one man's mere presence, should suspend<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">England's combined endeavor: little need<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To name him!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard.</i><span class="i4"> </span>For you are his brother, Hollis!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> Shame on you, Rudyard! time to tell him that,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When he forgets the Mother of us all.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard.</i> Do I forget her?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i><span class="i12"> </span>You talk idle hate<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Against her foe: is that so strange a thing?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is hating Wentworth all the help she needs?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Puritan.</i> The Philistine strode, cursing as he went:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But David—five smooth pebbles from the brook<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Within his scrip....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Be you as still as David!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Fiennes.</i> Here's Rudyard not ashamed to wag a tongue<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>Stiff with ten years' disuse of Parliaments;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why, when the last sat, Wentworth sat with us!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard.</i> Let's hope for news of them now he returns—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He that was safe in Ireland, as we thought!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—But I'll abide Pym's coming.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Now, by Heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They may be cool who can, silent who will—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Some have a gift that way! Wentworth is here,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Here, and the King's safe closeted with him<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ere this. And when I think on all that's past<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Since that man left us, how his single arm<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Rolled the advancing good of England back<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And set the woeful past up in its place,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Exalting Dagon where the Ark should be,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How that man has made firm the fickle King<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">(Hampden, I will speak out!)—in aught he feared<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To venture on before; taught tyranny<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Her dismal trade, the use of all her tools,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To ply the scourge yet screw the gag so close<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That strangled agony bleeds mute to death;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How he turns Ireland to a private stage<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For training infant villanies, new ways<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of wringing treasure out of tears and blood,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Unheard oppressions nourished in the dark<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To try how much man's nature can endure<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—If he dies under it, what harm? if not,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why, one more trick is added to the rest<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Worth a king's knowing, and what Ireland bears<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">England may learn to bear:—how all this while<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That man has set himself to one dear task,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The bringing Charles to relish more and more<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Power, power without law, power and blood too<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Can I be still?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i><span class="i6"> </span>For that you should be still.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span></span> +<span class="hang1st"><i>Vane.</i> Oh Hampden, then and now! The year he left us,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The People in full Parliament could wrest<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Bill of Rights from the reluctant King;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And now, he'll find in an obscure small room<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A stealthy gathering of great-hearted men<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That take up England's cause: England is here!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> And who despairs of England?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard.</i><span class="i22"> </span>That do I,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">If Wentworth comes to rule her. I am sick<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To think her wretched masters, Hamilton,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The muckworm Cottington, the maniac Laud,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">May yet be longed-for back again. I say,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I do despair.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i6"> </span>And, Rudyard, I'll say this—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which all true men say after me, not loud<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But solemnly and as you'd say a prayer!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This King, who treads our England underfoot,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Has just so much ... it may be fear or craft,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As bids him pause at each fresh outrage; friends,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He needs some sterner hand to grasp his own,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Some voice to ask, "Why shrink? Am I not by?"<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Now, one whom England loved for serving her,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Found in his heart to say, "I know where best<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The iron heel shall bruise her, for she leans<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon me when you trample." Witness, you!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So Wentworth heartened Charles, so England fell.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But inasmuch as life is hard to take<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">From England....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Many Voices.</i><span class="i2"> </span>Go on, Vane! 'Tis well said, Vane!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> —Who has not so forgotten Runnymead!—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Voices.</i> 'Tis well and bravely spoken, Vane! Go on!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> —There are some little signs of late she knows<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The ground no place for her. She glances round,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Wentworth has dropped the hand, is gone his way<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>On other service: what if she arise?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No! the King beckons, and beside him stands<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The same bad man once more, with the same smile<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And the same gesture. Now shall England crouch,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or catch at us and rise?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Voices.</i><span class="i14"> </span>The Renegade!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Haman! Ahithophel!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Gentlemen of the North,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">It was not thus the night your claims were urged,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And we pronounced the League and Covenant,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The cause of Scotland, England's cause as well:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Vane there, sat motionless the whole night through.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> Hampden!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Fiennes.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Stay, Vane!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Loudon.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Be just and patient, Vane!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> Mind how you counsel patience, Loudon! you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Have still a Parliament, and this your League<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To back it; you are free in Scotland still:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">While we are brothers, hope's for England yet.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But know you wherefore Wentworth comes? to quench<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This last of hopes? that he brings war with him?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Know you the man's self? what he dares?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Loudon.</i><span class="i26"> </span>We know,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All know—'tis nothing new.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i16"> </span>And what's new, then,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In calling for his life? Why, Pym himself—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You must have heard—ere Wentworth dropped our cause<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He would see Pym first; there were many more<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strong on the people's side and friends of his,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Eliot that's dead, Rudyard and Hampden here,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But for these Wentworth cared not; only, Pym<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He would see—Pym and he were sworn, 'tis said,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To live and die together; so, they met<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At Greenwich. Wentworth, you are sure, was long,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span>Specious enough, the devil's argument<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Lost nothing on his lips; he'd have Pym own<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A patriot could not play a purer part<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Than follow in his track; they two combined<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Might put down England. Well, Pym heard him out;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">One glance—you know Pym's eye—one word was all:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"You leave us, Wentworth! while your head is on,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll not leave you."</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Has he left Wentworth, then?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Has England lost him? Will you let him speak,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or put your crude surmises in his mouth?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Away with this! Will you have Pym or Vane?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Voices.</i> Wait Pym's arrival! Pym shall speak.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Meanwhile<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Let Loudon read the Parliament's report<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">From Edinburgh: our last hope, as Vane says,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is in the stand it makes. Loudon!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i22"> </span>No, no!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Silent I can be: not indifferent!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> Then each keep silence, praying God to spare<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His anger, cast not England quite away<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In this her visitation!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Puritan.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Seven years long<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Midianite drove Israel into dens<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And caves. Till God sent forth a mighty man,</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Pym</span> enters</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">Even Gideon!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Wentworth's come: nor sickness, care,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The ravaged body nor the ruined soul,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">More than the winds and waves that beat his ship,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Could keep him from the King. He has not reached<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whitehall: they've hurried up a Council there<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To lose no time and find him work enough.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Where's Loudon? your Scots' Parliament....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Loudon.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Holds firm:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> +<span class="hang1st">We were about to read reports.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i20"> </span>The King<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Has just dissolved your Parliament.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Loudon and other Scots.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Great God!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">An oath-breaker! Stand by us, England, then!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> The King's too sanguine; doubtless Wentworth's here;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But still some little form might be kept up.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> Now speak, Vane! Rudyard, you had much to say!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i> The rumor's false, then....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Ay, the Court gives out<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His own concerns have brought him back: I know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Tis the King calls him. Wentworth supersedes<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The tribe of Cottingtons and Hamiltons<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whose part is played; there's talk enough, by this,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Merciful talk, the King thinks: time is now<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To turn the record's last and bloody leaf<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which, chronicling a nation's great despair,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Tells they were long rebellious, and their lord<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Indulgent, till, all kind expedients tried,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He drew the sword on them and reigned in peace.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Laud's laying his religion on the Scots<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Was the last gentle entry: the new page<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Shall run, the King thinks, "Wentworth thrust it down<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At the sword's point."</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Puritan.</i><span class="i10"> </span>I'll do your bidding, Pym,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">England's and God's—one blow!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i20"> </span>A goodly thing—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We all say, friends, it is a goodly thing<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To right that England. Heaven grows dark above:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Let's snatch one moment ere the thunder fall,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To say how well the English spirit comes out<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>Beneath it! All have done their best, indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">From lion Eliot, that grand Englishman,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To the least here: and who, the least one here,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When she is saved (for her redemption dawns<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Dimly, most dimly, but it dawns—it dawns)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Who'd give at any price his hope away<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of being named along with the Great Men?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We would not—no, we would not give that up!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> And one name shall be dearer than all names.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When children, yet unborn, are taught that name<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">After their fathers',—taught what matchless man....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> ... Saved England? What if Wentworth's should be still<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That name?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard and others.</i> We have just said it, Pym! His death<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Saves her! We said it—there's no way beside!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll do God's bidding, Pym! They struck down Joab<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And purged the land.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i12"> </span>No villanous striking-down!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard.</i> No, a calm vengeance: let the whole land rise<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And shout for it. No Feltons!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Rudyard, no!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">England rejects all Feltons; most of all<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Since Wentworth ... Hampden, say the trust again<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of England in her servants—but I'll think<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You know me, all of you. Then, I believe,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Spite of the past, Wentworth rejoins you, friends!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane and others.</i> Wentworth? Apostate! Judas! Double-dyed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A traitor! Is it Pym, indeed....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i22"> </span>... Who says<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Vane never knew that Wentworth, loved that man,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>Was used to stroll with him, arm locked in arm,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Along the streets to see the people pass,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And read in every island-countenance<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Fresh argument for God against the King,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Never sat down, say, in the very house<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Where Eliot's brow grew broad with noble thoughts,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">(You've joined us, Hampden—Hollis, you as well,)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And then left talking over Gracchus' death....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> To frame, we know it well, the choicest clause<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In the Petition of Right: he framed such clause<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">One month before he took at the King's hand<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His Northern Presidency, which that Bill<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Denounced.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Too true! Never more, never more<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Walked we together! Most alone I went.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I have had friends—all here are fast my friends—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But I shall never quite forget that friend.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And yet it could not but be real in him!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You, Vane,—you, Rudyard, have no right to trust<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To Wentworth: but can no one hope with me?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hampden, will Wentworth dare shed English blood<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Like water?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i><span class="i2"> </span>Ireland is Aceldama.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> Will he turn Scotland to a hunting-ground<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To please the King, now that he knows the King?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The People or the King? and that King, Charles!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> Pym, all here know you: you'll not set your heart<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On any baseless dream. But say one deed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of Wentworth's since he left us....</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Shouting without.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i24"> </span>There! he comes,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And they shout for him! Wentworth's at Whitehall,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King embracing him, now, as we speak,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span>And he, to be his match in courtesies,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Taking the whole war's risk upon himself,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Now, while you tell us here how changed he is!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hear you?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i4"> </span>And yet if 'tis a dream, no more,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That Wentworth chose their side, and brought the King<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To love it as though Laud had loved it first,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And the Queen after;—that he led their cause<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Calm to success, and kept it spotless through,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So that our very eyes could look upon<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The travail of our souls, and close content<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That violence, which something mars even right<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which sanctions it, had taken off no grace<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">From its serene regard. Only a dream!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> We meet here to accomplish certain good<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">By obvious means, and keep tradition up<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of free assemblages, else obsolete,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In this poor chamber: nor without effect<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Has friend met friend to counsel and confirm,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As, listening to the beats of England's heart,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We spoke its wants to Scotland's prompt reply<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">By these her delegates. Remains alone<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That word grow deed, as with God's help it shall—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But with the devil's hindrance, who doubts too?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Looked we or no that tyranny should turn<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Her engines of oppression to their use?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whereof, suppose the worst be Wentworth here—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Shall we break off the tactics which succeed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In drawing out our formidablest foe,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Let bickering and disunion take their place?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or count his presence as our conquest's proof,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And keep the old arms at their steady play?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Proceed to England's work! Fiennes, read the list!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Fiennes.</i> Ship-money is refused or fiercely paid<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>In every county, save the northern parts<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Where Wentworth's influence....</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Shouting.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i20"> </span>I, in England's name,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Declare her work, this way, at end! Till now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Up to this moment, peaceful strife was best.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We English had free leave to think; till now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We had a shadow of a Parliament<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In Scotland. But all's changed: they change the first,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They try brute-force for law, they, first of all....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Voices.</i> Good! Talk enough! The old true hearts with Vane!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> Till we crush Wentworth for her, there's no act<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Serves England!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Voices.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Vane for England!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i22"> </span>Pym should be<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Something to England. I seek Wentworth, friends.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the second scene of the first act, the man +upon whom the popular party has been heaping +opprobrium appears to speak for himself. +Again the historical background must be +known in order that the whole drift of the +scene may be understood. Wentworth is +talking with Lady Carlisle, a woman celebrated +for her beauty and her wit, and fond +of having friendships with great men. Various +opinions of this beautiful woman have +been expressed by those who knew her. +"Her beauty," writes one, "brought her +adorers of all ranks, courtiers, and poets, and +statesmen; but she remained untouched by +their worship." Sir Toby Mathews who pre<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span>fixed +to a collection of letters published in +1660 "A character of the most excellent Lady, +Lucy, Countess of Carlisle," writes that she +will "freely discourse of love, and hear both the +fancies and powers of it; but if you will needs +bring it within knowledge, and boldly direct +it to herself, she is likely to divert the discourse, +or, at least, seem not to understand +it. By which you may know her humour, +and her justice; for since she cannot love in +earnest she would have nothing from love." +According to him she filled her mind "with +gallant fancies, and high and elevated +thoughts," and "her wit being most eminent +among the rest of her great abilities," even +the conversation of those most famed for it +was affected. Quite another view of her is +given in a letter of Voiture's written to Mr. +Gordon on leaving England in 1623.</p> + +<p>"In one human being you let me see more +treasures than there are there [the Tower], and +even more lions and leopards. It will not be +difficult for you to guess after this that I +speak of the Countess of Carlisle. For there +is nobody else of whom all this good and evil +can be said. No matter how dangerous it is +to let the memory dwell upon her, I have not, +so far, been able to keep mine from it, and, +quite honestly, I would not give the picture of<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> +her that lingers in my mind, for all the loveliest +things I have seen in my life. I must +confess that she is an enchanting personality, +and there would not be a woman under heaven +so worthy of affection, if she only knew what +it was, and if she had as sensitive a nature +as she has a reasonable mind. But with the +temperament we know she possesses, there is +nothing to be said except that she is the most +lovable of all things not good, and the most +delightful poison that nature ever concocted." +Browning himself says he first sketched her +character from Mathews, but finding that +rather artificial, he used Voiture and Waller, +who referred to her as the "bright Carlisle of +the Court of Heaven." It should be remembered +that she had become a widow and was +considerably older at the time of her friendship +with Wentworth than when Voiture +wrote of her, and was probably better balanced, +and truly worthy of Wentworth's own +appreciation of her when he wrote, "A nobler +nor a more intelligent friendship did I never +meet with in my life." A passage in a letter +to Laud indicates that Wentworth was well +aware of the practical advantage in having +such a friend as Lady Carlisle at Court. "I +judge her ladyship very considerable. She is +often in place, and extremely well skilled how<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> +to speak with advantage and spirit for those +friends she professeth unto, which will not +be many. There is this further in her disposition, +she will not seem to be the person +she is not, an ingenuity I have always observed +and honoured her for."</p> + +<p>It is something of a shock to learn that even +before the Wentworth episode was well over, +she became a friend of his bitterest foe, Pym. +Gardiner sums up her character in as fair a +way as any one,—and not at all inconsistent +with Browning's portrayal of her.</p> + +<p>"Lady Carlisle had now been for many +years a widow. She had long been the reigning +beauty at Court, and she loved to mingle +political intrigue with social intercourse. For +politics as a serious occupation she had no +aptitude; but, in middle age, she felt a woman's +pride in attaching to herself the strong heads +by which the world was ruled, as she had +attached to herself in youth, the witty courtier +or the agile dancer. It was worth a statesman's +while to cultivate her acquaintance. +She could make him a power in society as +well as in Council, could worm out a secret +which it behoved him to know, and could convey +to others his suggestions with assured fidelity. +The calumny which treated Strafford, +as it afterwards treated Pym, as her accepted<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> +lover, may be safely disregarded. But there +can be no doubt that purely personal motives +attached her both to Strafford and Pym. +For Strafford's theory of Monarchical government +she cared as little as she cared for Pym's +theory of Parliamentary government. It may +be, too, that some mingled feeling may have +arisen in Strafford's breast. It was something +to have an ally at Court ready at all +times to plead his cause with gay enthusiasm, +to warn him of hidden dangers, and to offer +him the thread of that labyrinth which, under +the name of 'the Queen's side,' was such a +mystery to him. It was something, too, no +doubt, that this advocate was not a grey haired +statesman, but a woman, in spite of growing +years, of winning grace and sparkling vivacity +of eye and tongue."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span></p> +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_10" id="linki_10"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus010.jpg" width="419" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Charles I</p> +</div> + +<p>Strafford, himself, Browning brings before +us, ill, and worn out with responsibility as he +was upon his return to England at this time. +Carlisle tactfully lets him know how he will +have to face criticisms from other councillors +about the King, and how even the confidence +of the fickle King cannot be relied upon. In +his conference with the King in this scene, +Strafford, at last, wins the confidence of the +King as history relates. Wentworth, horrified +at the way in which a war with Scotland has +been precipitated, carries his point, that Parliaments +should be called in Ireland and England. +This will give time for preparation, +and at the same time an opportunity of convincing +the people that the war is justified by +Scotland's treason, so causing them willingly +to grant subsidies for the expense of the war. +To turn from the play to history, Commissioners +from the Scottish Parliament, the Earls +of Loudon and Dumferling had arrived in +London to ask that the acts of the Scottish +Parliament might receive confirmation from +the King. This question was referred to a +committee of eight Privy Councillors. Propositions +were made to put the Scotch Commissioners +in prison; however, the King +finally decided to dismiss them without treating +with them. Scottish indignation of course +ran high at this proceeding, and here Wentworth +stepped in and won the King to his +policy of ruling Scotland directly from England. +"He insisted," writes Gardiner, "that +a Parliament, and a Parliament alone, was +the remedy fitted for the occasion. Laud and +Hamilton gave him their support. He carried +his point with the Committee. What was of +more importance he carried it with the King." +And as one writer expressed it the Lords were +of the opinion that "his Majesty should make<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> +trial of that once more, that so he might leave +his people without excuse, and have where +withal to justify himself to God and the +world that in his own inclination he desired +the old way; but that if his people should +not cheerfully, according to their duties, +meet him in that, especially in this exigent +when his kingdom and person are in apparent +danger, the world might see he is +forced, contrary to his own inclination, to +use extraordinary means rather than, by +the peevishness of some few factious spirits, +to suffer his state and government to be +lost."</p> + +<p>In the play as in history, Charles now confers +upon Wentworth an Earldom. Shortly +after this the King "was prepared," says +Gardiner, "to confer upon his faithful Minister +that token of his confidence which he +had twice refused before. On January 12, +Wentworth received the Earldom of Strafford, +and a week later he exchanged the title of +Lord-Deputy of Ireland for the higher dignity +of Lord-Lieutenant."</p> + +<p>In his conference with Pym, Strafford who, +in talking to Carlisle, had shown a slight +wavering toward the popular party, because +of finding himself so surrounded by difficulties, +stands firm; this episode is a striking<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> +working up of the tradition of the friendship +between these two men.</p> + +<p>The influence of the Queen upon Charles +is the last strand in this tangled skein of human +destiny brought out by Browning in +the scene. The Parliament that Wentworth +wants she is afraid of lest it should ask for +a renewal of the persecution of the Catholics. +The vacillating Charles, in an instant, is ready +to repudiate his interview with Wentworth, +and act only to please the Queen.</p> + +<div class="drama"> +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>Whitehall.</i></h4> + +<p class="center"><i><em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span> and <span class="smcap">Wentworth</span></i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> And the King?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Wentworth, lean on me! Sit then!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll tell you all; this horrible fatigue<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Will kill you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i4"> </span>No;—or, Lucy, just your arm;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll not sit till I've cleared this up with him:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">After that, rest. The King?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Confides in you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Why? or, why now?—They have kind throats, the knaves!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Shout for me—they!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i4"> </span>You come so strangely soon:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Yet we took measures to keep off the crowd—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Did they shout for you?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Wherefore should they not?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Does the King take such measures for himself?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>Besides, there's such a dearth of malcontents,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You say!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> I said but few dared carp at you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> At me? at us, I hope! The King and I!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He's surely not disposed to let me bear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The fame away from him of these late deeds<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In Ireland? I am yet his instrument<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be it for well or ill? He trusts me too!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> The King, dear Wentworth, purposes, I said,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To grant you, in the face of all the Court....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> All the Court! Evermore the Court about us!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Savile and Holland, Hamilton and Vane<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">About us,—then the King will grant me—what?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That he for once put these aside and say—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"Tell me your whole mind, Wentworth!"</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i18"> </span>You professed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You would be calm.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Lucy, and I am calm!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How else shall I do all I come to do,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Broken, as you may see, body and mind,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How shall I serve the King? Time wastes meanwhile,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You have not told me half. His footstep! No.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Quick, then, before I meet him,—I am calm—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why does the King distrust me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i12"> </span>He does not<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Distrust you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Lucy, you can help me; you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Have even seemed to care for me: one word!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is it the Queen?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i2"> </span>No, not the Queen: the party<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That poisons the Queen's ear, Savile and Holland.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> I know, I know: old Vane, too, he's one too?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>Go on—and he's made Secretary. Well?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or leave them out and go straight to the charge—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The charge!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Oh, there's no charge, no precise charge;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Only they sneer, make light of—one may say,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Nibble at what you do.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i10"> </span>I know! but, Lucy,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I reckoned on you from the first!—Go on!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Was sure could I once see this gentle friend<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When I arrived, she'd throw an hour away<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To help her ... what am I?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i10"> </span>You thought of me,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Dear Wentworth?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i4"> </span>But go on! The party here!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> They do not think your Irish government<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of that surpassing value....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i14"> </span>The one thing<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of value! The one service that the crown<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">May count on! All that keeps these very Vanes<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In power, to vex me—not that they do vex,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Only it might vex some to hear that service<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Decried, the sole support that's left the King!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> So the Archbishop says.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i22"> </span>Ah? well, perhaps<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The only hand held up in my defence<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">May be old Laud's! These Hollands then, these Saviles<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Nibble? They nibble?—that's the very word!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Your profit in the Customs, Bristol says,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Exceeds the due proportion: while the tax....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Enough! 'tis too unworthy,—I am not<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So patient as I thought. What's Pym about?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Pym?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Pym and the People.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i18"> </span>O, the Faction!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span>Extinct—of no account: there'll never be<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Another Parliament.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Tell Savile that!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You may know—(ay, you do—the creatures here<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Never forget!) that in my earliest life<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I was not ... much that I am now! The King<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">May take my word on points concerning Pym<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Before Lord Savile's, Lucy, or if not,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I bid them ruin their wise selves, not me,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">These Vanes and Hollands! I'll not be their tool<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Who might be Pym's friend yet.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i22"> </span>But there's the King!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Where is he?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Just apprised that you arrive.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> And why not here to meet me? I was told<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He sent for me, nay, longed for me.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Because,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He is now ... I think a Council's sitting now<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">About this Scots affair.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i12"> </span>A Council sits?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They have not taken a decided course<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Without me in the matter?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i8"> </span>I should say....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> The war? They cannot have agreed to that?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Not the Scots' war?—without consulting me—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Me, that am here to show how rash it is,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How easy to dispense with?—Ah, you too<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Against me! well,—the King may take his time.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Forget it, Lucy! Cares make peevish: mine<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Weigh me (but 'tis a secret) to my grave.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> For life or death I am your own, dear friend!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Goes out.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Heartless! but all are heartless here. Go now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Forsake the People!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span><span class="i16"> </span>I did not forsake<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The People: they shall know it, when the King<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Will trust me!—who trusts all beside at once,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">While I have not spoke Vane and Savile fair,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And am not trusted: have but saved the throne:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Have not picked up the Queen's glove prettily,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And am not trusted. But he'll see me now.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Weston is dead: the Queen's half English now—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">More English: one decisive word will brush<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">These insects from ... the step I know so well!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King! But now, to tell him ... no—to ask<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What's in me he distrusts:—or, best begin<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">By proving that this frightful Scots affair<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is just what I foretold. So much to say,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And the flesh fails, now, and the time is come,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And one false step no way to be repaired.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You were avenged, Pym, could you look on me.</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Pym</span> enters.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> I little thought of you just then.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i32"> </span>No? I<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Think always of you, Wentworth.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i16"> </span>The old voice!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I wait the King, sir.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i14"> </span>True—you look so pale!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A Council sits within; when that breaks up<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He'll see you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Sir, I thank you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i22"> </span>Oh, thank Laud!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You know when Laud once gets on Church affairs<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The case is desperate: he'll not be long<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To-day: he only means to prove, to-day,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We English all are mad to have a hand<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In butchering the Scots for serving God<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">After their fathers' fashion: only that!</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_11" id="linki_11"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus011.jpg" width="500" height="321" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Whitehall</p> +</div> + +<div class="drama"> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Sir, keep your jests for those who relish them!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">(Does he enjoy their confidence?) 'Tis kind<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To tell me what the Council does.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i22"> </span>You grudge<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That I should know it had resolved on war<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Before you came? no need: you shall have all<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The credit, trust me!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Have the Council dared—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They have not dared ... that is—I know you not.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Farewell, sir: times are changed.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i22"> </span>—Since we two met<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At Greenwich? Yes: poor patriots though we be,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You cut a figure, makes some slight return<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For your exploits in Ireland! Changed indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Could our friend Eliot look from out his grave!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ah, Wentworth, one thing for acquaintance' sake,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Just to decide a question; have you, now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Felt your old self since you forsook us?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Sir!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> Spare me the gesture! you misapprehend.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Think not I mean the advantage is with me.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I was about to say that, for my part,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I never quite held up my head since then—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Was quite myself since then: for first, you see,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I lost all credit after that event<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With those who recollect how sure I was<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Wentworth would outdo Eliot on our side.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Forgive me: Savile, old Vane, Holland here,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Eschew plain-speaking: 'tis a trick I keep.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> How, when, where, Savile, Vane, and Holland speak,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Plainly or otherwise, would have my scorn,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All of my scorn, sir....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i16"> </span>... Did not my poor thoughts<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> +<span class="hang1st">Claim somewhat?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Keep your thoughts! believe the King<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Mistrusts me for their prattle, all these Vanes<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And Saviles! make your mind up, o' God's love,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That I am discontented with the King!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> Why, you may be: I should be, that I know,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Were I like you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Like me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i16"> </span>I care not much<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For titles: our friend Eliot died no lord,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hampden's no lord, and Savile is a lord;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But you care, since you sold your soul for one.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I can't think, therefore, your soul's purchaser<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Did well to laugh you to such utter scorn<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When you twice prayed so humbly for its price,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The thirty silver pieces ... I should say,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Earldom you expected, still expect,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And may. Your letters were the movingest!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Console yourself: I've borne him prayers just now<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">From Scotland not to be oppressed by Laud,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Words moving in their way: he'll pay, be sure,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As much attention as to those you sent.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> False, sir! Who showed them you? Suppose it so,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King did very well ... nay, I was glad<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When it was shown me: I refused, the first!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">John Pym, you were my friend—forbear me once!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> Oh, Wentworth, ancient brother of my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That all should come to this!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Leave me!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i28"> </span>My friend,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why should I leave you?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i10"> </span>To tell Rudyard this,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span><span class="hang1st">And Hampden this!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Whose faces once were bright<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At my approach, now sad with doubt and fear,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Because I hope in you—yes, Wentworth, you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Who never mean to ruin England—you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Who shake off, with God's help, an obscene dream<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In this Ezekiel chamber, where it crept<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon you first, and wake, yourself, your true<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And proper self, our Leader, England's Chief,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And Hampden's friend!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i16"> </span>This is the proudest day!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Come, Wentworth! Do not even see the King!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The rough old room will seem itself again!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We'll both go in together: you've not seen<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hampden so long: come: and there's Fiennes: you'll have<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To know young Vane. This is the proudest day!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>The <span class="smcap">King</span> enters. <span class="smcap">Wentworth</span> lets fall <span class="smcap">Pym's</span> hand.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> Arrived, my lord?—This gentleman, we know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Was your old friend.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i14"> </span>The Scots shall be informed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What we determine for their happiness.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i><span class="smcap">Pym</span> goes out.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">You have made haste, my lord.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Sir, I am come....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> To see an old familiar—nay, 'tis well;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Aid us with his experience: this Scots' League<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And Covenant spreads too far, and we have proofs<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That they intrigue with France: the Faction too,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whereof your friend there is the head and front,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Abets them,—as he boasted, very like.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Sir, trust me! but for this once, trust me, sir!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> What can you mean?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> That you should trust me, sir!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span><span class="hang1st">Oh—not for my sake! but 'tis sad, so sad<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That for distrusting me, you suffer—you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whom I would die to serve: sir, do you think<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That I would die to serve you?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i18"> </span>But rise, Wentworth!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> What shall convince you? What does Savile do<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To prove him.... Ah, one can't tear out one's heart<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And show it, how sincere a thing it is!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> Have I not trusted you?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Say aught but that!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There is my comfort, mark you: all will be<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So different when you trust me—as you shall!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">It has not been your fault,—I was away,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Mistook, maligned, how was the King to know?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I am here, now—he means to trust me, now—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All will go on so well!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Be sure I do—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I've heard that I should trust you: as you came,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your friend, the Countess, told me....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i20"> </span>No,—hear nothing—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be told nothing about me!—you're not told<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your right-hand serves you, or your children love you!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> You love me, Wentworth: rise!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i22"> </span>I can speak now.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I have no right to hide the truth. 'Tis I<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Can save you: only I. Sir, what must be?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> Since Laud's assured (the minutes are within)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Loath as I am to spill my subjects' blood....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> That is, he'll have a war: what's done is done!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> They have intrigued with France; that's clear to Laud.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Has Laud suggested any way to meet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The war's expense?</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i8"> </span>He'd not decide so far<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Until you joined us.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Most considerate!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He's certain they intrigue with France, these Scots?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The People would be with us.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Pym should know.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> The People for us—were the People for us!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Sir, a great thought comes to reward your trust:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Summon a Parliament! in Ireland first,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Then, here.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i2"> </span>In truth?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i8"> </span>That saves us! that puts off<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The war, gives time to right their grievances—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To talk with Pym. I know the Faction,—Laud<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So styles it,—tutors Scotland: all their plans<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Suppose no Parliament: in calling one<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You take them by surprise. Produce the proofs<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of Scotland's treason; then bid England help:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Even Pym will not refuse.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i14"> </span>You would begin<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With Ireland?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Take no care for that: that's sure<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To prosper.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> You shall rule me. You were best<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Return at once: but take this ere you go!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Now, do I trust you? You're an Earl: my Friend<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of Friends: yes, while.... You hear me not!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Say it all o'er again—but once again:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The first was for the music: once again!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> Strafford, my friend, there may have been reports,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Vain rumors. Henceforth touching Strafford is<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To touch the apple of my sight: why gaze<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So earnestly?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> I am grown young again,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span><span class="hang1st">And foolish. What was it we spoke of?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i22"> </span>Ireland,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Parliament,—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i6"> </span>I may go when I will?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Now?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> Are you tired so soon of us?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i22"> </span>My King!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But you will not so utterly abhor<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A Parliament? I'd serve you any way.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> You said just now this was the only way.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i> Sir, I will serve you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Strafford, spare yourself:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You are so sick, they tell me.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i16"> </span>'Tis my soul<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That's well and prospers now.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i22"> </span>This Parliament—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We'll summon it, the English one—I'll care<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For everything. You shall not need them much.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> If they prove restive....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i18"> </span>I shall be with you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> Ere they assemble?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Wentworth.</i><span class="i14"> </span>I will come, or else<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Deposit this infirm humanity<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I' the dust. My whole heart stays with you, my King!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>As <span class="smcap">Wentworth</span> goes out, the <span class="smcap">Queen</span> enters.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> That man must love me.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Is it over then?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why, he looks yellower than ever! Well,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At least we shall not hear eternally<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of service—services: he's paid at least.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> Not done with: he engages to surpass<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All yet performed in Ireland.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i18"> </span>I had thought<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Nothing beyond was ever to be done.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The war, Charles—will he raise supplies enough?</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> We've hit on an expedient; he ... that is,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I have advised ... we have decided on<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The calling—in Ireland—of a Parliament.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i> O truly! You agree to that? Is that<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The first fruit of his counsel? But I guessed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As much.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i2"> </span>This is too idle, Henriette!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I should know best. He will strain every nerve,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And once a precedent established....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Notice<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How sure he is of a long term of favor!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He'll see the next, and the next after that;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No end to Parliaments!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Well, it is done.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He talks it smoothly, doubtless. If, indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Commons here....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Here! you will summon them<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Here? Would I were in France again to see<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A King!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> But, Henriette....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Oh, the Scots see clear!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why should they bear your rule?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i18"> </span>But listen, sweet!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i> Let Wentworth listen—you confide in him!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> I do not, love,—I do not so confide!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Parliament shall never trouble us<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">... Nay, hear me! I have schemes, such schemes: we'll buy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The leaders off: without that, Wentworth's counsel<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Had ne'er prevailed on me. Perhaps I call it<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To have excuse for breaking it for ever,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And whose will then the blame be? See you not?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Come, dearest!—look, the little fairy, now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That cannot reach my shoulder! Dearest, come!</span></p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span> +In the second act, the historical episode, +which pervades the act is the assembling and +the dissolution of the Short Parliament. Only +the salient points of the political situation have +been seized upon by Browning. As in the +first act, the popular party in private conclave +is introduced. From the talk it is gathered +that feeling runs high against Strafford, by +whose advice the Parliament had been called, +because of the exorbitant demands made upon +it for money to support an army, this army to +crush Scotland whose cause was so nearly like +its own. The popular party or the Faction +had supposed the Parliament would be a +means for the redressing of its long list of +grievances which had been accumulating during +the years since the last Parliament had +been held. Instead of that the Commons +was deliberately informed by Charles that +there would be no discussions of its demands +until it had granted the subsidies for +which it had been asked. The play gives +one a much more lively sense of the indignant +feelings of the duped men than can possibly +be gained by reading many more pages +of history with its endless minor details. Upon +this gathering, Pym suddenly enters again, +and to the reproaches of him for his belief in +Strafford, makes the reply that the Parliament<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> +has been dissolved, the King has cast Strafford +off forever, and henceforth Strafford will be on +their side,—a conclusion not warranted by +history, and, of course, found out to be erroneous +by Pym and his followers in the next +scene. Again there is the dramatic need to +emphasize the human side of life even in an +essentially political play, by showing that Pym's +friendship and loyalty to Wentworth were no +uncertain elements in his character. The moment +it could be proved beyond a doubt that +Wentworth was in the eyes of Pym, England's +enemy, that moment Pym knew it would become +his painful duty to crush Wentworth utterly, +therefore Pym had for his own conscience' +sake to make the uttermost trial of his faith.</p> + +<p>The second scene, as in the first act, brings +out the other side. It is in the main true to +history though much condensed. History relates +that after the Short Parliament was +dissolved, "voices were raised at Whitehall +in condemnation of Strafford." His policy +of raising subsidies from the Parliament having +failed, criticisms would, of course, be +made upon his having pushed ahead a war +without the proper means of sustaining it. +Charles himself was also frightened by the +manifestations of popular discontent and failed +to uphold Wentworth in his policy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> +Northumberland had been appointed commander-in-chief +of the army, but besides having +little heart for an enterprise so badly prepared +for, he was ill in bed and could not take +command of the army, so the King appointed +Strafford in his place. A hint of Strafford +as he appears in this scene may be taken from +Clarendon who writes "The earl of Strafford +was scarce recovered from a great sickness, +yet was willing to undertake the charge out +of pure indignation to see how few men were +forward to serve the King with that vigor of +mind they ought to do; but knowing well the +malicious designs which were contrived against +himself, he would rather serve as lieutenant-general +under the earl of Northumberland, +than that he should resign his commission: +and so, with and under that qualification, he +made all possible haste towards the north before +he had strength enough for the journey." +Browning makes the King tell Strafford in +this interview that he has dissolved the Parliament. +He represents Strafford as horrified +by the news and driven in this extremity to +suggest the desperate measure of debasing +the coinage as a means of obtaining funds. +Strafford actually counseled this, when all +else failed, namely, the proposed loan from +the city, and one from the Spanish govern<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>ment, +but, according to history, he himself +voted for the dissolution of Parliament, though +the play is accurate in laying the necessity of +the dissolution at the door of old Vane. It +was truly his ill-judged vehemence, for, not +able to brook the arguments of the Commons, +"He rose," says Gardiner, "to state that the +King would accept nothing less than the twelve +subsidies which he had demanded in his +message. Upon this the Committee broke up +without coming to a resolution, postponing +further consideration of the matter to the +following day." The next morning the King +who had called his councillors together early +"announced his intention of proceeding to +a dissolution. Strafford, who arrived late, +begged that the question might first be seriously +discussed, and that the opinions of the +Councillors, who were also members of the +Lower House, might first be heard. Vane +declared that there was no hope that the Commons +'would give one penny.' On this the +votes were taken. Northumberland and Holland +were alone in wishing to avert a dissolution. +Supported by the rest of the Council +the King hurried to the House of Lords and +dissolved Parliament."</p> + +<p>Wholly imaginary is the episode in this scene +where Pym and his followers break in upon<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> +the interview of Wentworth and the King. +Just at the climax of Wentworth's sorrowful +rage at the King's treatment of him, they come +to claim Wentworth for their side.</p> + +<div class="drama"> +<p><span class="hang1st">That you would say I did advise the war;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And if, through your own weakness, or what's worse,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">These Scots, with God to help them, drive me back,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You will not step between the raging People<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And me, to say....<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i14"> </span>I knew it! from the first<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I knew it! Never was so cold a heart!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Remember that I said it—that I never<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Believed you for a moment!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i20"> </span>—And, you loved me?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You thought your perfidy profoundly hid<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Because I could not share the whisperings<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With Vane, with Savile? What, the face was masked?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I had the heart to see, sir! Face of flesh,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But heart of stone—of smooth cold frightful stone!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ay, call them! Shall I call for you? The Scots<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Goaded to madness? Or the English—Pym—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Shall I call Pym, your subject? Oh, you think<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll leave them in the dark about it all?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They shall not know you? Hampden, Pym shall not?</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Pym, Hampden, Vane</span>, etc., enter.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">[<i>Dropping on his knee.</i>] Thus favored with your gracious countenance<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What shall a rebel League avail against<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your servant, utterly and ever yours?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So, gentlemen, the King's not even left<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The privilege of bidding me farewell<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span><span class="hang1st">Who haste to save the People—that you style<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your People—from the mercies of the Scots<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And France their friend?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To <span class="smcap">Charles</span>.</i>] <span class="i8"> </span>Pym's grave grey eyes are fixed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon you, sir!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i10"> </span>Your pleasure, gentlemen?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> The King dissolved us—'tis the King we seek<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And not Lord Strafford.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i10"> </span>—Strafford, guilty too<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of counselling the measure. [<i>To <span class="smcap">Charles</span>.</i>] (Hush ... you know—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You have forgotten—sir, I counselled it)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A heinous matter, truly! But the King<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Will yet see cause to thank me for a course<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which now, perchance ... (Sir, tell them so!)—he blames.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Well, choose some fitter time to make your charge:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I shall be with the Scots, you understand?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Then yelp at me!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i12"> </span>Meanwhile, your Majesty<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Binds me, by this fresh token of your trust....</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Under the pretence of an earnest farewell, <span class="smcap">Strafford</span> conducts +<span class="smcap">Charles</span> to the door, in such a manner as to hide +his agitation from the rest: as the King disappears, they +turn as by one impulse to <span class="smcap">Pym</span>, who has not changed his +original posture of surprise.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> Leave we this arrogant strong wicked man!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane and others.</i> Hence, Pym! Come out of this unworthy place<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To our old room again! He's gone.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i><span class="smcap">Strafford</span>, just about to follow the <span class="smcap">King</span>, looks back.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Not gone!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To <span class="smcap">Strafford</span>.</i>] Keep tryst! the old appointment's made anew:<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span><span class="hang1st">Forget not we shall meet again!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>So be it!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And if an army follows me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i16"> </span>His friends<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Will entertain your army!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i16"> </span>I'll not say<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You have misreckoned, Strafford: time shows.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i34"> </span>Perish<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Body and spirit! Fool to feign a doubt,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Pretend the scrupulous and nice reserve<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of one whose prowess shall achieve the feat!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What share have I in it? Do I affect<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To see no dismal sign above your head<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When God suspends his ruinous thunder there?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strafford is doomed. Touch him no one of you!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i><span class="smcap">Pym, Hampden</span>, etc., go out.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Pym, we shall meet again!</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the final talk of this scene with Carlisle, +the pathos of Strafford's position is wonderfully +brought out—the man who loves his King +so overmuch that no perfidy on the King's +part can make his resolution to serve him +waver for an instant.</p> + +<div class="drama"> +<p class="center"><i><em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span> enters.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><span class="i24"> </span>You here, child?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Hush—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I know it all: hush, Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Ah? you know?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Well. I shall make a sorry soldier, Lucy!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All knights begin their enterprise, we read,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span><span class="hang1st">Under the best of auspices; 'tis morn,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Lady girds his sword upon the Youth<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">(He's always very young)—the trumpets sound,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Cups pledge him, and, why, the King blesses him—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You need not turn a page of the romance<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To learn the Dreadful Giant's fate. Indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We've the fair Lady here; but she apart,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A poor man, rarely having handled lance,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And rather old, weary, and far from sure<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His Squires are not the Giant's friends. All's one:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Let us go forth!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i2"> </span>Go forth?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i12"> </span>What matters it?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We shall die gloriously—as the book says.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> To Scotland? Not to Scotland?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Am I sick<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Like your good brother, brave Northumberland?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Beside, these walls seem falling on me.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Strafford,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The wind that saps these walls can undermine<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your camp in Scotland, too. Whence creeps the wind?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Have you no eyes except for Pym? Look here!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A breed of silken creatures lurk and thrive<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In your contempt. You'll vanquish Pym? Old Vane<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Can vanquish you. And Vane you think to fly?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Rush on the Scots! Do nobly! Vane's slight sneer<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Shall test success, adjust the praise, suggest<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The faint result: Vane's sneer shall reach you there.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—You do not listen!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Oh,—I give that up!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There's fate in it: I give all here quite up.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Care not what old Vane does or Holland does<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Against me! 'Tis so idle to withstand!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In no case tell me what they do!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i14"> </span>But, Strafford....</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> I want a little strife, beside; real strife;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This petty palace-warfare does me harm:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I shall feel better, fairly out of it.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Why do you smile?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> I got to fear them, child!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I could have torn his throat at first, old Vane's,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As he leered at me on his stealthy way<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To the Queen's closet. Lord, one loses heart!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I often found it on my lips to say<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"Do not traduce me to her!"</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i10"> </span>But the King....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> The King stood there, 'tis not so long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—There; and the whisper, Lucy, "Be my friend<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><a name='TC_12'></a><ins title="Removed extra start quote">Of</ins> friends!"—My King! I would have....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i20"> </span>... Died for him?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Sworn him true, Lucy: I can die for him.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> But go not, Strafford! But you must renounce<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This project on the Scots! Die, wherefore die?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Charles never loved you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i10"> </span>And he never will.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He's not of those who care the more for men<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That they're unfortunate.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Then wherefore die<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For such a master?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i6"> </span>You that told me first<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How good he was—when I must leave true friends<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To find a truer friend!—that drew me here<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">From Ireland,—"I had but to show myself<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And Charles would spurn Vane, Savile, and the rest"—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You, child, to ask me this?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i10"> </span>(If he have set<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His heart abidingly on Charles!)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i24"> </span>Then, friend,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I shall not see you any more.</span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Yes, Lucy.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There's one man here I have to meet.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i16"> </span>(The King!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What way to save him from the King?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i26"> </span>My soul—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That lent from its own store the charmed disguise<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which clothes the King—he shall behold my soul!)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strafford,—I shall speak best if you'll not gaze<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon me: I had never thought, indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To speak, but you would perish too, so sure!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Could you but know what 'tis to bear, my friend,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">One image stamped within you, turning blank<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The else imperial <a name='TC_13'></a><ins title="Was 'brillance'">brilliance</ins> of your mind,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A weakness, but most precious,—like a flaw<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I' the diamond, which should shape forth some sweet face<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Yet to create, and meanwhile treasured there<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Lest nature lose her gracious thought for ever!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> When could it be? no! Yet ... was it the day<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We waited in the anteroom, till Holland<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Should leave the presence-chamber?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i16"> </span>What?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i24"> </span>—That I<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Described to you my love for Charles?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i18"> </span>(Ah, no—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">One must not lure him from a love like that!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Oh, let him love the King and die! 'Tis past.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I shall not serve him worse for that one brief<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And passionate hope, silent for ever now!)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And you are really bound for Scotland then?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I wish you well: you must be very sure<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of the King's faith, for Pym and all his crew<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Will not be idle—setting Vane aside!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> If Pym is busy,—<a name='TC_14'></a><ins title="Was 'you way'">you may</ins> write of Pym.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> What need, since there's your King to take your part?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He may endure Vane's counsel; but for Pym—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Think you he'll suffer Pym to....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Child, your hair<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is glossier than the Queen's!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Is that to ask<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A curl of me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Scotland——the weary way!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Stay, let me fasten it.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i28"> </span>—A rival's, Strafford?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford</i> [<i>showing the George</i>]. He hung it there: twine yours around it, child!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> No—no—another time—I trifle so!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And there's a masque on foot. Farewell. The Court<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is dull; do something to enliven us<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In Scotland: we expect it at your hands.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> I shall not fail in Scotland.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Prosper—if<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You'll think of me sometimes!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>How think of him<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And not of you? of you, the lingering streak<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">(A golden one) in my good fortune's eve.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Strafford.... Well, when the eve has its last streak<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The night has its first star.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>She goes out.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>That voice of hers—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You'd think she had a heart sometimes! His voice<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is soft too.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i10"> </span>Only God can save him now.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be Thou about his bed, about his path!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His path! Where's England's path? Diverging wide,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And not to join again the track my foot<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span><span class="hang1st">Must follow—whither? All that forlorn way<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Among the tombs! Far—far—till.... What, they do<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Then join again, these paths? For, huge in the dusk,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There's—Pym to face!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i16"> </span>Why then, I have a foe<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To close with, and a fight to fight at last<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Worthy my soul! What, do they beard the King,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And shall the King want Strafford at his need?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Am I not here?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i10"> </span>Not in the market-place,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Pressed on by the rough artisans, so proud<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To catch a glance from Wentworth! They lie down<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hungry yet smile "Why, it must end some day:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is he not watching for our sake?" Not there!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But in Whitehall, the whited sepulchre,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The....<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i6"> </span>Curse nothing to-night! Only one name<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They'll curse in all those streets to-night. Whose fault?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Did I make kings? set up, the first, a man<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To represent the multitude, receive<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All love in right of them—supplant them so,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Until you love the man and not the king——<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The man with the mild voice and mournful eyes<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which send me forth.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i16"> </span>—To breast the bloody sea<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That sweeps before me: with one star for guide.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Night has its first, supreme, forsaken star.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>During the third act, the long Parliament +is in session, and Pym is making his great +speech impeaching Wentworth.</p> + +<p>The conditions of affairs at the time of this +Parliament were well-nigh desperate for Charles +and Wentworth. Things had not gone well<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> +with the Scottish war and Wentworth was falling +more and more into disfavor. England +was now threatened with a Scottish invasion. +Still, even with this danger to face it was impossible +to raise money to support the army. +The English had a suspicion that the Scotch +cause was their own. The universal demand +for a Parliament could no longer be ignored; +the <a name='TC_15'></a><ins title="Capitalized King">King</ins>, therefore, summoned it to meet on +the third of November. As Firth observes, +"To Strafford this meant ruin, but he hardly +realized the greatness of the danger in which +he stood. On October 8, the Scotch Commissioners +in a public paper denounced him +as an incendiary, and declared that they meant +to insist on his punishment.</p> + +<p>"As soon as the Parliament opened Charles +discovered that it was necessary for his service +to have Strafford again by his side, and +summoned him to London. There is evidence +that his friends urged him to pass over +to Ireland where the army rested at his devotion, +or to transport himself to foreign Kingdoms +till fairer weather here should invite +him home. The Marquis of Hamilton advised +him to fly, but as Hamilton told the +King, the Earl was too great-hearted to fear. +Though conscious of the peril of obedience, +he set out to London to stand by his Master."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> +The enmity of the Court party to Strafford is +touched upon in the first scene, and in the +second, Strafford's return, unsuspecting of the +great blow that awaits him. He had indeed +meditated a blow on his own part. According +to Firth, he felt that "One desperate +resource remained. The intrigues of the parliamentary +leaders with the Scots had come +to Strafford's knowledge, and he had determined +to impeach them of high treason. He +could prove that Pym and his friends had +secretly communicated with the rebels, and +invited them to bring a Scottish army into +England. Strafford arrived in London on +Monday, November 9, 1640, and spent Tuesday +in resting after his journey. On the +morning of Wednesday the 11th, he took his +seat in the House of Lords, but did not strike +the blow." Upon that day he was impeached +of high treason by Pym. Gardiner's account +here has much the same dramatic force as +the play.</p> + +<p>"Followed by a crowd of approving members, +Pym carried up the message. Whilst +the Lords were still debating on this unusual +request for imprisonment before the charge +had been set forth, the news of the impeachment +was carried to Strafford. 'I will go,' +he proudly said 'and look my accusers in the<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> +face.' With haughty mien and scowling brow +he strode up the floor of the House to his place +of honor. There were those amongst the Peers +who had no wish to allow him to speak, lest he +should accuse them of complicity with the +Scots. The Lords, as a body, felt even more +personally aggrieved by his method of government +than the Commons. Shouts of 'Withdraw! +withdraw!' rose from every side. As +soon as he was gone an order was passed +sequestering the Lord-Lieutenant from his +place in the House and committing him to the +custody of the Gentleman Usher. He was then +called in and bidden to kneel whilst the order +was read. He asked permission to speak, but +his request was sternly refused. Maxwell, +the Usher of the Black Rod, took from him his +sword, and conducted him out of the House. +The crowd outside gazed pitilessly on the +fallen minister, 'No man capping to him, +before whom that morning the greatest in +England would have stood <a name='TC_16'></a><ins title="Matching the original: leaving it hyphenated">dis-covered</ins>.' 'What +is the matter?' they asked. 'A small matter, +I warrant you,' replied Strafford with +forced levity. 'Yes, indeed,' answered a bystander, +'high treason is a small matter.'"</p> + +<p>This passage brings up the scene in a +manner so similar to that of the play, it is +safe to say that Gardiner was here <span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>influenced +by Browning, the history having been +written many years after the play.</p> + +<div class="drama"> +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>Whitehall.</i></h4> + +<p class="center"><i>The <span class="smcap">Queen</span> and <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i> It cannot be.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i4"> </span>It is so.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Why, the House<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Have hardly met.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> They met for that.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i22"> </span>No, no!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Meet to impeach Lord Strafford? 'Tis a jest.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> A bitter one.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Consider! 'Tis the House<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We summoned so reluctantly, which nothing<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But the disastrous issue of the war<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Persuaded us to summon. They'll wreak all<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Their spite on us, no doubt; but the old way<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is to begin by talk of grievances:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They have their grievances to busy them.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Pym has begun his speech.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Where's Vane?—That is,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Pym will impeach Lord Strafford if he leaves<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His Presidency; he's at York, we know,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Since the Scots beat him: why should he leave York?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Because the King sent for him.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i30"> </span>Ah—but if<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King did send for him, he let him know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We had been forced to call a Parliament—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A step which Strafford, now I come to think,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Was vehement against.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i6"> </span>The policy<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span><span class="hang1st">Escaped him, of first striking Parliaments<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To earth, then setting them upon their feet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And giving them a sword: but this is idle.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Did the King send for Strafford? He will come.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i> And what am I to do?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> What do? Fail, madam!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be ruined for his sake! what matters how,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So it but stand on record that you made<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">An effort, only one?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i12"> </span>The King away<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At Theobald's!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Send for him at once: he must<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Dissolve the House.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Wait till Vane finds the truth<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of the report: then....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i8"> </span>—It will matter little<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What the King does. Strafford that lends his arm<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And breaks his heart for you!</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i><em>Sir</em> <span class="smcap">H. Vane</span> enters.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i20"> </span>The Commons, madam,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Are sitting with closed doors. A huge debate,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No lack of noise; but nothing, I should guess,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Concerning Strafford: Pym has certainly<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Not spoken yet.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen</i> [<i>to <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span></i>]. You hear?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i16"> </span>I do not hear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That the King's sent for!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Savile will be able<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To tell you more.</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Holland</span> enters.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i8"> </span>The last news, Holland?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Holland.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Pym<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is raging like a fire. The whole House means<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span><span class="hang1st">To follow him together to Whitehall<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And force the King to give up Strafford.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i28"> </span>Strafford?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Holland.</i> If they content themselves with Strafford! Laud<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is talked of, Cottington and Windebank too.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Pym has not left out one of them—I would<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You heard Pym raging!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Vane, go find the King!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Tell the King, Vane, the People follow Pym<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To brave us at Whitehall!</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Savile</span> enters.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Savile.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Not to Whitehall—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Tis to the Lords they go: they seek redress<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On Strafford from his peers—the legal way,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They call it.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i6"> </span>(Wait, Vane!)</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Savile.</i><span class="i16"> </span>But the adage gives<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Long life to threatened men. Strafford can save<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Himself so readily: at York, remember,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In his own country: what has he to fear?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Commons only mean to frighten him<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">From leaving York. Surely, he will not come.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i> Lucy, he will not come!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Once more, the King<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Has sent for Strafford. He will come.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Oh doubtless!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And bring destruction with him: that's his way.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What but his coming spoilt all Conway's plan?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King must take his counsel, choose his friends,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be wholly ruled by him! What's the result?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The North that was to rise, Ireland to help,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What came of it? In my poor mind, a fright<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is no prodigious punishment.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i10"> </span>A fright?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Pym will fail worse than Strafford if he thinks<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To frighten him. [<i>To the <span class="smcap">Queen</span>.</i>] You will not save him then?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Savile.</i> When something like a charge is made, the King<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Will best know how to save him: and t'is clear,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">While Strafford suffers nothing by the matter,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King may reap advantage: this in question,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No dinning you with ship-money complaints!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen</i> [<i>to <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span></i>]. If we dissolve them, who will pay the army?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Protect us from the insolent Scots?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i18"> </span>In truth,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I know not, madam. Strafford's fate concerns<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Me little: you desired to learn what course<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Would save him: I obey you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Notice, too,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There can't be fairer ground for taking full<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Revenge—(Strafford's revengeful)—than he'll have<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Against his old friend Pym.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Why, he shall claim<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Vengeance on Pym!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i10"> </span>And Strafford, who is he<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To 'scape unscathed amid the accidents<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That harass all beside? I, for my part,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Should look for something of discomfiture<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Had the King trusted me so thoroughly<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And been so paid for it.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Holland.</i><span class="i12"> </span>He'll keep at York:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All will blow over: he'll return no worse,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Humbled a little, thankful for a place<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Under as good a man. Oh, we'll dispense<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With seeing Strafford for a month or two!</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Strafford</span> enters.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i> You here!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i4"> </span>The King sends for me, madam.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i30"> </span>Sir,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i2"> </span>An urgent matter that imports the King!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span>.</i>] Why, Lucy, what's in agitation now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That all this muttering and shrugging, see,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Begins at me? They do not speak!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i14"> </span>'Tis welcome!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For we are proud of you—happy and proud<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To have you with us, Strafford! You were staunch<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At Durham: you did well there! Had you not<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Been stayed, you might have ... we said, even now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Our hope's in you!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane</i> [<i>to <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span></i>]. The Queen would speak with you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Will one of you, his servants here, vouchsafe<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To signify my presence to the King?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Savile.</i><span class="i22"> </span>An urgent matter?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> None that touches you,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Lord Savile! Say, it were some treacherous<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Sly pitiful intriguing with the Scots—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You would go free, at least! (They half divine<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My purpose!) Madam, shall I see the King?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The service I would render, much concerns<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His welfare.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen.</i><span class="i6"> </span>But his Majesty, my lord,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">May not be here, may....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Its importance, then,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Must plead excuse for this withdrawal, madam,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And for the grief it gives Lord Savile here.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen</i> [<i>who has been conversing with <span class="smcap">Vane</span> and <span class="smcap">Holland</span></i>].<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King will see you, sir!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span>.</i>]<span class="i8"> </span>Mark me: Pym's worst<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span><span class="hang1st">Is done by now: he has impeached the Earl,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or found the Earl too strong for him, by now.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Let us not seem instructed! We should work<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No good to Strafford, but deform ourselves<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With shame in the world's eye. [<i>To <span class="smcap">Strafford</span>.</i>] His Majesty<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Has much to say with you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Time fleeting, too!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span>.</i>] No means of getting them away? And She—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What does she whisper? Does she know my purpose?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What does she think of it? Get them away!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Queen</i> [<i>to <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span></i>]. He comes to baffle Pym—he thinks the danger<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Far off: tell him no word of it! a time<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For help will come; we'll not be wanting then.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Keep him in play, Lucy—you, self-possessed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And calm! [<i>To <span class="smcap">Strafford</span>.</i>] To spare your lordship some delay<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I will myself acquaint the King. [<i>To <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span>.</i>] Beware!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>The <span class="smcap">Queen, Vane, Holland</span>, and <span class="smcap">Savile</span> go out.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> She knows it?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Tell me, Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Afterward!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This moment's the great moment of all time.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">She knows my purpose?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Thoroughly: just now<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">She bade me hide it from you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Quick, dear child,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The whole o' the scheme?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i8"> </span>(Ah, he would learn if they<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Connive at Pym's procedure! Could they but<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Have once apprised the King! But there's no time<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For falsehood, now.) Strafford, the whole is known.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Known and approved?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Hardly discountenanced.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> And the King—say, the King consents as well?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> The King's not yet informed, but will not dare<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To interpose.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i2"> </span>What need to wait him, then?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He'll sanction it! I stayed, child, tell him, long!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">It vexed me to the soul—this waiting here.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You know him, there's no counting on the King.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Tell him I waited long!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i8"> </span>(What can he mean?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Rejoice at the King's hollowness?)</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i20"> </span>I knew<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They would be glad of it,—all over once,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I knew they would be glad: but he'd contrive,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Queen and he, to mar, by helping it,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">An angel's making.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i4"> </span>(Is he mad?) Dear Strafford,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You were not wont to look so happy.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I tried obedience thoroughly. I took<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King's wild plan: of course, ere I could reach<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My army, Conway ruined it. I drew<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The wrecks together, raised all heaven and earth,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And would have fought the Scots: the King at once<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Made truce with them. Then, Lucy, then, dear child,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">God put it in my mind to love, serve, die<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For Charles, but never to obey him more!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">While he endured their insolence at Ripon<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I fell on them at Durham. But you'll tell<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King I waited? All the anteroom<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is filled with my adherents.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Strafford—Strafford,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What daring act is this you hint?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i20"> </span>No, no!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Tis here, not daring if you knew? all here!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Drawing papers from his breast.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1">Full proof, see, ample proof—does the Queen know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I have such damning proof? Bedford and Essex,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Brooke, Warwick, Savile (did you notice Savile?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The simper that I spoilt?), Saye, Mandeville—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Sold to the Scots, body and soul, by Pym!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i22"> </span>Great heaven!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> From Savile and his lords, to Pym<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And his losels, crushed!—Pym shall not ward the blow<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Nor Savile creep aside from it! The Crew<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And the Cabal—I crush them!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i10"> </span>And you go—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strafford,—and now you go?—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i14"> </span>—About no work<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In the background, I promise you! I go<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Straight to the House of Lords to claim these knaves.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Mainwaring!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Stay—stay, Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i20"> </span>She'll return,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Queen—some little project of her own!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No time to lose: the King takes fright perhaps.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Pym's strong, remember!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i22"> </span>Very strong, as fits<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Faction's head—with no offence to Hampden,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Vane, Rudyard and my loving Hollis: one<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And all they lodge within the Tower to-night<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In just equality. Bryan! Mainwaring!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Many of his <em>Adherents</em> enter.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">The Peers debate just now (a lucky chance)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On the Scots' war; my visit's opportune.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span><span class="hang1st">When all is over, Bryan, you proceed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To Ireland: these dispatches, mark me, Bryan,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Are for the Deputy, and these for Ormond:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We want the army here—my army, raised<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At such a cost, that should have done such good,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And was inactive all the time! no matter,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We'll find a use for it. Willis ... or, no—you!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You, friend, make haste to York: bear this, at once ...<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or,—better stay for form's sake, see yourself<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The news you carry. You remain with me<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To execute the Parliament's command,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Mainwaring! Help to seize these lesser knaves,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Take care there's no escaping at backdoors:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll not have one escape, mind me—not one!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I seem revengeful, Lucy? Did you know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What these men dare!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i6"> </span>It is so much they dare!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> I proved that long ago; my turn is now.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Keep sharp watch, Goring, on the citizens!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Observe who harbors any of the brood<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That scramble off: be sure they smart for it!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Our coffers are but lean.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i20"> </span>And you, child, too,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Shall have your task; deliver this to Laud.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Laud will not be the slowest in thy praise:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"Thorough" he'll cry!—Foolish, to be so glad!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This life is gay and glowing, after all:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Tis worth while, Lucy, having foes like mine<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Just for the bliss of crushing them. To-day<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is worth the living for.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i8"> </span>That reddening brow!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You seem....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i2"> </span>Well—do I not? I would be well—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I could not but be well on such a day!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span><span class="hang1st">And, this day ended, 'tis of slight import<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How long the ravaged frame subjects the soul<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In Strafford.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Noble Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>No farewell!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll see you anon, to-morrow—the first thing.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—If She should come to stay me!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Go—'tis nothing—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Only my heart that swells: it has been thus<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ere now: go, Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i10"> </span>To-night, then, let it be.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I must see Him: you, the next after Him.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll tell how Pym looked. Follow me, friends!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You, gentlemen, shall see a sight this hour<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To talk of all your lives. Close after me!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"My friend of friends!"</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i><span class="smcap">Strafford</span> and the rest go out.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i8"> </span>The King—ever the King!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No thought of one beside, whose little word<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Unveils the King to him—one word from me,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which yet I do not breathe!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i20"> </span>Ah, have I spared<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strafford a pang, and shall I seek reward<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Beyond that memory? Surely too, some way<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He is the better for my love. No, no—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He would not look so joyous—I'll believe<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His very eye would never sparkle thus,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Had I not prayed for him this long, long while.</span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<i>The Antechamber of the House of Lords.</i></h4> + +<p class="center"><i>Many of the Presbyterian Party. The <em>Adherents</em> of <span class="smcap">Strafford</span>, +etc.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Group of Presbyterians.</i> —1. I tell you he struck Maxwell: Maxwell sought<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> +<span class="hang1st">To stay the Earl: he struck him and passed on.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">2. Fear as you may, keep a good countenance<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Before these rufflers.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">3.<span class="i16"> </span>Strafford here the first,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With the great army at his back!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">4.<span class="i24"> </span>No doubt.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I would Pym had made haste: that's Bryan, hush—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The gallant pointing.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford's Followers.</i> —1. Mark these worthies, now!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">2. A goodly gathering! "Where the carcass is<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There shall the eagles"—what's the rest?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">3.<span class="i30"> </span>For eagles<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Say crows.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Presbyterian.</i> Stand back, sirs!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>One of Strafford's Followers.</i><span class="i2"> </span>Are we in Geneva?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Presbyterian.</i> No, nor in Ireland; we have leave to breathe.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>One of Strafford's Followers.</i> Truly? Behold how privileged we be<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That serve "King Pym"! There's Some-one at Whitehall<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Who skulks obscure; but Pym struts....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>The Presbyterian.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Nearer.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Follower of Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Higher,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We look to see him. [<i>To his <em>Companions</em>.</i>] I'm to have St. John<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In charge; was he among the knaves just now<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That followed Pym within there?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Another.</i><span class="i18"> </span>The gaunt man<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Talking with Rudyard. Did the Earl expect<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Pym at his heels so fast? I like it not.</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Maxwell</span> enters.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Another.</i> Why, man, they rush into the net! Here's Maxwell—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ha, Maxwell? How the brethren flock around<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The fellow! Do you feel the Earl's hand yet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon your shoulder, Maxwell?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Maxwell.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Gentlemen,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Stand back! a great thing passes here.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Follower of Strafford</i> [<i>To another</i>].<span class="i2"> </span>The Earl<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is at his work! [<i>To <em>M.</em></i>] Say, Maxwell, what great thing!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Speak out! [<i>To a <em>Presbyterian</em>.</i>] Friend, I've a kindness for you! Friend,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I've seen you with St. John: O stockishness!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Wear such a ruff, and never call to mind<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">St. John's head in a charger? How, the plague,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Not laugh?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Another.</i> Say, Maxwell, what great thing!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Another.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Nay, wait:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The jest will be to wait.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>First.</i><span class="i16"> </span>And who's to bear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">These demure hypocrites? You'd swear they came ...<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Came ... just as we come!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>A <em>Puritan</em> enters hastily and without observing <span class="smcap">Strafford's</span> +<em>Followers</em>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>The Puritan.</i><span class="i10"> </span>How goes on the work?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Has Pym....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Follower of Strafford.</i> The secret's out at last. Aha,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The carrion's scented! Welcome, crow the first!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Gorge merrily, you with the blinking eye!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"King Pym has fallen!"</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>The Puritan.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Pym?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Strafford.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Pym!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Presbyterian.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Only Pym?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Many of Strafford's Followers.</i> No, brother, not Pym only; Vane as well,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Rudyard as well, Hampden, St. John as well!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Presbyterian.</i> My mind misgives: can it be true?</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>Another.</i><span class="i32"> </span>Lost! Lost!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>A Strafford.</i> Say we true, Maxwell?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>The Puritan.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Pride before destruction,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A haughty spirit goeth before a fall.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Many of Strafford's Followers.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Ah now! The very thing! A word in season!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A golden apple in a silver picture,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To greet Pym as he passes!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>The doors at the back begin to open, noise and +light issuing.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Maxwell.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Stand back, all!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Many of the Presbyterians.</i> I hold with Pym! And I!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford's Followers.</i> Now for the text!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He comes! Quick!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>The Puritan.</i><span class="i4"> </span>How hath the oppressor ceased!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The sceptre of the rulers, he who smote<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The people in wrath with a continual stroke,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That ruled the nations in his anger—he<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is persecuted and none hindreth!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>The doors open, and <span class="smcap">Strafford</span> issues in the greatest +disorder, and amid cries from within of "<em>Void the +House</em>!"</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Impeach me! Pym! I never struck, I think,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The felon on that calm insulting mouth<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When it proclaimed—Pym's mouth proclaimed me ... God!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Was it a word, only a word that held<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The outrageous blood back on my heart—which beats!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which beats! Some one word—"Traitor," did he say,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Bending that eye, brimful of bitter fire,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Maxwell.</i> In the Commons' name, their servant<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Demands Lord Strafford's sword.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>What did you say?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Maxwell.</i> The Commons bid me ask your lordship's sword.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Let us go forth: follow me, gentlemen!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Draw your swords too: cut any down that bar us.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On the King's service! Maxwell, clear the way!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>The <em>Presbyterians</em> prepare to dispute his passage.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> I stay: the King himself shall see me here.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your tablets, fellow!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To <span class="smcap">Mainwaring</span>.</i>]<span class="i4"> </span>Give that to the King!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Yes, Maxwell, for the next half-hour, let be!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Nay, you shall take my sword!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i><span class="smcap">Maxwell</span> advances to take it.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><span class="i22"> </span>Or, no—not that!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Their blood, perhaps, may wipe out all thus far,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All up to that—not that! Why, friend, you see<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When the King lays your head beneath my foot<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">It will not pay for that. Go, all of you!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Maxwell.</i> I dare, my lord, to disobey: none stir!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> This gentle Maxwell!—Do not touch him, Bryan!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To the <em>Presbyterians</em>.</i>] Whichever cur of you will carry this<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Escapes his fellow's fate. None saves his life?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">None?<br /></span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Cries from within of "<span class="smcap">Strafford</span>!"</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st"><span class="i4"> </span>Slingsby, I've loved you at least: make haste!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Stab me! I have not time to tell you why.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You then, my Bryan! Mainwaring, you then!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is it because I spoke so hastily<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At Allerton? The King had vexed me.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To the <em>Presbyterians</em>.</i>]<span class="i10"> </span>You!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Not even you? If I live over this,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King is sure to have your heads, you know!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But what if I can't live this minute through?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Pym, who is there with his pursuing smile!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Louder cries of "<span class="smcap">Strafford</span>!"</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span><span class="hang1st">The King! I troubled him, stood in the way<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of his negotiations, was the one<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Great obstacle to peace, the Enemy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of Scotland: and he sent for me, from York,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My safety guaranteed—having prepared<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A Parliament—I see! And at Whitehall<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Queen was whispering with Vane—I see<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The trap!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Tearing off the George.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st"><span class="i6"> </span>I tread a gewgaw underfoot,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And cast a memory from me. One stroke, now!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>His own <em>Adherents</em> disarm him. Renewed cries of +"<span class="smcap">Strafford</span>!"</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">England! I see thy arm in this and yield.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Pray you now—Pym awaits me—pray you now!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i><span class="smcap">Strafford</span> reaches the doors: they open wide. <span class="smcap">Hampden</span> +and a crowd discovered, and, at the bar, <span class="smcap">Pym</span> standing +apart. As <span class="smcap">Strafford</span> kneels, the scene shuts.</i></p> + +</div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_12" id="linki_12"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus012.jpg" width="500" height="289" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Westminster Hall</p> +</div> + +<p>The history of the fourth act deals with +further episodes of Strafford's trial, especially +with the change in the procedure from Impeachment +to a Bill of Attainder against +Strafford. The details of this great trial are +complicated and cannot be followed in all their +ramifications here. There was danger that +the Impeachment would not go through. +Strafford, himself, felt confident that in law +his actions could not be found treasonable.</p> + +<p>After Strafford's brilliant defense of himself, +it was decided to bring in a Bill of Attainder. +New evidence against Strafford con<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>tained +in some notes which the younger Vane +had found among his father's papers were +used to strengthen the charge of treason. +In these notes Strafford had advised the King +to act "loose and absolved from all rules of +government," and had reminded him that +there was an army in Ireland, ready to reduce +the Kingdom. These notes were found by +the merest accident. The younger Vane who +had just been knighted and was about to be +married, borrowed his father's keys in order +to look up some law papers. In his search +he fell upon these notes taken at a committee +that met immediately after the dissolution of +the short Parliament. He made a copy and +carried it to Pym who also made a copy.</p> + +<p>According to Baillie, the "secret" of the +change from the Impeachment to the Bill was +"to prevent the hearing of the Earl's lawyers, +who give out that there is no law yet in force +whereby he can be condemned to die for +aught yet objected against him, and therefore +their intent by this Bill to supply the +defect of the laws therein." To this may be +added the opinion of a member of the Commons. +"If the House of Commons proceeds +to demand judgment of the Lords, without +doubt they will acquit him, there being no +law extant whereby to condemn him of treason.<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> +Wherefore the Commons are determined to +desert the Lord's judicature, and to proceed +against him by Bill of Attainder, whereby he +shall be adjudged to death upon a treason +now to be declared."</p> + +<p>One of the chief results in this change of +procedure, emphasized by Browning in an intense +scene between Pym and Charles was +that it altered entirely the King's attitude +towards Strafford's trial. As Baillie expresses +it, "Had the Commons gone on in the former +way of pursuit, the King might have been a +patient, and only beheld the striking off of +Strafford's head; but now they have put them +on a Bill which will force the King either to +be our agent and formal voicer to his death, +or else do the world knows not what."</p> + +<p>For the sake of a gain in dramatic power, +Browning has once more departed from history +by making Pym the moving power in +the Bill of Attainder, and Hampden in favor +of it; while in reality they were opposed to +the change in procedure, and believed that +the Impeachment could have been carried +through.</p> + +<p>The relentless, scourging force of Pym in +the play, pursuing the arch-foe of England as +he regarded Wentworth to the death, once he +is convinced that England's welfare demands<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> +it, would have been weakened had he been +represented in favor of the policy which was +abandoned, instead of with the policy that +succeeded. But Pym is made to intimate +that he will abandon the Bill unless the King +gives his word that he will ratify it, and +further, Pym declares, should he not ratify +the Bill his next step will be against the King +himself.</p> + +<div class="drama"> + +<p class="center"><i>Enter <span class="smcap">Hampden</span> and <span class="smcap">Vane</span>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> O Hampden, save the great misguided man!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Plead Strafford's cause with Pym! I have remarked<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He moved no muscle when we all declaimed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Against him: you had but to breathe—he turned<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Those kind calm eyes upon you.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Enter <span class="smcap">Pym</span>, the <em>Solicitor-General</em> <span class="smcap">St. John</span>, the <em>Managers</em> +of the Trial, <span class="smcap">Fiennes, Rudyard</span>, etc.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Horrible!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Till now all hearts were with you: I withdraw<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For one. Too horrible! But we mistake<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your purpose, Pym: you cannot snatch away<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The last spar from the drowning man.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Fiennes.</i><span class="i22"> </span>He talks<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With St. John of it—see, how quietly!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To other <em>Presbyterians</em>.</i>] You'll join us? Strafford may deserve the worst:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But this new course is monstrous. Vane, take heart!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This Bill of his Attainder shall not have<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">One true man's hand to it.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Consider, Pym!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Confront your Bill, your own Bill: what is it?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You cannot catch the Earl on any charge,—<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span><span class="hang1st">No man will say the law has hold of him<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On any charge; and therefore you resolve<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To take the general sense on his desert,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As though no law existed, and we met<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To found one. You refer to Parliament<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To speak its thought upon the abortive mass<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of half-borne-out assertions, dubious hints<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hereafter to be cleared, distortions—ay,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And wild inventions. Every man is saved<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The task of fixing any single charge<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On Strafford: he has but to see in him<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The enemy of England.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i14"> </span>A right scruple!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I have heard some called England's enemy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With less consideration.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Pity me!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Indeed you made me think I was your friend!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I who have murdered Strafford, how remove<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That memory from me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i14"> </span>I absolve you, Vane.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Take you no care for aught that you have done!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> John Hampden, not this Bill! Reject this Bill!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He staggers through the ordeal: let him go,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strew no fresh fire before him! Plead for us!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When Strafford spoke, your eyes were thick with tears!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i> England speaks louder: who are we, to play<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The generous pardoner at her expense,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Magnanimously waive advantages,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And, if he conquer us, applaud his skill?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i> He was your friend.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i16"> </span>I have heard that before.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Fiennes.</i> And England trusts you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hampden.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Shame be his, who turns<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The opportunity of serving her<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span><span class="hang1st">She trusts him with, to his own mean account—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Who would look nobly frank at her expense!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Fiennes.</i> I never thought it could have come to this.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> But I have made myself familiar, Fiennes,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With this one thought—have walked, and sat, and slept,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This thought before me. I have done such things,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Being the chosen man that should destroy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The traitor. You have taken up this thought<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To play with, for a gentle stimulant,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To give a dignity to idler life<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">By the dim prospect of emprise to come,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But ever with the softening, sure belief,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That all would end some strange way right at last.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Fiennes.</i> Had we made out some weightier charge!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i34"> </span>You say<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That these are petty charges: can we come<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To the real charge at all? There he is safe<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In tyranny's stronghold. Apostasy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is not a crime, treachery not a crime:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The cheek burns, the blood tingles, when you speak<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The words, but where's the power to take revenge<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon them? We must make occasion serve,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The oversight shall pay for the main sin<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That mocks us.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard.</i><span class="i6"> </span>But his unexampled course,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This Bill!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i6"> </span>By this, we roll the clouds away<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of precedent and custom, and at once<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Bid the great beacon-light God sets in all,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The conscience of each bosom, shine upon<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The guilt of Strafford: each man lay his hand<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon his breast, and judge!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i18"> </span>I only see<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strafford, nor pass his corpse for all beyond!</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Rudyard and others.</i> Forgive him! He would join us, now he finds<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What the King counts reward! The pardon, too,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Should be your own. Yourself should bear to Strafford<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The pardon of the Commons.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Meet him? Strafford?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Have we to meet once more, then? Be it so!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And yet—the prophecy seemed half fulfilled<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When, at the Trial, as he gazed, my youth,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Our friendship, divers thoughts came back at once<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And left me, for a time.... 'Tis very sad!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To-morrow we discuss the points of law<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With Lane—to-morrow?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Vane.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Not before to-morrow—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So, time enough! I knew you would relent!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> The next day, Haselrig, you introduce<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Bill of his Attainder. Pray for me!</span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<i>Whitehall.</i></h4> + +<p class="center"><i>The <span class="smcap">King</span>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> My loyal servant! To defend himself<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Thus irresistibly,—withholding aught<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That seemed to implicate us!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i22"> </span>We have done<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Less gallantly by Strafford. Well, the future<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Must recompense the past.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i20"> </span>She tarries long.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I understand you, Strafford, now!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i26"> </span>The scheme—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Carlisle's mad scheme—he'll sanction it, I fear,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For love of me. 'Twas too precipitate:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Before the army's fairly on its march,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He'll be at large: no matter.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i22"> </span>Well, Carlisle?</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> +<i>Enter <span class="smcap">Pym</span>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> Fear me not, sir:—my mission is to save,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This time.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i2"> </span>To break thus on me! Unannounced!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> It is of Strafford I would speak.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i24"> </span>No more<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of Strafford! I have heard too much from you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> I spoke, sir, for the People; will you hear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A word upon my own account?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Of Strafford?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">(So turns the tide already? Have we tamed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The insolent brawler?—Strafford's eloquence<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is swift in its effect.) Lord Strafford, sir,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Has spoken for himself.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Sufficiently.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I would apprise you of the novel course<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The People take: the Trial fails.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Yes, yes:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We are aware, sir: for your part in it<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Means shall be found to thank you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Pray you, read<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This schedule! I would learn from your own mouth<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—(It is a matter much concerning me)—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whether, if two Estates of us concede<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The death of Strafford, on the grounds set forth<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Within that parchment, you, sir, can resolve<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To grant your own consent to it. This Bill<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is framed by me. If you determine, sir,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That England's manifested will should guide<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your judgment, ere another week such will<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Shall manifest itself. If not,—I cast<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Aside the measure.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i8"> </span>You can hinder, then,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The introduction of this Bill?</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i20"> </span>I can.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> He is my friend, sir: I have wronged him: mark you,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Had I not wronged him, this might be. You think<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Because you hate the Earl ... (turn not away,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We know you hate him)—no one else could love<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strafford: but he has saved me, some affirm.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Think of his pride! And do you know one strange,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">One frightful thing? We all have used the man<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As though a drudge of ours, with not a source<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of happy thoughts except in us; and yet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strafford has wife and children, household cares,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Just as if we had never been. Ah sir,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You are moved, even you, a solitary man<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Wed to your cause—to England if you will!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> Yes—think, my soul—to England! Draw not back!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> Prevent that Bill, sir! All your course seems fair<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Till now. Why, in the end, 'tis I should sign<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The warrant for his death! You have said much<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I ponder on; I never meant, indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strafford should serve me any more. I take<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Commons' counsel; but this Bill is yours—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Nor worthy of its leader: care not, sir,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For that, however! I will quite forget<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You named it to me. You are satisfied?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> Listen to me, sir! Eliot laid his hand,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Wasted and white, upon my forehead once;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Wentworth—he's gone now!—has talked on, whole nights,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And I beside him; Hampden loves me: sir,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How can I breathe and not wish England well,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And her King well?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i8"> </span>I thank you, sir, who leave<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span><span class="hang1st">That King his servant. Thanks, sir!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Let me speak!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Who may not speak again; whose spirit yearns<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For a cool night after this weary day:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Who would not have my soul turn sicker yet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In a new task, more fatal, more august,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">More full of England's utter weal or woe.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I thought, sir, could I find myself with you,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">After this trial, alone, as man to man—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I might say something, warn you, pray you, save—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Mark me, King Charles, save——you!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But God must do it. Yet I warn you, sir—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">(With Strafford's faded eyes yet full on me)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As you would have no deeper question moved<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—"How long the Many must endure the One,"<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Assure me, sir, if England give assent<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To Strafford's death, you will not interfere!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or——</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> God forsakes me. I am in a net<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And cannot move. Let all be as you say!</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Enter <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> He loves you—looking beautiful with joy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Because you sent me! he would spare you all<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The pain! he never dreamed you would forsake<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your servant in the evil day—nay, see<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your scheme returned! That generous heart of his!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He needs it not—or, needing it, disdains<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A course that might endanger you—you, sir,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whom Strafford from his inmost soul....<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>Seeing <span class="smcap">Pym</span>.</i>]<span class="i20"> </span>Well met!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No fear for Strafford! All that's true and brave<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On your own side shall help us: we are now<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Stronger than ever.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i14"> </span>Ha—what, sir, is this?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All is not well! What parchment have you there?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> Sir, much is saved us both.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i14"> </span>This Bill! Your lip<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whitens—you could not read one line to me<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your voice would falter so!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i><span class="i18"> </span>No recreant yet!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The great word went from England to my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And I arose. The end is very near.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> I am to save him! All have shrunk beside;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Tis only I am left. Heaven will make strong<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The hand now as the heart. Then let both die!</span></p> + +</div> + +<p>In the last act Browning has drawn upon +his imagination more than in any other part +of the play. Strafford in prison in the Tower +is the center around which all the other elements +of the drama are made to revolve. A +glimpse, the first, of the man in a purely +human capacity is given in the second scene +with Strafford and his children. From all +accounts little Anne was a precocious child +and Browning has sketched her accordingly. +The scene is like a gleam of sunshine in the +gathering gloom.</p> + +<p>The genuine grief felt by the historical +Charles over the part he played in the ruin +of Strafford is brought out in an interview +between Strafford and Charles, who is represented +as coming disguised to the prison. +Strafford who has been hoping for pardon<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> +from the King learns from Hollis, in the King's +presence, that the King has signed his death +warrant. He receives this shock with the +remark which history attributes to him.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">"Put not your trust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In princes, neither in the sons of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In whom is no salvation!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>History tells us of two efforts to rescue +Strafford. One of these was an attempt to +bribe Balfour to allow him to escape from +the tower. This hint the Poet has worked +up into the episode of Charles, calling Balfour +and begging him to go at once to Parliament, +to say he will grant all demands, and that he +chooses to pardon Strafford. History, however, +does not say that Lady Carlisle was +implicated in any plan for the rescue of +Strafford, of which Browning makes so much. +According to Gardiner, she was by this time +bestowing her favors upon Pym. Devotion +to the truth here on Browning's part would +have completely ruined the inner unity of the +play. Carlisle, the woman ready to devote +herself to Strafford's utmost need, while Strafford +is more or less indifferent to her is the +artistic compliment of Strafford the man devoted +to the unresponsive King. The failure +of the escape through Pym's intervention is a<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> +final dramatic climax bringing face to face +not so much the two individual men as the +two principles of government for which England +was warring, the Monarchical and the +Parliamentary. To the last, Strafford is loyal +to the King and the Kingly idea, while Pym +crushing his human feelings under foot, calmly +contemplates the sacrifice not only of Strafford, +but even of the King, if England's need +demand it.</p> + +<p>In this supreme moment of agony when +Strafford and Pym meet face to face both men +are made to realize an abiding love for each +other beneath all their earthly differences. +"A great poet of our own day," writes Gardiner, +"clothing the reconciling spirit of the +nineteenth century in words which never could +have been spoken in the seventeenth, has +breathed a high wish. On his page an imaginary +Pym, recalling an imaginary friendship, +looks forward hopefully to a reunion in a +better and brighter world."</p> + +<div class="drama"> +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>The Tower.</i></h4> + +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Strafford</span> sitting with his <em>Children</em>. They sing.</i></p> + +<p class="song"><span class="hang1st">O bell 'andare<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Per barca in mare,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Verso la sera<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Di Primavera!</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i> The boat's in the broad moonlight all this while—</span></p> + +<p class="song"><span class="hang1st">Verso la sera<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Di Primavera!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">And the boat shoots from underneath the moon<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Into the shadowy distance; only still<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You hear the dipping oar—</span></p> + +<p class="song"><span class="hang1st">Verso la sera,</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">And faint, and fainter, and then all's quite gone,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Music and light and all, like a lost star.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Anne.</i> But you should sleep, father; you were to sleep.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> I do sleep, Anne; or if not—you must know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There's such a thing as....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i><span class="i16"> </span>You're too tired to sleep?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> It will come by-and-by and all day long,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In that old quiet house I told you of:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We sleep safe there.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Anne.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Why not in Ireland?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i24"> </span>No!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Too many dreams!—That song's for Venice, William:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You know how Venice looks upon the map—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Isles that the mainland hardly can let go?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i> You've been to Venice, father?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i22"> </span>I was young, then.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i> A city with no King; that's why I like<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Even a song that comes from Venice.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i20"> </span>William!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i> Oh, I know why! Anne, do you love the King?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But I'll see Venice for myself one day.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> See many lands, boy—England last of all,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That way you'll love her best.</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_13" id="linki_13"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus013.jpg" width="295" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">The Tower, London</p> +</div> + +<div class="drama"> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Why do men say<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You sought to ruin her then?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Ah,—they say that.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i> Why?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i2"> </span>I suppose they must have words to say,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As you to sing.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Anne.</i><span class="i8"> </span>But they make songs beside:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Last night I heard one, in the street beneath,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That called you.... Oh, the names!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Don't mind her, father!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They soon left off when I cried out to them.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> We shall so soon be out of it, my boy!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Tis not worth while: who heeds a foolish song?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i> Why, not the King.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Well: it has been the fate<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of better; and yet,—wherefore not feel sure<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That Time, who in the twilight comes to mend<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All the fantastic day's caprice, consign<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To the low ground once more the ignoble Term,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And raise the Genius on his orb again,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That Time will do me right?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Anne.</i><span class="i18"> </span>(Shall we sing, William?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He does not look thus when we sing.)</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i20"> </span>For Ireland,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Something is done: too little, but enough<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To show what might have been.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i><span class="i16"> </span>(I have no heart<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To sing now! Anne, how very sad he looks!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Oh, I so hate the King for all he says!)</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Forsook them! What, the common songs will run<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That I forsook the People? Nothing more?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ay, Fame, the busy scribe, will pause, no doubt,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Turning a deaf ear to her thousand slaves<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span><span class="hang1st">Noisy to be enrolled,—will register<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The curious glosses, subtle notices,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ingenious clearings-up one fain would see<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Beside that plain inscription of The Name—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The <a name='TC_17'></a><ins title="Was 'Partiot'">Patriot</ins> Pym, or the Apostate Strafford!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>The <em>Children</em> resume their song timidly, but break off.</i></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Enter <span class="smcap">Hollis</span> and an <em>Attendant</em>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> No,—Hollis? in good time!—Who is he?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i30"> </span>One<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That must be present.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Ah—I understand.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They will not let me see poor Laud alone.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How politic! They'd use me by degrees<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To solitude: and, just as you came in,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I was solicitous what life to lead<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When Strafford's "not so much as Constable<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In the King's service." Is there any means<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To keep oneself awake? What would you do<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">After this bustle, Hollis, in my place?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i> Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Observe, not but that Pym and you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Will find me news enough—news I shall hear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Under a quince-tree by a fish-pond side<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At Wentworth. Garrard must be re-engaged<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My newsman. Or, a better project now—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What if when all's consummated, and the Saints<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Reign, and the Senate's work goes swimmingly,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What if I venture up, some day, unseen,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To saunter through the Town, notice how Pym,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your Tribune, likes Whitehall, drop quietly<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Into a tavern, hear a point discussed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As, whether Strafford's name were John or James—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And be myself appealed to—I, who shall<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span><span class="hang1st">Myself have near forgotten!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i16"> </span>I would speak....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Then you shall speak,—not now. I want just now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To hear the sound of my own tongue. This place<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is full of ghosts.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Nay, you must hear me, Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Oh, readily! Only, one rare thing more,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The minister! Who will advise the King,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Turn his Sejanus, Richelieu and what not,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And yet have health—children, for aught I know—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My patient pair of traitors! Ah,—but, William—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Does not his cheek grow thin?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>William.</i><span class="i16"> </span>'Tis you look thin, Father!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> A scamper o'er the breezy wolds<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Sets all to-rights.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i10"> </span>You cannot sure forget<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A prison-roof is o'er you, Strafford?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i22"> </span>No,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why, no. I would not touch on that, the first.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I left you that. Well, Hollis? Say at once,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King can find no time to set me free!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A mask at Theobald's?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Hold: no such affair<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Detains him.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i2"> </span>True: what needs so great a matter?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Queen's lip may be sore. Well: when he pleases,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Only, I want the air: it vexes flesh<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To be pent up so long.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i12"> </span>The King—I bear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His message, Strafford: pray you, let me speak!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Go, William! Anne, try o'er your song again!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>The <em>Children</em> retire.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span>They shall be loyal, friend, at all events.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I know your message: you have nothing new<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To tell me: from the first I guessed as much.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I know, instead of coming here himself,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Leading me forth in public by the hand,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King <a name='TC_18'></a><ins title="Was 'perfers'">prefers</ins> to leave the door ajar<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As though I were escaping—bids me trudge<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">While the mob gapes upon some show prepared<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On the other side of the river! Give at once<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His order of release! I've heard, as well<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of certain poor manœuvres to avoid<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The granting pardon at his proper risk;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">First, he must prattle somewhat to the Lords,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Must talk a trifle with the Commons first,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be grieved I should abuse his confidence,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And far from blaming them, and.... Where's the order?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i> Spare me!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Why, he'd not have me steal away?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With an old doublet and a steeple hat<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Like Prynne's? Be smuggled into France, perhaps?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hollis, 'tis for my children! 'Twas for them<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I first consented to stand day by day<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And give your Puritans the best of words,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be patient, speak when called upon, observe<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Their rules, and not return them prompt their lie!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What's in that boy of mine that he should prove<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Son to a prison-breaker? I shall stay<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And he'll stay with me. Charles should know as much,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He too has children!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>Turning to <span class="smcap">Hollis's</span> <em>Companion</em>.</i>] Sir, you feel for me!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No need to hide that face! Though it have looked<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon me from the judgment-seat ... I know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Strangely, that somewhere it has looked on me, ...<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your coming has my pardon, nay, my thanks:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For there is one who comes not.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Whom forgive,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As one to die!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i4"> </span>True, all die, and all need<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Forgiveness: I forgive him from my soul.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i> 'Tis a world's wonder: Strafford, you must die!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Sir, if your errand is to set me free<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This heartless jest mars much. Ha! Tears in truth?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We'll end this! See this paper, warm—feel—warm<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With lying next my heart! Whose hand is there?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whose promise? Read, and loud for God to hear!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"Strafford shall take no hurt"—read it, I say!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"In person, honor, nor estate"—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i20"> </span>The King....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> I could unking him by a breath! You sit<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Where Loudon sat, who came to prophesy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The certain end, and offer me Pym's grace<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">If I'd renounce the King: and I stood firm<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On the King's faith. The King who lives....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i28"> </span>To sign<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The warrant for your death.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i14"> </span>"Put not your trust<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In princes, neither in the sons of men,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In whom is no salvation!"</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Trust in God!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The scaffold is prepared: they wait for you:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He has consented. Cast the earth behind!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> You would not see me, Strafford, at your foot!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">It was wrung from me! Only, curse me not!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis</i> [<i>to <span class="smcap">Strafford</span></i>]. As you hope grace and pardon in your need,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be merciful to this most wretched man.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Voices from within.</i></p> + +<p class="song"><span class="hang1st">Verso la sera<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Di Primavera</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> You'll be good to those children, sir? I know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You'll not believe her, even should the Queen<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Think they take after one they rarely saw.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I had intended that my son should live<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A stranger to these matters: but you are<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So utterly deprived of friends! He too<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Must serve you—will you not be good to him?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or, stay, sir, do not promise—do not swear!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You, Hollis—do the best you can for me!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I've not a soul to trust to: Wandesford's dead,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And you've got Radcliffe safe, Laud's turn comes next:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I've found small time of late for my affairs,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But I trust any of you, Pym himself—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No one could hurt them: there's an infant, too.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">These tedious cares! Your Majesty could spare them.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Nay—pardon me, my King! I had forgotten<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your education, trials, much temptation,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Some weakness: there escaped a peevish word—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Tis gone: I bless you at the last. You know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All's between you and me: what has the world<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To do with it? Farewell!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles</i> [<i>at the door</i>]. Balfour! Balfour!</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Enter <span class="smcap">Balfour</span>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">The Parliament!—go to them: I grant all<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Demands. Their sittings shall be permanent:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Tell them to keep their money if they will:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll come to them for every coat I wear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And every crust I eat: only I choose<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To pardon Strafford. As the Queen shall choose!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—You never heard the People howl for blood,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Beside!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Balfour.</i> Your Majesty may hear them now:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The walls can hardly keep their murmurs out:<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span><span class="hang1st">Please you retire!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Take all the troops, Balfour!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Balfour.</i> There are some hundred thousand of the crowd.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Charles.</i> Come with me, Strafford! You'll not fear, at least!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Balfour, say nothing to the world of this!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I charge you, as a dying man, forget<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You gazed upon this agony of one ...<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of one ... or if ... why you may say, Balfour,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The King was sorry: 'tis no shame in him:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Yes, you may say he even wept, Balfour,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And that I walked the lighter to the block<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Because of it. I shall walk lightly, sir!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Earth fades, heaven breaks on me: I shall stand next<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Before God's throne: the moment's close at hand<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When man the first, last time, has leave to lay<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His whole heart bare before its Maker, leave<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To clear up the long error of a life<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And choose one happiness for evermore.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With all mortality about me, Charles,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The sudden wreck, the dregs of violent death—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What if, despite the opening angel-song,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There penetrate one prayer for you? Be saved<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Through me! Bear witness, no one could prevent<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My death! Lead on! ere he awake—best, now!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All must be ready: did you say, Balfour,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The crowd began to murmur? They'll be kept<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Too late for sermon at St. Antholin's!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Now! But tread softly—children are at play<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In the next room. Precede! I follow—</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Enter <em>Lady</em> <span class="smcap">Carlisle</span> with many <em>Attendants</em>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Me!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Follow me, Strafford, and be saved! The King?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span><span class="hang1st">[<i>To the <span class="smcap">King</span>.</i>] Well—as you ordered, they are ranged without,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The convoy.... [<i>seeing the <span class="smcap">King's</span> state.</i>]<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To <span class="smcap">Strafford</span>.</i>] You know all, then! Why I thought<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">It looked best that the King should save you,—Charles<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Alone; 'tis a shame that you should owe me aught.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or no, not shame! Strafford, you'll not feel shame<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At being saved by me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i><span class="i12"> </span>All true! Oh Strafford,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">She saves you! all her deed! this lady's deed!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And is the boat in readiness? You, friend,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Are Billingsley, no doubt. Speak to her, Strafford!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">See how she trembles, waiting for your voice!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The world's to learn its bravest story yet.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Talk afterward! Long nights in France enough,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To sit beneath the vines and talk of home.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> You love me, child? Ah, Strafford can be loved<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As well as Vane! I could escape, then?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Haste!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Advance the torches, Bryan!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i14"> </span>I will die.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They call me proud: but England had no right,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When she encountered me—her strength to mine—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To find the chosen foe a craven. Girl,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I fought her to the utterance, I fell,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I am <a name='TC_19'></a><ins title="Was 'her's'">hers</ins> now, and I will die. Beside,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The lookers-on! Eliot is all about<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This place, with his most uncomplaining brow.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i12"> </span>I think if you could know how much<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I love you, you would be repaid, my friend!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Then, for my sake!</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Even for your sweet sake,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I stay.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Hollis.</i> For <i>their</i> sake!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i10"> </span>To bequeath a stain?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Leave me! Girl, humor me and let me die!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Bid him escape—wake, King! Bid him escape!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> True, I will go! Die, and forsake the King?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll not draw back from the last service.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i12"> </span>And, after all, what is disgrace to me?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Let us come, child! That it should end this way!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Lead them! but I feel strangely: it was not<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To end this way.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> Lean—lean on me!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i16"> </span>My King!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Oh, had he trusted me—his friend of friends!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> I can support him, Hollis!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Not this way!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This gate—I dreamed of it, this very gate.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> It opens on the river: our good boat<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is moored below, our friends are there.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i><span class="i22"> </span>The same:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Only with something ominous and dark,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Fatal, inevitable.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Strafford! Strafford!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Not by this gate! I feel what will be there!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I dreamed of it, I tell you: touch it not!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Lady Carlisle.</i> To save the King,—Strafford, to save the King!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>As <span class="smcap">Strafford</span> opens the door, <span class="smcap">Pym</span> is discovered +with <span class="smcap">Hampden, Vane</span>, etc. <span class="smcap">Strafford</span> falls +back; <span class="smcap">Pym</span> follows slowly and confronts him.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> Have I done well? Speak, England! Whose sole sake<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I still have labored for, with disregard<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To my own heart,—for whom my youth was made<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Barren, my manhood waste, to offer up<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Her sacrifice—this friend, this Wentworth here—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Who walked in youth with me, loved me, it may be,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And whom, for his forsaking England's cause,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I hunted by all means (trusting that she<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Would sanctify all means) even to the block<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which waits for him. And saying this, I feel<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No bitterer pang than first I felt, the hour<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I swore that Wentworth might leave us, but I<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Would never leave him: I do leave him now.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I render up my charge (be witness, God!)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To England who imposed it. I have done<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Her bidding—poorly, wrongly,—it may be,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With ill effects—for I am weak, a man:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Still, I have done my best, my human best,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Not faltering for a moment. It is done.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And this said, if I say ... yes, I will say<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I never loved but one man—David not<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">More Jonathan! Even thus, I love him now:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And look for my chief portion in that world<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Where great hearts led astray are turned again,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">(Soon it may be, and, certes, will be soon:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My mission over, I shall not live long,)—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ay, here I know I talk—I dare and must,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of England, and her great reward, as all<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I look for there; but in my inmost heart,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Believe, I think of stealing quite away<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To walk once more with Wentworth—my youth's friend<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Purged from all error, gloriously renewed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And Eliot shall not blame us. Then indeed....<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span><span class="hang1st">This is no meeting, Wentworth! Tears increase<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Too hot. A thin mist—is it blood?—enwraps<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The face I loved once. Then, the meeting be!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> I have loved England too; we'll meet then, Pym.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As well die now! Youth is the only time<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To think and to decide on a great course:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Manhood with action follows; but 'tis dreary,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To have to alter our whole life in age—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The time past, the strength gone! As well die now.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When we meet, Pym, I'd be set right—not now!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Best die. Then if there's any fault, fault too<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Dies, smothered up. Poor grey old little Laud<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">May dream his dream out, of a perfect Church,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In some blind corner. And there's no one left.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I trust the King now wholly to you, Pym!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And yet, I know not: I shall not be there:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Friends fail—if he have any. And he's weak,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And loves the Queen, and.... Oh, my fate is nothing—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Nothing! But not that awful head—not that!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> If England shall declare such will to me....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> Pym, you help England! I, that am to die,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What I must see! 'tis here—all here! My God,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Let me but gasp out, in one word of fire,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How thou wilt plague him, satiating hell!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What? England that you help, become through you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A green and putrefying charnel, left<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Our children ... some of us have children, Pym—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Some who, without that, still must ever wear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A darkened brow, an over-serious look,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And never properly be young! No word?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What if I curse you? Send a strong curse forth<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Clothed from my heart, lapped round with horror till<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">She's fit with her white face to walk the world<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Scaring kind natures from your cause and you—<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span><span class="hang1st">Then to sit down with you at the board-head,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The gathering for prayer.... O speak, but speak!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">... Creep up, and quietly follow each one home,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You, you, you, be a nestling care for each<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To sleep with,—hardly moaning in his dreams.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">She gnaws so quietly,—till, lo he starts,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Gets off with half a heart eaten away!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Oh, shall you 'scape with less if she's my child?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You will not say a word—to me—to Him?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> If England shall declare such will to me....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> No, not for England now, not for Heaven now,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">See, Pym, for my sake, mine who kneel to you!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There, I will thank you for the death, my friend!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This is the meeting: let me love you well!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Pym.</i> England,—I am thine own! Dost thou exact<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That service? I obey thee to the end.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Strafford.</i> O God, I shall die first—I shall die first!</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>A lively picture of Cavalier sentiment is +given in the "Cavalier Tunes"—which +ought to furnish conclusive proof that +Browning does not always put himself into +his work. They may be compared with the +words set to Avison's march given in the last +chapter which presents just as sympathetically +"Roundhead" sentiment.</p> + +<h3>I. MARCHING ALONG</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> +<span class="i0">And, pressing a troop unable to stoop<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marched them along, fifty-score strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_14" id="linki_14"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus014.jpg" width="500" height="318" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">The Tower: Traitors' Gate</p> +</div> + +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">God for King Charles! Pym and such carles<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till you're—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span>—<i>Marching along, fifty-score strong,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">England, good cheer! Rupert is near!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span>—<i>Marching along, fifty-score strong,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song?</i><br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hold by the right, you double your might;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span>—<i>March we along, fifty-score strong,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!</i><br /></span> +</div></div><p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span></p> + +<h3>II. GIVE A ROUSE</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">King Charles, and who'll do him right now?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">King Charles!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who gave me the goods that went since?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who raised me the house that sank once?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who helped me to gold I spent since?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who found me in wine you drank once?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span>—<i>King Charles, and who'll do him right now?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>King Charles!</i><br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To whom used my boy George quaff else,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the old fool's side that begot him?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For whom did he cheer and laugh else,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While Noll's damned troopers shot him?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span>—<i>King Charles, and who'll do him right now?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i12"><i>King Charles!</i><br /></span> +</div></div><p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span></p> + +<h3>III. BOOT AND SADDLE</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rescue my castle before the hot day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brightens to blue from its silvery grey,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span>—"<i>Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Many's the friend there, will listen and pray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay—"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span>—"<i>Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay,"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span>—"<i>Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I've better counsellors; what counsel they?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><span class="smcap">Chorus.</span>—"<i>Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Though not illustrative of the subject in +hand, "Martin Relph" is included here on +account of the glimpse it gives of an episode, +interesting in English History, though devoid +of serious consequences, since it marked the +final abortive struggle of a dying cause.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> +An imaginary incident of the rebellion in +the time of George II., forms the background +of "Martin Relph," the point of the story +being the life-long agony of reproach suffered +by Martin who let his envy and jealousy conquer +him at a crucial moment. The history +of the attempt of Charles Edward to get back +the crown of England, supported by a few +thousand Highlanders, of his final defeat at +the Battle of Culloden, and of the decay henceforth +of Jacobitism, needs no telling. The +treatment of spies as herein shown is a common-place +of war-times, but that a reprieve +exonerating the accused should be prevented +from reaching its destination in time through +the jealousy of the only person who saw it +coming gives the episode a tragic touch lifting +it into an atmosphere of peculiar individual +pathos.</p> + +<h3>MARTIN RELPH</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<i><span class="i0">My grandfather says he remembers he saw, when a youngster long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On a bright May day, a strange old man, with a beard as white as snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stand on the hill outside our town like a monument of woe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, striking his bare bald head the while, sob out the reason—so!<br /></span></i> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If I last as long at Methuselah I shall never forgive myself:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But—God forgive me, that I pray, unhappy Martin Relph,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span><span class="i0">As coward, coward I call him—him, yes, him! Away from me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Get you behind the man I am now, you man that I used to be!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What can have sewed my mouth up, set me a-stare, all eyes, no tongue?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">People have urged "You visit a scare too hard on a lad so young!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You were taken aback, poor boy," they urge, "no time to regain your wits:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Besides it had maybe cost you life." Ay, there is the cap which fits!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, cap me, the coward,—thus! No fear! A cuff on the brow does good:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The feel of it hinders a worm inside which bores at the brain for food.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See now, there certainly seems excuse: for a moment, I trust, dear friends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fault was but folly, no fault of mine, or if mine, I have made amends!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For, every day that is first of May, on the hill-top, here stand I,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Martin Relph, and I strike my brow, and publish the reason why,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When there gathers a crowd to mock the fool. No fool, friends, since the bite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a worm inside is worse to bear: pray God I have balked him quite!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'll tell you. Certainly much excuse! It came of the way they cooped<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Us peasantry up in a ring just here, close huddling because tight-hooped<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span><span class="i0">By the red-coats round us villagers all: they meant we should see the sight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And take the example,—see, not speak, for speech was the Captain's right.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"You clowns on the slope, beware!" cried he: "This woman about to die<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gives by her fate fair warning to such acquaintance as play the spy.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Henceforth who meddle with matters of state above them perhaps will learn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That peasants should stick to their plough-tail, leave to the King the King's concern.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Here's a quarrel that sets the land on fire, between King George and his foes:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What call has a man of your kind—much less, a woman—to interpose?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet you needs must be meddling, folk like you, not foes—so much the worse!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The many and loyal should keep themselves unmixed with the few perverse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Is the counsel hard to follow? I gave it you plainly a month ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And where was the good? The rebels have learned just all that they need to know.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not a month since in we quietly marched: a week, and they had the news,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From a list complete of our rank and file to a note of our caps and shoes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"All about all we did and all we were doing and like to do!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only, I catch a letter by luck, and capture who wrote it, too.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span><span class="i0">Some of you men look black enough, but the milk-white face demure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Betokens the finger foul with ink: 'tis a woman who writes, be sure!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Is it 'Dearie, how much I miss your mouth!'—good natural stuff, she pens?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some sprinkle of that, for a blind, of course: with talk about cocks and hens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How 'robin has built on the apple-tree, and our creeper which came to grief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the frost, we feared, is twining afresh round casement in famous leaf.'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"But all for a blind! She soon glides frank into 'Horrid the place is grown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Officers here and Privates there, no nook we may call our own:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Farmer Giles has a tribe to house, and lodging will be to seek<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the second Company sure to come ('tis whispered) on Monday week.'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And so to the end of the chapter! There! The murder you see, was out:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Easy to guess how the change of mind in the rebels was brought about!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Safe in the trap would they now lie snug, had treachery made no sign:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But treachery meets a just reward, no matter if fools malign!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That traitors had played us false, was proved—sent news which fell so pat:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the murder was out—this letter of love, the sender of this sent that!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span><span class="i0">'Tis an ugly job, though, all the same—a hateful, to have to deal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a case of the kind, when a woman's in fault: we soldiers need nerves of steel!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"So, I gave her a chance, despatched post-haste a message to Vincent Parkes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom she wrote to; easy to find he was, since one of the King's own clerks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, kept by the King's own gold in the town close by where the rebels camp:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sort of a lawyer, just the man to betray our sort—the scamp!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'If her writing is simple and honest and only the lover-like stuff it looks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And if you yourself are a loyalist, nor down in the rebels' books,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come quick,' said I, 'and in person prove you are each of you clear of crime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or martial law must take its course: this day next week's the time!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Next week is now: does he come? Not he! Clean gone, our clerk, in a trice!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He has left his sweetheart here in the lurch: no need of a warning twice!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His own neck free, but his partner's fast in the noose still, here she stands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To pay for her fault. 'Tis an ugly job: but soldiers obey commands.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And hearken wherefore I make a speech! Should any acquaintance share<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The folly that led to the fault that is now to be punished, let fools beware!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> +<span class="i0">Look black, if you please, but keep hands white: and, above all else, keep wives—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or sweethearts or what they may be—from ink! Not a word now, on your lives!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Black? but the Pit's own pitch was white to the Captain's face—the brute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the bloated cheeks and the bulgy nose and the bloodshot eyes to suit!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He was muddled with wine, they say: more like, he was out of his wits with fear;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He had but a handful of men, that's true,—a riot might cost him dear.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And all that time stood Rosamund Page, with pinioned arms and face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bandaged about, on the turf marked out for the party's firing-place.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hope she was wholly with God: I hope 'twas His angel stretched a hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To steady her so, like the shape of stone you see in our church-aisle stand.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I hope there was no vain fancy pierced the bandage to vex her eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No face within which she missed without, no questions and no replies—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Why did you leave me to die?"—"Because...." Oh, fiends, too soon you grin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At merely a moment of hell, like that—such heaven as hell ended in!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Let mine end too! He gave the word, up went the guns in a line.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those heaped on the hill were blind as dumb,—for, of all eyes, only mine<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> +<span class="i0">Looked over the heads of the foremost rank. Some fell on their knees in prayer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some sank to the earth, but all shut eyes, with a sole exception there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That was myself, who had stolen up last, had sidled behind the group:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am highest of all on the hill-top, there stand fixed while the others stoop!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From head to foot in a serpent's twine am I tightened: <i>I</i> touch ground?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No more than a gibbet's rigid corpse which the fetters rust around!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Can I speak, can I breathe, can I burst—aught else but see, see, only see?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And see I do—for there comes in sight—a man, it sure must be!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who staggeringly, stumblingly rises, falls, rises, at random flings his weight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On and on, anyhow onward—a man that's mad he arrives too late!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Else why does he wave a something white high-flourished above his head?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why does not he call, cry,—curse the fool!—why throw up his arms instead?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O take his fist in your own face, fool! Why does not yourself shout "Stay!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here's a man comes rushing, might and main, with something he's mad to say?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And a minute, only a moment, to have hell-fire boil up in your brain,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> +<span class="i0">And ere you can judge things right, choose heaven,—time's over, repentance vain!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They level: a volley, a smoke and the clearing of smoke: I see no more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the man smoke hid, nor his frantic arms, nor the something white he bore.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But stretched on the field, some half-mile off, is an object. Surely dumb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deaf, blind were we struck, that nobody heard, not one of us saw him come!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has he fainted through fright? One may well believe! What is it he holds so fast?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turn him over, examine the face! Heyday! What, Vincent Parkes at last?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dead! dead as she, by the self-same shot: one bullet has ended both,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her in the body and him in the soul. They laugh at our plighted troth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Till death us do part?" Till death us do join past parting—that sounds like<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name='TC_20'></a><ins title="Was 'Bethrothal'">Betrothal</ins> indeed! O Vincent Parkes, what need has my fist to strike?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I helped you: thus were you dead and wed: one bound, and your soul reached hers!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is clenched in your hand the thing, signed, sealed, the paper which plain avers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She is innocent, innocent, plain as print, with the King's Arms broad engraved:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No one can hear, but if any one high on the hill can see, she's saved!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span><span class="i0">And torn his garb and bloody his lips with heart-break—plain it grew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How the week's delay had been brought about: each guess at the end proved true.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It was hard to get at the folk in power: such waste of time! and then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such pleading and praying, with, all the while, his lamb in the lion's den!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And at length when he wrung their pardon out, no end to the stupid forms—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The license and leave: I make no doubt—what wonder if passion warms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pulse in a man if you play with his heart?—he was something hasty in speech;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Anyhow, none would quicken the work: he had to beseech, beseech!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And the thing once signed, sealed, safe in his grasp,—what followed but fresh delays?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the floods were out, he was forced to take such a roundabout of ways!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And 'twas "Halt there!" at every turn of the road, since he had to cross the thick<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the red-coats: what did they care for him and his "Quick, for God's sake, quick!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Horse? but he had one: had it how long? till the first knave smirked "You brag<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yourself a friend of the King's? then lend to a King's friend here your nag!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Money to buy another? Why, piece by piece they plundered him still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With their "Wait you must;—no help: if aught can help you, a guinea will!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span><span class="i0">And a borough there was—I forget the name—whose Mayor must have the bench<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Justices ranged to clear a doubt: for "Vincent," thinks he, sounds French!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It well may have driven him daft, God knows! all man can certainly know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is—rushing and falling and rising, at last he arrived in a horror—so!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When a word, cry, gasp, would have rescued both! Ay bite me! The worm begins<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At his work once more. Had cowardice proved—that only—my sin of sins!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Friends, look you here! Suppose ... suppose.... But mad I am, needs must be!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Judas the Damned would never have dared such a sin as I dream! For, see!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Suppose I had sneakingly loved her myself, my wretched self, and dreamed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the heart of me "She were better dead than happy and his!"—while gleamed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A light from hell as I spied the pair in a perfectest embrace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He the savior and she the saved,—bliss born of the very murder-place!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No! Say I was scared, friends! Call me fool and coward, but nothing worse!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jeer at the fool and gibe at the coward! 'Twas ever the coward's curse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That fear breeds fancies in such: such take their shadow for substance still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—A fiend at their back. I liked poor Parkes,—loved Vincent, if you will!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span><span class="i0">And her—why, I said "Good morrow" to her, "Good even," and nothing more:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The neighborly way! She was just to me as fifty had been before.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, coward it is and coward shall be! There's a friend, now! Thanks! A drink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of water I wanted: and now I can walk, get home by myself, I think.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This poem, on an incident in Clive's life, is +also included on account of its English historical +setting.</p> + +<p>The remarkable career of Robert Clive +cannot be gone into here. Suffice it to refresh +one's memory with a few principal +events of his life. He was born in Shopshire +in 1725. He entered the service of the East +India Company at eighteen and was sent to +Madras. Here, on account of his falling into +debt, and being in danger of losing his situation, +he twice tried to shoot himself. The +pistol failed to go off, however, and he became +impressed with the idea that some great +destiny was awaiting him. His feeling was +fully realized as his subsequent career in +India shows. At twenty-seven, when he returned +to England he had made the English +the first military power in India. On his +return to India (1755-59) he took a further +step and secured for the English a political<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span> +supremacy. Finally, on his last visit, he +crowned his earlier exploits by putting the +English dominance on a sounder basis of +integrity than it had before been.</p> + +<p>The incident related in the poem by the +old man, Browning heard from Mrs. Jameson, +who had shortly before heard it from Macaulay +at Lansdowne House. Macaulay mentions +it in his essay: "Of his personal courage he +had, while still a writer [clerk] given signal +proof by a desperate duel with a military +bully who was the terror of Fort St. David."</p> + +<p>The old gentleman in the poem evidently +mixed up his dates slightly, for he says this +incident occurred when Clive was twenty-one, +and he represents him as committing suicide +twenty-five years afterwards. Clive was actually +forty-nine when he took his own life.</p> + +<h3>CLIVE</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I and Clive were friends—and why not? Friends! I think you laugh, my lad.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives—egad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades—" with a tongue thrust in your cheek!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world's eyes, Clive was man,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> +<span class="i0">I was, am and ever shall be—mouse, nay, mouse of all its clan<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sorriest sample, if you take the kitchen's estimate for fame;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the man Clive—he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign game,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conquered and annexed and Englished!<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="i24" style="display: inline;"> </span>Never mind! As o'er my punch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(You away) I sit of evenings,—silence, save for biscuit-crunch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Black, unbroken,—thought grows busy, thrids each pathway of old years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Notes this forthright, that meander, till the long-past life appears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like an outspread map of country plodded through, each mile and rood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once, and well remembered still: I'm startled in my solitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ever and anon by—what's the sudden mocking light that breaks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On me as I slap the table till no rummer-glass but shakes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While I ask—aloud, I do believe, God help me!—"Was it thus?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can it be that so I faltered, stopped when just one step for us—"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Us,—you were not born, I grant, but surely some day born would be)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"—One bold step had gained a province" (figurative talk, you see)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Got no end of wealth and honor,—yet I stood stock still no less?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—"For I was not Clive," you comment: but it needs no Clive to guess<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wealth were handy, honor ticklish, did no writing on the wall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Warn me "Trespasser, 'ware man-traps!" Him who braves that notice—call<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> +<span class="i0">Hero! none of such heroics suit myself who read plain words,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doff my hat, and leap no barrier. Scripture says the land's the Lord's:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Louts them—what avail the thousand, noisy in a smock-frocked ring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All-agog to have me trespass, clear the fence, be Clive their king?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Higher warrant must you show me ere I set one foot before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">T'other in that dark direction, though I stand for evermore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poor as Job and meek as Moses. Evermore? No! By-and-by<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Job grows rich and Moses valiant, Clive turns out less wise than I.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't object "Why call him friend, then?" Power is power, my boy, and still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marks a man,—God's gift magnific, exercised for good or ill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You've your boot now on my hearth-rug, tread what was a tiger's skin:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rarely such a royal monster as I lodged the bullet in!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">True, he murdered half a village, so his own death came to pass;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still, for size and beauty, cunning, courage—ah, the brute he was!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why, that Clive,—that youth, that greenhorn, that quill-driving clerk, in fine,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sustained a siege in Arcot.... But the world knows! Pass the wine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where did I break off at? How bring Clive in? Oh, you mentioned "fear"!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just so: and, said I, that minds me of a story you shall hear.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We were friends then, Clive and I: so, when the clouds, about the orb<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> +<span class="i0">Late supreme, encroaching slowly, surely, threatened to absorb<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ray by ray its noontide brilliance,—friendship might, with steadier eye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drawing near, bear what had burned else, now no blaze—all majesty.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too much bee's-wing floats my figure? Well, suppose a castle's new:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None presume to climb its ramparts, none find foothold sure for shoe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twixt those squares and squares of granite plating the impervious pile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As his scale-mail's warty iron cuirasses a crocodile.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reels that castle thunder-smitten, storm-dismantled? From without<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scrambling up by crack and crevice, every cockney prates about<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Towers—the heap he kicks now! turrets—just the measure of his cane!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will that do? Observe moreover—(same similitude again)—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of <a name='TC_21'></a><ins title="Was 'canonade'">cannonade</ins>:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis when foes are foiled and fighting's finished that vile rains invade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grass o'ergrows, o'ergrows till night-birds congregating find no holes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fit to build in like the topmost sockets made for banner-poles.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So Clive crumbled slow in London—crashed at last.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i34" style="display: inline;"> </span>A week before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dining with him,—after trying churchyard-chat of days of yore,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both of us stopped, tired as tombstones, head-piece, foot-piece, when they lean<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> +<span class="i0">Each to other, drowsed in fog-smoke, o'er a coffined Past between.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I saw his head sink heavy, guessed the soul's extinguishment<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the glazing eyeball, noticed how the furtive fingers went<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where a drug-box skulked behind the honest liquor,—"One more throw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Try for Clive!" thought I: "Let's venture some good rattling question!" So—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Come, Clive, tell us"—out I blurted—"what to tell in turn, years hence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When my boy—suppose I have one—asks me on what evidence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I maintain my friend of Plassy proved a warrior every whit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worth your Alexanders, Cæsars, Marlboroughs and—what said Pitt?—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frederick the Fierce himself! Clive told me once"—I want to say—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Which feat out of all those famous doings bore the bell away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—In his own calm estimation, mark you, not the mob's rough guess—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which stood foremost as evincing what Clive called courageousness!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come! what moment of the minute, what speck-center in the wide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Circle of the action saw your mortal fairly deified?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Let alone that filthy sleep-stuff, swallow bold this wholesome Port!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If a friend has leave to question,—when were you most brave, in short?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Up he arched his brows o' the instant—formidably Clive again.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> +<span class="i0">"When was I most brave? I'd answer, were the instance half as plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As another instance that's a brain-lodged crystal—curse it!—here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freezing when my memory touches—ugh!—the time I felt most fear.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ugh! I cannot say for certain if I showed fear—anyhow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fear I felt, and, very likely, shuddered, since I shiver now."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Fear!" smiled I. "Well, that's the rarer: that's a specimen to seek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ticket up in one's museum, <i>Mind-Freaks</i>, <i>Lord Clive's Fear</i>, <i>Unique</i>!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Down his brows dropped. On the table painfully he pored as though<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tracing, in the stains and streaks there, thoughts encrusted long ago.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When he spoke 'twas like a lawyer reading word by word some will,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some blind jungle of a statement,—beating on and on until<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out there leaps fierce life to fight with.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i28" style="display: inline;"> </span>"This fell in my factor-days.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Desk-drudge, slaving at St. David's, one must game, or drink, or craze.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I chose gaming: and,—because your high-flown gamesters hardly take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Umbrage at a factor's elbow if the factor pays his stake,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I was winked at in a circle where the company was choice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Captain This and Major That, men high of color, loud of voice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet indulgent, condescending to the modest juvenile<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span> +<span class="i0">Who not merely risked but lost his hard-earned guineas with a smile.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<a name='TC_22'></a><ins title="Inserted stanza">Down</ins> I sat to cards, one evening,—had for my antagonist<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Somebody whose name's a secret—you'll know why—so, if you list,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Call him Cock o' the Walk, my scarlet son of Mars from head to heel!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Play commenced: and, whether Cocky fancied that a clerk must feel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quite sufficient honor came of bending over one green baize,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I the scribe with him the warrior,—guessed no penman dared to raise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shadow of objection should the honor stay but playing end<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More or less abruptly,—whether disinclined he grew to spend<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Practice strictly scientific on a booby born to stare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At—not ask of—lace-and-ruffles if the hand they hide plays fair,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Anyhow, I marked a movement when he bade me 'Cut!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i34" style="display: inline;"> </span>"I rose.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Such the new manœuvre, Captain? I'm a novice: knowledge grows.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What, you force a card, you cheat, Sir?'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i26" style="display: inline;"> </span>"Never did a thunder-clap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cause emotion, startle Thyrsis locked with Chloe in his lap,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As my word and gesture (down I flung my cards to join the pack)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fired the man of arms, whose visage, simply red before, turned black.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><a name='TC_23'></a><ins title="Added starting quote">"When</ins> he found his voice, he stammered 'That expression once again!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span><span class="i0">"'Well, you forced a card and cheated!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i26" style="display: inline;"> </span>"'Possibly a factor's brain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Busied with his all-important balance of accounts, may deem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Weighing words superfluous trouble: <i>cheat</i> to clerkly ears may seem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just the joke for friends to venture: but we are not friends, you see!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When a gentleman is joked with,—if he's good at repartee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He rejoins, as do I—Sirrah, on your knees, withdraw in full!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beg my pardon, or be sure a kindly bullet through your skull<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lets in light and teaches manners to what brain it finds! Choose quick—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have your life snuffed out or, kneeling, pray me trim yon candle-wick!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Well, you cheated!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i12" style="display: inline;"> </span>"Then outbroke a howl from all the friends around.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To his feet sprang each in fury, fists were clenched and teeth were ground.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name='TC_24'></a><ins title="Added starting quote">'End</ins> it! no time like the present! Captain, yours were our disgrace!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No delay, begin and finish! Stand back, leave the pair a space!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let civilians be instructed: henceforth simply ply the pen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fly the sword! This clerk's no swordsman? Suit him with a pistol, then!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even odds! A dozen paces 'twixt the most and least expert<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make a dwarf a giant's equal: nay, the dwarf, if he's alert,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Likelier hits the broader target!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span><span class="i0"><span class="i22" style="display: inline;"> </span>"Up we stood accordingly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As they handed me the weapon, such was my soul's thirst to try<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then and there conclusions with this bully, tread on and stamp out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every spark of his existence, that,—crept close to, curled about<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By that toying tempting teasing fool-fore-finger's middle joint,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't you guess?—the trigger yielded. Gone my chance! and at the point<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of such prime success moreover: scarce an inch above his head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Went my ball to hit the wainscot. He was living, I was dead.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Up he marched in flaming triumph—'twas his right, mind!—up, within<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just an arm's length. 'Now, my clerkling,' chuckled Cocky with a grin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the levelled piece quite touched me, 'Now, Sir Counting-House, repeat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That expression which I told you proved bad manners! Did I cheat?'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Cheat you did, you knew you cheated, and, this moment, know as well.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As for me, my homely breeding bids you—fire and go to Hell!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Twice the muzzle touched my forehead. Heavy barrel, flurried wrist,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Either spoils a steady lifting. Thrice: then, 'Laugh at Hell who list,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> +<span class="i0">I can't! God's no fable either. Did this boy's eye wink once? No!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's no standing him and Hell and God all three against me,—so,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I did cheat!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i6" style="display: inline;"> </span>"And down he threw the pistol, out rushed—by the door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Possibly, but, as for knowledge if by chimney, roof or floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He effected disappearance—I'll engage no glance was sent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That way by a single starer, such a blank astonishment<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swallowed up their senses: as for speaking—mute they stood as mice.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Mute not long, though! Such reaction, such a hubbub in a trice!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Rogue and rascal! Who'd have thought it? What's to be expected next,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When His Majesty's Commission serves a sharper as pretext<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For.... But where's the need of wasting time now? Nought requires delay:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Punishment the Service cries for: let disgrace be wiped away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Publicly, in good broad daylight! Resignation? No, indeed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drum and fife must play the Rogue's March, rank and file be free to speed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tardy marching on the rogue's part by appliance in the rear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Kicks administered shall right this wronged civilian,—never fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mister Clive, for—though a clerk—you bore yourself—suppose we say—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just as would beseem a soldier!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i20" style="display: inline;"> </span>"'Gentlemen, attention—pray!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First, one word!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span><span class="i0"><span class="i8" style="display: inline;"> </span>"I passed each speaker severally in review.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I had precise their number, names and styles, and fully knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over whom my supervision thenceforth must extend,—why, then——<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Some five minutes since, my life lay—as you all saw, gentlemen—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the mercy of your friend there. Not a single voice was raised<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In arrest of judgment, not one tongue—before my powder blazed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ventured "Can it be the youngster blundered, really seemed to mark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some irregular proceeding? We conjecture in the dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Guess at random,—still, for sake of fair play—what if for a freak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a fit of absence,—such things have been!—if our friend proved weak<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—What's the phrase?—corrected fortune! Look into the case, at least!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who dared interpose between the altar's victim and the priest?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet he spared me! You eleven! Whosoever, all or each,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the disadvantage of the man who spared me, utters speech<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—To his face, behind his back,—that speaker has to do with me:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Me who promise, if positions change and mine the chance should be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not to imitate your friend and waive advantage!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i34" style="display: inline;"> </span>"Twenty-five<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Years ago this matter happened: and 'tis certain," added Clive,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span> +<span class="i0">"Never, to my knowledge, did Sir Cocky have a single breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breathed against him: lips were closed throughout his life, or since his death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For if he be dead or living I can tell no more than you.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All I know is—Cocky had one chance more; how he used it,—grew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of such unlucky habits, or relapsed, and back again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brought the late-ejected devil with a score more in his train,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's for you to judge. Reprieval I procured, at any rate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ugh—the memory of that minute's fear makes gooseflesh rise! Why prate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Longer? You've my story, there's your instance: fear I did, you see!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Well"—I hardly kept from laughing—"if I see it, thanks must be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wholly to your Lordship's candor. Not that—in a common case—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When a bully caught at cheating thrusts a pistol in one's face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I should underrate, believe me, such a trial to the nerve!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis no joke, at one-and-twenty, for a youth to stand nor swerve.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fear I naturally look for—unless, of all men alive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am forced to make exception when I come to Robert Clive.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since at Arcot, Plassy, elsewhere, he and death—the whole world knows—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came to somewhat closer quarters."<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="i22" style="display: inline;"> </span>Quarters? Had we come to blows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clive and I, you had not wondered—up he sprang so, out he rapped<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such a round of oaths—no matter! I'll endeavor to adapt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To our modern usage words he—well, 'twas friendly license—flung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At me like so many fire-balls, fast as he could wag his tongue.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span><span class="i0">"You—a soldier? You—at Plassy? Yours the faculty to nick<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Instantaneously occasion when your foe, if lightning-quick,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—At his mercy, at his malice,—has you, through some stupid inch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Undefended in your bulwark? Thus laid open,—not to flinch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—That needs courage, you'll concede me. Then, look here! Suppose the man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Checking his advance, his weapon still extended, not a span<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distant from my temple,—curse him!—quietly had bade me 'There!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Keep your life, calumniator!—worthless life I freely spare:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mine you freely would have taken—murdered me and my good fame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both at once—and all the better! Go, and thank your own bad aim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which permits me to forgive you!' What if, with such words as these,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He had cast away his weapon? How should I have borne me, please?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, I'll spare you pains and tell you. This, and only this, remained—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pick his weapon up and use it on myself. I so had gained<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sleep the earlier, leaving England probably to pay on still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rent and taxes for half India, tenant at the Frenchman's will."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Such the turn," said I, "the matter takes with you? Then I abate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—No, by not one jot nor tittle,—of your act my estimate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fear—I wish I could detect there: courage fronts me, plain enough—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Call it desperation, madness—never mind! for here's in rough<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> +<span class="i0">Why, had mine been such a trial, fear had overcome disgrace.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">True, disgrace were hard to bear: but such a rush against God's face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—None of that for me, Lord Plassy, since I go to church at times,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Say the creed my mother taught me! Many years in foreign climes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rub some marks away—not all, though! We poor sinners reach life's brink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Overlook what rolls beneath it, recklessly enough, but think<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's advantage in what's left us—ground to stand on, time to call<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Lord, have mercy!' ere we topple over—do not leap, that's all!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, he made no answer,—re-absorbed into his cloud. I caught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Something like "Yes—courage: only fools will call it fear."<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="i42" style="display: inline;"> </span>If aught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comfort you, my great unhappy hero Clive, in that I heard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Next week, how your own hand dealt you doom, and uttered just the word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Fearfully courageous!"—this, be sure, and nothing else I groaned.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm no Clive, nor parson either: Clive's worst deed—we'll hope condoned.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">SOCIAL ASPECTS OF ENGLISH LIFE</p> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Browning</span>'s poetry presents no such +complete panorama of phases of social +life in England as it does of those in Italy, +perhaps, because there is a poise and solidity +about the English character which does not +lend itself to so great a variety of mood as +one may find in the peculiarly artistic temperament +of the Italians, especially those of +the Renaissance period. Even such irregular +proceedings as murders have their philosophical +after-claps which show their usefulness +in the divine scheme of things, while unfortunate +love affairs work such beneficent results +in character that they are shorn of much of +their tragedy of sorrow. There is quite a +group of love-lyrics with no definite setting +that might be put down as English in temper. +It does not require much imagination to think +of the lover who sings so lofty a strain in "One +Way of Love" as English:—</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> +<span class="i0">All June I bound the rose in sheaves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strew them where Pauline may pass.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She will not turn aside? Alas!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let them lie. Suppose they die?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chance was they might take her eye.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How many a month I strove to suit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These stubborn fingers to the lute!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-day I venture all I know.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She will not hear my music? So!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Break the string; fold music's wing:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My whole life long I learned to love.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This hour my utmost art I prove<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And speak my passion—heaven or hell?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lose who may—I still can say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those who win heaven, blest are they!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And is not this treatment of a "pretty +woman" more English than not?</p> + +<h3>A PRETTY WOMAN</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And the blue eye<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Dear and dewy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that infantine fresh air of hers!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To think men cannot take you, Sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And enfold you,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ay, and hold you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You like us for a glance, you know—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For a word's sake<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or a sword's sake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And in turn we make you ours, we say—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">You and youth too,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Eyes and mouth too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the face composed of flowers, we say.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">V</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Sing and say for,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Watch and pray for,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Though we prayed you,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Paid you, brayed you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a mortar—for you could not, Sweet!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, we leave the sweet face fondly there:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Be its beauty<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Its sole duty!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">VIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And while the face lies quiet there,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Who shall wonder<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That I ponder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A conclusion? I will try it there.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As,—why must one, for the love foregone,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Scout mere liking?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Thunder-striking<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth,—the heaven, we looked above for, gone!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">X</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Why, with beauty, needs there money be,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Love with liking?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Crush the fly-king<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In his gauze, because no honey-bee?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">May not liking be so simple-sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">If love grew there<br /></span> +<span class="i4">'Twould undo there<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Is the creature too imperfect, say?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Would you mend it<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And so end it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since not all addition perfects aye!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Or is it of its kind, perhaps,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Just perfection—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whence, rejection<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Shall we burn up, tread that face at once<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Into tinder,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And so hinder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sparks from kindling all the place at once?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Or else kiss away one's soul on her?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Your love-fancies!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">—A sick man sees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Plucks a mould-flower<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For his gold flower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uses fine things that efface the rose:<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Rosy rubies make its cup more rose,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Precious metals<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ape the petals,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Last, some old king locks it up, morose!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then how grace a rose? I know a way!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Leave it, rather.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Must you gather?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smell, kiss, wear it—at last, throw away!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"The Last Ride Together" may be cited +as another example of the philosophy which +an Englishman, or at any rate a Browning, +can evolve from a more or less painful episode.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span></p> +<h3>THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I said—Then, dearest, since 'tis so,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since now at length my fate I know,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since nothing all my love avails,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since all my life seemed meant for, fails,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Since this was written and needs must be—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My whole heart rises up to bless<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your name in pride and thankfulness!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take back the hope you gave,—I claim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only a memory of the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—And this beside, if you will not blame,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Your leave for one more last ride with me.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My mistress bent that brow of hers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When pity would be softening through,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fixed me a breathing-while or two<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With life or death in the balance: right!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blood replenished me again;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My last thought was at least not vain:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I and my mistress, side by side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall be together, breathe and ride,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, one day more am I deified.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who knows but the world may end to-night?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hush! if you saw some western cloud<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By many benedictions—sun's—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And moon's and evening-star's at once<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And so, you, looking and loving best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conscious grew, your passion drew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down on you, near and yet more near,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus leant she and lingered—joy and fear!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thus lay she a moment on my breast.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then we began to ride. My soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freshening and fluttering in the wind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Past hopes already lay behind.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What need to strive with a life awry?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had I said that, had I done this,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So might I gain, so might I miss.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might she have loved me? just as well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She might have hated, who can tell!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where had I been now if the worst befell?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And here we are riding, she and I.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">V</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fail I alone, in words and deeds?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why, all men strive and who succeeds?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We rode; it seemed my spirit flew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Saw other regions, cities new,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As the world rushed by on either side.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I thought,—All labor, yet no less<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bear up beneath their unsuccess.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look at the end of work, contrast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The petty done, the undone vast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This present of theirs with the hopeful past!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I hoped she would love me; here we ride.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">VI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What hand and brain went ever paired?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What heart alike conceived and dared?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What act proved all its thought had been?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What will but felt the fleshly screen?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We ride and I see her bosom heave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's many a crown for who can reach.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ten lines, a stateman's life in each!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flag stuck on a heap of bones,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soldier's doing! what atones?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My riding is better, by their leave.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What does it all mean, poet? Well,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What we felt only; you expressed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You hold things beautiful the best,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have you yourself what's best for men?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are you—poor, sick, old ere your time—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nearer one whit your own sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than we who never have turned a rhyme?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And you, great sculptor—so, you gave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A score of years to Art, her slave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that's your Venus, whence we turn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To yonder girl that fords the burn!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You acquiesce, and shall I repine?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What, man of music, you grown grey<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With notes and nothing else to say,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span> +<span class="i0">Is this your sole praise from a friend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Greatly his opera's strains intend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But in music we know how fashions end!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proposed bliss here should sublimate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My being—had I signed the bond—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still one must lead some life beyond,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This foot once planted on the goal,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This glory-garland round my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could I descry such? Try and test!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sink back shuddering from the quest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">X</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And yet—she has not spoke so long!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What if heaven be that, fair and strong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At life's best, with our eyes upturned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whither life's flower is first discerned,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We, fixed so, ever should so abide?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What if we still ride on, we two<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With life for ever old yet new,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Changed not in kind but in degree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The instant made eternity,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And heaven just prove that I and she<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ride, ride together, for ever ride?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"James Lee's Wife" is also English in +temper as the English name indicates suffi<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span>ciently, +though the scene is laid out of England. +This wife has her agony over the faithless +husband, but she plans vengeance against +neither him nor the other women who attract +him. She realizes that his nature is not a +deep and serious one like her own, and in her +highest reach she sees that her own nature has +been lifted up by means of her true and loyal +feeling, that this gain to herself is her reward, +or will be in some future state. The stanzas +giving this thought are among the most beautiful +in the poem.</p> + +<h3>AMONG THE ROCKS</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This autumn morning! How he sets his bones<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the ripple to run over in its mirth;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Listening the while, where on the heap of stones<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you loved only what were worth your love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Make the low nature better by your throes!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!<br /></span> +</div></div><p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span></p> + +<p>Two of the longer poems have distinctly +English settings: "A Blot in the Scutcheon" +and "The Inn Album;" while, of the shorter +ones, "Ned Bratts" has an English theme, +and "Halbert and Hob" though not founded +upon an English story has been given an English +<i>mis en scène</i> by Browning.</p> + +<p>In the "Blot," we get a glimpse of +Eighteenth Century aristocratic England. +The estate over which Lord Tresham presided +was one of those typical country kingdoms, +which have for centuries been so conspicuous +a feature of English life, and which +through the assemblies of the great, often +gathered within their walls, wielded potent +influences upon political life. The play opens +with the talk of a group of retainers, such as +formed the household of these lordly establishments. +It was not a rare thing for the servants +of the great to be admitted into intimacy +with the family, as was the case with +Gerard. They were often people of a superior +grade, hardly to be classed with servants +in the sense unfortunately given to that +word to-day.</p> + +<p>Besides the house and the park which +figure in the play, such an estate had +many acres of land devoted to agriculture—some +of it, called the demesne, which was<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span> +cultivated for the benefit of the owner, and +some land held in villeinage which the unfree +tenants, called villeins, were allowed to till +for themselves. All this land might be in +one large tract, or the demesne might be separate +from the other. Mertoun speaks of their +demesnes touching each other. Over the +villeins presided the Bailiff, who kept strict +watch to see that they performed their work +punctually. His duties were numerous, for +he directed the ploughing, sowing and reaping, +gave out the seed, watched the harvest, gathered +and looked after the stock and horses. +A church, a mill and an inn were often +included in such an estate.</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_15" id="linki_15"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus015.jpg" width="500" height="317" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">An English Manor House</p> +</div> + +<p>Pride in their ancient lineage was, of course, +common to noble families, though probably +few of them could boast as Tresham did that +there was no blot in their escutcheon. Some +writers have even declared that most of the +nobles are descended from tradesmen. According +to one of these "The great bulk of +our peerage is comparatively modern, so far +as the titles go; but it is not the less noble that +it has been recruited to so large an extent from +the ranks of honorable industry. In olden +times, the wealth and commerce of London, +conducted as it was by energetic and enterprising +men was a prolific source of peerages.<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span> +Thus, the earldom of Cornwallis was founded +by Thomas Cornwallis, the Cheapside merchant; +that of Essex by William Capel, the +draper; and that of Craven by William Craven, +the merchant tailor. The modern Earl of +Warwick is not descended from 'the King-maker,' +but from William Greville, the +woolstapler; whilst the modern Dukes of Northumberland +find their head, not in the Percies, +but in Hugh Smithson, a respectable London +apothecary. The founders of the families of +Dartmouth, Radnor, Ducie, and Pomfret were +respectively a skinner, a silk manufacturer, +a merchant tailor, and a Calais merchant; +whilst the founders of the peerages of Tankerville, +Dormer, and Coventry were mercers. +The ancestors of Earl Romney, and Lord +Dudley and Ward, were goldsmiths and jewelers; +and Lord Dacres was a banker in the +reign of Charles I., as Lord Overstone is in +that of Queen Victoria. Edward Osborne, +the founder of the dukedom of Leeds, was +apprentice to William Hewet, a rich cloth +worker on London Bridge, whose only daughter +he courageously rescued from drowning, by +leaping into the Thames after her, and eventually +married. Among other peerages founded +by trade are those of Fitzwilliam, Leigh, Petre, +Cowper, Darnley, Hill, and Carrington."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> +Perhaps the imaginary house of Tresham +may be said to find its closest counterpart in +the Sidney family, for many generations +owners of Penshurst, and with a traditional +character according to which the men were +all brave and the women were all pure. Sir +Philip Sidney was himself the type of all the +virtues of the family, while his father's care +for his proper bringing up was not unlike +Tresham's for Mildred. In the words of a +recent writer: "The most famous scion of +this Kentish house was above all things, the +moral and intellectual product of Penshurst +Place. In the park may still be seen an +avenue of trees, under which the father, in +his afternoon walks with the boy, tested his +recollection of the morning's lessons conned +with the <a name='TC_25'></a><ins title="Changed comma to period">tutor.</ins> There, too, it was that he +impressed on the lad those maxims for the +conduct of life, afterwards emphasized in the +correspondence still extant among the Penshurst +archives.</p> + +<p>"Philip was to begin every day with lifting +up his mind to the Almighty in hearty prayer, +as well as feelingly digesting all he prayed for. +He was also, early or late, to be obedient to +others, so that in due time others might obey +him. The secret of all success lay in a moderate +diet with rare use of wine. A gloomy<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span> +brow was, however, to be avoided. Rather +should the youth give himself to be merry, +so as not to degenerate from his father. Above +all things should he keep his wit from biting +words, or indeed from too much talk of any +kind. Had not nature ramparted up the +tongue with teeth and the lips with hair as +reins and bridles against the tongue's loose +use. Heeding this, he must be sure to tell +no untruth even in trifles; for that was a +naughty custom, nor could there be a greater +reproach to a gentleman than to be accounted +a liar. <i>Noblesse oblige</i> formed the keynote +of the oral and written precepts with which +the future Sir Philip Sidney was paternally +supplied. By his mother, too, Lady Mary +Dudley, the boy must remember himself to +be of noble blood. Let him beware, therefore, +through sloth and vice, of being accounted +a blemish on his race."</p> + +<p>Furthermore, the brotherly and sisterly relations +of Tresham and Mildred are not unlike +those of Sir Philip Sidney and his sister Mary. +They studied and worked together in great +sympathy, broken into only by the tragic fate +of Sir Philip. Although the education of +women in those days was chiefly domestic, +with a smattering of accomplishments, yet +there were exceptional girls who aspired to<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span> +learning and who became brilliant women. +Mildred under her brother's tutelage bid fare +to be one of this sort.</p> + +<p>The ideals of the Sidneys, it is true, were +sixteenth-century ideals. Eighteenth-century +ideals were proverbially low. England, then, +had not recovered from the frivolities inaugurated +after the Restoration. The slackness +and unbelief among the clergy, and the looseness +of morals in society were notorious, but +this degeneration could not have been universal. +There are always a few Noahs and +their families left to repeople the world with +righteousness after a deluge of degeneracy, +and Browning is quite right in his portrayal +of an eighteenth-century knight <i>sans peur et +sans reproche</i> who defends the honor of his +house with his sword, because of his high moral +ideals. Besides, the Methodist revival led by +the Wesleys gained constantly in power. It +affected not only the people of the middle and +lower classes, rescuing them from brutality +of mind and manners, but it affected the established +church for the better, and made its +mark upon the upper classes. "Religion, +long despised and contemned by the titled +and the great" writes Withrow, "began to +receive recognition and support by men high +in the councils of the nation. Many ladies of<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span> +high rank became devout Christians. A new +element of restraint, compelling at least some +outward respect for the decencies of life and +observances of religion, was felt at court, where +too long corruption and back-stair influence +had sway."</p> + +<p>Like all of his kind, no matter what the +century, Tresham is more than delighted at +the thought of an alliance between his house +and the noble house to which Mertoun +belonged. The youth of Mildred was no obstacle, +for marriages were frequently contracted +in those days between young boys and +girls. The writer's English grand-father and +mother were married at the respective ages +of sixteen and fifteen within the boundaries +of the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>The first two scenes of the play present episodes +thoroughly illustrative of the life lived +by the "quality."</p> + +<div class="drama"> +<h3>ACT I</h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>The interior of a lodge in <span class="smcap">Lord Tresham's</span> +park. Many Retainers crowded at the window, supposed +to command a view of the entrance to his mansion.</i></h4> + +<p class="hang1st"><i><span class="smcap">Gerard</span>, the warrener, his back to a table on which are +flagons, etc.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>1st Retainer.</i> Ye, do! push, friends, and then you'll push down me!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—What for? Does any hear a runner's foot<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>Or a steed's trample or a coach-wheel's cry?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is the Earl come or his least poursuivant?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But there's no breeding in a man of you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Save Gerard yonder: here's a half-place yet,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Old Gerard!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Gerard.</i> Save your courtesies, my friend.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Here is my place.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>2nd Retainer.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Now, Gerard, out with it!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What makes you sullen, this of all the days<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I' the year? To-day that young rich bountiful<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Handsome Earl Mertoun, whom alone they match<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With our Lord Tresham through the country side,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is coming here in utmost bravery<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To ask our master's sister's hand?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Gerard.</i><span class="i22"> </span>What then?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>2nd Retainer.</i> What then? Why, you, she speaks to if she meets<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your worship, smiles on as you hold apart<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The boughs to let her through her forest walks<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You, always favorite for your no deserts<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You've heard, these three days, how Earl Mertoun sues<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To lay his heart and house and broad lands too<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At Lady Mildred's feet: and while we squeeze<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ourselves into a mousehole lest we miss<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">One congee of the least page in his train,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You sit o' one side—"there's the Earl," say I—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"What then," say you!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>3rd Retainer.</i><span class="i6"> </span>I'll wager he has let<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Both swans be tamed for Lady Mildred swim<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Over the falls and gain the river!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Gerard.</i><span class="i22"> </span>Ralph!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is not to-morrow my inspecting day<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For you and for your hawks?</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>4th Retainer.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Let Gerard be!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He's coarse-grained, like his carved black cross-bow stock.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ha, look now, while we squabble with him, look!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Well done, now—is not this beginning, now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To purpose?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>1st Retainer.</i> Our retainers look as fine—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That's comfort. Lord, how Richard holds himself<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With his white staff! Will not a knave behind<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Prick him upright?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>4th Retainer.</i> He's only bowing, fool!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Earl's man bent us lower by this much.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>1st Retainer.</i> That's comfort. Here's a very cavalcade!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>3rd Retainer.</i> I don't see wherefore Richard, and his troop<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of silk and silver varlets there, should find<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Their perfumed selves so indispensable<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On high days, holidays! Would it so disgrace<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Our family, if I, for instance, stood—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In my right hand a cast of Swedish hawks,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A leash of greyhounds in my left?—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Gerard.</i><span class="i22"> </span>—With Hugh<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The logman for supporter, in his right<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The bill-hook, in his left the brushwood-shears!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>3rd Retainer.</i> Out on you, crab! What next, what next?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Earl!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>1st Retainer.</i> Oh Walter, groom, our horses, do they match<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Earl's? Alas, that first pair of the six—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">They paw the ground—Ah Walter! and that brute<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Just on his haunches by the wheel!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>6th Retainer.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Ay—ay!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You, Philip, are a special hand, I hear,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At soups and sauces: what's a horse to you?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">D'ye mark that beast they've slid into the midst<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So cunningly?—then, Philip, mark this further;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No leg has he to stand on!</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>1st Retainer.</i><span class="i10"> </span>No? That's comfort.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>2nd Retainer.</i> Peace, Cook! The Earl descends. Well, Gerard, see<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Earl at least! Come, there's a proper man,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I hope! Why, Ralph, no falcon, Pole or Swede,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Has got a starrier eye.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>3rd Retainer.</i><span class="i8"> </span>His eyes are blue:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But leave my hawks alone!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>4th Retainer.</i><span class="i10"> </span>So young, and yet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So tall and shapely!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>5th Retainer.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Here's Lord Tresham's self!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There now—there's what a nobleman should be!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He's older, graver, loftier, he's more like<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A House's head.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>2nd Retainer.</i><span class="i2"> </span>But you'd not have a boy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—And what's the Earl beside?—possess too soon<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That stateliness?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>1st Retainer.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Our master takes his hand—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Richard and his white staff are on the move—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Back fall our people—(tsh!—there's Timothy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Sure to get tangled in his ribbon-ties,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And Peter's cursed rosette's a-coming off!)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—At last I see our lord's back and his friend's;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And the whole beautiful bright company<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Close round them—in they go!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Jumping down from the +window-bench, and making for the table and its jugs.</i>]</p> + +<p><span class="hang1st"><span class="i20"> </span>Good health, long life<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Great joy to our Lord Tresham and his House!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>6th Retainer.</i> My father drove his father first to court,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">After his marriage-day—ay, did he!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>2nd Retainer.</i><span class="i16"> </span>God bless<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Lord Tresham, Lady Mildred, and the Earl!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Here, Gerard, reach your beaker!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Gerard.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Drink, my boys!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Don't mind me—all's not right about me—drink!</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>2nd Retainer</i> [<i>aside</i>]. He's vexed, now, that he let the show escape!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>To <span class="smcap">Gerard</span>.</i>] Remember that the Earl returns this way.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Gerard.</i> That way?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>2nd Retainer.</i><span class="i2"> </span>Just so.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Gerard.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Then my way's here.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Goes.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>2nd Retainer.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Old Gerard<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Will die soon—mind, I said it! He was used<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To care about the pitifullest thing<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That touched the House's honor, not an eye<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But his could see wherein: and on a cause<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of scarce a quarter this importance, Gerard<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Fairly had fretted flesh and bone away<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In cares that this was right, nor that was wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Such point decorous, and such square by rule—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He knew such niceties, no herald more:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And now—you see his humor: die he will!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>2nd Retainer.</i> God help him! Who's for the great servant's hall<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To hear what's going on inside? They'd follow<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Lord Tresham into the saloon.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>3rd Retainer.</i><span class="i14"> </span>I!—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>4th Retainer.</i><span class="i18"> </span>I!—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Leave Frank alone for catching, at the door,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Some hint of how the parley goes inside!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Prosperity to the great House once more!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Here's the last drop!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>1st Retainer.</i><span class="i2"> </span>Have at you! Boys, hurrah!</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span></p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>A Saloon in the Mansion.</i></h4> + +<p class="center"><i>Enter <span class="smcap">Lord Thesham, Lord Mertoun, Austin</span>, and <span class="smcap">Guendolen</span>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> I welcome you, Lord Mertoun, yet once more,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To this ancestral roof of mine. Your name<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Noble among the noblest in itself,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Yet taking in your person, fame avers,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">New price and lustre,—(as that gem you wear,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Transmitted from a hundred knightly breasts,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Fresh chased and set and fixed by its last lord,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Seems to re-kindle at the core)—your name<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Would win you welcome!—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Thanks!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i18"> </span>—But add to that,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The worthiness and grace and dignity<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of your proposal for uniting both<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Our Houses even closer than respect<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Unites them now—add these, and you must grant<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">One favor more, nor that the least,—to think<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The welcome I should give;—'tis given! My lord,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My only brother, Austin: he's the king's.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Our cousin, Lady Guendolen—betrothed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To Austin: all are yours.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i14"> </span>I thank you—less<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For the expressed commendings which your seal,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And only that, authenticates—forbids<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My putting from me ... to my heart I take<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your praise ... but praise less claims my gratitude,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Than the indulgent insight it implies<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of what must needs be uppermost with one<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Who comes, like me, with the bare leave to ask,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In weighed and measured unimpassioned words,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>A gift, which, if as calmly 'tis denied,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He must withdraw, content upon his cheek,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Despair within his soul. That I dare ask<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Firmly, near boldly, near with confidence<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That gift, I have to thank you. Yes, Lord Tresham,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I love your sister—as you'd have one love<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That lady ... oh more, more I love her! Wealth,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Rank, all the world thinks me, they're yours, you know,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To hold or part with, at your choice—but grant<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My true self, me without a rood of land,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A piece of gold, a name of yesterday,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Grant me that lady, and you ... Death or life?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen</i> [<i>apart to <span class="smcap">Austin</span></i>]. Why, this is loving, Austin!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Austin.</i><span class="i30"> </span>He's so young!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i> Young? Old enough, I think, to half surmise<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He never had obtained an entrance here,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Were all this fear and trembling needed.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Austin.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Hush!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He reddens.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i> Mark him, Austin; that's true love!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ours must begin again.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i12"> </span>We'll sit, my lord.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ever with best desert goes diffidence.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I may speak plainly nor be misconceived.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That I am wholly satisfied with you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On this occasion, when a falcon's eye<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Were dull compared with mine to search out faults,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is somewhat. Mildred's hand is hers to give<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or to refuse.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i4"> </span>But you, you grant my suit?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I have your word if hers?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i14"> </span>My best of words<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">If hers encourage you. I trust it will.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Have you seen Lady Mildred, by the way?</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> I ... I ... our two demesnes, remember, touch;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I have been used to wander carelessly<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">After my stricken game: the heron roused<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Deep in my woods, has trailed its broken wing<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Thro' thicks and glades a mile in yours,—or else<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Some eyass ill-reclaimed has taken flight<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And lured me after her from tree to tree,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I marked not whither. I have come upon<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The lady's wondrous beauty unaware,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And—and then ... I have seen her.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen</i> [<i>aside to <span class="smcap">Austin</span></i>].<span class="i4"> </span>Note that mode<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of faltering out that, when a lady passed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He, having eyes, did see her! You had said—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"On such a day I scanned her, head to foot;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Observed a red, where red should not have been,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Outside her elbow; but was pleased enough<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon the whole." Let such irreverent talk<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be lessoned for the future!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i16"> </span>What's to say<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">May be said briefly. She has never known<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A mother's care; I stand for father too.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You cannot know the good and tender heart,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Its girl's trust and its woman's constancy,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As light where friends are—how imbued with lore<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The world most prizes, yet the simplest, yet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The ... one might know I talked of Mildred—thus<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We brothers talk!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i8"> </span>I thank you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i18"> </span>In a word,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Control's not for this lady; but her wish<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span><span class="hang1st">To please me outstrips in its subtlety<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My power of being pleased: herself creates<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The want she means to satisfy. My heart<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Prefers your suit to her as 'twere its own.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Can I say more?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i6"> </span>No more—thanks, thanks—no more!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> This matter then discussed....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i24"> </span>—We'll waste no breath<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On aught less precious. I'm beneath the roof<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which holds her: while I thought of that, my speech<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To you would wander—as it must not do,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Since as you favor me I stand or fall.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I pray you suffer that I take my leave!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> With less regret 't is suffered, that again<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We meet, I hope, so shortly.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i16"> </span>We? again?—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Ah yes, forgive me—when shall ... you will crown<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your goodness by forthwith apprising me<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When ... if ... the lady will appoint a day<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For me to wait on you—and her.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i18"> </span>So soon<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As I am made acquainted with her thoughts<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On your proposal—howsoe'er they lean—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A messenger shall bring you the result.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> You cannot bind me more to you, my lord.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Farewell till we renew ... I trust, renew<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A converse ne'er to disunite again.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> So may it prove!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i14"> </span>You, lady, you, sir, take<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My humble salutation!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen and Austin.</i> Thanks!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Within there!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i><em>Servants</em> enter. <span class="smcap">Tresham</span> conducts <span class="smcap">Mertoun</span> to the +door. Meantime <span class="smcap">Austin</span> remarks</i>,</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> +<span class="hang1st">Here I have an advantage of the Earl,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Confess now! I'd not think that all was safe<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Because my lady's brother stood my friend!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why, he makes sure of her—"do you say, <a name='TC_26'></a><ins title="Added end quote">yes"</ins>—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"She'll not say, no,"—what comes it to beside?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I should have prayed the brother, "speak this speech,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For Heaven's sake urge this on her—put in this—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Forget not, as you'd save me, t'other thing,—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Then set down what she says, and how she looks,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And if she smiles, and" (in an under breath)<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"Only let her accept me, and do you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And all the world refuse me, if you dare!"</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i> That way you'd take, friend Austin? What a shame<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I was your cousin, tamely from the first<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your bride, and all this fervor's run to waste!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Do you know you speak sensibly to-day?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The Earl's a fool.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Austin.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Here's Thorold. Tell him so!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham</i> [<i>returning</i>]. Now, voices, voices! 'St! the lady's first!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How seems he?—seems he not ... come, faith give fraud<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The mercy-stroke whenever they engage!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Down with fraud, up with faith! How seems the Earl?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A name! a blazon! if you knew their worth,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As you will never! come—the Earl?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i18"> </span>He's young.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> What's she? an infant save in heart and brain.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Young! Mildred is fourteen, remark! And you ...<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Austin, how old is she?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i10"> </span>There's tact for you!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I meant that being young was good excuse<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">If one should tax him....</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Well?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i18"> </span>—With lacking wit.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> He lacked wit? Where might he lack wit, so please you?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i> In standing straighter than the steward's rod<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And making you the tiresomest harangue,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Instead of slipping over to my side<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And softly whispering in my ear, "Sweet lady,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your cousin there will do me detriment<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He little dreams of: he's absorbed, I see,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In my old name and fame—be sure he'll leave<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My Mildred, when his best account of me<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is ended, in full confidence I wear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My grandsire's periwig down either cheek.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'm lost unless your gentleness vouchsafes"....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> ... "To give a best of best accounts, yourself,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of me and my demerits." You are right!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He should have said what now I say for him.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Yon golden creature, will you help us all?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Here's Austin means to vouch for much, but you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—You are ... what Austin only knows! Come up,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All three of us: she's in the library<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No doubt, for the day's wearing fast. Precede!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i> Austin, how we must—!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i18"> </span>Must what? Must speak truth,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Malignant tongue! Detect one fault in him!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I challenge you!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Witchcraft's a fault in him,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For you're bewitched.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i10"> </span>What's urgent we obtain<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is, that she soon receive him—say, to-morrow—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Next day at furthest.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Ne'er instruct me!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Come!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span><span class="hang1st">—He's out of your good graces, since forsooth,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He stood not as he'd carry us by storm<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With his perfections! You're for the composed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Manly assured becoming confidence!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Get her to say, "to-morrow," and I'll give you ...<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll give you black Urganda, to be spoiled<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With petting and snail-paces. Will you? Come!</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The story of the love of Mildred and Mertoun +is the universally human one, and belongs +to no one country or no one period of +civilization more than another, but the attitude +of all the actors in the tragedy belongs +distinctively to the phase of moral culture +which we saw illustrated in the youth of Sir +Philip Sidney, and is characteristic of English +ways of thinking whenever their moral force +comes uppermost, as for example in the Puritan +thought of the Cromwellian era.</p> + +<p>The play is in a sense a problem play, +though to most modern readers the tragedy +of its ending is all too horrible a consequence +of the sin. Dramatically and psychically, +however, the tragedy is much more inevitable +than that of Romeo and Juliet, whose love +one naturally thinks of in the same connection. +The catastrophe in the Shakespeare play is +almost mechanically pushed to its conclusion +through mere external blundering, easily to +have been prevented. Juliet saw clearly where<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span> +Mildred does not, that loyalty to a deep and +true love should triumph over all minor considerations, +so that in her case the tragedy is, +in no sense, due to her blindness of vision. +In the "Blot," lack of perception of the true +values in life makes it impossible for Mildred +or Tresham to act otherwise than they did. +But having worked out their problem according +to their lights, a new light of a more glorious +day dawns upon them.</p> + +<p>The ideal by which Tresham lives and moves +and has his being is that of pride of birth, with +honor and chastity as its watchwords. At +the same time the idol of his life is his sister +Mildred, over whom he has watched with a +father's and mother's care. When the blow +to his ideal comes at the hands of this much +cherished sister, it is not to be wondered at +that his reason almost deserts him. The +greatest agony possible to the human soul is +to have its ideals, the very food which has been +the sustenance of its being, utterly ruined. The +ideal may be a wrong one, or an impartial one, +and through the wrack and ruin may dawn +larger vision, but, unless the nature be a marvelously +developed one the storm that breaks +when an ideal is shattered is overwhelming.</p> + +<p>It would be equally true of Mildred that, +nurtured as she had been and as young Eng<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span>lish +girls usually are, in great purity, even +ignorance of all things pertaining to life, the +sense of her sin would be so overwhelming as +to blind her to any possible means of expiation +except the most extreme. And indeed +may it not be said that only those who can see +as Mertoun and Guendolen did that genuine +and loyal love is no less love because, in a +conventional sense, it has sinned,—only those +would acknowledge, as Tresham, indeed, does +after he has murdered Mertoun, how perfect +the love of Mildred and Mertoun was. Sin +flourishes only when insincerity tricks itself +out in the garb of love, and on the whole it is +well that human beings should have an abiding +sense of their own and others insincerity, +and test themselves by their willingness to +acknowledge their love before God and man. +There are many Mildreds but few Mertouns. +It is little wonder that Dickens wrote with such +enthusiasm of this play that he knew no love +like that of Mildred and Mertoun, no passion +like it.</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_16" id="linki_16"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus016.jpg" width="500" height="369" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">An English Park</p> +</div> + +<p>One does not need to discuss whether murders +were possible in English social life. They +are possible in all life at all times as long as +men and women allow their passions to overthrow +their reason. The last act, however, +illustrates the English poise already referred<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span> +to; Tresham regains his equilibrium with enlarged +vision, his salvation is accomplished, +his soul awakened.</p> + +<div class="drama"> +<h3>ACT III</h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>The end of the Yew-tree Avenue under <span class="smcap">Mildred's</span> +window. A light seen through a central red pane.</i></h4> + +<p class="center"><i>Enter <span class="smcap">Tresham</span> through the trees.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">Again here! But I cannot lose myself.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The heath—the orchard—I have traversed glades<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And dells and bosky paths which used to lead<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Into green wild-wood depths, bewildering<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My boy's adventurous step. And now they tend<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hither or soon or late; the blackest shade<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Breaks up, the thronged trunks of the trees ope wide,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And the dim turret I have fled from, fronts<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Again my step: the very river put<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Its arm about me and conducted me<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To this detested spot. Why then, I'll shun<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Their will no longer: do your will with me!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Oh, bitter! To have reared a towering scheme<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of happiness, and to behold it razed,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But I ... to hope that from a line like ours<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No horrid prodigy like this would spring,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Were just as though I hoped that from these old<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Confederates against the sovereign day,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Children of older and yet older sires,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Whose living coral berries dropped, as now<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On me, on many a baron's surcoat once,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">On many a beauty's wimple—would proceed<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span><span class="hang1st">No poison-tree, to thrust, from hell its root,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hither and thither its strange snaky arms.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why came I here? What must I do? [<i>A bell strikes.</i>] A bell?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Midnight! and 'tis at midnight.... Ah, I catch<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And I obey you! Hist! This tree will serve.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>He retires behind one of the trees. After a pause, enter +<span class="smcap">Mertoun</span> cloaked as before.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> Not time! Beat out thy last voluptuous beat<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of hope and fear, my heart! I thought the clock<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I' the chapel struck as I was pushing through<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My love-star! Oh, no matter for the past!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So much the more delicious task to watch<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Mildred revive: to pluck out, thorn by thorn,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All traces of the rough forbidden path<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My rash love lured her to! Each day must see<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Then there will be surprises, unforeseen<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Delights in store. I'll not regret the past.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>The light is placed above in the +purple pane.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">And see, my signal rises, Mildred's star!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I never saw it lovelier than now<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">It rises for the last time. If it sets,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Tis that the re-assuring sun may dawn.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>As he prepares to ascend the last tree of the avenue, +<span class="smcap">Tresham</span> arrests his arm.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">Unhand me—peasant, by your grasp! Here's gold.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Twas a mad freak of mine. I said I'd pluck<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The casement there. Take this, and hold your peace.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> Into the moonlight yonder, come with me!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span><span class="hang1st">Out of the shadow!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i8"> </span>I am armed, fool!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i22"> </span>Yes,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or no? You'll come into the light, or no?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My hand is on your throat—refuse!—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i20"> </span>That voice!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Where have I heard ... no—that was mild and slow.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I'll come with you.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>They advance.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i10"> </span>You're armed: that's well. Declare<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your name: who are you?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i12"> </span>(Tresham!—she is lost!)</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> Oh, silent? Do you know, you bear yourself<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Exactly as, in curious dreams I've had<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How felons, this wild earth is full of, look<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When they're detected, still your kind has looked!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The bravo holds an assured countenance,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The thief is voluble and plausible,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But silently the slave of lust has crouched<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When I have fancied it before a man.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your name!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i2"> </span>I do conjure Lord Tresham—ay,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Kissing his foot, if so I might prevail—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That he for his own sake forbear to ask<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My name! As heaven's above, his future weal<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or woe depends upon my silence! Vain!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I read your white inexorable face.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Know me, Lord Tresham!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>He throws off his disguises.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Mertoun!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="i14"> </span>[<i>After a pause.</i>] Draw now!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i26"> </span>Hear me<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But speak first!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Not one least word on your life!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be sure that I will strangle in your throat<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span><span class="hang1st">The least word that informs me how you live<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And yet seem what you seem! No doubt 'twas you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We should join hands in frantic sympathy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">If you once taught me the unteachable,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Explained how you can live so, and so lie.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With God's help I retain, despite my sense,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The old belief—a life like yours is still<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Impossible. Now draw!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Not for my sake,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Do I entreat a hearing—for your sake,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And most, for her sake!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Ha ha, what should I<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Know of your ways? A miscreant like yourself,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How must one rouse his ire? A blow?—that's pride<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No doubt, to him! One spurns him, does one not?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or sets the foot upon his mouth, or spits<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Into his face! Come! Which, or all of these?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> 'Twixt him and me and Mildred, Heaven be judge!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Can I avoid this? Have your will, my lord!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>He draws and, after a few passes, falls.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> You are not hurt?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i14"> </span>You'll hear me now!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i30"> </span>But rise!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> Ah, Tresham, say I not "you'll hear me now!"<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And what procures a man the right to speak<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In his defense before his fellow man,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But—I suppose—the thought that presently<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He may have leave to speak before his God<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His whole defense?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i8"> </span>Not hurt? It cannot be!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You made no effort to resist me. Where<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Did my sword reach you? Why not have returned<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span><span class="hang1st">My thrusts? Hurt where?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i12"> </span>My lord—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i20"> </span>How young he is!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> Lord Tresham, I am very young, and yet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I have entangled other lives with mine.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Do let me speak, and do believe my speech!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That when I die before you presently,—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> Can you stay here till I return with help?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> Oh, stay by me! When I was less than boy<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I did you grievous wrong and knew it not—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon my honor, knew it not! Once known,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I could not find what seemed a better way<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To right you than I took: my life—you feel<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How less than nothing were the giving you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The life you've taken! But I thought my way<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The better—only for your sake and hers:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And as you have decided otherwise,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Would I had an infinity of lives<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To offer you! Now say—instruct me—think!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Can you, from the brief minutes I have left,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Eke out my reparation? Oh think—think!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For I must wring a partial—dare I say,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Forgiveness from you, ere I die?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i20"> </span>I do<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Forgive you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Wait and ponder that great word!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Because, if you forgive me, I shall hope<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To speak to you of—Mildred!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Mertoun, haste<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And anger have undone us. 'Tis not you<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Should tell me for a novelty you're young,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Thoughtless, unable to recall the past.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be but your pardon ample as my own!</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span> +<span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> Ah, Tresham, that a sword-stroke and a drop<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of blood or two, should bring all this about!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why, 'twas my very fear of you, my love<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of you—(what passion like a boy's for one<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Like you?)—that ruined me! I dreamed of you—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You, all accomplished, courted everywhere,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The scholar and the gentleman. I burned<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To knit myself to you: but I was young,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And your surpassing reputation kept me<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So far aloof! Oh, wherefore all that love?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With less of love, my glorious yesterday<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of praise and gentlest words and kindest looks,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Had taken place perchance six months ago.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Even now, how happy we had been! And yet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I know the thought of this escaped you, Tresham!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Let me look up into your face; I feel<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Tis changed above me: yet my eyes are glazed.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Where? where?</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>As he endeavors to raise himself, his eye catches the lamp.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st"><span class="i10"> </span>Ah, Mildred! What will Mildred do?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Tresham, her life is bound up in the life<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That's bleeding fast away! I'll live—must live,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There, if you'll only turn me I shall live<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And save her! Tresham—oh, had you but heard!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Had you but heard! What right was yours to set<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And then say, as we perish, "Had I thought,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All had gone otherwise?" We've sinned and die:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Never you sin, Lord Tresham! for you'll die,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And God will judge you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Yes, be satisfied!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That process is begun.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i12"> </span>And she sits there<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Waiting for me! Now, say you this to her—<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span><span class="hang1st">You, not another—say, I saw him die<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As he breathed this, "I love her"—you don't know<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What those three small words mean! Say, loving her<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Lowers me down the bloody slope to death<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With memories ... I speak to her, not you,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Who had no pity, will have no remorse,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Perchance intend her.... Die along with me,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Dear Mildred! 'tis so easy, and you'll 'scape<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Done to you?—heartless men shall have my heart,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Aware, perhaps, of every blow—oh God!—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Upon those lips—yet of no power to tear<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The felon stripe by stripe! Die, Mildred! Leave<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Their honorable world to them! For God<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We're good enough, though the world casts us out.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>A whistle is heard.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> Ho, Gerard!</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Enter <span class="smcap">Gerard, Austin</span> and <span class="smcap">Guendolen</span>, with lights.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><span class="i16"> </span>No one speak! You see what's done.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I cannot bear another voice.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i><span class="i16"> </span>There's light—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Light all about me, and I move to it.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Tresham, did I not tell you—did you not<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Just promise to deliver words of mine<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To Mildred?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i2"> </span>I will bear these words to her.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> Now?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Now. Lift you the body, and leave me<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The head.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>As they half raise <span class="smcap">Mertoun</span>, he turns suddenly.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mertoun.</i> I knew they turned me: turn me not from her!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span><span class="hang1st">There! stay you! there!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Dies.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen</i> [<i>after a pause</i>]. Austin, remain you here<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With Thorold until Gerard comes with help:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Then lead him to his chamber. I must go<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To Mildred.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i2"> </span>Guendolen, I hear each word<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You utter. Did you hear him bid me give<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">His message? Did you hear my promise? I,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And only I, see Mildred.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i12"> </span>She will die.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> Oh no, she will not die! I dare not hope<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">She'll die. What ground have you to think she'll die?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Why, Austin's with you!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Austin.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Had we but arrived<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Before you fought!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i8"> </span>There was no fight at all.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">He let me slaughter him—the boy! I'll trust<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The body there to you and Gerard—thus!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Now bear him on before me.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Austin.</i><span class="i16"> </span>Whither bear him?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> Oh, to my chamber! When we meet there next,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">We shall be friends.</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>They bear out the body of <span class="smcap">Mertoun</span>.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st"><span class="i16"> </span>Will she die, Guendolen?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i> Where are you taking me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i20"> </span>He fell just here.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Now answer me. Shall you in your whole life<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—You who have nought to do with Mertoun's fate,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Now you have seen his breast upon the turf,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Shall you e'er walk this way if you can help?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When you and Austin wander arm-in-arm<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Through our ancestral grounds, will not a shade<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Be ever on the meadow and the waste—<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span><span class="hang1st">Another kind of shade than when the night<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But will you ever so forget his breast<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As carelessly to cross this bloody turf<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Under the black yew avenue? That's well!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You turn your head: and I then?—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i18"> </span>What is done<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Is done. My care is for the living. Thorold,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Bear up against this burden: more remains<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To set the neck to!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Dear and ancient trees<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My fathers planted, and I loved so well!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What have I done that, like some fabled crime<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of yore, lets loose a Fury leading thus<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Her miserable dance amidst you all?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Oh, never more for me shall winds intone<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">With all your tops a vast antiphony,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Demanding and responding in God's praise!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Hers ye are now, not mine! Farewell—farewell!</span></p> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Scene II.—Mildred's</span> <i>chamber.</i></h4> +<p class="center"><i><span class="smcap">Mildred</span> alone.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">He comes not! I have heard of those who seemed<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Resourceless in prosperity,—you thought<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Sorrow might slay them when she listed; yet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Did they so gather up their diffused strength<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">At her first menace, that they bade her strike,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And stood and laughed her subtlest skill to scorn.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Oh, 'tis not so with me! The first woe fell,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And the rest fall upon it, not on me:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Else should I bear that Henry comes not?—fails<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Just this first night out of so many nights?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Loving is done with. Were he sitting now,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As so few hours since, on that seat, we'd love<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st"><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>No more—contrive no thousand happy ways<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To hide love from the loveless, any more.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I think I might have urged some little point<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In my defense, to Thorold; he was breathless<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For the least hint of a defense: but no,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The first shame over, all that would might fall.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">No Henry! Yet I merely sit and think<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The morn's deed o'er and o'er. I must have crept<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Out of myself. A Mildred that has lost<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Her lover—oh, I dare not look upon<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Such woe! I crouch away from it! 'Tis she,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Mildred, will break her heart, not I! The world<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Forsakes me: only Henry's left me—left?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">When I have lost him, for he does not come,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And I sit stupidly.... Oh Heaven, break up<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This worse than anguish, this mad apathy,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">By any means or any messenger!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham</i> [<i>without</i>]. Mildred!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i><span class="i14"> </span>Come in! Heaven hears me!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">[<i>Enter <span class="smcap">Tresham</span>.</i>] You? alone?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Oh, no more cursing!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Mildred, I must sit.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There—you sit!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Say it, Thorold—do not look<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The curse! deliver all you come to say!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What must become of me? Oh, speak that thought<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which makes your brow and cheeks so pale!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i26"> </span>My thought?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i> All of it!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i8"> </span>How we waded—years ago—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">After those water-lilies, till the plash,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I know not how, surprised us; and you dared<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Neither advance nor turn back: so, we stood<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Laughing and crying until Gerard came—<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span><span class="hang1st">Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">For once more reaching the relinquished prize!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">How idle thoughts are, some men's, dying men's!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Mildred,—</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i><span class="i2"> </span>You call me kindlier by my name<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Than even yesterday: what is in that?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> It weighs so much upon my mind that I<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">This morning took an office not my own!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I might ... of course, I must be glad or grieved,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Content or not, at every little thing<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That touches you. I may with a wrung heart<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Even reprove you, Mildred; I did more:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Will you forgive me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i><span class="i10"> </span>Thorold? do you mock?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Or no ... and yet you bid me ... say that word!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> Forgive me, Mildred!—are you silent, Sweet?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred</i> [<i>starting up</i>]. Why does not Henry Mertoun come to-night?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Are you, too, silent?</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Dashing his mantle aside, and pointing to his scabbard, +which is empty.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st"><span class="i16"> </span>Ah, this speaks for you!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You've murdered Henry Mertoun! Now proceed!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">What is it I must pardon? This and all?<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Well, I do pardon you—I think I do.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Thorold, how very wretched you must be!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> He bade me tell you....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i><span class="i18"> </span>What I do forbid<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Your utterance of! So much that you may tell<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And will not—how you murdered him ... but, no!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You'll tell me that he loved me, never more<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Than bleeding out his life there: must I say<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">"Indeed," to that? Enough! I pardon you.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> You cannot, Mildred! for the harsh words, yes:<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span><span class="hang1st">Of this last deed Another's judge: whose doom<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I wait in doubt, despondency and fear.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i> Oh, true! There's nought for me to pardon! True!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You loose my soul of all its cares at once.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Death makes me sure of him for ever! You<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Tell me his last words? He shall tell me them,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And take my answer—not in words, but reading<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Himself the heart I had to read him late,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which death....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i6"> </span>Death? You are dying too? Well said<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of Guendolen! I dared not hope you'd die:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But she was sure of it.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Tell Guendolen<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I loved her, and tell Austin....</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i20"> </span>Him you loved:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i> Ah, Thorold! Was't not rashly done<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">To quench that blood, on fire with youth and hope<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And love of me—whom you loved too, and yet<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Suffered to sit here waiting his approach<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">While you were slaying him? Oh, doubtlessly<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You let him speak his poor boy's speech<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">—Do his poor utmost to disarm your wrath<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And respite me!—you let him try to give<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The story of our love and ignorance,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And the brief madness and the long despair—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You let him plead all this, because your code<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Of honor bids you hear before you strike:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But at the end, as he looked up for life<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Into your eyes—you struck him down!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i22"> </span>No! No!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Had I but heard him—had I let him speak<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Half the truth—less—had I looked long on him<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span><span class="hang1st">I had desisted! Why, as he lay there,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The moon on his flushed cheek, I gathered all<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The story ere he told it: I saw through<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The troubled surface of his crime and yours<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">A depth of purity immovable,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Had I but glanced, where all seemed turbidest<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Had gleamed some inlet to the calm beneath;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I would not glance: my punishment's at hand.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There, Mildred, is the truth! and you—say on—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You curse me?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Mildred.</i><span class="i4"> </span>As I dare approach that Heaven<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which has not bade a living thing despair,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But bids the vilest worm that turns on it<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Desist and be forgiven,—I—forgive not,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Falls on his neck.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st">There! Do not think too much upon the past!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The cloud that's broke was all the same a cloud<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">While it stood up between my friend and you;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You hurt him 'neath its shadow: but is that<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">So past retrieve? I have his heart, you know;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I may dispose of it: I give it you!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">It loves you as mine loves! Confirm me, Henry!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Dies.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> I wish thee joy, Beloved! I am glad<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">In thy full gladness!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen</i> [<i>without</i>]. Mildred! Tresham! [<i>Entering with <span class="smcap">Austin</span>.</i>] Thorold,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I could desist no longer. Ah, she swoons!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">That's well.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i4"> </span>Oh, better far than that!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i22"> </span>She's dead!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Let me unlock her arms!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i12"> </span>She threw them thus<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span><span class="hang1st">About my neck, and blessed me, and then died:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You'll let them stay now, Guendolen!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Austin.</i><span class="i24"> </span>Leave her<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And look to him! What ails you, Thorold?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i24"> </span>White<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">As she, and whiter! Austin! quick—this side!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Austin.</i> A froth is oozing through his clenched teeth;<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Both lips, where they're not bitten through, are black:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Speak, dearest Thorold!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i><span class="i12"> </span>Something does weigh down<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">My neck beside her weight: thanks: I should fall<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">But for you, Austin, I believe!—there, there,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">'Twill pass away soon!—ah,—I had forgotten:<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I am dying.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i> Thorold—Thorold—why was this?</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> I said, just as I drank the poison off,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The earth would be no longer earth to me,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">The life out of all life was gone from me.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">There are blind ways provided, the foredone<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Heart-weary player in this pageant-world<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Drops out by, letting the main masque defile<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">By the conspicuous portal: I am through—<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Just through!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen.</i><span class="i2"> </span>Don't leave him, Austin! Death is close.</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> Already Mildred's face is peacefuller.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">I see you, Austin—feel you: here's my hand,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Put yours in it—you, Guendolen, yours too!<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">You're lord and lady now—you're Treshams; name<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And fame are yours: you hold our 'scutcheon up.<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Austin, no blot on it! You see how blood<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Must wash one blot away: the first blot came<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">And the first blood came. To the vain world's eye<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">All's gules again: no care to the vain world,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">From whence the red was drawn!</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Austin.</i><span class="i18"> </span>No blot shall come!</span></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Tresham.</i> I said that: yet it did come. Should it come,<br /></span> +<span class="hang1st">Vengeance is God's, not man's. Remember me!</span></p> + +<p class="ralign">[<i>Dies.</i></p> + +<p><span class="hang1st line1"><i>Guendolen</i> [<i>letting fall the pulseless arm</i>]. Ah, Thorold, we can but—remember you!</span></p> +</div> + +<p>In "Ned Bratts," Browning has given a +striking picture of the influence exerted by +Bunyan upon some of his wicked contemporaries. +The poet took his hints for the +story from Bunyan himself, who tells it as +follows in the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman."</p> + +<p>"At a summer assizes holden at Hertford, +while the judge was sitting upon the bench, +comes this old Tod into the Court, clothed in a +green suit, with his leathern girdle in his hand, +his bosom open, and all on a dung sweat, as +if he had run for his life; and being come in, +he spake aloud, as follows: 'My lord,' said +he, 'here is the veriest rogue that breathes upon +the face of the earth. I have been a thief +from a child: when I was but a little one, I +gave myself to rob orchards and to do other +such like wicked things, and I have continued +a thief ever since. My lord, there has not +been a robbery committed these many years, +within so many miles of this place, but I have +either been at it, or privy to it.' The judge +thought the fellow was mad, but after some<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> +conference with some of the justices, they +agreed to indict him; and so they did of +several felonious actions; to all of which he +heartily confessed guilty, and so was hanged, +with his wife at the same time."</p> + +<p>Browning had the happy thought of placing +this episode in Bedford amid the scenes of +Bunyan's labors and imprisonment. Bunyan, +himself, was tried at the Bedford Assizes upon +the charge of preaching things he should not, +or according to some accounts for preaching +without having been ordained, and was sentenced +to twelve years' imprisonment in the +Bedford Jail. At one time it was thought that +he wrote "Pilgrim's Progress" during this imprisonment, +but Dr. Brown, in his biography +of Bunyan conjectured that this book was not +begun until a later and shorter imprisonment +of 1675-76, in the town prison and toll-house +on Bedford Bridge. Dr. Brown supposes that +the portion of the book written in prison closes +where Christian and Hopeful part from the +shepherds on the Delectable Mountains. "At +that point a break in the narrative is indicated—'So +I awoke from my dream;' it is resumed +with the words—'And I slept and dreamed +again, and saw the same two pilgrims going +down the mountains along the highway towards +the city.' Already from the top of an<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> +high hill called 'Clear,' the Celestial City was +in view; dangers there were still to be encountered; +but to have reached that high hill +and to have seen something like a gate, and +some of the glory of the place, was an attainment +and an incentive." There Bunyan could +pause. Several years later the pilgrimage of +Christiana was written.</p> + +<p>Browning, however, adopts the tradition +that the book was written during the twelve +years' imprisonment, and makes use of the +story of Bunyan's having supported himself +during this time by making tagged shoe-laces. +He brings in, also, the little blind daughter to +whom Bunyan was said to be devoted. The +Poet was evidently under the impression also +that the assizes were held in a courthouse, but +there is good authority for thinking that at +that time they were held in the chapel of +Herne. Nothing remains of this building now, +but it was situated at the southwest corner of +the churchyard of St. Paul, and was spoken +of sometimes as the School-house chapel.</p> + +<p>Ned Bratts and his wife did not know, of +course, that they actually lived in the land of +the "Pilgrim's Progress." This has been +pointed out only recently in a fascinating little +book by A. J. Foster of Wootton Vicarage, +Bedfordshire. He has been a pilgrim from<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span> +Elstow, the village where Bunyan was born +near Bedford, through all the surrounding +country, and has fixed upon many spots +beautiful and otherwise which he believes were +transmuted in Bunyan's imagination into the +House Beautiful, The Delectable Mountains, +Vanity Fair and so on through nearly all the +scenes of Christian's journey.</p> + +<p>The House Beautiful he identifies with +Houghton House in the manor of Dame +Ellen's Bury. This is one of the most interesting +of the country houses of England, because +of its connection with Sir Philip Sidney's +sister, Mary Sidney. After the death of her +husband, Lord Pembroke, James I. presented +her with the royal manor of Dame Ellen's +Bury, and under the guidance of Inigo Jones, +it is generally supposed, Houghton House was +built. It is in ruins now and covered with +ivy. Trees have grown within the ruins +themselves. Still it is one of the most beautiful +spots in Bedfordshire. "In Bunyan's +time," Mr. Foster writes, "we may suppose +the northern slope of Houghton Park was a +series of terraces rising one above another, +and laid out in the stiff garden fashion of the +time. A flight of steps, or maybe a steep +path, would lead from one terrace to the next, +and gradually the view over the plain of Bed<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span>ford +would reveal itself to the traveler as +he mounted higher and higher."</p> + +<p>From Houghton House there is a view of +the Chiltern Hills. Mr. Foster is of the opinion +that Bunyan had this view in mind when he +described Christian as looking from the roof +of the House Beautiful southwards towards +the Delectable Mountains. He writes, "One +of the main roads to London from Bedford, +and the one, moreover, which passes through +Elstow, crosses the hills only a little more +than a mile east of Houghton House, and +Bunyan, in his frequent journeys to London, +no doubt often passed along this road. All in +this direction was, therefore, to him familiar +ground. Many a pleasant walk or ride came +back to him through memory, as he took pen +in hand to describe Hill Difficulty with its +steep path and its arbor, and the House +Beautiful with its guest-chamber, its large +upper room looking eastward, its study and +its armory.</p> + +<p>"Many a time did Bunyan, as he journeyed, +look southwards to the blue Chilterns, and +when the time came he placed together all +that he had seen, as the frame in which he +should set his way-faring pilgrim."</p> + +<p>Pleasant as it would be to follow with Mr. +Foster his journey through the real scenes of<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span> +the "Pilgrim's Progress," our main interest +at present is to observe how Browning's +facile imagination has presented the conversion, +through the impression made upon them +by Bunyan's book, of Ned and his wife.</p> + +<h3>NED BRATTS</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer's Day:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A broiling blasting June,—was never its like, men say.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the parsons prayed for rain. 'T was horrible, yes—but queer:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Queer—for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To work one stroke at his trade: as given to understand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the world's old self about to end in a merry blaze.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Midsummer's Day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Bedford Town's tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because their lungs breathed flame—the regular crowd forbye<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From gentry pouring in—quite a nosegay, to be sure!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Meanwhile no bad resource was—watching begin and end<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' space,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from his sort of face.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, their Lordships toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As this and t'other lout, struck dumb at the sudden show<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered "Boh!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not—because Jack Nokes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had stolen the horse—be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And louts must make allowance—let's say, for some blue fly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and done<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their fun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a cow-house and laid by the heels,—have at 'em, devil may care!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And five a slit of the nose—just leaving enough to tweak.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Well, things at jolly high-tide, amusement steeped in fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While noon smote fierce the roof's red tiles to heart's desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span> +<span class="i0">One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its mesh<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Entoiled all heads in a fluster, and Serjeant Postlethwayte<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Dashing the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cried "Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jurymen,—Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Things at this pitch, I say,—what hubbub without the doors?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thumps, kicks,—no manner of use!—spite of them rolls at last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to view<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils—snouts that sniffed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare style—mirth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The desperate grin of the guest that, could they break from earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven was above, and hell might rage in impotence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Below the saved, the saved!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i18" style="display: inline;"> </span>"Confound you! (no offence!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of our way,—push, wife! Yonder their Worships be!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and "Hey, my Lords," roars he,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Constables, javelineers,—all met, if I understand,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> +<span class="i0">To decide so knotty a point as whether 't was Jack or Joan<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Robbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King's Arms with a stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dropped the baby down the well, left the tithesman in the lurch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What a pother—do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, in our Public, plain stand we—that's we stand here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I and my Tab, brass-bold, brick-built of beef and beer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Do not we, slut? Step forth and show your beauty, jade!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wife of my bosom—that's the word now! What a trade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We drove! None said us nay: nobody loved his life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So little as wag a tongue against us,—did they, wife?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged—search near and far!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eh, Tab? The pedler, now—o'er his noggin—who warned a mate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was the least to dread,—aha, how we two laughed a-good<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With billet poised and raised,—you, ready with the rope,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah, but that's past, that's sin repented of, we hope!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lily-livered knaves knew too (I've balked a d——)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our keeping the 'Pied Bull' was just a mere pretence:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or steer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not a single roguery, from the clipping of a purse<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> +<span class="i0">To the cutting of a throat, but paid us toll. Od's curse!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When Gipsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Eh, Tab? the Squire's strong-box we helped the rascal to—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I think he pulled a face, next Sessions' swinging-time!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He danced the jig that needs no floor,—and, here's the prime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were busy days!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Well, there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Not to say, boots and shoes, when ... Zounds, I nearly said—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord, to unlearn one's language! How shall we labor, wife?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See, sirs, here's life, salvation! Here's—hold but out my breath—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When did I speak so long without once swearing? 'Sdeath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All yesterday I had to keep my whistle wet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While reading Tab this Book: book? don't say 'book'—they're plays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tab, help and tell! I'm hoarse. A mug! or—no, a prayer!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dip for one out of the Book! Who wrote it in the Jail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—He plied his pen unhelped by beer, sirs, I'll be bail!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I've got my second wind. In trundles she—that's Tab.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Why, Gammer, what's come now, that—bobbing like a crab<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On Yule-tide bowl—your head's a-work and both your eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Break loose? Afeard, you fool? As if the dead can rise!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span> +<span class="i0">Say—Bagman Dick was found last May with fuddling-cap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stuffed in his mouth: to choke's a natural mishap!'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Gaffer, be—blessed,' cries she, 'and Bagman Dick as well!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, you, and he are damned: this Public is our hell:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We live in fire: live coals don't feel!—once quenched, they learn—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cinders do, to what dust they moulder while they burn!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'If you don't speak straight out,' says I—belike I swore—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'A knobstick, well you know the taste of, shall, once more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Teach you to talk, my maid!' She ups with such a face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heart sunk inside me. 'Well, pad on, my prate-apace!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'<a name='TC_27'></a><ins title="Added stanza">I've</ins> been about those laces we need for ... never mind!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If henceforth they tie hands, 't is mine they'll have to bind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You know who makes them best—the Tinker in our cage,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pulled-up for gospelling, twelve years ago: no age<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To try another trade,—yet, so he scorned to take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Money he did not earn, he taught himself the make<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of laces, tagged and tough—Dick Bagman found them so!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good customers were we! Well, last week, you must know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His girl,—the blind young chit, who hawks about his wares,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She takes it in her head to come no more—such airs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These hussies have! Yet, since we need a stoutish lace,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I'll to the jail-bird father, abuse her to his face!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, first I filled a jug to give me heart, and then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Primed to the proper pitch, I posted to their den—<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Patmore</i>—they style their prison! I tip the turnkey, catch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart up, fix my face, and fearless lift the latch—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both arms a-kimbo, in bounce with a good round oath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ready for rapping out: no "Lawks" nor "By my troth!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'There sat my man, the father. He looked up: what one feels<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span> +<span class="i0">When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the day, earth grow another something quite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'"Woman!" (a fiery tear he put in every tone),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"How should my child frequent your house where lust is sport,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Violence—trade? Too true! I trust no vague report.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her angel's hand, which stops the sight of sin, leaves clear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The other gate of sense, lets outrage through the ear.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What has she heard!—which, heard shall never be again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better lack food than feast, a Dives in the—wain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or reign or train—of Charles!" (His language was not ours:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T is my belief, God spoke: no tinker has such powers.)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Bread, only bread they bring—my laces: if we broke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your lump of leavened sin, the loaf's first crumb would choke!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Down on my marrow-bones! Then all at once rose he:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up went his hands: "Through flesh, I reach, I read thy soul!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So may some stricken tree look blasted, bough and bole,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Champed by the fire-tooth, charred without, and yet, thrice-bound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With <a name='TC_28'></a><ins title="Keeping original spelling">dreriment</ins> about, within may life be found,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A prisoned power to branch and blossom as before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could but the gardener cleave the cloister, reach the core,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loosen the vital sap: yet where shall help be found?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who says 'How save it?'—nor 'Why cumbers it the ground?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Woman, that tree art thou! All sloughed about with scurf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy stag-horns fright the sky, thy snake-roots sting the turf!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drunkenness, wantonness, theft, murder gnash and gnarl<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span> +<span class="i0">Thine outward, case thy soul with coating like the marle<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Satan stamps flat upon each head beneath his hoof!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And how deliver such? The strong men keep aloof,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lover and friend stand far, the mocking ones pass by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tophet gapes wide for prey: lost soul, despair and die!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What then? 'Look unto me and be ye saved!' saith God:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'I strike the rock, outstreats the life-stream at my rod!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be your sins scarlet, wool shall they seem like,—although<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As crimson red, yet turn white as the driven snow!'"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'There, there, there! All I seem to somehow understand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is—that, if I reached home, 't was through the guiding hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his blind girl which led and led me through the streets<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And out of town and up to door again. What greets<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First thing my eye, as limbs recover from their swoon?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A book—this Book she gave at parting. "Father's boon—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Book he wrote: it reads as if he spoke himself:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He cannot preach in bonds, so,—take it down from shelf<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When you want counsel,—think you hear his very voice!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'<a name='TC_29'></a><ins title="Added stanza">Wicked</ins> dear Husband, first despair and then rejoice!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dear wicked Husband, waste no tick of moment more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be saved like me, bald trunk! There's greenness yet at core,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sap under slough! Read, read!'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i20" style="display: inline;"> </span>"Let me take breath, my lords!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd like to know, are these—hers, mine, or Bunyan's words?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm 'wildered—scarce with drink,—nowise with drink alone!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You'll say, with heat: but heat's no stuff to split a stone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like this black boulder—this flint heart of mine: the Book—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That dealt the crashing blow! Sirs, here's the fist that shook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His beard till Wrestler Jem howled like a just-lugged bear!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You had brained me with a feather: at once I grew aware<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christmas was meant for me. A burden at your back,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> +<span class="i0">Good Master Christmas? Nay,—yours was that Joseph's sack,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Or whose it was,—which held the cup,—compared with mine!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Robbery loads my loins, perjury cracks my chine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Adultery ... nay, Tab, you pitched me as I flung!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One word, I'll up with fist.... No, sweet spouse, hold your tongue!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I'm hasting to the end. The Book, sirs—take and read!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You have my history in a nutshell,—ay, indeed!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It must off, my burden! See,—slack straps and into pit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Roll, reach, the bottom, rest, rot there—a plague on it!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a mountain's sure to fall and bury Bedford Town,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Destruction'—that's the name, and fire shall burn it down!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O 'scape the wrath in time! Time's now, if not too late.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How can I pilgrimage up to the wicket-gate?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Next comes Despond the slough: not that I fear to pull<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through mud, and dry my clothes at brave House Beautiful—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But it's late in the day, I reckon: had I left years ago<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Town, wife, and children dear.... Well, Christmas did, you know!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soon I had met in the valley and tried my cudgel's strength<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the enemy horned and winged, a-straddle across its length!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have at his horns, thwick—thwack: they snap, see! Hoof and hoof—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bang, break the fetlock-bones! For love's sake, keep aloof<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Angels! I'm man and match,—this cudgel for my flail,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To thresh him, hoofs and horns, bat's wing and serpent's tail!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A chance gone by! But then, what else does Hopeful ding<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the deafest ear except—hope, hope's the thing?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too late i' the day for me to thrid the windings: but<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's still a way to win the race by death's short cut!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span> +<span class="i0">Did Master Faithful need climb the Delightful Mounts?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No, straight to Vanity Fair,—a fair, by all accounts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such as is held outside,—lords, ladies, grand and gay,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Says he in the face of them, just what you hear me say.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the Judges brought him in guilty, and brought him out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To die in the market-place—St. Peter's Green's about<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The same thing: there they flogged, flayed, buffeted, lanced with knives,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pricked him with swords,—I'll swear, he'd full a cat's nine lives,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So to his end at last came Faithful,—ha, ha, he!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who holds the highest card? for there stands hid, you see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behind the rabble-rout, a chariot, pair and all:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He's in, he's off, he's up, through clouds, at trumpet-call,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Carried the nearest way to Heaven-gate! Odds my life—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has nobody a sword to spare? not even a knife?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then hang me, draw and quarter! Tab—do the same by her!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O Master Worldly-Wiseman ... that's Master Interpreter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take the will, not the deed! Our gibbet's handy close:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forestall Last Judgment-Day! Be kindly, not morose!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There wants no earthly judge-and-jurying: here we stand—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sentence our guilty selves: so, hang us out of hand!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make haste for pity's sake! A single moment's loss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Means—Satan's lord once more: his whisper shoots across<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All singing in my heart, all praying in my brain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'It comes of heat and beer!'—hark how he guffaws plain!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'To-morrow you'll wake bright, and, in a safe skin, hug<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your sound selves, Tab and you, over a foaming jug!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You've had such qualms before, time out of mind!' He's right!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did not we kick and cuff and curse away, that night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When home we blindly reeled, and left poor humpback Joe<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span><span class="i0">I' the lurch to pay for what ... somebody did, you know!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both of us maundered then 'Lame humpback,—never more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will he come limping, drain his tankard at our door!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'll swing, while—somebody....' Says Tab, 'No, for I'll peach!'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'I'm for you, Tab,' cries I, 'there's rope enough for each!'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So blubbered we, and bussed, and went to bed upon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The grace of Tab's good thought: by morning, all was gone!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We laughed—'What's life to him, a cripple of no account?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, waves increase around—I feel them mount and mount!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hang us! To-morrow brings Tom Bearward with his bears:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One new black-muzzled brute beats Sackerson, he swears:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Sackerson, for my money!) And, baiting o'er, the Brawl<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They lead on Turner's Patch,—lads, lasses, up tails all,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm i' the thick o' the throng! That means the Iron Cage,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Means the Lost Man inside! Where's hope for such as wage<br /></span> +<span class="i0">War against light? Light's left, light's here, I hold light still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So does Tab—make but haste to hang us both! You will?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I promise, when he stopped you might have heard a mouse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Squeak, such a death-like hush sealed up the old Mote House.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when the mass of man sank meek upon his knees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While Tab, alongside, wheezed a hoarse "Do hang us, please!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why, then the waters rose, no eye but ran with tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hearts heaved, heads thumped, until, paying all past arrears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of pity and sorrow, at last a regular scream outbroke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of triumph, joy and praise.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i18" style="display: inline;"> </span>My Lord Chief Justice spoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First mopping brow and cheek, where still, for one that budged,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Another bead broke fresh: "What Judge, that ever judged<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since first the world began, judged such a case as this?<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> +<span class="i0">Why, Master Bratts, long since, folk smelt you out, I wis!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I had my doubts, i' faith, each time you played the fox<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Convicting geese of crime in yonder witness-box—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, much did I misdoubt, the thief that stole her eggs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was hardly goosey's self at Reynard's game, i' feggs!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet thus much was to praise—you spoke to point, direct—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swore you heard, saw the theft: no jury could suspect—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dared to suspect,—I'll say,—a spot in white so clear:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Goosey was throttled, true: but thereof godly fear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came of example set, much as our laws intend;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, though a fox confessed, you proved the Judge's friend.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What if I had my doubts? Suppose I gave them breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brought you to bar: what work to do, ere 'Guilty, Death,'—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had paid our pains! What heaps of witnesses to drag<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From holes and corners, paid from out the County's bag!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trial three dog-days long! <i>Amicus Curiæ</i>—that's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your title, no dispute—truth-telling Master Bratts!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thank you, too, Mistress Tab! Why doubt one word you say?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tinker needs must be a proper man. I've heard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He lies in Jail long since: if Quality's good word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Warrants me letting loose,—some householder, I mean—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freeholder, better still,—I don't say but—between<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now and next Sessions.... Well! Consider of his case,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I promise to, at least: we owe him so much grace.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not that—no, God forbid!—I lean to think, as you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The grace that such repent is any jail-bird's due:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I rather see the fruit of twelve years' pious reign—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Astræa Redux, Charles restored his rights again!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Of which, another time! I somehow feel a peace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stealing across the world. May deeds like this increase!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, Master Sheriff, stay that sentence I pronounced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On those two dozen odd: deserving to be trounced<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span><span class="i0">Soundly, and yet ... well, well, at all events despatch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This pair of—shall I say, sinner-saints?—ere we catch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their jail-distemper too. Stop tears, or I'll indite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And happily hanged were they,—why lengthen out my tale?—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where Bunyan's Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The effect which "Pilgrim's Progress" had +on these two miserable beings, may be taken +as typical of the enormous influence wielded +by Bunyan in his own time. The most innocent +among us had overwhelming qualms in +regard to our sins, as children when we listened +to our mothers read the book. I +remember having confessed some childish peccadillo +that was weighing on my small mind +as the first result of my thoroughly aroused +sense of guilt. In these early years of the +Twentieth Century, such a feeling seems almost +as far removed as the days of Bunyan. +A sense of guilt is not a distinguishing characteristic +of the child of the present day, and +it may also be doubted whether such reprobates +as Ned and his wife would to-day be +affected much if at all by the "Pilgrim's +Progress." There was probably great personal +magnetism in Bunyan himself. We are +told that after his discharge from prison, his<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> +popularity as a preacher widened rapidly. +Such vast crowds of people flocked to hear +him that his place of worship had to be enlarged. +He went frequently to London on +week days to deliver addresses in the large +chapel in Southwark which was invariably +thronged with eager worshipers.</p> + +<p>Browning's picture of Bunyan shows the +instant effect of his personality upon Tab.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There sat the man, the father. He looked up: what one feels<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the day, earth grow another something quite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And again</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i20" style="display: inline;"> </span>"Then all at once rose he:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up went his hands."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is like a clever bit of stage business to +make Ned and Tab use the shoe laces to tie +up the hands of their victims, and to bring +on by this means the meeting between Tab +and Bunyan. Of course, the blind daughter's +part is imaginary, but yet it seems to bring +very vividly before us this well loved child. +Another touch, quite in keeping with the time,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span> +is the decision of the Judge that the remarkable +change of heart in Ned and Tab was due +to the piety of King Charles. Like every +one else, however, he was impressed by what +he heard of the Tinker, and inclined to see +what he could do to give him his freedom. +It seems that Bunyan's life in jail was a good +deal lightened by the favor he always inspired. +The story goes that from the first he was in +favor with the jailor, who nearly lost his +place for permitting him on one occasion to +go as far as London. After this he was more +strictly confined, but at last he was often +allowed to visit his family, and remain with +them all night. One night, however, when +he was allowed this liberty Bunyan felt resistlessly +impressed with the propriety of +returning to the prison. He arrived after +the keeper had shut up for the night, much +to the official's surprise. But his impatience +at being untimely disturbed was changed to +thankfulness, when a little after a messenger +came from a neighboring clerical magistrate +to see that the prisoner was safe. "You may +go now when you will" said the jailer; "for +you know better than I can tell you when to +come in again."</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_17" id="linki_17"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus017.jpg" width="196" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">John Bunyan</p> + +<p class="center">Statue by J. E. Boehm</p> +</div> + +<p>Though Bunyan is not primarily the subject +of this poem, it is an appreciative tribute<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> +to his genius and to his force of character, +only to be paralleled by Dowden's sympathetic +critique in his "Puritan and Anglican +Studies." What Browning makes Ned and +Tab see through suddenly aroused feeling—namely +that it is no book but</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i30">"plays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Dowden puts in the colder language of criticism.</p> + +<p>"The 'Pilgrim's Progress' is a gallery of +portraits, admirably discriminated, and as +convincing in their self-verification as those of +Holbein. His personages live for us as +few figures outside the drama of Shakespeare +live.... All his powers cooperated +harmoniously in creating this book—his religious +ardor, his human tenderness, his +sense of beauty, nourished by the Scriptures, +his strong common sense, even his gift of +humor. Through his deep seriousness play +the lighter faculties. The whole man presses +into this small volume."</p> + +<p>"Halbert and Hob" belongs here merely +for its wild North of England setting. We +may imagine, if we choose, that this wild +father and son dwelt in the beautiful country +of Northumberland, in the North of England,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> +but descriptions of the scenery could add +nothing to the atmosphere of the poem, +for Northumberland is surpassingly lovely. +Doubtless, human beings of this type have +existed in all parts of the globe. At any rate, +these particular human beings were transported +by Browning from Aristotle's "Ethics" +to the North of England. The incident is told +by Aristotle in illustration of the contention +that anger and asperity are more natural than +excessive and unnecessary desires. "Thus +one who was accused of striking his father +said, as an apology for it, that his own +father, and even his grandfather, had struck +his; 'and he also (pointing to his child) will +strike me, when he becomes a man; for it runs +in our family.' A certain person, also, being +dragged by his son, bid him stop at the +door, for he himself had dragged his father as +far as that." The dryness of "Aristotle's +<a name='TC_30'></a><ins title="Was 'checks'">cheeks</ins>" is as usual so enlivened by Browning +that the fate of Halbert and Hob grows +pathetic and comes close to our sympathies.</p> + +<h3>HALBERT AND HOB</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span> +<span class="i0">Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these—but—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degrees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Softens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst were these.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Criminals, then? Why, no: they did not murder and rob;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, give them a word, they returned a blow—old Halbert as young Hob:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hated or feared the more—who knows?—the genuine wild-beast breed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus were they found by the few sparse folk of the countryside;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But how fared each with other? E'en beasts couch, hide by hide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in the world.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Still, beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came father and son to words—such words! more cruel because the blow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Completed with oath in wager, like pastime in hell,—nay, worse:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The son at the throat of the father, seized him and held him fast.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> +<span class="i0">"Out of this house you go!"—(there followed a hideous oath)—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"This oven where now we bake, too hot to hold us both!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If there's snow outside, there's coolness: out with you, bide a spell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the drift and save the sexton the charge of a parish shell!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now, the old trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oak<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Untouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy broke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-blade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like a feather weighed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nevertheless at once did the mammoth shut his eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drop chin to breast, drop hands to sides, stand stiffened—arms and thighs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All of a piece—struck mute, much as a sentry stands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Patient to take the enemy's fire: his captain so commands.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whereat the son's wrath flew to fury at such sheer scorn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his puny strength by the giant eld thus acting the babe new-born:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And "Neither will this turn serve!" yelled he. "Out with you! Trundle, log!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you cannot tramp and trudge like a man, try all-fours like a dog!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Still the old man stood mute. So, logwise,—down to floor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pulled from his fireside place, dragged on from hearth to door,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was he pushed, a very log, staircase along, until<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A certain turn in the steps was reached, a yard from the house-door-sill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span> +<span class="i0">Then the father opened eyes—each spark of their rage extinct,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Temples, late black, dead-blanched,—right-hand with left-hand linked,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He faced his son submissive; when slow the accents came,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They were strangely mild though his son's rash hand on his neck lay all the same.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hob, on just such a night of a Christmas long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For such a cause, with such a gesture, did I drag—so—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My father down thus far: but, softening here, I heard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A voice in my heart, and stopped: you wait for an outer word.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For your own sake, not mine, soften you too! Untrod<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leave this last step we reach, nor brave the finger of God!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I dared not pass its lifting: I did well. I nor blame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor praise you. I stopped here: and, Hob, do you the same!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Straightway the son relaxed his hold of the father's throat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They mounted, side by side, to the room again: no note<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Took either of each, no sign made each to either: last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As first, in absolute silence, their Christmas-night they passed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At dawn, the father sate on, dead, in the self-same place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With an outburst blackening still the old bad fighting-face:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the son crouched all a-tremble like any lamb new-yeaned.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When he went to the burial, someone's staff he borrowed—tottered and leaned.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But his lips were loose, not locked,—kept muttering, mumbling. "There!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At his cursing and swearing!" the youngsters cried: but the elders thought "In prayer."<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span> +<span class="i0">A boy threw stones: he picked them up and stored them in his vest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So tottered, muttered, mumbled he, till he died, perhaps found rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?" O Lear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That a reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the "Inn Album," a degenerate type +of Nineteenth-Century Englishman is dissected +with the keen knife of a surgeon, which +Browning knows so well how to wield. The +villain of this poem was a real personage, a +Lord de Ros, a friend of the Duke of Wellington. +The story belongs to the annals of +crime and is necessarily unpleasant, but in +order to see how Browning has worked up +the episode it is interesting to know the bare +facts as Furnivall gives them in "Notes and +Queries" March 25, 1876. He says "that the +gambling lord showed the portrait of the +lady he had seduced and abandoned and +offered his dupe an introduction to her, as a +bribe to induce him to wait for payment of +the money he had won; that the young gambler +eagerly accepted the offer; and that the +lady committed suicide on hearing of the bargain +between them." Dr. Furnivall heard +the story from some one who well remembered +the sensation it had made in London<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span> +years ago. In his management of the story, +Browning has intensified the villainy of the +Lord at the same time that he has shown a +possible streak of goodness in him. The +young man, on the other hand, he has made +to be of very good stuff, indeed, notwithstanding +his year of tutelage from the older man. +He makes one radical change in the story as +well as several minor ones. In the poem +the younger man had been in love with the +girl whom the older man had dishonorably +treated, and had never ceased to love her. +Of course, the two men do not know this. +By the advice of the elder man, the younger +one has decided to settle down and marry +his cousin, a charming young girl, who is +also brought upon the scene. The other girl +is represented as having married an old country +parson, who sought a wife simply as a +helpmeet in his work. By thus complicating +the situations, room has been given for subtle +psychic development. The action is all concentrated +into one morning in the parlor of +the old inn, reminding one much of the method +of Ibsen in his plays of grouping his action +about a final catastrophe. At the inn one +is introduced first to the two gamblers in talk, +the young man having won his ten thousand +pounds from the older man, who had intended<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> +to fleece him. The inn album plays an important +part in the action, innocent as its +first appearance upon the scene seems to be. +The description of this and the inn parlor +opens the poem.</p> + +<h3>THE INN ALBUM</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That oblong book's the Album; hand it here!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exactly! page on page of gratitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For breakfast, dinner, supper, and the view!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I praise these poets: they leave margin-space;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each stanza seems to gather skirts around,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And primly, trimly, keep the foot's confine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Modest and maidlike; lubber prose o'er-sprawls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And straddling stops the path from left to right.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since I want space to do my cipher-work,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which poem spares a corner? What comes first?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Open the window, we burn daylight, boy!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or see—succincter beauty, brief and bold—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>If a fellow can dine On rumpsteaks and port wine,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>He needs not despair Of dining well here</i>—'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Here!</i>' I myself could find a better rhyme!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bard's a Browning; he neglects the form:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But ah, the sense, ye gods, the weighty sense!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still, I prefer this classic. Ay, throw wide!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll quench the bits of candle yet unburnt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A minute's fresh air, then to cipher-work!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three little columns hold the whole account:<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Ecarté</i>, after which Blind Hookey, then<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> +<span class="i0">Cutting-the-Pack, five hundred pounds the cut.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis easy reckoning: I have lost, I think."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Two personages occupy this room<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shabby-genteel, that's parlor to the inn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perched on a view-commanding eminence;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Inn which may be a veritable house<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where somebody once lived and pleased good taste<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till tourists found his coign of vantage out,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fingered blunt the individual mark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And vulgarized things comfortably smooth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On a sprig-pattern-papered wall there brays<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Complaint to sky Sir Edwin's dripping stag;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His couchant coast-guard creature corresponds;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They face the Huguenot and Light o' the World.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grim o'er the mirror on the mantlepiece,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Varnished and coffined, <i>Salmo ferox</i> glares<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Possibly at the List of Wines which, framed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And glazed, hangs somewhat prominent on peg.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So much describes the stuffy little room—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vulgar flat smooth respectability:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not so the burst of landscape surging in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sunrise and all, as he who of the pair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is, plain enough, the younger personage<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Draws sharp the shrieking curtain, sends aloft<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sash, spreads wide and fastens back to wall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shutter and shutter, shows you England's best.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He leans into a living glory-bath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of air and light where seems to float and move<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wooded watered country, hill and dale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And steel-bright thread of stream, a-smoke with mist,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A-sparkle with May morning, diamond drift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O' the sun-touched dew. Except the red-roofed pa<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span>tch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of half a dozen dwellings that, crept close<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For hill-side shelter, make the village-clump<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This inn is perched above to dominate—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Except such sign of human neighborhood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(And this surmised rather than sensible)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's nothing to disturb absolute peace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The reign of English nature—which mean art<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And civilized existence. Wildness' self<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is just the cultured triumph. Presently<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep solitude, be sure, reveals a Place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That knows the right way to defend itself:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silence hems round a burning spot of life.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, where a Place burns, must a village brood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And where a village broods, an inn should boast—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Close and convenient: here you have them both.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This inn, the Something-arms—the family's—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Don't trouble Guillim; heralds leave our half!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is dear to lovers of the picturesque,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And epics have been planned here; but who plan<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take holy orders and find work to do.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Painters are more productive, stop a week,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Declare the prospect quite a Corot,—ay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For tender sentiment,—themselves incline<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rather to handsweep large and liberal;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then go, but not without success achieved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Haply some pencil-drawing, oak or beech,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ferns at the base and ivies up the bole,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On this a slug, on that a butterfly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, he who hooked the <i>salmo</i> pendent here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Also exhibited, this same May-month,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Foxgloves: a study</i>'—so inspires the scene,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The air, which now the younger personage<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inflates him with till lungs o'erfraught are fain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sigh forth a satisfaction might bestir<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> +<span class="i0">Even those tufts of tree-tops to the South<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I' the distance where the green dies off to grey,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, easy of conjecture, front the Place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He eyes them, elbows wide, each hand to cheek.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His fellow, the much older—either say<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A youngish-old man or man oldish-young—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sits at the table: wicks are noisome-deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In wax, to detriment of plated ware;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above—piled, strewn—is store of playing-cards,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Counters and all that's proper for a game.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Circumstantial as the description of this +parlor and the situation of the inn is, it is +impossible to say which out of the many +English inns Browning had in mind. Inns +date back to the days of the Romans, who had +ale-houses along the roads, the most interesting +feature of which was the ivy garland or +wreath of vine-leaves in honor of Bacchus, +wreathed around a hoop at the end of a long +pole to point out the way where good drink +could be had. A curious survival of this in +early English times was the "ale-stake," a +tavern so called because it had a long pole +projecting from the house front wreathed like +the old Roman poles with furze, a garland +of flowers or an ivy wreath. This decoration +was called the "bush," and in time the +London taverners so vied with each other in +their attempt to attract attention by very long +poles and very prominent bushes that in 1375<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span> +a law was passed according to which all taverners +in the city of London owning ale-stakes +projecting or extending over the King's highway +more than seven feet in length, at the +utmost, should be fined forty pence, and compelled +to remove the sign. Here is the origin, +too, of the proverb, "good wine needs no +bush." In the later development of the inn +the signs lost their Bacchic character and became +most elaborate, often being painted by +artists.</p> + +<p>The poet says this inn was the "Something-arms," +and had perhaps once been a house. +Many inns were the "Something (?) arms" +and certainly many inns had been houses. +One such is the Pounds Bridge Inn on a secluded +road between Speldhurst and Penshurst +in Kent. It was built by the rector of +Penshurst, William Darkenoll, who lived in it +only three years, when it became an inn. The +inn of the poem might have been a combination +in Browning's memory of this and the +"White Horse" at Woolstone, which is described +as a queerly pretty little inn with a +front distantly resembling a Chippendale bureau-bookcase. +"It is tucked away under +the mighty sides of White Horse Hill, Berkshire, +and additionally overhung with trees +and encircled with shrubberies and under-<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span>woods, +and is finally situated on a narrow +road that presently leads, as it would seem, +to the end of the known world." So writes +the enthusiastic lover of inns, Charles Harper. +Or, perhaps, since there is a river to be seen +from the inn of the poem the "Swan" at +Sandleford Water, where a foot bridge and a +water splash on the river Enborne mark the +boundaries of Hampshire and Berkshire. Here +"You have the place wholly to yourself, or +share it only with the squirrels and the birds +of the overarching trees." The illustration +given of the Black Bear Inn, Tewksbury, is +a quite typical example of inn architecture, +and may have helped the picture in Browning's +mind, though its situation is not so rural as +that described in the poem.</p> + +<p>Inns have, from time immemorial, been the +scenes of romances and tragedies and crimes. +There have been inns like the "Castle" where +the "quality" loved to congregate. The "inn +album" of this establishment had inscribed +in it almost every eighteenth-century name +of any distinction. There have been inns +which were noted as the resort of the wits of +the day. Ben Jonson loved to take "mine +ease in mine inn," and Dr. Johnson declared +that a seat in a tavern chair was the height of +human felicity. "He was thinking," as it has<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span> +been pertinently put, "not only of a comfortable +sanded parlor, a roaring fire, and +plenty of good cheer and good company, but +also of the circle of humbly appreciative +auditors who gathered round an accepted wit, +hung upon his words, offered themselves as +butts for his ironic or satiric humor, and—stood +treat." Or there was the inn of +sinister aspect where highwaymen might congregate, +or inns with hosts who let their guests +down through trap-doors in the middle of the +night to rob and murder them—or is this +only a vague remembrance of a fanciful inn +of Dickens? Then there was the pilgrim's +inn in the days when Chaucerian folks loved +to go on pilgrimages, and in the last century +the cyclists inn, and to-day the inn of the +automobilist. The particular inn in the poem +belongs to the class, rural inn, and in spite of +its pictures by noted masters was "stuffy" as +to the atmosphere.</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_18" id="linki_18"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus018.jpg" width="500" height="373" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">An English Inn</p> +</div> + +<p>The "inn album" or visitors' book is a +feature of inns. In this country we simply +sign our names in the visitors' book, but the +"album" feature of the visitors' book of an +English inn is its glory and too often its +shame, for as Mr. Harper says, "Bathos, +ineptitude, and lines that refuse to scan are +the stigmata of visitors' book verse. There is<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span> +no worse poetry on earth than that which +lurks between those covers, or in the pages +of young ladies' albums." He declares that +"The interesting pages of visitors' books are +generally those that are not there, as an +Irishman might say; for the world is populated +very densely with those appreciative +people who, whether from a love of literature, +or with an instinct for collecting autographs +that may have a realizable value, +remove the signatures of distinguished men, +and with them anything original they may +have written."</p> + +<p>Browning pokes fun at the poetry of his +inn album, but at the same time uses it as an +important part of the machinery in the action. +His English "Iago" writes in it the final +damnation of his own character—the threat +by means of which he hopes to ruin his victims, +but which, instead, causes the lady to +take poison and the young man to murder +"Iago."</p> + +<p>The presence of the two men at this particular +inn is explained in the following bit of +conversation between them.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><a name='TC_31'></a><ins title="Added starting quote">"You</ins> wrong your poor disciple. Oh, no airs!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because you happen to be twice my age<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And twenty times my master, must perforce<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No blink of daylight struggle through the web<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> +<span class="i0">There's no unwinding? You entoil my legs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And welcome, for I like it: blind me,—no!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A very pretty piece of shuttle-work<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was that—your mere chance question at the club—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Do you go anywhere this Whitsuntide?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I'm off for Paris, there's the Opera—there's</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The Salon, there's a china-sale,—beside</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Chantilly; and, for good companionship,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>There's Such-and-such and So-and-so. Suppose</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>We start together?</i>' '<i>No such holiday!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I told you: '<i>Paris and the rest be hanged!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Why plague me who am pledged to home-delights?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I'm the engaged now; through whose fault but yours?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>On duty. As you well know. Don't I drowse</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The week away down with the Aunt and Niece?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>No help: it's leisure, loneliness and love.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Wish I could take you; but fame travels <a name='TC_32'></a><ins title="Removed end quote">fast</ins>,—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>A man of much newspaper-paragraph,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>You scare domestic circles; and beside</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Would not you like your lot, that second taste</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Of nature and approval of the grounds!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>You might walk early or lie late, so shirk</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Week-day devotions: but stay Sunday o'er,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And morning church is obligatory:</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>No mundane garb permissible, or dread</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The butler's privileged monition! No!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Pack off to Paris, nor wipe tear away!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereon how artlessly the happy flash<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Followed, by inspiration! '<i>Tell you what—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Let's turn their flank, try things on t'other side!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Inns for my money! Liberty's the life!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>We'll lie in hiding: there's the crow-nest nook,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The tourist's joy, the Inn they rave about,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Inn that's out—out of sight and out of mind<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span></i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And out of mischief to all four of us—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Aunt <a name='TC_33'></a><ins title="Was 'aud'">and</ins> niece, you and me. At night arrive;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>At morn, find time for just a Pisgah-view</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Of my friend's Land of Promise; then depart.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And while I'm whizzing onward by first train,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Bound for our own place (since my Brother sulks</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And says I shun him like the plague) yourself—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Why, you have stepped thence, start from platform, gay</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Despite the sleepless journey,—love lends wings,—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Hug aunt and niece who, none the wiser, wait</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The faithful advent! Eh?</i>' '<i>With all my heart</i>,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said I to you; said I to mine own self:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Does he believe I fail to comprehend</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>He wants just one more final friendly snack</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>At friend's exchequer ere friend runs to earth,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Marries, renounces yielding friends such sport?</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And did I spoil sport, pull face grim,—nay, grave?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your pupil does you better credit! No!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I parleyed with my pass-book,—rubbed my pair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the big balance in my banker's hands,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Folded a cheque cigar-case-shape,—just wants<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filling and signing,—and took train, resolved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To execute myself with decency<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And let you win—if not Ten thousand quite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Something by way of wind-up-farewell burst<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of firework-nosegay! Where's your fortune fled?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or is not fortune constant after all?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You lose ten thousand pounds: had I lost half<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or half that, I should bite my lips, I think.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You man of marble! Strut and stretch my best<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On tiptoe, I shall never reach your height.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How does the loss feel! Just one lesson more!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The more refined man smiles a frown away.<br /></span> +</div></div><p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span></p> + +<p>On the way to the station where the older +man is to take the train they have another +talk, in which each tells the other of his +experience, but they do not find out yet that +they have both loved the same woman.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i26">"Stop, my boy!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't think I'm stingy of experience! Life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—It's like this wood we leave. Should you and I<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go wandering about there, though the gaps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We went in and came out by were opposed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the two poles, still, somehow, all the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By nightfall we should probably have chanced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On much the same main points of interest—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both of us measured girth of mossy trunk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stript ivy from its strangled prey, clapped hands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At squirrel, sent a fir-cone after crow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so forth,—never mind what time betwixt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So in our lives; allow I entered mine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Another way than you: 't is possible<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I ended just by knocking head against<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That plaguy low-hung branch yourself began<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By getting bump from; as at last you too<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May stumble o'er that stump which first of all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bade me walk circumspectly. Head and feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are vulnerable both, and I, foot-sure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgot that ducking down saves brow from bruise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, early old, played young man four years since<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And failed confoundedly: so, hate alike<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Failure and who caused failure,—curse her cant!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, I see! You, though somewhat past the prime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were taken with a rosebud beauty! Ah<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But how should chits distinguish? She admired<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your marvel of a mind, I'll undertake!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But as to body ... nay, I mean ... that is,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When years have told on face and figure...."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i26">"Thanks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mister <i>Sufficiently-Instructed</i>! Such<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No doubt was bound to be the consequence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To suit your self-complacency: she liked<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My head enough, but loved some heart beneath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some head with plenty of brown hair a-top<br /></span> +<span class="i0">After my young friend's fashion! What becomes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of that fine speech you made a minute since<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About the man of middle age you found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A formidable peer at twenty-one?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So much for your mock-modesty! and yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I back your first against this second sprout<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of observation, insight, what you please.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My middle age, Sir, had too much success!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's odd: my case occurred four years ago—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I finished just while you commenced that turn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I' the wood of life that takes us to the wealth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of honeysuckle, heaped for who can reach.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, I don't boast: it's bad style, and beside,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The feat proves easier than it looks: I plucked<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full many a flower unnamed in that bouquet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Mostly of peonies and poppies, though!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good nature sticks into my button-hole.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore it was with nose in want of snuff<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rather than Ess or Psidium, that I chanced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On what—so far from '<i>rosebud beauty</i>'.... Well—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She's dead: at least you never heard her name;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She was no courtly creature, had nor birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor breeding—mere fine-lady-breeding; but<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, such a wonder of a woman! Grand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a Greek statue! Stick fine clothes on that,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Style that a Duchess or a Queen,—you know,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Artists would make an outcry: all the more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That she had just a statue's sleepy grace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which broods o'er its own beauty. Nay, her fault<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Don't laugh!) was just perfection: for suppose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only the little flaw, and I had peeped<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inside it, learned what soul inside was like.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At Rome some tourist raised the grit beneath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Venus' forehead with his whittling-knife—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wish,—now,—I had played that brute, brought blood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To surface from the depths I fancied chalk!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As it was, her mere face surprised so much<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I stopped short there, struck on heap, as stares<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cockney stranger at a certain bust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With drooped eyes,—she's the thing I have in mind,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down at my Brother's. All sufficient prize—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such <a name='TC_34'></a><ins title="Was 'oustide'">outside</ins>! Now,—confound me for a prig!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who cares? I'll make a clean breast once for all!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beside, you've heard the gossip. My life long<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I've been a woman-liker,—liking means<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loving and so on. There's a lengthy list<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By this time I shall have to answer for—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So say the good folk: and they don't guess half—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the worst is, let once collecting-itch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Possess you, and, with perspicacity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Keeps growing such a greediness that theft<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Follows at no long distance,—there's the fact!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I knew that on my Leporello-list<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might figure this, that, and the other name<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of feminine desirability,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But if I happened to desire inscribe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along with these, the only Beautiful<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here was the unique specimen to snatch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or now or never. 'Beautiful' I said—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Beautiful' say in cold blood,—boiling then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To tune of '<i>Haste, secure whate'er the cost</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>This rarity, die in the act, be damned,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>So you complete collection, crown your list!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It seemed as though the whole world, once aroused<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the first notice of such wonder's birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would break bounds to contest my prize with me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The first discoverer, should she but emerge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From that safe den of darkness where she dozed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till I stole in, that country-parsonage<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, country-parson's daughter, motherless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brotherless, sisterless, for eighteen years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She had been vegetating lily-like.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her father was my brother's tutor, got<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The living that way: him I chanced to see—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her I saw—her the world would grow one eye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To see, I felt no sort of doubt at all!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Secure her!</i>' cried the devil: '<i>afterward</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Arrange for the disposal of the prize!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The devil's doing! yet I seem to think—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, when all's done,—think with '<i>a head reposed</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In French phrase—hope I think I meant to do<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All requisite for such a rarity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I should be at leisure, have due time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To learn requirement. But in evil day—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bless me, at week's end, long as any year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The father must begin '<i>Young Somebody,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Much recommended—for I break a rule—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Comes here to read, next Long Vacation</i>.' '<i>Young!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That did it. Had the epithet been '<i>rich</i>,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Noble</i>,' '<i>a genius</i>,' even '<i>handsome</i>,'—but<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—'<i>Young!</i>'"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> +<span class="i8">"I say—just a word! I want to know—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You are not married?"<br /></span> +<span class="i16">"I?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i20">"Nor ever were?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Never! Why?"<br /></span> +<span class="i10">"Oh, then—never mind! Go on!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I had a reason for the question."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i26">"Come,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You could not be the young man?"<br /></span> +<span class="i26">"No, indeed!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Certainly—if you never married her!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That I did not: and there's the curse, you'll see!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, all of it's one curse, my life's mistake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, nourished with manure that's warranted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make the plant bear wisdom, blew out full<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In folly beyond field-flower-foolishness!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lies I used to tell my womankind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knowing they disbelieved me all the time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though they required my lies, their decent due,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This woman—not so much believed, I'll say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As just anticipated from my mouth:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since being true, devoted, constant—she<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Found constancy, devotion, truth, the plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And easy commonplace of character.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No mock-heroics but seemed natural<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To her who underneath the face, I knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was fairness' self, possessed a heart, I judged<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must correspond in folly just as far<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the common,—and a mind to match,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not made to puzzle conjurers like me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who, therein, proved the fool who fronts you, Sir,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> +<span class="i0">And begs leave to cut short the ugly rest!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Trust me!</i>' I said: she trusted. '<i>Marry me!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or rather, '<i>We are married: when, the rite?</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That brought on the collector's next-day qualm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At counting acquisition's cost. There lay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My marvel, there my purse more light by much<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because of its late lie-expenditure:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ill-judged such moment to make fresh demand—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To cage as well as catch my rarity!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, I began explaining. At first word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Outbroke the horror. '<i>Then, my truths were lies!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I tell you, such an outbreak, such new strange<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All-unsuspected revelation—soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As supernaturally grand as face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was fair beyond example—that at once<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Either I lost—or, if it please you, found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My senses,—stammered somehow—'<i>Jest! and now,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Earnest! Forget all else but—heart has loved,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Does love, shall love you ever! take the hand!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not she! no marriage for superb disdain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Contempt incarnate!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">"Yes, it's different,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's only like in being four years since.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see now!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"Well, what did disdain do next,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Think you?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"That's past me: did not marry you!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's the main thing I care for, I suppose.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turned nun, or what?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i18">"Why, married in a month<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span> +<span class="i0">Some parson, some smug crop-haired smooth-chinned sort<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of curate-creature, I suspect,—dived down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down, deeper still, and came up somewhere else—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I don't know where—I've not tried much to know,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In short, she's happy: what the clodpoles call<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Countrified' with a vengeance! leads the life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Respectable and all that drives you mad:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still—where, I don't know, and that's best for both."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Well, that she did not like you, I conceive.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But why should you hate her, I want to know?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"My good young friend,—because or her or else<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Malicious Providence I have to hate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For, what I tell you proved the turning-point<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of my whole life and fortune toward success<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or failure. If I drown, I lay the fault<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Much on myself who caught at reed not rope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But more on reed which, with a packthread's pith,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had buoyed me till the minute's cramp could thaw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I strike out afresh and so be saved.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's easy saying—I had sunk before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Disqualified myself by idle days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And busy nights, long since, from holding hard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On cable, even, had fate cast me such!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You boys don't know how many times men fail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perforce o' the little to succeed i' the large,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Husband their strength, let slip the petty prey,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Collect the whole power for the final pounce.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My fault was the mistaking man's main prize<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For intermediate boy's diversion; clap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of boyish hands here frightened game away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, once gone, goes forever. Oh, at first<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I took the anger easily, nor much<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> +<span class="i0">Minded the anguish—having learned that storms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Subside, and teapot-tempests are akin.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time would arrange things, mend whate'er might be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Somewhat amiss; precipitation, eh?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reason and rhyme prompt—reparation! Tiffs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">End properly in marriage and a dance!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I said 'We'll marry, make the past a blank'—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And never was such damnable mistake!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That interview, that laying bare my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As it was first, so was it last chance—one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And only. Did I write? Back letter came<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unopened as it went. Inexorable<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She fled, I don't know where, consoled herself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the smug curate-creature: chop and change!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sure am I, when she told her shaveling all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His Magdalen's adventure, tears were shed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgiveness evangelically shown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Loose hair and lifted eye,'—as some one says.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now, he's worshipped for his pains, the sneak!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Well, but your turning-point of life,—what's here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hinder you contesting Finsbury<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Orton, next election? I don't see...."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><a name='TC_35'></a><ins title="Changed singe quote to double">"Not</ins> you! But <i>I</i> see. Slowly, surely, creeps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Day by day o'er me the conviction—here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was life's prize grasped at, gained, and then let go!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—That with her—may be, for her—I had felt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ice in me melt, grow steam, drive to effect<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Any or all the fancies sluggish here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I' the head that needs the hand she would not take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I shall never lift now. Lo, your wood—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its turnings which I likened life to! Well,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There she stands, ending every avenue,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span> +<span class="i0">Her visionary presence on each goal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I might have gained had we kept side by side!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still string nerve and strike foot? Her frown forbids:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The steam congeals once more: I'm old again!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore I hate myself—but how much worse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do not I hate who would not understand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let me repair things—no, but sent a-slide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My folly falteringly, stumblingly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down, down and deeper down until I drop<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon—the need of your ten thousand pounds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And consequently loss of mine! I lose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Character, cash, nay, common-sense itself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Recounting such a lengthy cock-and-bull<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Adventure—lose my temper in the act...."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And lose beside,—if I may supplement<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The list of losses,—train and ten-o'clock!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hark, pant and puff, there travels the swart sign!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So much the better! You're my captive now!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm glad you trust a fellow: friends grow thick<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This way—that's twice said; we were thickish, though,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even last night, and, ere night comes again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I prophesy good luck to both of us!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For see now!—back to '<i>balmy eminence</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or '<i>calm acclivity</i>,' or what's the word!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bestow you there an hour, concoct at ease<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sonnet for the Album, while I put<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bold face on, best foot forward, make for house,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">March in to aunt and niece, and tell the truth—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Even white-lying goes against my taste<br /></span> +<span class="i0">After your little story). Oh, the niece<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is rationality itself! The aunt—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If she's amenable to reason too—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why, you stooped short to pay her due respect,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span> +<span class="i0">And let the Duke wait (I'll work well the Duke).<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If she grows gracious, I return for you;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If thunder's in the air, why—bear your doom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dine on rump-steaks and port, and shake the dust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of aunty from your shoes as off you go<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By evening-train, nor give the thing a thought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How you shall pay me—that's as sure as fate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old fellow! Off with you, face left about!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yonder's the path I have to pad. You see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm in good spirits, God knows why! Perhaps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because the woman did not marry you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Who look so hard at me,—and have the right,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One must be fair and own."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i22">The two stand still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under an oak.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"Look here!" resumes the youth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I never quite knew how I came to like<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You—so much—whom I ought not court at all;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor how you had a leaning just to me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who am assuredly not worth your pains.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For there must needs be plenty such as you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Somewhere about,—although I can't say where,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Able and willing to teach all you know;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While—how can you have missed a score like me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With money and no wit, precisely each<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A pupil for your purpose, were it—ease<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fool's poke of tutor's <i>honorarium</i>-fee?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet, howe'er it came about, I felt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At once my master: you as prompt descried<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your man, I warrant, so was bargain struck.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, these same lines of liking, loving, run<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sometimes so close together they converge<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life's great adventures—you know what I mean—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In people. Do you know, as you advanced,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It got to be uncommonly like fact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We two had fallen in with—liked and loved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just the same woman in our different ways?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I began life—poor groundling as I prove—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Winged and ambitious to fly high: why not?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's something in 'Don Quixote' to the point,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My shrewd old father used to quote and praise—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Am I born man?</i>' asks Sancho: '<i>being man,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>By possibility I may be Pope!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, Pope I meant to make myself, by step<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And step, whereof the first should be to find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A perfect woman; and I tell you this—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If what I fixed on, in the order due<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of undertakings, as next step, had first<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all disposed itself to suit my tread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I had been, the day I came of age,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Returned at head of poll for Westminster<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Nay, and moreover summoned by the Queen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At week's end, when my maiden-speech bore fruit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To form and head a Tory ministry—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It would not have seemed stranger, no, nor been<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More strange to me, as now I estimate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than what did happen—sober truth, no dream.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw my wonder of a woman,—laugh,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm past that!—in Commemoration-week.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A plenty have I seen since, fair and foul,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With eyes, too, helped by your sagacious wink;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But one to match that marvel—no least trace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Least touch of kinship and community!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The end was—I did somehow state the fact,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did, with no matter what imperfect words,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One way or other give to understand<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span> +<span class="i0">That woman, soul and body were her slave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would she but take, but try them—any test<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of will, and some poor test of power beside:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So did the strings within my brain grow tense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And capable of ... hang similitudes!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She answered kindly but beyond appeal.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>No sort of hope for me, who came too late.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>She was another's. Love went—mine to her,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Hers just as loyally to some one else.</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of course! I might expect it! Nature's law—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Given the peerless woman, certainly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Somewhere shall be the peerless man to match!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I acquiesced at once, submitted me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In something of a stupor, went my way.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fancy there had been some talk before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of somebody—her father or the like—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To coach me in the holidays,—that's how<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I came to get the sight and speech of her,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I had sense enough to break off sharp,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save both of us the pain."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i20">"Quite right there!"<br /></span> +<span class="i36">"Eh?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quite wrong, it happens! Now comes worst of all!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yes, I did sulk aloof and let alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lovers—<i>I</i> disturb the angel-mates?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Seraph paired off with cherub!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i26">"Thank you! While<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I never plucked up courage to inquire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who he was, even,—certain-sure of this,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That nobody I knew of had blue wings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wore a star-crown as he needs must do,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some little lady,—plainish, pock-marked girl,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Finds out my secret in my woful face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes up to me at the Apollo Ball,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pityingly pours her wine and oil<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This way into the wound: '<i>Dear f-f-friend,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Why waste affection thus on—must I say,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>A somewhat worthless object? Who's her choice—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Irrevocable as deliberate—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Out of the wide world? I shall name no names—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>But there's a person in society,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Who, blessed with rank and talent, has grown gray</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>In idleness and sin of every sort</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Except hypocrisy: he's thrice her age,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>A by-word for "successes with the sex"</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>As the French say—and, as we ought to say,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Consummately a liar and a rogue,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Since—show me where's the woman won without</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The help of this one lie which she believes—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>That—never mind how things have come to pass,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And let who loves have loved a thousand times—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>All the same he now loves her only, loves</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Her ever! if by "won" you just mean "sold,"</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>That's quite another compact. Well, this scamp,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Continuing descent from bad to worse,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Must leave his fine and fashionable prey</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>(Who—fathered, brothered, husbanded,—are hedged</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>About with thorny danger) and apply</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>His arts to this poor country ignorance</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Who sees forthwith in the first rag of man</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Her model hero! Why continue waste</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>On such a woman treasures of a heart</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Would yet find solace,—yes, my f-f-friend—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>In some congenial</i>—fiddle-diddle-dee?'"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span> +<span class="i0">"Pray, is the pleasant gentleman described<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exact the portrait which my '<i>f-f-friends</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Recognize as so like? 'T is evident<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You half surmised the sweet original<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could be no other than myself, just now!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your stop and start were flattering!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i28">"Of course<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Caricature's allowed for in a sketch!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The longish nose becomes a foot in length,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The swarthy cheek gets copper-colored,—still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prominent beak and dark-hued skin are facts:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And '<i>parson's daughter</i>'—'<i>young man coachable</i>'—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Elderly party</i>'—'<i>four years since</i>'—were facts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To fasten on, a moment! Marriage, though—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That made the difference, I hope."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i28">"All right!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I never married; wish I had—and then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unwish it: people kill their wives, sometimes!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hate my mistress, but I'm murder-free.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In your case, where's the grievance? You came last,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The earlier bird picked up the worm. Suppose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You, in the glory of your twenty-one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had happened to precede myself! 't is odds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But this gigantic juvenility,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This offering of a big arm's bony hand—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd rather shake than feel shake me, I know—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had moved <i>my</i> dainty mistress to admire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An altogether new Ideal—deem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Idolatry less due to life's decline<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Productive of experience, powers mature<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By dint of usage, the made man—no boy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's all to make! I was the earlier bird<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what I found, I let fall: what you missed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who is the fool that blames you for?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>They become so deeply interested in this +talk that the train is missed, and, in the meantime, +the lady who now lives in the neighborhood +as the wife of the hard-working country +parson meets the young girl at the inn. They +are great friends and have come there, at the +girl's invitation, to talk over her prospective +husband. She desires her friend to come to +her home and meet her fiancé, but the lady, +who is in constant fear of meeting "Iago," +never goes anywhere, and proposes a meeting +with him at the inn. While she waits, "Iago" +comes in upon her. There is a terrible scene +of recrimination between these two, the man +again daring to prefer his love. The lady +scorns him. Horror is added to horror when +the young man appears at the door, and recognizes +the woman he really loves. His faith +in her and his love are shaken for a moment, +but return immediately and he stands her +true friend and lover. The complete despicableness +of "Iago's" nature finally reveals +itself in the lines he writes in the album and +gives to the lady to read. The poem is too +long to quote in full. The closing scene, +however, will give the reader a good idea of<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span> +the poet's handling of this nineteenth-century +tragedy.</p> + +<p>The true nobility of soul of the younger +man links him with Mertoun among Browning's +heroes and represents the Englishman +or the man of any country for that matter at +his highest. Whether redemption for the +older man would have been possible had the +lady believed him in the inn parlor is doubtful. +Such natures are like Ibsen's "Peer +Gynt." They need to be put into a button +mould and moulded over again.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="i24" style="display: inline;"> </span>"Here's the lady back!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, Madam, you have conned the Album-page<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And come to thank its last contributor?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How kind and condescending! I retire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A moment, lest I spoil the interview,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mar my own endeavor to make friends—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You with him, him with you, and both with me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I succeed—permit me to inquire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Five minutes hence! Friends bid good-by, you know."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And out he goes.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">She, face, form, bearing, one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Superb composure—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">"He has told you all?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yes, he has told you all, your silence says—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What gives him, as he thinks the mastery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over my body and my soul!—has told<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span> +<span class="i0">That instance, even, of their servitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He now exacts of me? A silent blush!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's well, though better would white ignorance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beseem your brow, undesecrate before—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, when I left you! I too learn at last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Hideously learned as I seemed so late—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What sin may swell to. Yes,—I needed learn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, when my prophet's rod became the snake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fled from, it would, one day, swallow up<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Incorporate whatever serpentine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Falsehood and treason and unmanliness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beslime earth's pavement: such the power of Hell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so beginning, ends no otherwise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Adversary! I was ignorant,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blameworthy—if you will; but blame I take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nowise upon me as I ask myself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—<i>You</i>—how can you, whose soul I seemed to read<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The limpid eyes through, have declined so deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even with him for consort? I revolve<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Much memory, pry into the looks and words<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of that day's walk beneath the College wall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And nowhere can distinguish, in what gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only pure marble through my dusky past,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dubious cranny where such poison-seed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might harbor, nourish what should yield to-day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This dread ingredient for the cup I drink.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do not I recognize and honor truth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In seeming?—take your truth and for return,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give you my truth, a no less precious gift?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You loved me: I believed you. I replied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—How could I other? '<i>I was not my own</i>,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—No longer had the eyes to see, the ears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hear, the mind to judge, since heart and soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now were another's. My own right in me,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span> +<span class="i0">For well or ill, consigned away—my face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fronted the honest path, deflection whence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had shamed me in the furtive backward look<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the late bargain—fit such chapman's phrase!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As though—less hasty and more provident—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waiting had brought advantage. Not for me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chapman's chance! Yet while thus much was true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I spared you—as I knew you then—one more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Concluding word which, truth no less, seemed best<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Buried away forever. Take it now<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its power to pain is past! Four years—that day—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those lines that make the College avenue!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would that—friend and foe—by miracle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I had, that moment, seen into the heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of either, as I now am taught to see!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I do believe I should have straight assumed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My proper function, and sustained a soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor aimed at being just sustained myself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By some man's soul—the weaker woman's-want!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So had I missed the momentary thrill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of finding me in presence of a god,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But gained the god's own feeling when he gives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such thrill to what turns life from death before.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Gods many and Lords many</i>,' says the Book:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You would have yielded up your soul to me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Not to the false god who has burned its clay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In his own image. I had shed my love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like Spring dew on the clod all flowery thence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not sent up a wild vapor to the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">that drinks and then disperses. Both of us<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blameworthy,—I first meet my punishment—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And not so hard to bear. I breathe again!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forth from those arms' enwinding leprosy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At last I struggle—uncontaminate:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span> +<span class="i0">Why must I leave <i>you</i> pressing to the breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's all one plague-spot? Did you love me once?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then take love's last and best return! I think,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Womanliness means only motherhood;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All love begins and ends there,—roams enough,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, having run the circle, rests at home.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why is your expiation yet to make?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pull shame with your own hands from your own head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now,—never wait the slow envelopment<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Submitted to by unelastic age!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One fierce throe frees the sapling: flake on flake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lull till they leave the oak snow-stupefied.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your heart retains its vital warmth—or why<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That blushing reassurance? Blush, young blood!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Break from beneath this icy premature<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Captivity of wickedness—I warn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Back, in God's name! No fresh encroachment here!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This May breaks all to bud—No Winter now!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Friend, we are both forgiven! Sin no more!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am past sin now, so shall you become!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Meanwhile I testify that, lying once,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My foe lied ever, most lied last of all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He, waking, whispered to your sense asleep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wicked counsel,—and assent might seem;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, roused, your healthy indignation breaks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The idle dream-pact. You would die—not dare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Confirm your dream-resolve,—nay, find the word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That fits the deed to bear the light of day!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Say I have justly judged you! then farewell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To blushing—nay, it ends in smiles, not tears!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why tears now? I have justly judged, thank God!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He does blush boy-like, but the man speaks out,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Makes the due effort to surmount himself.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span> +<span class="i0">"I don't know what he wrote—how should I? Nor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How he could read my purpose which, it seems,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He chose to somehow write—mistakenly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or else for mischief's sake. I scarce believe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My purpose put before you fair and plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would need annoy so much; but there's my luck—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From first to last I blunder. Still, one more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turn at the target, try to speak my thought!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since he could guess my purpose, won't you read<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Right what he set down wrong? He said—let's think!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, so!—he did begin by telling heaps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of tales about you. Now, you see—suppose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Any one told me—my own mother died<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before I knew her—told me—to his cost!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such tales about my own dead mother: why,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You would not wonder surely if I knew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By nothing but my own heart's help, he lied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would you? No reason's wanted in the case.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So with you! In they burnt on me, his tales,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Much as when madhouse-inmates crowd around,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make captive any visitor and scream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All sorts of stories of their keeper—he's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both dwarf and giant, vulture, wolf, dog, cat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Serpent and scorpion, yet man all the same;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sane people soon see through the gibberish!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I just made out, you somehow lived somewhere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A life of shame—I can't distinguish more—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Married or single—how, don't matter much:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shame which himself had caused—that point was clear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That fact confessed—that thing to hold and keep.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, and he added some absurdity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—That you were here to make me—ha, ha, ha!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still love you, still of mind to die for you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ha, ha—as if that needed mighty pains!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span> +<span class="i0">Now, foolish as ... but never mind myself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—What I am, what I am not, in the eye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the world, is what I never cared for much.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fool then or no fool, not one single word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the whole string of lies did I believe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But this—this only—if I choke, who cares?—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I believe somehow in your purity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perfect as ever! Else what use is God?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He is God, and work miracles He can!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, what shall I do? Quite as clear, my course!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They've got a thing they call their Labyrinth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I' the garden yonder: and my cousin played<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A pretty trick once, led and lost me deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inside the briery maze of hedge round hedge;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there might I be staying now, stock-still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But that I laughing bade eyes follow nose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so straight pushed my path through let and stop<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soon was out in the open, face all scratched,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But well behind my back the prison-bars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In sorry plight enough, I promise you!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So here: I won my way to truth through lies—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said, as I saw light,—if her shame be shame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll rescue and redeem her,—shame's no shame?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, I'll avenge, protect—redeem myself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The stupidest of sinners! Here I stand!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dear,—let me once dare call you so,—you said<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus ought you to have done, four years ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such things and such! Ay, dear, and what ought I?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You were revealed to me: where's gratitude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where's memory even, where the gain of you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Discernible in my low after-life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of fancied consolation? why, no horse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once fed on corn, will, missing corn, go munch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mere thistles like a donkey! I missed you,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span> +<span class="i0">And in your place found—him, made him my love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, did I,—by this token, that he taught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So much beast-nature that I meant ... God knows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether I bow me to the dust enough!...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To marry—yes, my cousin here! I hope<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was a master-stroke! Take heart of hers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And give her hand of mine with no more heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than now you see upon this brow I strike!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What atom of a heart do I retain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not all yours? Dear, you know it! Easily<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May she accord me pardon when I place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My brow beneath her foot, if foot so deign,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since uttermost indignity is spared—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mere marriage and no love! And all this time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not one word to the purpose! Are you free?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only wait! only let me serve—deserve<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where you appoint and how you see the good!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have the will—perhaps the power—at least<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Means that have power against the world. For time—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take my whole life for your experiment!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you are bound—in marriage, say—why, still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still, sure, there's something for a friend to do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Outside? A mere well-wisher, understand!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll sit, my life long, at your gate, you know,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swing it wide open to let you and him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pass freely,—and you need not look, much less<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fling me a '<i>Thank you—are you there, old friend</i>?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don't say that even: I should drop like shot!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So I feel now at least: some day, who knows?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">After no end of weeks and months and years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You might smile '<i>I believe you did your best</i>!'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that shall make my heart leap—leap such leap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As lands the feet in Heaven to wait you there!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah, there's just one thing more! How pale you look!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span> +<span class="i0">Why? Are you angry? If there's, after all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worst come to worst—if still there somehow be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The shame—I said was no shame,—none! I swear!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that case, if my hand and what it holds,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My name,—might be your safeguard now—at once—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why, here's the hand—you have the heart! Of course—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No cheat, no binding you, because I'm bound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To let me off probation by one day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Week, month, year, lifetime! Prove as you propose!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here's the hand with the name to take or leave!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's all—and no great piece of news, I hope!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Give me the hand, then!" she cries hastily.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Quick, now! I hear his footstep!"<br /></span> +<span class="i28">Hand in hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The couple face him as he enters, stops<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Short, stands surprised a moment, laughs away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surprise, resumes the much-experienced man.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"So, you accept him?"<br /></span> +<span class="i16">"Till us death do part!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"No longer? Come, that's right and rational!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fancied there was power in common sense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But did not know it worked thus promptly. Well—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At last each understands the other, then?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each drops disguise, then? So, at supper-time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These masquerading people doff their gear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grand Turk his pompous turban, Quakeress<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her stiff-starched bib and tucker,—make-believe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That only bothers when, ball-business done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nature demands champagne and <i>mayonnaise</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just so has each of us sage three abjured<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His and her moral pet particular<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span> +<span class="i0">Pretension to superiority,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, cheek by jowl, we henceforth munch and joke!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go, happy pair, paternally dismissed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To live and die together—for a month,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name='TC_36'></a><ins title="Was 'Descretion'">Discretion</ins> can award no more! Depart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From whatsoe'er the calm sweet solitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Selected—Paris not improbably—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At month's end, when the honeycomb's left wax,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—You, daughter, with a pocketful of gold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enough to find your village boys and girls<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In duffel cloaks and hobnailed shoes from May<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To—what's the phrase?—Christmas-come-never-mas!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You, son and heir of mine, shall re-appear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere Spring-time, that's the ring-time, lose one leaf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And—not without regretful smack of lip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The while you wipe it free of honey-smear—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marry the cousin, play the magistrate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stand for the country, prove perfection's pink—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Master of hounds, gay-coated dine—nor die<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sooner than needs of gout, obesity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sons at Christ Church! As for me,—ah me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I abdicate—retire on my success,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Four years well occupied in teaching youth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—My son and daughter the exemplary!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time for me to retire now, having placed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proud on their pedestal the pair: in turn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let them do homage to their master! You,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, your flushed cheek and flashing eye proclaim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sufficiently your gratitude: you paid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The <i>honorarium</i>, the ten thousand pounds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To purpose, did you not? I told you so!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you, but, bless me, why so pale—so faint<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At influx of good fortune? Certainly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No matter how or why or whose the fault,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span> +<span class="i0">I save your life—save it, nor less nor more!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You blindly were resolved to welcome death<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that black boor-and-bumpkin-haunted hole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his, the prig with all the preachments! <i>You</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Installed as nurse and matron to the crones<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wenches, while there lay a world outside<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like Paris (which again I recommend)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In company and guidance of—first, this,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then—all in good time—some new friend as fit—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What if I were to say, some fresh myself,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I once figured? Each dog has his day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mine's at sunset: what should old dog do<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But eye young litters' frisky puppyhood?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh I shall watch this beauty and this youth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frisk it in brilliance! But don't fear! Discreet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall pretend to no more recognize<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My quondam pupils than the doctor nods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When certain old acquaintances may cross<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His path in Park, or sit down prim beside<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His plate at dinner-table: tip nor wink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scares patients he has put, for reason good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under restriction,—maybe, talked sometimes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of douche or horsewhip to,—for why? because<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gentleman would crazily declare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His best friend was—Iago! Ay, and worse—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lady, all at once grown lunatic,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In suicidal monomania vowed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To save her soul, she needs must starve herself!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They're cured now, both, and I tell nobody.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why don't you speak? Nay, speechless, each of you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can spare,—without unclasping plighted troth,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At least one hand to shake! Left-hands will do—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yours first, my daughter! Ah, it guards—it gripes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The precious Album fast—and prudently!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span> +<span class="i0">As well obliterate the record there<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On page the last: allow me tear the leaf!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pray, now! And afterward, to make amends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What if all three of us contribute each<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A line to that prelusive fragment,—help<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The embarrassed bard who broke out to break down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dumbfoundered at such unforeseen success?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You begin—<i>place aux dames</i>! I'll prompt you then!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Here do I take the good the gods allot!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Next you, Sir! What, still sulky? Sing, O Muse!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Here does my lord in full discharge his shot!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now for the crowning flourish! mine shall be...."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Nothing to match your first effusion, mar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What was, is, shall remain your masterpiece!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Authorship has the alteration-itch!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No, I protest against erasure. Read,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My friend!" (she gasps out). "Read and quickly read<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Before us death do part</i>,' what made you mine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And made me yours—the marriage-license here!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Decide if he is like to mend the same!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so the lady, white to ghastliness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Manages somehow to display the page<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With left-hand only, while the right retains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The other hand, the young man's,—dreaming-drunk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He, with this drench of stupefying stuff,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eyes wide, mouth open,—half the idiot's stare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And half the prophet's insight,—holding tight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the same, by his one fact in the world—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lady's right-hand: he but seems to read—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Does not, for certain; yet, how understand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unless he reads?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span> +<span class="i14">So, understand he does,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For certain. Slowly, word by word, <i>she</i> reads<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aloud that license—or that warrant, say.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'<i>One against two—and two that urge their odds</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>To uttermost—I needs must try resource!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Madam, I laid me prostrate, bade you spurn</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Body and soul: you spurned and safely spurned</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>So you had spared me the superfluous taunt</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>"Prostration means no power to stand erect,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Stand, trampling on who trampled—prostrate now!"</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>So, with my other fool-foe: I was fain</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Let the boy touch me with the buttoned foil,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And him the infection gains, he too must needs</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Catch up the butcher's cleaver. Be it so!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Since play turns earnest, here's my serious fence.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>He loves you; he demands your love: both know</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>What love means in my language. Love him then!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Pursuant to a pact, love pays my debt:</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Therefore, deliver me from him, thereby</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Likewise delivering from me yourself!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For, hesitate—much more, refuse consent—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I tell the whole truth to your husband. Flat</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Cards lie on table, in our gamester-phrase!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Consent—you stop my mouth, the only way.</i>'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I did well, trusting instinct: knew your hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had never joined with his in fellowship<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over this pact of infamy. You known—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As he was known through every nerve of me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore I '<i>stopped his mouth the only way</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But <i>my</i> way! none was left for you, my friend—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The loyal—near, the loved one! No—no—no!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Threaten? Chastise? The coward would but quail.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span> +<span class="i0">Conquer who can, the cunning of the snake!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stamp out his slimy strength from tail to head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And still you leave vibration of the tongue.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His malice had redoubled—not on me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who, myself, choose my own refining fire—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But on poor unsuspicious innocence;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And,—victim,—to turn executioner<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Also—that feat effected, forky tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had done indeed its office! One snake's 'mouth'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus '<i>open</i>'—how could mortal '<i>stop it</i>'?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i30">"So!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A tiger-flash—yell, spring, and scream: halloo!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death's out and on him, has and holds him—ugh!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But <i>ne trucidet coram populo</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Juvenis senem</i>! Right the Horatian rule!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There, see how soon a quiet comes to pass!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The youth is somehow by the lady's side.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His right-hand grasps her right-hand once again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both gaze on the dead body. Hers the word.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"And that was good but useless. Had I lived<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The danger was to dread: but, dying now—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Himself would hardly become talkative,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since talk no more means torture. Fools—what fools<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These wicked men are! Had I borne four years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Four years of weeks and months and days and nights,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inured me to the consciousness of life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Coiled round by his life, with the tongue to ply,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But that I bore about me, for prompt use<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At urgent need, the thing that '<i>stops the mouth</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stays the venom? Since such need was now<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or never,—how should use not follow need?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bear witness for me, I withdraw from life<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span> +<span class="i0">By virtue of the license—warrant, say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That blackens yet this Album—white again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thanks still to my one friend who tears the page!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, let me write the line of supplement,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As counselled by my foe there: '<i>each a line</i>!'"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And she does falteringly write to end.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>I die now through the villain who lies dead,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Righteously slain. He would have outraged me,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>So, my defender slew him. God protect</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The right! Where wrong lay, I bear witness now.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Let man believe me, whose last breath is spent</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>In blessing my defender from my soul!</i>"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so ends the Inn Album.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i22">As she dies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Begins outside a voice that sounds like song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And is indeed half song though meant for speech<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Muttered in time to motion—stir of heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That unsubduably must bubble forth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To match the fawn-step as it mounts the stair.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"All's ended and all's over! Verdict found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'<i>Not guilty</i>'—prisoner forthwith set free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mid cheers the Court pretends to disregard!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now Portia, now for Daniel, late severe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At last appeased, benignant! '<i>This young man—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Hem—has the young man's foibles but no fault.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>He's virgin soil—a friend must cultivate.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I think no plant called "love" grows wild—a friend</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>May introduce, and name the bloom, the fruit!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here somebody dares wave a handkerchief<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She'll want to hide her face with presently!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good-by then! '<i>Cigno fedel, cigno fedel,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Addio!</i>' Now, was ever such mistake—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ever such foolish ugly omen? Pshaw!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wagner, beside! '<i>Amo te solo, te</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Solo amai!</i>' That's worth fifty such!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, mum, the grave face at the opened door!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so the good gay girl, with eyes and cheeks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Diamond and damask,—cheeks so white erewhile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because of a vague fancy, idle fear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chased on reflection!—pausing, taps discreet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then, to give herself a countenance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before she comes upon the pair inside,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loud—the oft-quoted, long-laughed-over line—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"'<i>Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!</i>'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Open the door!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">No: let the curtain fall!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH +CENTURY</p> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">In</span> "Bishop Blougram's Apology" and +"Christmas-Eve and Easter Day," Browning +has covered the main tendencies in religious +thought of the nineteenth century in +England; and possibly "Caliban" might be +included as representative of Calvinistic survivals +of the century.</p> + +<p>The two most strongly marked of these +tendencies have been shown in the Tractarian +Movement which took Anglican in +the direction of High Churchism and Catholicism, +and in the Scientific Movement which +led in the direction of Agnosticism.</p> + +<p>The battle between the Church of Rome +and the Church of England was waged the +latter part of the first half of the century, and +the greater battle between science and religion +came on in its full strength the middle +of the century when the influence of Spencer, +Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley and other men of +science began to make itself felt, as well as<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span> +that of such critics of historical Christianity +as Strauss in Germany and Renan in France. +The influence of the dissenting bodies,—the +Presbyterians and the Methodists—also became +a power during the century. Broadly +speaking, it may be said that the development +has been in the direction of the utmost freedom +of conscience in the matter of religion, +though the struggles of humanity to arrive +there even during this century are distressing +to look back upon; and occasionally one is held +up even in America to-day by the ghost of +religious persecution.</p> + +<p>It is an open secret that in Bishop Blougram, +Browning meant to portray Cardinal +Wiseman, whose connection with the Tractarian +Movement is of great interest in the +history of this movement. Browning enjoyed +hugely the joke that Cardinal Wiseman himself +reviewed the poem. The Cardinal praised +it as a poem, though he did not consider the +attitude of a priest of Rome to be properly +interpreted. A comparison of the poem with +opinions expressed by the Cardinal as well as +a glimpse into his activities will show how +far Browning has done him justice.</p> + +<p>It is well to remember at the outset that the +poet's own view is neither that of Blougram +nor of the literary man Gigadibs, with whom<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span> +Blougram talks over his wine. Gigadibs is +an agnostic and cannot understand how a +man of Blougram's fine intellectual and artistic +perceptions is able so implicitly to believe +in Catholic doctrine. Blougram's apology for +himself amounts to this,—that he does not +believe with absolute certainty any more than +does Gigadibs; but, on the other hand, Gigadibs +does not disbelieve with absolute certainty, +so Blougram's state is one of belief +shaken occasionally by doubt, while Gigadibs +is one of unbelief shaken by fits of belief.</p> + +<h3>BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2 dotwide">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Now come, let's backward to the starting place.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See my way: we're two college friends, suppose.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prepare together for our voyage, then;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each note and check the other in his work,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's mine, a bishop's outfit; criticize!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What's wrong? why won't you be a bishop too?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">What first, you don't believe, you don't, and can't,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Not statedly, that is, and fixedly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And absolutely and exclusively)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In any revelation called divine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No dogmas nail your faith; and what remains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But say so, like the honest man you are?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First, therefore, overhaul theology!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, I too, not a fool, you please to think,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must find believing every whit as hard:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span> +<span class="i0">And if I do not frankly say as much,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ugly consequence is clear enough.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Now wait, my friend: well, I do not believe—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you'll accept no faith that is not fixed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Absolute and exclusive, as you say.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You're wrong—I mean to prove it in due time.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Meanwhile, I know where difficulties lie<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I could not, cannot solve, nor ever shall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So give up hope accordingly to solve—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(To you, and over the wine). Our dogmas then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With both of us, though in unlike degree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Missing full credence—overboard with them!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I mean to meet you on your own premise:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good, there go mine in company with yours!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">And now what are we? unbelievers both,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Calm and complete, determinately fixed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-day, to-morrow and forever, pray?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You'll guarantee me that? Not so, I think!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In no wise! all we've gained is, that belief.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As unbelief before, shakes us by fits,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Confounds us like its predecessor. Where's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gain? how can we guard our unbelief,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make it bear fruit to us?—the problem here.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just when we are safest, there's a sunset touch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A chorus-ending from Euripides,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As old and new at once as nature's self,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To rap and knock and enter in our soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round the ancient idol, on his base again,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The grand Perhaps! We look on helplessly.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span> +<span class="i0">There the old misgivings, crooked questions are—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This good God,—what he could do, if he would,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would, if he could—then must have done long since:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If so, when, where and how? some way must be,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once feel about, and soon or late you hit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some sense, in which it might be, after all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why not, "The Way, the Truth, the Life?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The advantage of making belief instead of +unbelief the starting point is, Blougram contends, +that he lives by what he finds the most +to his taste; giving him as it does, power, +distinction and beauty in life as well as hope +in the life to come.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Well, now, there's one great form of Christian faith<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I happened to be born in—which to teach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was given me as I grew up, on all hands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As best and readiest means of living by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The same on examination being proved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The most pronounced moreover, fixed, precise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And absolute form of faith in the whole world—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Accordingly, most potent of all forms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For working on the world. Observe, my friend!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such as you know me, I am free to say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In these hard latter days which hamper one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Myself—by no immoderate exercise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of intellect and learning, but the tact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To let external forces work for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Bid the street's stones be bread and they are bread;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bid Peter's creed, or rather, Hildebrand's,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exalt me o'er my fellows in the world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And make my life an ease and joy and pride;<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span> +<span class="i0">It does so,—which for me's a great point gained,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who have a soul and body that exact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A comfortable care in many ways.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's power in me and will to dominate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which I must exercise, they hurt me else:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In many ways I need mankind's respect,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Obedience, and the love that's born of fear:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While at the same time, there's a taste I have,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A toy of soul, a titillating thing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Refuses to digest these dainties crude.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The naked life is gross till clothed upon:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I must take what men offer, with a grace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As though I would not, could I help it, take!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An uniform I wear though over-rich—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Something imposed on me, no choice of mine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No fancy-dress worn for pure fancy's sake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And despicable therefore! now folk kneel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And kiss my hand—of course the Church's hand.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus I am made, thus life is best for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thus that it should be I have procured;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thus it could not be another way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I venture to imagine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i18">You'll reply,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So far my choice, no doubt, is a success;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But were I made of better elements,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">with nobler instincts, purer tastes, like you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hardly would account the thing success<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though it did all for me I say.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i26">But, friend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We speak of what is; not of what might be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And how 'twere better if 'twere otherwise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am the man you see here plain enough:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span> +<span class="i0">Grant I'm a beast, why, beasts must lead beasts' lives!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suppose I own at once to tail and claws;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tailless man exceeds me: but being tailed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll lash out lion fashion, and leave apes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To dock their stump and dress their haunches up.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My business is not to remake myself,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But make the absolute best of what God made.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">But, friend, I don't acknowledge quite so fast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fail of all your manhood's lofty tastes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enumerated so complacently,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the mere ground that you forsooth can find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In this particular life I choose to lead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No fit provision for them. Can you not?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Say you, my fault is I address myself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To grosser estimators than should judge?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that's no way of holding up the soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, nobler, needs men's praise perhaps, yet knows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One wise man's verdict outweighs all the fools'—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would like the two, but, forced to choose, takes that.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I pine among my million imbeciles<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(You think) aware some dozen men of sense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eye me and know me, whether I believe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the last winking Virgin, as I vow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And am a fool, or disbelieve in her<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And am a knave,—approve in neither case,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Withhold their voices though I look their way:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(The thing they gave at Florence,—what's its name?)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the mad houseful's plaudits near outbang<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His orchestra of salt-box, tongs and bones,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He looks through all the roaring and the wreaths<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where sits Rossini patient in his stall.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span> +<span class="i2">Nay, friend, I meet you with an answer here—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That even your prime men who appraise their kind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are men still, catch a wheel within a wheel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See more in a truth than the truth's simple self,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Confuse themselves. You see lads walk the street<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sixty the minute; what's to note in that?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You see one lad o'erstride a chimney-stack;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Him you must watch—he's sure to fall, yet stands!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The honest thief, the tender murderer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The superstitious atheist, demirep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That loves and saves her soul in new French books—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We watch while these in equilibrium keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The giddy line midway: one step aside,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They're classed and done with. I, then, keep the line<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before your sages,—just the men to shrink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the gross weights, coarse scales and labels broad<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You offer their refinement. Fool or knave?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When there's a thousand diamond weights between?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, I enlist them. Your picked twelve, you'll find,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Profess themselves indignant, scandalized<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At thus being held unable to explain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How a superior man who disbelieves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May not believe as well: that's Schelling's way!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's through my coming in the tail of time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nicking the minute with a happy tact.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had I been born three hundred years ago<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They'd say, "what's strange? Blougram of course believes;"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, seventy years since, "disbelieves of course."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But now, "He may believe; and yet, and yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><a name='TC_37'></a><ins title="Removed starting quote">How</ins> can he?" All eyes turn with interest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereas, step off the line on either side—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You, for example, clever to a fault,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span> +<span class="i0">The rough and ready man who write apace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You disbelieve! Who wonders and who cares?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord So-and-so—his coat bedropped with wax,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All Peter's chains about his waist, his back<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brave with the needlework of Noodledom—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Believes! Again, who wonders and who cares?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I, the man of sense and learning too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The able to think yet act, the this, the that,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, to believe at this late time of day!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enough; you see, I need not fear contempt.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2 dotwide">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Ay, but since really you lack faith," you cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"You run the same risk really on all sides,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In cool indifference as bold unbelief.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As well be Strauss as swing 'twixt Paul and him.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's not worth having, such imperfect faith,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No more available to do faith's work<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than unbelief like mine. Whole faith, or none!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Softly, my friend! I must dispute that point.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once own the use of faith, I'll find you faith.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We're back on Christian ground. You call for faith:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If faith o'ercomes doubt. How I know it does?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By life and man's free will, God gave for that!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To mould life as we choose it, shows our choice:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That's our one act, the previous work's his own.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You criticize the soul? it reared this tree—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This broad life and whatever fruit it bears!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What matter though I doubt at every pore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Head-doubts, heart-doubts, doubts at my finger's ends,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span> +<span class="i0">Doubts in the trivial work of every day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doubts at the very bases of my soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the grand moments when she probes herself—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If finally I have a life to show,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The thing I did, brought out in evidence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Against the thing done to me underground<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By hell and all its brood, for aught I know?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I say, whence sprang this? shows it faith or doubt?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All's doubt in me; where's break of faith in this?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is the idea, the feeling and the love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God means mankind should strive for and show forth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whatever be the process to that end,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And not historic knowledge, logic sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And metaphysical acumen, sure!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"What think ye of Christ," friend? when all's done and said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like you this Christianity or not?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It may be false, but will you wish it true?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has it your vote to be so if it can?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trust you an instinct silenced long ago<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That will break silence and enjoin you love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What mortified philosophy is hoarse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all in vain, with bidding you despise?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If you desire faith—then you've faith enough:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What else seeks God—nay, what else seek ourselves?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You form a notion of me, we'll suppose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On hearsay; it's a favourable one:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"But still" (you add), "there was no such good man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because of contradiction in the facts.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One proves, for instance, he was born in Rome,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This Blougram; yet throughout the tales of him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see he figures as an Englishman."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Well, the two things are reconcilable.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But would I rather you discovered that,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Subjoining—"Still, what matter though they be?<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span> +<span class="i0">Blougram concerns me nought, born here or there."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Pure faith indeed—you know not what you ask!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Naked belief in God the Omnipotent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Omniscient, Omnipresent, sears too much<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sense of conscious creatures to be borne.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It were the seeing him, no flesh shall dare.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some think, Creation's meant to show him forth:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I say it's meant to hide him all it can,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that's what all the blessed evil's for.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its use in Time is to environ us,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our breath, our drop of dew, with shield enough<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Against that sight till we can bear its stress.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under a vertical sun, the exposed brain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lidless eye and disemprisoned heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Less certainly would wither up at once<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than mind, confronted with the truth of him.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But time and earth case-harden us to live;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The feeblest sense is trusted most; the child<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Feels God a moment, ichors o'er the place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plays on and grows to be a man like us.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With me, faith means perpetual unbelief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2 dotwide">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">The sum of all is—yes, my doubt is great,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have read much, thought much, experienced much,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet would die rather than avow my fear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Naples' liquefaction may be false,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When set to happen by the palace-clock<br /></span> +<span class="i0">According to the clouds or dinner-time.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hear you recommend, I might at least<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span> +<span class="i0">Eliminate, decrassify my faith<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since I adopt it; keeping what I must<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And leaving what I can—such points as this.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I won't—that is, I can't throw one away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Supposing there's no truth in what I hold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About the need of trial to man's faith,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still, when you bid me purify the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To such a process I discern no end.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clearing off one excrescence to see two,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's ever a next in size, now grown as big,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That meets the knife: I cut and cut again!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First cut the Liquefaction, what comes last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But Fichte's clever cut at God himself?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Experimentalize on sacred things!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To stop betimes: they all get drunk alike.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The first step, I am master not to take.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">You'd find the cutting-process to your taste<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As much as leaving growths of lies unpruned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor see more danger in it,—you retort.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your taste's worth mine; but my taste proves more wise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When we consider that the steadfast hold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the extreme end of the chain of faith<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gives all the advantage, makes the difference<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are their lords, or they are free of us,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just as we tighten or relax our hold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, other matters equal, we'll revert<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the first problem—which, if solved my way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thrown into the balance, turns the scale—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How we may lead a comfortable life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How suit our luggage to the cabin's size.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span> +<span class="i2">Of course you are remarking all this time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How narrowly and grossly I view life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Respect the creature-comforts, care to rule<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The masses, and regard complacently<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"The cabin," in our old phrase. Well, I do.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I act for, talk for, live for this world now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As this world prizes action, life and talk:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No prejudice to what next world may prove,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose new laws and requirements, my best pledge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To observe then, is that I observe these now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall do hereafter what I do meanwhile.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us concede (gratuitously though)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Next life relieves the soul of body, yields<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pure spiritual enjoyment: well, my friend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why lose this life i' the meantime, since its use<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May be to make the next life more intense?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Do you know, I have often had a dream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Work it up in your next month's article)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of man's poor spirit in its progress, still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Losing true life for ever and a day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through ever trying to be and ever being—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the evolution of successive spheres—<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Before</i> its actual sphere and place of life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Halfway into the next, which having reached,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It shoots with corresponding foolery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Halfway into the next still, on and off!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As when a traveller, bound from North to South,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scouts fur in Russia: what's its use in France?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In France spurns flannel: where's its need in Spain?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Linen goes next, and last the skin itself,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A superfluity at Timbuctoo.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, through his journey, was the fool at ease?<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span> +<span class="i0">I'm at ease now, friend; worldly in this world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I take and like its way of life; I think<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My brothers, who administer the means,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Live better for my comfort—that's good too;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And God, if he pronounce upon such life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Approves my service, which is better still.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If he keep silence,—why, for you or me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or that brute beast pulled-up in to-day's "Times,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What odds is't, save to ourselves, what life we lead?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Turning to the life of Cardinal Wiseman, +it is of especial interest in connection with +Browning's portrayal of him to observe his +earlier years. He was born in Spain, having +a Spanish father of English descent and an +English mother, all Catholics, as Blougram +says, "There's one great form of Christian +faith I happened to be born in." His mother +took him as an infant, and laid him upon the +altar of the Cathedral of Seville, and consecrated +him to the service of the Church.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span></p> +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_19" id="linki_19"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus019.jpg" width="365" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Cardinal Wiseman</p> +</div> + +<p>His father having died when he was a tiny +boy, his mother took him and his brother to +England where he was trained at the Catholic +college of Ushaw. From there he went to +Rome to study at the English Catholic College +there. Later he became Rector of this College. +The sketch of Wiseman at this period +given by his biographer, Wilfred Ward, is +most attractive. "Scattered through his 'Recollections' +are interesting impressions left +by his student life. While mastering the +regular course of scholastic philosophy and +theology sufficiently to take his degree with +credit, his tastes were not primarily in this +direction. The study of Roman antiquities, +Christian and Pagan, was congenial to him, +as was also the study of Italian art—in which +he ultimately became proficient—and of +music: and he early devoted himself to the +Syriac and Arabic languages. In all these +pursuits the enthusiasm and eminence of men +living in Rome itself at this era of renaissance +was a potent stimulus to work. The hours +he set aside for reading were many more than +the rule demanded. But the daily walk and +the occasional expedition to places of historic +interest outside of Rome helped also to store +his mind and to fire his imagination." Wiseman +writes, himself, of this period, "The life +of the student in Rome should be one of +unblended enjoyment. His very relaxations +become at once subsidiary to his work and yet +most delightfully recreative. His daily walks +may be through the field of art ... his +wanderings along the stream of time ... a +thousand memories, a thousand associations +accompany him." From this letter and from +accounts of him he would seem to have been<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span> +possessed of a highly imaginative temperament, +possibly more artistic than religious. +Scholars, linguists, or historians, artists or +antiquarians interested him far more than +thinkers or theologians. In noting the effects +on Wiseman's character of the thoughts and +sights of Rome, "it must be observed," writes +Ward, "that even the action of directly religious +influences brought out his excessive +impressionableness. His own inner life was +as vivid a pageant to him as the history of the +Church. He was liable at this time to the +periods of spiritual exaltation—matched, as we +shall see later on, by fits of intense despondency—which +marked him through life."</p> + +<p>This remarkable intellectual activity brought +with it doubts of religious truth. "The +imaginative delight in Rome as a living +witness to the faith entirely left him, and +at the same time he was attacked by mental +disturbances and doubts of the truth of +Christianity. There are contemporary indications, +and still plainer accounts in the +letters of his later life, of acute suffering from +these trials. The study of Biblical criticism, +even in the early stages it had then reached, +seems immediately to have occasioned them; +and the suffering they caused him was aggravated +into intense and almost alarming de<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span>pression +by the feebleness of his bodily health." +He says, speaking of this phase in his life, +"Many and many an hour have I passed, alone, +in bitter tears, on the <i>loggia</i> of the English +College, when every one was reposing in the +afternoon, and I was fighting with subtle +thoughts and venomous suggestions of a +fiendlike infidelity which I durst not confide +to any one, for there was no one that could +have sympathized with me. This lasted for +years; but it made me study and think, to +conquer the plague—for I can hardly call +it danger—both for myself and for others. +But during the actual struggle the simple +submission of faith is the only remedy. +Thoughts against faith must be treated at +the time like temptations against any other +virtue—put away; though in cooler moments +they may be safely analyzed and unraveled." +Again he wrote of these years as, +"Years of solitude, of desolation, years of +shattered nerves, dread often of instant insanity, +consumptive weakness, of sleepless +nights and weary days, and hours of tears +which no one witnessed."</p> + +<p>"Of the effect of these years of desolation +on his character he speaks as being simply +invaluable. It completed what Ushaw had +begun, the training in patience, self-reliance,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span> +and concentration in spite of mental depression. +It was amid these trials, he adds, 'that +I wrote my "Horæ Syriacæ" and collected +my notes for the lectures on the "Connection +between Science and Revealed Religion" and +the "Eucharist." Without this training I +should not have thrown myself into the +Puseyite controversy at a later period.' Any +usefulness which discovered itself in later +years he considers the 'result of self-discipline' +during his inner conflict. The struggle so +absorbed his energies that his early life was +passed almost wholly free from the special +trials to which that period is liable. He speaks +of his youth as in that respect 'almost temptationless.'" +This state of mind seemed to +last about five years and then he writes in +a letter:</p> + +<p>"I have felt myself for some months gradually +passing into a new state of mind and +heart which I can hardly describe, but which +I trust is the last stage of mental progress, in +which I hope I may much improve, but out +of which I trust I may never pass. I could +hardly express the calm mild frame of mind +in which I have lived; company and society +I have almost entirely shunned, or have moved +through it as a stranger; hardly a disturbing +thought, hardly a grating sensation has crossed<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span> +my being, of which a great feeling of love +seems to have been the principle. Whither, +I am inclined to ask myself, does all this +tend? Whence does it proceed? I think I +could make an interesting history of my +mind's religious progress, if I may use a word +shockingly perverted by modern fanatics, from +the hard dry struggles I used to have when +first I commenced to study on my own account, +to the settling down into a state of stern +conviction, and so after some years to the +nobler and more soothing evidences furnished +by the grand harmonies and beautiful features +of religion, whether considered in contact +with lower objects or viewed in her own +crystal mirror. I find it curious, too, and interesting +to trace the workings of those varied +feelings upon my relations to the outward +world. I remember how for years I lost all +relish for the glorious ceremonies of the +Church. I heeded not its venerable monuments +and sacred records scattered over the +city; or I studied them all with the dry eye +of an antiquarian, looking in them for proofs, +not for sensations, being ever actively alive +to the collection of evidences and demonstrations +of religious truth. But now that the +time of my probation as I hope it was, is past, +I feel as though the freshness of childhood's<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span> +thoughts had once more returned to me, my +heart expands with renewed delight and delicious +feelings every time I see the holy objects +and practices around me, and I might +almost say that I am leading a life of spiritual +epicureanism, opening all my senses to a rich +draught of religious sensations."</p> + +<p>From these glimpses it would appear that +Wiseman was a much more sincere man in +his religious feeling than he is given credit for +by Browning. His belief is with him not a matter +of cold, hard calculation as to the attitude +which will be, so to speak, the most politic +from both a worldly and a spiritual point of +view. The beautiful passage beginning "Just +when we are safest, there's a sunset touch" +etc., comes nearer to the genuine enthusiasm +of a Wiseman than any other in the poem. +There is an essential difference between the +minds of the poet and the man he portrays, +which perhaps made it impossible for Browning +fully to interpret Wiseman's attitude. +Both have religious fervor, but Browning's +is born of a consciousness of God revealed +directly to himself, while Wiseman's consciousness +of God comes to him primarily +through the authority of the Church, that is +through generations of authoritative believers +the first of whom experienced the actuality of<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span> +Revelation. Hundreds and thousands of +people have minds of this caliber. They +cannot see a truth direct for themselves, they +must be told by some person clothed in +authority that this or that is true or false. +To Wiseman the beauty of his own form of +religion with its special dogmas made so +strong an appeal, that, since he could only +believe through authority, under any circumstances, +it was natural to him to adopt the +particular form that gave him the most satisfaction. +Proofs detrimental to belief do not +worry long with doubts such a mind, because +the authority they depend on is not the authority +of knowledge, but the authority of belief. +This comes out clearly enough in one of +Wiseman's letters in which after enumerating +a number of proofs brought forward by various +scholars tending to cast discredit on the +dogmas of the Church, he triumphantly exclaims, +"And yet, who that has an understanding +to judge, is driven for a moment +from the holdings of faith by such comparisons +as these!"</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_20" id="linki_20"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus020.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Sacred Heart</p> +<p class="center smaller"><i>F. Utenbach</i></p> +</div> + +<p>Upon looking through his writings there +will always be found in his expression of belief, +I think, that ring of true sincerity as well +as what I should call an intense artistic delight +in the essential beauty of his religion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span> +As to Blougram's argument that he believed +in living in the world while he was in it, +Wiseman's life was certainly not that of a +worldling alone, though he is described by +one person as being "a genuine priest, very +good looking and able bodied, and with much +apparent practice in the world." He was far +too much of a student and worker to be altogether +so worldly-minded as Browning represents +him.</p> + +<p>His chief interest for Englishmen is his +connection with the Tractarian Movement. +The wish of his soul was to aid the Catholic +Revival in England, and with that end in +view he visited England in 1835. Two +years before, the movement at Oxford, known +as the Tractarian Movement had begun. +The opinions of the men in this movement +were, as every one knows, printed in a series +of ninety tracts of which Newman wrote +twenty-four. It was an outgrowth of the +conditions of the time. To sum up in the +words of Withrow,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> "The Church of England +had distinctly lost ground as a directing and +controlling force in the nation. The most +thoughtful and earnest minds in the Church +felt the need of a great religious awakening +and an aggressive movement to regain its<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span> +lost influence." As Dean Church describes +them, the two characteristic forms of Christianity +in the Church of England were the +High Church, and the Evangelicals, or Low +<a name='TC_38'></a><ins title="Left in ending quote with unknown start">Church."</ins> Of the former he says: "Its better +members were highly cultivated, benevolent +men, intolerant of irregularities both of doctrine +and life, whose lives were governed by +an unostentatious but solid and unfaltering +piety, ready to burst forth on occasion into +fervid devotion. Its worse members were +jobbers and hunters after preferment, pluralists +who built fortunes and endowed families +out of the Church, or country gentlemen in +orders, who rode to hounds and shot and +danced and farmed, and often did worse +things."</p> + +<p>But at Oxford was a group of men of intense +moral earnestness including Newman, +Pusey, Keble, Arnold, Maurice, Kingsley, and +others, who began an active propaganda of +the new or revised doctrines of the Oxford +Movement.</p> + +<p>"The success of the Tracts," says Molesworth, +"was much greater, and the outcry +against them far louder and fiercer, than their +authors had expected. The Tracts were at +first small and simple, but became large and +learned theological treatises. Changes, too,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span> +came over the views of some of the writers. +Doctrines which probably would have shocked +them at first were put forward with a recklessness +which success had increased. Alarm +was excited, remonstrances stronger and +stronger were addressed to them. They were +attacked as Romanizing in their tendency."</p> + +<p>"The effect of such writing was two-fold<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>—the +public were dismayed and certain members +of the Tractarian party avowed their +intention of becoming Romanists. So decided +was the setting of the tide towards Rome +that Newman made a vigorous effort to turn +it by his famous Tract No. 90. In this he +endeavored to show that it was possible to +interpret the Thirty-nine Articles in the interest +of Roman Catholicism. This tract +aroused a storm of indignation. The violent +controversy which it occasioned led to +the discontinuance of the series."</p> + +<p>Such in little was this remarkable movement. +When Tract No. 90 appeared Wiseman +had been in England for some time, and +had been a strong influence in taking many +thinking men in the direction of Rome. His +lectures and discourses upon his first visit to +England had attracted remarkable attention. +The account runs by one who attended his<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span> +lectures to Catholics and Protestants: "Society +in this country was impressed, and listened +almost against its will, and listened not +displeased. Here was a young Roman priest, +fresh from the center of Catholicism, who +showed himself master, not only of the intricacies +of polemical discussion but of the +amenities of civilized life. The spacious +church of Moorfields was thronged on every +evening of Dr. Wiseman's appearance. Many +persons of position and education were converted, +and all departed with abated prejudice, +and with very different notions about +Catholicism from those with which they had +been prepossessed by their education." Wiseman, +himself, wrote, "I had the consolation +of witnessing the patient and edifying attention +of a crowded audience, many of whom +stood for two hours without any symptom of +impatience."</p> + +<p>The great triumph for Wiseman, however, +was when, shortly after Tract 90, Newman, +"a man," described "in many ways, the most +remarkable that England has seen during the +century, perhaps the most remarkable whom +the English Church has produced in any century," +went over to the Church of Rome and +was confirmed by Wiseman. Others followed +his example and by 1853 as many as four<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span> +hundred clergymen and laity had become +Roman Catholics.</p> + +<p>The controversies and discussions of that +time, it must be remembered, were more upon +the dogmas of the church than upon what we +should call to-day the essential truths of religion. +Yet, to a certain order of mind dogmas +seem important truths. There are those +whose religious attitude cannot be preserved +without belief in dogmas, and the advantage +of the Catholic Church is that it holds firmly +to its dogmas, come what may. It was expected, +however, that this Romeward Movement +would arouse intense antipathy. "The +arguments by which it was justified were considered, +in many cases, disingenuous, if not +Jesuitical."</p> + +<p>In opposition of this sort we come nearer +to Browning's attitude of mind. Because +such arguments as Wiseman and the Tractarians +used could not convince him, he takes +the ordinary ground of the opposition, that in +using such arguments they must be insincere, +and they must be perfectly conscious of their +insincerity. Still, in spite of the fact that +Browning's mind could not get inside of +Blougram's, he shows that he has some sympathy +for the Bishop in the close of the poem +where he says, "He said true things but called<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span> +them by wrong names." Raise Blougram's +philosophy to the plane of the mysticism of +a Browning, and the arguments for belief +would be much the same but the <i>counters</i> in +the arguments would become symbols instead +of dogmas.</p> + +<p>In "Christmas-Eve and Easter Day," +Browning becomes the true critic of the +nineteenth-century religious movements. He +passes in review in a series of dramatic pictures +the three most diverse modes of religious +thought of the century. The dissenter's +view is symbolized by a scene in a very humble +chapel in England, the Catholic view by a +vision of high mass at St. Peter's and the +Agnostic view by a vision of a lecture by a +learned German professor,—while the view +of the modern mystic who remains religious +in the face of all destructive criticism is shown +in the speaker of the poem. The intuitional, +aspiring side of his nature is symbolized by +the vision of Christ that appears to him, while +the intensity of its power fluctuates as he +either holds fast or lets go the garment of +Christ. Opposed to his intuitional side is his +reasoning side.</p> + +<p>Possibly the picture of the dissenting chapel +is exaggeratedly humble, though if we suppose +it to be a Methodist Chapel, it may be<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span> +true to life, as Methodism was the form of +religion which made its appeal to the lowest +classes. Indeed, at the time of its first successes, +it was the saving grace of England. +"But for the moral antiseptic," writes Withrow, +"furnished by Methodism, and the revival of +religion in all the churches which it produced, +the history of England would have +been far other than it was. It would probably +have been swept into the maelstrom of revolution +and shared the political and religious +convulsions of the neighboring nation," that +is the French Revolution.</p> + +<p>"But Methodism had greatly changed the +condition of the people. It had rescued vast +multitudes from ignorance and barbarism, +and raised them from almost the degradation +of beasts to the condition of men and the +fellowship of saints. The habits of thrift and +industry which it fostered led to the accumulation, +if not of wealth, at least to that of a +substantial competence; and built up that +safeguard of the Commonwealth, a great, intelligent, +industrious, religious Middle-Class in +the community."</p> + +<p>After the death of Wesley came various +divisions in the Methodist Church; it has so +flexible a system that it may be adapted to +very varied needs of humanity, and in that<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span> +has consisted its great power. The mission +of the church was originally to the poor and +lowly, but "It has won for itself in spite of +scorn and persecution," says Dr. Schöll, "a +place of power in the State and church of +Great Britain."</p> + +<p>A scornful attitude is vividly brought +before us in the opening of this poem, to be +succeeded later by a more charitable point of +view.</p> + +<h3>CHRISTMAS-EVE</h3> + +<h4 class="sidenote">I</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Out of the little chapel I burst<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into the fresh night-air again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Five minutes full, I waited first<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the doorway, to escape the rain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That drove in gusts down the common's centre<br /></span> +<span class="i2">At the edge of which the chapel stands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before I plucked up heart to enter.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Heaven knows how many sorts of hands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reached past me, groping for the latch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the inner door that hung on catch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More obstinate the more they fumbled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till, giving way at last with a scold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled<br /></span> +<span class="i2">One sheep more to the rest in fold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And left me irresolute, standing sentry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the sheepfold's lath-and-plaster entry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Six feet long by three feet wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Partitioned off from the vast inside<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I blocked up half of it at least.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No remedy; the rain kept driving.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They eyed me much as some wild beast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That congregation, still arriving,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some of them by the main road, white<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A long way past me into the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Skirting the common, then diverging;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not a few suddenly emerging<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the common's self thro' the paling-gaps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the road stops short with its safeguard border<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the most turned in yet more abruptly<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From a certain squalid knot of alleys,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the town's bad blood once slept corruptly,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which now the little chapel rallies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And leads into day again,—its priestliness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lending itself to hide their beastliness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those neophytes too much in lack of it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That, where you cross the common as I did,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And meet the party thus presided,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Mount Zion" with Love-lane at the back of it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They front you as little disconcerted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And her wicked people made to mind him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_21" id="linki_21"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus021.jpg" width="489" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">The Nativity</p> +<p class="center smaller"><i>Fra Lippo Lippi</i></p> +</div> + +<h4 class="sidenote">II</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Well, from the road, the lanes or the common<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In came the flock: the fat weary woman,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Panting and bewildered, down-clapping<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her umbrella with a mighty report,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span> +<span class="i0">Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a startled horse, at the interloper<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Who humbly knew himself improper,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But could not shrink up small enough)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Round to the door, and in,—the gruff<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hinge's invariable scold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Making my very blood run cold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On broken clogs, the many-tattered<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the sickly babe she tried to smother<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Somehow up, with its spotted face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Already from my own clothes' dropping,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Planted together before her breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Close on her heels, the dingy satins<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a female something, past me flitted,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With lips as much too white, as a streak<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All that was left of a woman once,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Holding at least its tongue for the nonce.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then a tall yellow man, like the <i>Penitent Thief</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And eyelids screwed together tight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Led himself in by some inner light.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span> +<span class="i0">And, except from him, from each that entered,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I got the same interrogation—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"What, you the alien, you have ventured<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To take with us, the elect, your station?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A carer for none of it, a <i>Gallio</i>!"—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thus, plain as print, I read the glance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At a common prey, in each countenance<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, when the door's cry drowned their wonder,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The draught, it always sent in shutting,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made the flame of the single tallow candle<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the cracked square lantern I stood under,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I verily fancied the zealous light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(In the chapel's secret, too!) for spite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would shudder itself clean off the wick,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the airs of a Saint John's Candlestick.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There was no standing it much longer.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Good folks," thought I, as resolve grew stronger,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the weather sends you a chance visitor?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But still, despite the pretty perfection<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, taking God's word under wise protection,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bid one reach it over hot plough-shares,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still, as I say, though you've found salvation,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If should choose to cry, as now, 'Shares!'—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">See if the best of you bars me my ration!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I prefer, if you please, for my expounder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the laws of the feast, the feast's own Founder;<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">354</a></span> +<span class="i0">Mine's the same right with your poorest and sickliest<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So, shut your mouth and open your Testament,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And carve me my portion at your quickliest!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Accordingly, as a shoemaker's lad<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With wizened face in want of soap,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To get the fit over, poor gentle creature,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so avoid disturbing the preacher)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the shutting door, and entered likewise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Received the hinge's accustomed greeting,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And crossed the threshold's magic pentacle,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And found myself in full conventicle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the Christmas-Eve of 'Forty-nine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which, calling its flock to their special clover,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Found all assembled and one sheep over,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">III</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I very soon had enough of it.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The hot smell and the human noises,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my neighbor's coat, the greasy cuff of it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Were a pebble-stone that a child's hand poises,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the preaching man's immense stupidity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To meet his audience's avidity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You needed not the wit of the Sibyl<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No sooner our friend had got an inkling<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span> +<span class="i0">(Whene'er 'twas the thought first struck him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How death, at unawares, might duck him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deeper than the grave, and quench<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gin-shop's light in hell's grim drench)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As to hug the book of books to pieces:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not improved by the private dog's-ears and creases,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Having clothed his own soul with, he'd fain see equipt yours,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Appeared to suspect that the preacher's labors<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were help which the world could be saved without,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis odds but I might have borne in quiet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With such content in every snuffle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My old fat woman purred with pleasure,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While she, to his periods keeping measure,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Maternally devoured the pastor.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The man with the handkerchief untied it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Showed us a horrible wen inside it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gave his eyelids yet another screwing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rocked himself as the woman was doing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The shoemaker's lad, discreetly choking,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kept down his cough. 'Twas too provoking!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span> +<span class="i2">"I wanted a taste, and now there's enough of it,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I flung out of the little chapel.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was a lull in the rain, a lull<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the wind too; the moon was risen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And would have shone out pure and full,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But for the ramparted cloud-prison,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Block on block built up in the West,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For what purpose the wind knows best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who changes his mind continually.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the empty other half of the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seemed in its silence as if it knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What, any moment, might look through<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A chance gap in that fortress massy:—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through its fissures you got hints<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, a dull lion-color, now, brassy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All a-simmer with intense strain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To let her through,—then blank again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the hope of her appearance failing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just by the chapel, a break in the railing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shows a narrow path directly across;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis ever dry walking there, on the moss—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Besides, you go gently all the way uphill.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I stooped under and soon felt better;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My mind was full of the scene I had left,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">—How this outside was pure and different!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sermon, now—what a mingled weft<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">357</a></span> +<span class="i0">Of good and ill! Were either less,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But alas for the excellent earnestness,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But as surely false, in their quaint presentment,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">However to pastor and flock's contentment!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With his provings and parallels twisted and twined,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till how could you know them, grown double their size<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the natural fog of the good man's mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haloed about with the common's damps?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth remains true, the fault's in the prover;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The zeal was good, and the aspiration;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pharaoh received no demonstration,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By his Baker's dream of Baskets Three,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the doctrine of the Trinity,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Although, as our preacher thus embellished it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Apparently his hearers relished it<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">These people have really felt, no doubt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A something, the motion they style the <i>Call</i> of them;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And this is their method of bringing about,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By a mechanism of words and tones,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(So many texts in so many groans)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sort of reviving and reproducing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">More or less perfectly, (who can tell?)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mood itself, which strengthens by using;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And how that happens, I understand well.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A tune was born in my head last week,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">358</a></span> +<span class="i2">Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when, next week, I take it back again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My head will sing to the engine's clack again,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While it only makes my neighbor's haunches stir,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Finding no dormant musical sprout<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In him, as in me, to be jolted out.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis the taught already that profits by teaching;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He gets no more from the railway's preaching<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than, from this preacher who does the rail's office, I:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still, why paint over their door "Mount Zion,"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To which all flesh shall come, saith the prophecy?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The reasoning which follows upon this is +characteristic of Browning. Perceiving everywhere +in the world transcendent power, and +knowing love in little, from that transcendent +love may be deduced. His reasoning finally +brings him to a state of vision. His subjective +intuitions become palpable objective symbols, +a not infrequent occurrence in highly wrought +and sensitive minds.</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">V</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But wherefore be harsh on a single case?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Does the self-same weary thing take place?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The same endeavor to make you believe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with much the same effect, no more:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each method abundantly convincing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I say, to those convinced before,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But scarce to be swallowed without wincing<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">359</a></span> +<span class="i0">By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have my own church equally:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in this church my faith sprang first!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(I said, as I reached the rising ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wind began again, with a burst<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I entered his church-door, nature leading me)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—In youth I looked to these very skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And probing their immensities,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I found God there, his visible power;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the power, an equal evidence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the loving worm within its clod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were diviner than a loveless god<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You know what I mean: God's all, man's nought:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But also, God, whose pleasure brought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man into being, stands away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As it were a handbreadth off, to give<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Room for the newly-made to live,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And look at him from a place apart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And use his gifts of brain and heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Given, indeed, but to keep for ever.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who speaks of man, then, must not sever<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man's very elements from man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Saying, "But all is God's"—whose plan<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was to create man and then leave him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Able, his own word saith, to grieve him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But able to glorify him too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a mere machine could never do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That prayed or praised, all unaware<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">360</a></span> +<span class="i0">Made perfect as a thing of course.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man, therefore, stands on his own stock<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of love and power as a pin-point rock:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, looking to God who ordained divorce<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the rock from his boundless continent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sees, in his power made evident,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only excess by a million-fold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er the power God gave man in the mould.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For, note: man's hand, first formed to carry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A few pounds' weight, when taught to marry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its strength with an engine's, lifts a mountain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">—Advancing in power by one degree;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And why count steps through eternity?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But love is the ever-springing fountain:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man may enlarge or narrow his bed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the water's play, but the water-head—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How can he multiply or reduce it?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As easy create it, as cause it to cease;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He may profit by it, or abuse it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But 'tis not a thing to bear increase<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As power does: be love less or more<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the heart of man, he keeps it shut<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love's sum remains what it was before.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, gazing up, in my youth, at love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As seen through power, ever above<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All modes which make it manifest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My soul brought all to a single test—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he, the Eternal First and Last,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who, in his power, had so surpassed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All man conceives of what is might,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Would prove as infinitely good;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would never, (my soul understood,)<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">361</a></span> +<span class="i0">With power to work all love desires,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bestow e'en less than man requires;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he who endlessly was teaching,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above my spirit's utmost reaching,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What love can do in the leaf or stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(So that to master this alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This done in the stone or leaf for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I must go on learning endlessly)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would never need that I, in turn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Should point him out defect unheeded,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And show that God had yet to learn<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What the meanest human creature needed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Not life, to wit, for a few short years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tracking his way through doubts and fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the stupid earth on which I stay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Suffers no change, but passive adds<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its myriad years to myriads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though I, he gave it to, decay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeing death come and choose about me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my dearest ones depart without me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall arise, made perfect, from death's repose of it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I shall behold thee, face to face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O God, and in thy light retrace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How in all I loved here, still wast thou!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shall find as able to satiate<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The love, thy gift, as my spirit's wonder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With this sky of thine, that I now walk under,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And glory in thee for, as I gaze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">362</a></span> +<span class="i0">Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be this my way! And this is mine!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For lo, what think you? suddenly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Received at once the full fruition<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the moon's consummate apparition.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The black cloud-barricade was riven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ruined beneath her feet, and driven<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">North and South and East lay ready<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sprang across them and stood steady.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From heaven to heaven extending, perfect<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the mother-moon's self, full in face.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It rose, distinctly at the base<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With its seven proper colors chorded,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which still, in the rising, were compressed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until at last they coalesced,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And supreme the spectral creature lorded<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a triumph of whitest white,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above which intervened the night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But above night too, like only the next,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The second of a wondrous sequence,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Another rainbow rose, a mightier,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fainter, flushier and flightier,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rapture dying along its verge.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose, from the straining topmost dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On to the keystone of that arc?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">363</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">VII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This sight was shown me, there and then,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Me, one out of a world of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Singled forth, as the chance might hap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To another if, in a thunderclap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where I heard noise and you saw flame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some one man knew God called his name.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For me, I think I said, "Appear!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good were it to be ever here.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If thou wilt, let me build to thee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Service-tabernacles three,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, forever in thy presence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In ecstatic acquiescence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far alike from thriftless learning<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ignorance's undiscerning,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I may worship and remain!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thus at the show above me, gazing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With upturned eyes, I felt my brain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Glutted with the glory, blazing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Throughout its whole mass, over and under<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until at length it burst asunder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And out of it bodily there streamed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The too-much glory, as it seemed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Passing from out me to the ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then palely serpentining round<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the dark with mazy error.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All at once I looked up with terror.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He was there.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He himself with his human air.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the narrow pathway, just before.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw the back of him, no more—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He had left the chapel, then, as I.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">364</a></span> +<span class="i0">I forgot all about the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No face: only the sight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a sweepy garment, vast and white,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a hem that I could recognize.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I felt terror, no surprise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My mind filled with the cataract,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At one bound of the mighty fact.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I remember, he did say<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Doubtless that, to this world's end,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where two or three should meet and pray,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He would be in the midst, their friend;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Certainly he was there with them!"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And my pulses leaped for joy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the golden thought without alloy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I saw his very vesture's hem.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then rushed the blood back, cold and clear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a fresh enhancing shiver of fear;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I hastened, cried out while I pressed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the salvation of the vest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"But not so, Lord! It cannot be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou, indeed, art leaving me—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Me, that have despised thy friends!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did my heart make no amends?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art the love <i>of God</i>—above<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His power, didst hear me place his love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that was leaving the world for thee.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore thou must not turn from me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I had chosen the other part!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Folly and pride o'ercame my heart.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our best is bad, nor bears thy test;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still, it should be our very best.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I thought it best that thou, the spirit,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Be worshipped in spirit and in truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in beauty, as even we require it<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">365</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not in the forms burlesque, uncouth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I left but now, as scarcely fitted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thee: I knew not what I pitied.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, all I felt there, right or wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What is it to thee, who curest sinning?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Am I not weak as thou art strong?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I have looked to thee from the beginning,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Straight up to thee through all the world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To nothingness on either side:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And since the time thou wast descried,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spite of the weak heart, so have I<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lived ever, and so fain would die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Living and dying, thee before!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But if thou leavest me——"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">IX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i26">Less or more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I suppose that I spoke thus.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When,—have mercy, Lord, on us!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The whole face turned upon me full.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I spread myself beneath it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As when the bleacher spreads, to seethe it<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the cleansing sun, his wool,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Steeps in the flood of noontide whiteness<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some defiled, discolored web—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So lay I, saturate with brightness.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And when the flood appeared to ebb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo, I was walking, light and swift,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With my senses settling fast and steadying,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But my body caught up in the whirl and drift<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the vesture's amplitude, still eddying<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On, just before me, still to be followed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As it carried me after with its motion:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">366</a></span> +<span class="i0">What shall I say?—as a path were hollowed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And a man went weltering through the ocean,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sucked along in the flying wake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the luminous water-snake.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Darkness and cold were cloven, as through<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I passed, upborne yet walking too.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I turned to myself at intervals,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"So he said, so it befalls.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God who registers the cup<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of mere cold water, for his sake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To a disciple rendered up,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Disdains not his own thirst to slake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the poorest love was ever offered:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And because my heart I proffered,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With true love trembling at the brim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He suffers me to follow him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For ever, my own way,—dispensed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From seeking to be influenced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By all the less immediate ways<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That earth, in worships manifold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Adopts to reach, by prayer and praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The garment's hem, which, lo, I hold!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The vision of high mass at St. Peters in +Rome is the antipode of the little Methodist +Chapel. The Catholic Church is the +church of all others which has gathered about +itself the marvels of art in sculpture, painting +and music. As the chapel depressed with its +ugliness, the great cathedral entrances with its +beauty.</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_22" id="linki_22"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus022.jpg" width="399" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">The Transfiguration</p> +<p class="center smaller"><i>Fra Angelico</i></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">367</a></span></p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">X</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so we crossed the world and stopped.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For where am I, in city or plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Since I am 'ware of the world again?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what is this that rises propped<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With pillars of prodigious girth?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is it really on the earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This miraculous Dome of God?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has the angel's measuring-rod<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which numbered cubits, gem from gem,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twixt the gates of the New Jerusalem,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Meted it out,—and what he meted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have the sons of men completed?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Binding, ever as he bade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Columns in the colonnade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With arms wide open to embrace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The entry of the human race<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the breast of ... what is it, yon building,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With marble for brick, and stones of price<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For garniture of the edifice?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now I see; it is no dream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It stands there and it does not seem;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For ever, in pictures, thus it looks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thus I have read of it in books<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Often in England, leagues away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wondered how these fountains play,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Growing up eternally<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each to a musical water-tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before my eyes, in the light of the moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the granite lavers underneath.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Liar and dreamer in your teeth!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">368</a></span> +<span class="i0">I, the sinner that speak to you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was in Rome this night, and stood, and knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both this and more. For see, for see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dark is rent, mine eye is free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To pierce the crust of the outer wall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I view inside, and all there, all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the swarming hollow of a hive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The whole Basilica alive!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men in the chancel, body and nave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men on the pillars' architrave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men on the statues, men on the tombs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With popes and kings in their porphyry wombs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All famishing in expectation<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the main-altar's consummation.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For see, for see, the rapturous moment<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Approaches, and earth's best endowment<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blends with heaven's; the taper-fires<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pant up, the winding brazen spires<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heave loftier yet the baldachin;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The incense-gaspings, long kept in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suspire in clouds; the organ blatant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Holds his breath and grovels latent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if God's hushing finger grazed him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Like Behemoth when he praised him)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the silver bell's shrill tinkling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quick cold drops of terror sprinkling<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the sudden pavement strewed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With faces of the multitude.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth breaks up, time drops away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In flows heaven, with its new day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of endless life, when He who trod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Very man and very God,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This earth in weakness, shame and pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dying the death whose signs remain<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">369</a></span> +<span class="i0">Up yonder on the accursed tree,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall come again, no more to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of captivity the thrall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the one God, All in all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">King of kings, Lord of lords,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As His servant John received the words,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I died, and live for evermore!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet I was left outside the door.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Why sit I here on the threshold-stone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Left till He return, alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save for the garment's extreme fold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Abandoned still to bless my hold?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My reason, to my doubt, replied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if a book were opened wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And at a certain page I traced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every record undefaced,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Added by successive years,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The harvestings of truth's stray ears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Singly gleaned, and in one sheaf<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bound together for belief.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yes, I said—that he will go<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sit with these in turn, I know.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their faith's heart beats, though her head swims<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too giddily to guide her limbs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Disabled by their palsy-stroke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From propping mine. Though Rome's gross yoke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drops off, no more to be endured,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her teaching is not so obscured<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By errors and perversities,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That no truth shines athwart the lies:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he, whose eye detects a spark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even where, to man's the whole seems dark,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">370</a></span> +<span class="i0">May well see flame where each beholder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Acknowledges the embers smoulder.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I, a mere man, fear to quit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The clue God gave me as most fit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To guide my footsteps through life's maze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because himself discerns all ways<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Open to reach him: I, a man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Able to mark where faith began<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To swerve aside, till from its summit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Judgment drops her damning <a name='TC_39'></a><ins title="Changed period to comma">plummet,</ins><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pronouncing such a fatal space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Departed from the founder's base:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He will not bid me enter too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But rather sit, as now I do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Awaiting his return outside.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—'Twas thus my reason straight replied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And joyously I turned, and pressed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The garment's skirt upon my breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until, afresh its light suffusing me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart cried—What has been abusing me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I should wait here lonely and coldly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Instead of rising, entering boldly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Baring truth's face, and letting drift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her veils of lies as they choose to shift?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do these men praise him? I will raise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My voice up to their point of praise!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see the error; but above<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The scope of error, see the love.—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, love of those first Christian days!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Fanned so soon into a blaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the spark preserved by the trampled sect,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the antique sovereign Intellect<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which then sat ruling in the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a change in dreams, was hurled<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">371</a></span> +<span class="i0">From the throne he reigned upon:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You looked up and he was gone.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gone, his glory of the pen!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Love, with Greece and Rome in ken,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bade her scribes abhor the trick<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of poetry and rhetoric,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And exult with hearts set free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In blessed imbecility<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scrawled, perchance, on some torn sheet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leaving Sallust incomplete.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gone, his pride of sculptor, painter!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Love, while able to acquaint her<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the thousand statues yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh from chisel, pictures wet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From brush, she saw on every side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chose rather with an infant's pride<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To frame those portents which impart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such unction to true Christian Art.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gone, music too! The air was stirred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By happy wings: Terpander's bird<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(That, when the cold came, fled away)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would tarry not the wintry day,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As more-enduring sculpture must,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till filthy saints rebuked the gust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With which they chanced to get a sight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of some dear naked Aphrodite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They glanced a thought above the toes of,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By breaking zealously her nose off.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love, surely, from that music's lingering,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might have filched her organ-fingering,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor chosen rather to set prayings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hog-grunts, praises to horse-neighings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love was the startling thing, the new:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love was the all-sufficient too;<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">372</a></span> +<span class="i0">And seeing that, you see the rest:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a babe can find its mother's breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As well in darkness as in light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love shut our eyes, and all seemed right.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">True, the world's eyes are open now:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Less need for me to disallow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some few that keep Love's zone unbuckled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peevish as ever to be suckled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lulled by the same old baby-prattle<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With intermixture of the rattle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When she would have them creep, stand steady<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon their feet, or walk already,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not to speak of trying to climb.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will be wise another time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And not desire a wall between us,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When next I see a church-roof cover<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So many species of one genus,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All with foreheads bearing <i>lover</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Written above the earnest eyes of them;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All with breasts that beat for beauty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether sublimed, to the surprise of them,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In noble daring, steadfast duty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heroic in passion, or in action,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, lowered for sense's satisfaction,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the mere outside of human creatures,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mere perfect form and faultless features.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What? with all Rome here, whence to levy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Such contributions to their appetite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With women and men in a gorgeous bevy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They take, as it were, a padlock, clap it tight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On their southern eyes, restrained from feeding<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the glories of their ancient reading,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the beauties of their modern singing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the wonders of the builder's bringing,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">373</a></span> +<span class="i0">On the majesties of Art around them,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, all these loves, late struggling incessant,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When faith has at last united and bound them,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They offer up to God for a present?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why, I will, on the whole, be rather proud of it,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, only taking the act in reference<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the other recipients who might have allowed it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I will rejoice that God had the preference.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So I summed up my new resolves:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Too much love there can never be.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And where the intellect devolves<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its function on love exclusively,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, a man who possesses both,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will accept the provision, nothing loth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Will feast my love, then depart elsewhere,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That my intellect may find its share.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In his next experience the speaker learns +what the effect of scientific criticism has been +upon historical Christianity.</p> + +<p>The warfare between science and religion +forms one of the most fascinating and terrible +chapters in the annals of the development of +the human mind. About the middle of the +nineteenth century the war became general. +It was no longer a question of a skirmish over +this or that particular discovery in science +which would cause some long-cherished dogma +to totter; it was a full battle all along the line, +and now that the smoke has cleared away, it<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">374</a></span> +is safe to say that science sees, on the one +hand, it cannot conquer religion, and religion +sees, on the other, it cannot conquer science. +What each has done is to strip the other of +its untruths, leaving its truths to grow by +the light each holds up for the other. Together +they advance toward the knowledge of the +Most High.</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">XIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No sooner said than out in the night!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart beat lighter and more light:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And still, as before, I was walking swift,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With my senses settling fast and steadying,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But my body caught up in the whirl and drift<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the vesture's amplitude, still eddying<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On just before me, still to be followed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As it carried me after with its motion,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—What shall I say?—as a path were hollowed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And a man went weltering through the ocean,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sucked along in the flying wake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the luminous water-snake.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Alone! I am left alone once more—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(Save for the garment's extreme fold<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Abandoned still to bless my hold)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone, beside the entrance-door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a sort of temple,—perhaps a college,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Like nothing I ever saw before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At home in England, to my knowledge.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tall old quaint irregular town!<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">375</a></span> +<span class="i2">It may be ... though which, I can't affirm ... any<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the famous middle-age towns of Germany;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And this flight of stairs where I sit down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is it Halle, Weimar, Cassel, Frankfort<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or Göttingen, I have to thank for 't?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It may be Göttingen,—most likely.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the open door I catch obliquely<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glimpses of a lecture-hall;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And not a bad assembly neither,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ranged decent and symmetrical<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On benches, waiting what's to see there;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, holding still by the vesture's hem,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I also resolve to see with them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cautious this time how I suffer to slip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chance of joining in fellowship<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With any that call themselves his friends;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As these folk do, I have a notion.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But hist—a buzzing and emotion!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All settle themselves, the while ascends<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the creaking rail to the lecture-desk,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Step by step, deliberate<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Because of his cranium's over-freight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three parts sublime to one grotesque,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I have proved an accurate guesser,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hawk-nosed high-cheek-boned Professor.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I felt at once as if there ran<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A shoot of love from my heart to the man—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sallow virgin-minded studious<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Martyr to mild enthusiasm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As he uttered a kind of cough-preludious<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That woke my sympathetic spasm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Beside some spitting that made me sorry)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stood, surveying his auditory<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a wan pure look, well nigh celestial,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">376</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Those blue eyes had survived so much!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While, under the foot they could not smutch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lay all the fleshly and the bestial.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over he bowed, and arranged his notes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the auditory's clearing of throats<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was done with, died into a silence;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, when each glance was upward sent,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each bearded mouth composed intent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a pin might be heard drop half a mile hence,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He pushed back higher his spectacles,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let the eyes stream out like lamps from cells,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And giving his head of hair—a hake<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of undressed tow, for color and quantity—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One rapid and impatient shake,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(As our own Young England adjusts a jaunty tie<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When about to impart, on mature digestion,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some thrilling view of the surplice-question)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—The Professor's grave voice, sweet though hoarse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Broke into his Christmas-Eve discourse.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And he began it by observing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How reason dictated that men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should rectify the natural swerving,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By a reversion, now and then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the well-heads of knowledge, few<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And far away, whence rolling grew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The life-stream wide whereat we drink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Commingled, as we needs must think,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With waters alien to the source;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To do which, aimed this eve's discourse;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since, where could be a fitter time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For tracing backward to its prime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This Christianity, this lake,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">377</a></span> +<span class="i0">This reservoir, whereat we slake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From one or other bank, our thirst?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, he proposed inquiring first<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the various sources whence<br /></span> +<span class="i2">This Myth of Christ is derivable;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Demanding from the evidence,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(Since plainly no such life was liveable)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How these phenomena should class?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether 'twere best opine Christ was,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or never was at all, or whether<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He was and was not, both together—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It matters little for the name,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So the idea be left the same.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only, for practical purpose's sake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas obviously as well to take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The popular story,—understanding<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How the ineptitude of the time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the penman's prejudice, expanding<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fact into fable fit for the clime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had, by slow and sure degrees, translated it<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Into this myth, this Individuum,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, when reason had strained and abated it<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of foreign matter, left, for residuum,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A man!—a right true man, however,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose work was worthy a man's endeavor:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Work, that gave warrant almost sufficient<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To his disciples, for rather believing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He was just omnipotent and omniscient,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As it gives to us, for as frankly receiving<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His word, their tradition,—which, though it meant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Something entirely different<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From all that those who only heard it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In their simplicity thought and averred it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had yet a meaning quite as respectable:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">378</a></span> +<span class="i0">For, among other doctrines delectable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was he not surely the first to insist on<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The natural sovereignty of our race?—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Here the lecturer came to a pausing-place.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And while his cough, like a drouthy piston,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tried to dislodge the husk that grew to him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I seized the occasion of bidding adieu to him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The vesture still within my hand.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I could interpret its command.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This time he would not bid me enter<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The exhausted air-bell of the Critic.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth's atmosphere may grow mephitic<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When Papist struggles with Dissenter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Impregnating its pristine clarity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—One, by his daily fare's vulgarity,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its gust of broken meat and garlic;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—One, by his soul's too-much presuming<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To turn the frankincense's fuming<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And vapors of the candle starlike<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the cloud her wings she buoys on.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each, that thus sets the pure air seething,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">May poison it for healthy breathing—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the Critic leaves no air to poison;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pumps out with ruthless ingenuity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Atom by atom, and leaves you—vacuity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus much of Christ does he reject?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what retain? His intellect?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is it I must reverence duly?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poor intellect for worship, truly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which tells me simply what was told<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(If mere morality, bereft<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the God in Christ, be all that's left)<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">379</a></span> +<span class="i0">Elsewhere by voices manifold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With this advantage, that the stater<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Made nowise the important stumble<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of adding, he, the sage and humble,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was also one with the Creator.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You urge Christ's followers' simplicity:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But how does shifting blame, evade it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have wisdom's words no more felicity?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The stumbling-block, his speech—who laid it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How comes it that for one found able<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To sift the truth of it from fable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Millions believe it to the letter?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ's goodness, then—does that fare better?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strange goodness, which upon the score<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of being goodness, the mere due<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of man to fellow-man, much more<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To God,—should take another view<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of its possessor's privilege,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bid him rule his race! You pledge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your fealty to such rule? What, all—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From heavenly John and Attic Paul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that brave weather-battered Peter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose stout faith only stood completer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For buffets, sinning to be pardoned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As, more his hands hauled nets, they hardened,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All, down to you, the man of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Professing here at Göttingen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Compose Christ's flock! They, you and I,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are sheep of a good man! And why?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The goodness,—how did he acquire it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was it self-gained, did God inspire it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Choose which; then tell me, on what ground<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should its possessor dare propound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His claim to rise o'er us an inch?<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">380</a></span> +<span class="i2">Were goodness all some man's invention,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who arbitrarily made mention<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What we should follow, and whence flinch,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What qualities might take the style<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of right and wrong,—and had such guessing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Met with as general acquiescing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As graced the alphabet erewhile,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When A got leave an Ox to be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No Camel (quoth the Jews) like G,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thus inventing thing and title<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worship were that man's fit requital.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But if the common conscience must<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be ultimately judge, adjust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its apt name to each quality<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Already known,—I would decree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worship for such mere demonstration<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And simple work of nomenclature,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Only the day I praised, not nature,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But Harvey, for the circulation.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would praise such a Christ, with pride<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And joy, that he, as none beside,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had taught us how to keep the mind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God gave him, as God gave his kind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freer than they from fleshly taint:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would call such a Christ our Saint,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I declare our Poet, him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose insight makes all others dim:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A thousand poets pried at life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And only one amid the strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rose to be Shakespeare: each shall take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His crown, I'd say, for the world's sake—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though some objected—"Had we seen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heart and head of each, what screen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was broken there to give them light,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">381</a></span> +<span class="i0">While in ourselves it shuts the sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We should no more admire, perchance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That these found truth out at a glance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than marvel how the bat discerns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some pitch-dark cavern's fifty turns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Led by a finer tact, a gift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He boasts, which other birds must shift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without, and grope as best they can."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No, freely I would praise the man,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor one whit more, if he contended<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That gift of his, from God descended.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah friend, what gift of man's does not?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No nearer something, by a jot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rise an infinity of nothings<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than one: take Euclid for your teacher:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distinguish kinds: do crownings, clothings,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Make that creator which was creature?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Multiply gifts upon man's head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what, when all's done, shall be said<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But—the more gifted he, I ween!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That one's made Christ, this other, Pilate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And this might be all that has been,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So what is there to frown or smile at?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is left for us, save, in growth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of soul, to rise up, far past both,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the gift looking to the giver,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from the cistern to the river,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from the finite to infinity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from man's dust to God's divinity?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Take all in a word: the truth in God's breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though he is so bright and we so dim,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">382</a></span> +<span class="i0">We are made in his image to witness him:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And were no eye in us to tell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Instructed by no inner sense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The light of heaven from the dark of hell,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That light would want its evidence,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though justice, good and truth were still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Divine, if, by some demon's will,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Law through the worlds, and right misnamed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No mere exposition of morality<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made or in part or in totality,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should win you to give it worship, therefore:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, if no better proof you will care for,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of what right is, than arrives at birth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the best man's acts that we bow before:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This last knows better—true, but my fact is,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis one thing to know, and another to practise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thence conclude that the real God-function<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is to furnish a motive and injunction<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For practising what we know already.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And such an injunction and such a motive<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As the God in Christ, do you waive, and "heady,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High-minded," hang your tablet-votive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Outside the fane on a finger-post?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Morality to the uttermost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Supreme in Christ as we all confess,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Why need we prove would avail no jot<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To make him God, if God he were not?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is the point where himself lays stress?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Does the precept run "Believe in good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In justice, truth, now understand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the first time?"—or, "Believe in me,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">383</a></span> +<span class="i0">Who lived and died, yet essentially<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Am Lord of Life?" Whoever can take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The same to his heart and for mere love's sake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conceive of the love,—that man obtains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A new truth; no conviction gains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of an old one only, made intense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Can it be that he stays inside?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is the vesture left me to commune with?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Could my soul find aught to sing in tune with<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even at this lecture, if she tried?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, let me at lowest sympathize<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the lurking drop of blood that lies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the desiccated brain's white roots<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without throb for Christ's attributes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the lecturer makes his special boast!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If love's dead there, it has left a ghost.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Admire we, how from heart to brain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(Though to say so strike the doctors dumb)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One instinct rises and falls again,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Restoring the equilibrium.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And how when the Critic had done his best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the pearl of price, at reason's test,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lay dust and ashes levigable<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the Professor's lecture-table,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When we looked for the inference and monition<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That our faith, reduced to such condition,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He bids us, when we least expect it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take back our faith,—if it be not just whole,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which fact pays damage done rewardingly,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">384</a></span> +<span class="i0">So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Go home and venerate the myth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I thus have experimented with—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This man, continue to adore him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rather than all who went before him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all who ever followed after!"—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Surely for this I may praise you, my brother!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will you take the praise in tears or laughter?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That's one point gained: can I compass another?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unlearned love was safe from spurning—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can't we respect your loveless learning?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let us at least give learning honor!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What laurels had we showered upon her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Girding her loins up to perturb<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our theory of the Middle Verb;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or Turk-like brandishing a scimitar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er anapæsts in comic-trimeter;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or curing the halt and maimed 'Iketides,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While we lounged on at our indebted ease:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Instead of which, a tricksy demon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sets her at Titus or Philemon!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When ignorance wags his ears of leather<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hates God's word, 'tis altogether;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor leaves he his congenial thistles<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To go and browse on Paul's Epistles.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—And you, the audience, who might ravage<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world wide, enviably savage,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor heed the cry of the retriever,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than Herr Heine (before his fever),—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I do not tell a lie so arrant<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As say my passion's wings are furled up,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, without plainest heavenly warrant,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I were ready and glad to give the world up—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But still, when you rub brow meticulous,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">385</a></span> +<span class="i2">And ponder the profit of turning holy<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If not for God's, for your own sake solely,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—God forbid I should find you ridiculous!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deduce from this lecture all that eases you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, call yourselves, if the calling pleases you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Christians,"—abhor the deist's pravity,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go on, you shall no more move my gravity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than, when I see boys ride a-cockhorse,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I find it in my heart to embarrass them<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By hinting that their stick's a mock horse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they really carry what they say carries them.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So sat I talking with my mind.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I did not long to leave the door<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And find a new church, as before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But rather was quiet and inclined<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To prolong and enjoy the gentle resting<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From further tracking and trying and testing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"This tolerance is a genial mood!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Said I, and a little pause ensued).<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"One trims the bark 'twixt shoal and shelf,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And sees, each side, the good effects of it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A value for religion's self,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A carelessness about the sects of it.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let me enjoy my own conviction,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not watch my neighbor's faith with fretfulness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still spying there some dereliction<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better a mild indifferentism,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Teaching that both our faiths (though duller<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His shine through a dull spirit's prism)<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Originally had one color!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better pursue a pilgrimage<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">386</a></span> +<span class="i2">Through ancient and through modern times<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To many peoples, various climes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where I may see saint, savage, sage<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fuse their respective creeds in one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before the general Father's throne!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—'Twas the horrible storm began afresh!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The black night caught me in his mesh,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whirled me up, and flung me prone.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I was left on the college-step alone.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I looked, and far there, ever fleeting<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far, far away, the receding gesture,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And looming of the lessening vesture!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swept forward from my stupid hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While I watched my foolish heart expand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the lazy glow of benevolence,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O'er the various modes of man's belief.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sprang up with fear's vehemence.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Needs must there be one way, our chief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Best way of worship: let me strive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To find it, and when found, contrive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My fellows also take their share!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This constitutes my earthly care:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God's is above it and distinct.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For I, a man, with men am linked<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And not a brute with brutes; no gain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I experience, must remain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unshared: but should my best endeavor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To share it, fail—subsisteth ever<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God's care above, and I exult<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That God, by God's own ways occult,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May—doth, I will believe—bring back<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All wanderers to a single track.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">387</a></span> +<span class="i0">Meantime, I can but testify<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God's care for me—no more, can I—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is but for myself I know;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The world rolls witnessing around me<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Only to leave me as it found me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men cry there, but my ear is slow:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their races flourish or decay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—What boots it, while yon lucid way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loaded with stars divides the vault?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But soon my soul repairs its fault<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, sharpening sense's hebetude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She turns on my own life! So viewed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No mere mote's-breadth but teems immense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With witnessings of providence:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And woe to me if when I look<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon that record, the sole book<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unsealed to me, I take no heed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of any warning that I read!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have I been sure, this Christmas-Eve,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God's own hand did the rainbow weave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereby the truth from heaven slid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into my soul? I cannot bid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world admit he stooped to heal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My soul, as if in a thunder-peal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where one heard noise, and one saw flame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I only knew he named my name:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But what is the world to me, for sorrow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or joy in its censure, when to-morrow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It drops the remark, with just-turned head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, on again, "That man is dead"?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yes, but for me—my name called,—drawn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a conscript's lot from the lap's black yawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He has dipt into on a battle-dawn:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bid out of life by a nod, a glance,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">388</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stumbling, mute-mazed, at nature's chance,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a rapid finger circled round,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fixed to the first poor inch of ground<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To fight from, where his foot was found;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose ear but a minute since lay free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the wide camp's buzz and gossipry—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Summoned, a solitary man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To end his life where his life began,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the safe glad rear, to the dreadful van!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By the hem of the vesture!—<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i24">And I caught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the flying robe, and unrepelled<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With warmth and wonder and delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God's mercy being infinite.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For scarce had the words escaped my tongue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, at a passionate bound, I sprung,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of the wandering world of rain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the little chapel again.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He finds himself back in the chapel, +all that has occurred having been a vision. +His conclusions have that broadness of view +which belongs only to those most advanced +in thought. He has learned that not only +must there be the essential truth behind every +sincere effort to reach it, but that even his +own vision of the truth is not necessarily the +final way of truth but is merely the way which +is true for him. The jump from the attitude<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">389</a></span> +of mind that persecutes those who do not +believe according to one established rule to +such absolute toleration of all forms because +of their symbolizing an eternal truth gives +the measure of growth in religious thought +from the days of Wesley to Browning. The +Wesleys and their fellow-helpers were stoned +and mobbed, and some died of their wounds +in the latter part of the eighteenth century, +while in 1850, when "Christmas-Eve" was +written, an Englishman could express a height +of toleration and sympathy for religions not +his own, as well as taking a religious stand +for himself so exalted that it is difficult to +imagine a further step in these directions. +Perhaps we are suffering to-day from over-toleration, +that is, we tolerate not only those +whose aspiration takes a different form, but +those whose ideals lead to degeneracy. It +seems as though all virtues must finally develop +their shadows. What, however, is a +shadow but the darkness occasioned by the +approach of some greater light.</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">XXII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How else was I found there, bolt upright<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On my bench, as if I had never left it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Never flung out on the common at night,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor met the storm and wedge-like cleft it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seen the raree-show of Peter's successor,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">390</a></span> +<span class="i0">Or the laboratory of the Professor!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the Vision, that was true, I wist,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">True as that heaven and earth exist.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There sat my friend, the yellow and tall,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With his neck and its wen in the selfsame place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet my nearest neighbor's cheek showed gall.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She had slid away a contemptuous space:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the old fat woman, late so placable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eyed me with symptoms, hardly mistakable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of her milk of kindness turning rancid.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In short, a spectator might have fancied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I had nodded, betrayed by slumber,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet kept my seat, a warning ghastly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the heads of the sermon, nine in number,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And woke up now at the tenth and lastly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But again, could such disgrace have happened?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each friend at my elbow had surely nudged it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, as for the sermon, where did my nap end?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Unless I heard it, could I have judged it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could I report as I do at the close,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First, the preacher speaks through his nose:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Second, his gesture is too emphatic:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thirdly, to waive what's pedagogic,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The subject-matter itself lacks logic:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fourthly, the English is ungrammatic.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great news! the preacher is found no Pascal,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom, if I pleased, I might to the task call<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of making square to a finite eye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The circle of infinity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And find so all-but-just-succeeding!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great news! the sermon proves no reading<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where bee-like in the flowers I bury me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like Taylor's the immortal Jeremy!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now that I know the very worst of him,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">391</a></span> +<span class="i0">What was it I thought to obtain at first of him?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ha! Is God mocked, as he asks?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall I take on me to change his tasks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dare, despatched to a river-head<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For a simple draught of the element,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Neglect the thing for which he sent,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And return with another thing instead?—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Saying, "Because the water found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Welling up from underground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is mingled with the taints of earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While thou, I know, dost laugh at dearth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And couldst, at wink or word, convulse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world with the leap of a river-pulse,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore I turned from the oozings muddy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And bring thee a chalice I found, instead:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">One would suppose that the marble bled.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What matters the water? A hope I have nursed:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The waterless cup will quench my thirst."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Better have knelt at the poorest stream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That trickles in pain from the straitest rift!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the less or the more is all God's gift,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who blocks up or breaks wide the granite-seam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here, is there water or not, to drink?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I then, in ignorance and weakness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taking God's help, have attained to think<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My heart does best to receive in meekness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That mode of worship, as most to his mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where earthly aids being cast behind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His All in All appears serene<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the thinnest human veil between,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Letting the mystic lamps, the seven,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The many motions of his spirit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pass, as they list, to earth from heaven.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">392</a></span> +<span class="i2">For the preacher's merit or demerit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It were to be wished the flaws were fewer<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the earthen vessel, holding treasure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which lies as safe in a golden ewer;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But the main thing is, does it hold good measure?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven soon sets right all other matters!—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ask, else, these ruins of humanity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This flesh worn out to rags and tatters,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">This soul at struggle with insanity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who thence take comfort—can I doubt?—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which an empire gained, were a loss without.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May it be mine! And let us hope<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That no worse blessing befall the Pope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turned sick at last of to-day's buffoonery,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of posturings and petticoatings,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beside his Bourbon bully's gloatings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the bloody orgies of drunk poltroonery!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor may the Professor forego its peace<br /></span> +<span class="i2">At Göttingen presently, when, in the dusk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his life, if his cough, as I fear, should increase,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Prophesied of by that horrible husk—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thicker and thicker the darkness fills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world through his misty spectacles,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he gropes for something more substantial<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than a fable, myth or personification,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May Christ do for him what no mere man shall,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And stand confessed as the God of salvation!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Meantime, in the still recurring fear<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lest myself, at unawares, be found,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While attacking the choice of my neighbors round,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With none of my own made—I choose here!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The giving out of the hymn reclaims me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have done: and if any blames me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thinking that merely to touch in brevity<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">393</a></span> +<span class="i2">The topics I dwell on, were unlawful,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or worse, that I trench, with undue levity,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On the bounds of the holy and the awful,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I praise the heart, and pity the head of him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And refer myself to <span class="smcap">Thee</span>, instead of him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who head and heart alike discernest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Looking below light speech we utter,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When frothy spume and frequent sputter<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prove that the soul's depths boil in earnest!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May truth shine out, stand ever before us!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I put up pencil and join chorus<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To Hepzibah Tune, without further apology,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The last five verses of the third section<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of the seventeenth hymn of Whitfield's Collection,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To conclude with the doxology.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In "Easter-Day" the interest is purely personal. +It is a long and somewhat intricate +discussion between two friends upon the basis +of belief and gives no glimpses of the historical +progress of belief. In brief, the poem +discusses the relation of the finite life to the +infinite life. The first speaker is not satisfied +with the different points of view suggested by +the second speaker. First, that one would +be willing to suffer martyrdom in this life if +only one could truly believe it would bring +eternal joy. Or perhaps doubt is God's way +of telling who are his friends, who are his +foes. Or perhaps God is revealed in the law +of the universe, or in the shows of nature, or<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">394</a></span> +in the emotions of the human heart. The +first speaker takes the ground that the only +possibility satisfying modern demands is an +assurance that this world's gain is in its imperfectness +surety for true gain in another +world. An imaginatively pictured experience +of his own soul is next presented, wherein +he represents himself at the Judgment Day +as choosing the finite life instead of the infinite +life. As a result, he learns there is +nothing in finite life except as related to infinite +life. The way opened out toward the infinite +through love is that which gives the light of +life to all the good things of earth which he +desired—all beauties, that of nature and +art, and the joy of intellectual activity.</p> + +<h3>EASTER-DAY</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2 dotwide">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4 class="sidenote">XV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i18">And as I said<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This nonsense, throwing back my head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With light complacent laugh, I found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suddenly all the midnight round<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One fire. The dome of heaven had stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As made up of a multitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of handbreadth cloudlets, one vast rack<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ripples infinite and black,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From sky to sky. Sudden there went,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like horror and astonishment,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">395</a></span> +<span class="i0">A fierce vindictive scribble of red<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quick flame across, as if one said<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(The angry scribe of Judgment) "There—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Burn it!" And straight I was aware<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the whole ribwork round, minute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cloud touching cloud beyond compute,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was tinted, each with its own spot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of burning at the core, till clot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jammed against clot, and spilt its fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over all heaven, which 'gan suspire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As fanned to measure equable,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just so great conflagrations kill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Night overhead, and rise and sink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reflected. Now the fire would shrink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wither off the blasted face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of heaven, and I distinct might trace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sharp black ridgy outlines left<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unburned like network—then, each cleft<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fire had been sucked back into,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Regorged, and out it surging flew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Furiously, and night writhed inflamed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till, tolerating to be tamed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No longer, certain rays world-wide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shot downwardly. On every side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Caught past escape, the earth was lit;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if a dragon's nostril split<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all his famished ire o'erflowed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, as he winced at his lord's goad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Back he inhaled: whereat I found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The clouds into vast pillars bound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Based on the corners of the earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Propping the skies at top: a dearth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of fire i' the violet intervals,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leaving exposed the utmost walls<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">396</a></span> +<span class="i0">Of time, about to tumble in<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And end the world.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">I felt begin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Judgment-Day: to retrocede<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was too late now. "In very deed,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(I uttered to myself) "that Day!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The intuition burned away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All darkness from my spirit too:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There, stood I, found and fixed, I knew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Choosing the world. The choice was made;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And naked and disguiseless stayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And unevadable, the fact.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My brain held all the same compact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its senses, nor my heart declined<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its office; rather, both combined<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To help me in this juncture. I<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lost not a second,—agony<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gave boldness: since my life had end<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my choice with it—best defend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Applaud both! I resolved to say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"So was I framed by thee, such way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I put to use thy senses here!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It was so beautiful, so near,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy world,—what could I then but choose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My part there? Nor did I refuse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To look above the transient boon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of time; but it was hard so soon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As in a short life, to give up<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such beauty: I could put the cup<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Undrained of half its fulness, by;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, to renounce it utterly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—That was too hard! Nor did the cry<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">397</a></span> +<span class="i0">Which bade renounce it, touch my brain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Authentically deep and plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enough to make my lips let go.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But Thou, who knowest all, dost know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether I was not, life's brief while,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Endeavoring to reconcile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those lips (too tardily, alas!)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To letting the dear remnant pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One day,—some drops of earthly good<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Untasted! Is it for this mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That Thou, whose earth delights so well,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hast made its complement a hell?"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A final belch of fire like blood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Overbroke all heaven in one flood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of doom. Then fire was sky, and sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fire, and both, one brief ecstasy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then ashes. But I heard no noise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Whatever was) because a voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beside me spoke thus, "Life is done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time ends, Eternity's begun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thou art judged for evermore."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XVIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I looked up; all seemed as before;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of that cloud-Tophet overhead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No trace was left: I saw instead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The common round me, and the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above, stretched drear and emptily<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of life. 'Twas the last watch of night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Except what brings the morning quite;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the armed angel, conscience-clear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His task nigh done, leans o'er his spear<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">398</a></span> +<span class="i0">And gazes on the earth he guards,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Safe one night more through all its wards,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till God relieve him at his post.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"A dream—a waking dream at most!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(I spoke out quick, that I might shake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The horrid nightmare off, and wake.)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"The world gone, yet the world is here?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are not all things as they appear?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is Judgment past for me alone?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—And where had place the great white throne?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rising of the quick and dead?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where stood they, small and great? Who read<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sentence from the opened book?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, by degrees, the blood forsook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart, and let it beat afresh;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I knew I should break through the mesh<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of horror, and breathe presently:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, lo, again, the voice by me!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I saw.... Oh brother, 'mid far sands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The palm-tree-cinctured city stands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bright-white beneath, as heaven, bright-blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leans o'er it, while the years pursue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their course, unable to abate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its paradisal laugh at fate!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One morn,—the Arab staggers blind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er a new tract of death, calcined<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To ashes, silence, nothingness,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strives, with dizzy wits, to guess<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whence fell the blow. What if, 'twixt skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And prostrate earth, he should surprise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The imaged vapor, head to foot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surveying, motionless and mute,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">399</a></span> +<span class="i0">Its work, ere, in a whirlwind rapt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It vanished up again?—So hapt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My chance. <span class="smcap">He</span> stood there. Like the smoke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pillared o'er Sodom, when day broke,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw Him. One magnific pall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mantled in massive fold and fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His head, and coiled in snaky swathes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About His feet: night's black, that bathes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All else, broke, grizzled with despair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Against the soul of blackness there.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gesture told the mood within—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That wrapped right hand which based the chin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That intense meditation fixed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On His procedure,—pity mixed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the fulfilment of decree.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Motionless, thus, He spoke to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who fell before His feet, a mass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No man now.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">"All is come to pass.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such shows are over for each soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They had respect to. In the roll<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of judgment which convinced mankind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sin, stood many, bold and blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Terror must burn the truth into:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their fate for them!—thou hadst to do<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With absolute omnipotence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Able its judgments to dispense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the whole race, as every one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were its sole object. Judgment done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God is, thou art,—the rest is hurled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To nothingness for thee. This world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This finite life, thou hast preferred,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In disbelief of God's plain word,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">400</a></span> +<span class="i0">To heaven and to infinity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here the probation was for thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To show thy soul the earthly mixed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With heavenly, it must choose betwixt.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The earthly joys lay palpable,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A taint, in each, distinct as well;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heavenly flitted, faint and rare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above them, but as truly were<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taintless, so, in their nature, best.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy choice was earth: thou didst attest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas fitter spirit should subserve<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flesh, than flesh refine to nerve<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the spirit's play. Advance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No claim to their inheritance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who chose the spirit's fugitive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brief gleams, and yearned, 'This were to live<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Indeed, if rays, completely pure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From flesh that dulls them, could endure,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not shoot in meteor-light athwart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our earth, to show how cold and swart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It lies beneath their fire, but stand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As stars do, destined to expand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prove veritable worlds, our home!'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou saidst,—'Let spirit star the dome<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sky, that flesh may miss no peak,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No nook of earth,—I shall not seek<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its service further!' Thou art shut<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of the heaven of spirit; glut<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy sense upon the world: 'tis thine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For ever—take it!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i18">"How? Is mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world?" (I cried, while my soul broke<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">401</a></span> +<span class="i0">Out in a transport.) "Hast Thou spoke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plainly in that? Earth's exquisite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Treasures of wonder and delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For me?"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">The austere voice returned,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"So soon made happy? Hadst thou learned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What God accounteth happiness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou wouldst not find it hard to guess<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What hell may be his punishment<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For those who doubt if God invent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better than they. Let such men rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Content with what they judged the best.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let the unjust usurp at will:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The filthy shall be filthy still:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Miser, there waits the gold for thee!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hater, indulge thine enmity!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thou, whose heaven self-ordained<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was, to enjoy earth unrestrained,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do it! Take all the ancient show!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The woods shall wave, the rivers flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And men apparently pursue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their works, as they were wont to do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While living in probation yet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I promise not thou shalt forget<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The past, now gone to its account;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But leave thee with the old amount<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of faculties, nor less nor more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unvisited, as heretofore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By God's free spirit, that makes an end.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, once more, take thy world! Expend<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eternity upon its shows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flung thee as freely as one rose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of a summer's opulence,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">402</a></span> +<span class="i0">Over the Eden-barrier whence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art excluded. Knock in vain!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I sat up. All was still again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I breathed free: to my heart, back fled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The warmth. "But, all the world!"—I said.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I stooped and picked a leaf of fern,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And recollected I might learn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From books, how many myriad sorts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of fern exist, to trust reports,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each as distinct and beautiful<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As this, the very first I cull.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Think, from the first leaf to the last!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conceive, then, earth's resources! Vast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exhaustless beauty, endless change<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of wonder! And this foot shall range<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alps, Andes,—and this eye devour<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bee-bird and the aloe-flower?<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXIV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then the voice, "Welcome so to rate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The arras-folds that variegate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The earth, God's antechamber, well!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wise, who waited there, could tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By these, what royalties in store<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lay one step past the entrance-door.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For whom, was reckoned, not so much,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This life's munificence? For such<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As thou,—a race, whereof scarce one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was able, in a million,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To feel that any marvel lay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In objects round his feet all day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scarce one, in many millions more,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">403</a></span> +<span class="i0">Willing, if able, to explore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The secreter, minuter charm!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Brave souls, a fern-leaf could disarm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of power to cope with God's intent,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or scared if the south firmament<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With north-fire did its wings refledge!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All partial beauty was a pledge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of beauty in its plenitude:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But since the pledge sufficed thy mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Retain it! plenitude be theirs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who looked above!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">Though sharp despairs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shot through me, I held up, bore on.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"What matter though my trust were gone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From natural things? Henceforth my part<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be less with nature than with art!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For art supplants, gives mainly worth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To nature; 'tis man stamps the earth—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I will seek his impress, seek<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The statuary of the Greek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Italy's painting—there my choice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall fix!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXVI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"Obtain it!" said the voice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"—The one form with its single act,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which sculptors labored to abstract,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The one face, painters tried to draw,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With its one look, from throngs they saw.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that perfection in their soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These only hinted at? The whole,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They were but parts of? What each laid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His claim to glory on?—afraid<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">404</a></span> +<span class="i0">His fellow-men should give him rank<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By mere tentatives which he shrank<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smitten at heart from, all the more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That gazers pressed in to adore!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Shall I be judged by only these?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If such his soul's capacities,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even while he trod the earth,—think, now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What pomp in Buonarroti's brow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With its new palace-brain where dwells<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Superb the soul, unvexed by cells<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That crumbled with the transient clay!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What visions will his right hand's sway<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still turn to forms, as still they burst<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon him? How will he quench thirst,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Titanically infantine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laid at the breast of the Divine?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Does it confound thee,—this first page<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Emblazoning man's heritage?—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can this alone absorb thy sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As pages were not infinite,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the omnipotence which tasks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Itself to furnish all that asks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soul it means to satiate?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What was the world, the starry state<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the broad skies,—what, all displays<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of power and beauty intermixed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which now thy soul is chained betwixt,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What else than needful furniture<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For life's first stage? God's work, be sure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No more spreads wasted, than falls scant!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He filled, did not exceed, man's want<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of beauty in this life. But through<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life pierce,—and what has earth to do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its utmost beauty's appanage,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">405</a></span> +<span class="i0">With the requirement of next stage?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did God pronounce earth 'very good'?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Needs must it be, while understood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For man's preparatory state;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nought here to heighten nor abate;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Transfer the same completeness here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To serve a new state's use,—and drear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deficiency gapes every side!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The good, tried once, were bad, retried.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See the enwrapping rocky niche,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sufficient for the sleep in which<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lizard breathes for ages safe:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Split the mould—and as light would chafe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The creature's new world-widened sense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dazzled to death at evidence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all the sounds and sights that broke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Innumerous at the chisel's stroke,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, in God's eye, the earth's first stuff<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was, neither more nor less, enough<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To house man's soul, man's need fulfil.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man reckoned it immeasurable?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So thinks the lizard of his vault!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could God be taken in default,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Short of contrivances, by you,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or reached, ere ready to pursue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His progress through eternity?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That chambered rock, the lizard's world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your easy mallet's blow has hurled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To nothingness for ever; so,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has God abolished at a blow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This world, wherein his saints were pent,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who, though found grateful and content,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the provision there, as thou,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet knew he would not disallow<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">406</a></span> +<span class="i0">Their spirit's hunger, felt as well,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unsated,—not unsatable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As paradise gives proof. Deride<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their choice now, thou who sit'st outside!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXVII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I cried in anguish, "Mind, the mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So miserably cast behind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To gain what had been wisely lost!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, let me strive to make the most<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the poor stinted soul, I nipped<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of budding wings, else now equipped<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For voyage from summer isle to isle!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And though she needs must reconcile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ambition to the life on ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still, I can profit by late found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But precious knowledge. Mind is best—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will seize mind, forego the rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And try how far my tethered strength<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May crawl in this poor breadth and length.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let me, since I can fly no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At least spin dervish-like about<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Till giddy rapture almost doubt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fly) through circling sciences,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Philosophies and histories<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should the whirl slacken there, then verse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fining to music, shall asperse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh and fresh fire-dew, till I strain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Intoxicate, half-break my chain!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not joyless, though more favored feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stand calm, where I want wings to beat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The floor. At least earth's bond is broke!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">407</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXVIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then, (sickening even while I spoke)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Let me alone! No answer, pray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To this! I know what Thou wilt say!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All still is earth's,—to know, as much<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As feel its truths, which if we touch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With sense, or apprehend in soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What matter? I have reached the goal—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Whereto does knowledge serve!' will burn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My eyes, too sure, at every turn!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I cannot look back now, nor stake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bliss on the race, for running's sake.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The goal's a ruin like the rest!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so much worse thy latter quest,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Added the voice) "that even on earth—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whenever, in man's soul, had birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those intuitions, grasps of guess,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which pull the more into the less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Making the finite comprehend<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Infinity,—the bard would spend<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such praise alone, upon his craft,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As, when wind-lyres obey the waft,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Goes to the craftsman who arranged<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The seven strings, changed them and rechanged—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knowing it was the South that harped.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He felt his song, in singing, warped;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distinguished his and God's part: whence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A world of spirit as of sense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was plain to him, yet not too plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which he could traverse, not remain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A guest in:—else were permanent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven on the earth its gleams were meant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To sting with hunger for full light,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">408</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made visible in verse, despite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The veiling weakness,—truth by means<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of fable, showing while it screens,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since highest truth, man e'er supplied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was ever fable on outside.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such gleams made bright the earth an age;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now the whole sun's his heritage!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take up thy world, it is allowed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou who hast entered in the cloud!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXIX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then I—"Behold, my spirit bleeds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Catches no more at broken reeds,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But lilies flower those reeds above:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I let the world go, and take love!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love survives in me, albeit those<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I love be henceforth masks and shows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not living men and women: still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I mind how love repaired all ill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cured wrong, soothed grief, made earth amends<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With parents, brothers, children, friends!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some semblance of a woman yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With eyes to help me to forget,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall look on me; and I will match<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Departed love with love, attach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old memories to new dreams, nor scorn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The poorest of the grains of corn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I save from shipwreck on this isle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trusting its barrenness may smile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With happy foodful green one day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More precious for the pains. I pray,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leave to love, only!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">409</a></span></p> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i18">At the word,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The form, I looked to have been stirred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With pity and approval, rose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er me, as when the headsman throws<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Axe over shoulder to make end—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fell prone, letting Him expend<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His wrath, while thus the inflicting voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smote me. "Is this thy final choice?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love is the best? 'Tis somewhat late!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all thou dost enumerate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of power and beauty in the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mightiness of love was curled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inextricably round about.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love lay within it and without,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To clasp thee,—but in vain! Thy soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still shrunk from Him who made the whole,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still set deliberate aside<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His love!—Now take love! Well betide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy tardy conscience! Haste to take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The show of love for the name's sake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Remembering every moment Who,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beside creating thee unto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These ends, and these for thee, was said<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To undergo death in thy stead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In flesh like thine: so ran the tale.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What doubt in thee could countervail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Belief in it? Upon the ground<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'That in the story had been found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too much love! How could God love so?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He who in all his works below<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Adapted to the needs of man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made love the basis of the plan,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">410</a></span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did love, as was demonstrated:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While man, who was so fit instead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hate, as every day gave proof,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man thought man, for his kind's behoof,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both could and did invent that scheme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of perfect love: 'twould well beseem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cain's nature thou wast wont to praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not tally with God's usual ways!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXXI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And I cowered deprecatingly—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Thou Love of God! Or let me die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or grant what shall seem heaven almost!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let me not know that all is lost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though lost it be—leave me not tied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To this despair, this corpse-like bride!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let that old life seem mine—no more—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With limitation as before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With darkness, hunger, toil, distress:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be all the earth a wilderness!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only let me go on, go on,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still hoping ever and anon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To reach one eve the Better Land!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXXII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then did the form expand, expand—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I knew Him through the dread disguise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the whole God within His eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Embraced me.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XXXIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">When I lived again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The day was breaking,—the grey plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I rose from, silvered thick with dew.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was this a vision? False or true?<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">411</a></span> +<span class="i0">Since then, three varied years are spent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And commonly my mind is bent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To think it was a dream—be sure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A mere dream and distemperature—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The last day's watching: then the night,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The shock of that strange Northern Light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set my head swimming, bred in me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dream. And so I live, you see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go through the world, try, prove, reject,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prefer, still struggling to effect<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My warfare; happy that I can<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be crossed and thwarted as a man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not left in God's contempt apart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tame in earth's paddock as her prize.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thank God, she still each method tries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To catch me, who may yet escape,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She knows,—the fiend in angel's shape!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thank God, no paradise stands barred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To entry, and I find it hard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To be a Christian, as I said!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still every now and then my head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Raised glad, sinks mournful—all grows drear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spite of the sunshine, while I fear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And think, "How dreadful to be grudged<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No ease henceforth, as one that's judged.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Condemned to earth for ever, shut<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From heaven!"<br /></span> +<span class="i12">But Easter-Day breaks! But<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christ rises! Mercy every way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is infinite,—and who can say?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This poem has often been cited as a proof +of Browning's own belief in historical Chris<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">412</a></span>tianity. +It can hardly be said to be more +than a doubtful proof, for it depends upon a +subjective vision of which the speaker, himself, +doubts the truth. The speaker in this +poem belongs in the same category with +Bishop Blougram. A belief in infinite Love +can come to him only through the dogma of +the incarnation, he therefore holds to that, +no matter how tossed about by doubts. The +failure of all human effort to attain the Absolute +and, as a consequence, the belief in an +Absolute beyond this life is a dominant note +in Browning's own philosophy. The nature +of that Absolute he further evolves from the +intellectual observation of power that transcends +human comprehension, and the even +more deep-rooted sense of love in the human +heart.</p> + +<p>Much of his thought resembles that of the +English scientist, Herbert Spencer. The relativity +of knowledge and the relativity of good +and evil are cardinal doctrines with both of +them. Herbert Spencer's mystery behind all +phenomena and Browning's failure of human +knowledge are identical—the negative proof +of the absolute,—but where Spencer contents +himself with the statement that though +we cannot know the Absolute, yet it must +transcend all that the human mind has con<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">413</a></span>ceived +of perfection, Browning, as we have +already seen, declares that we <i>can</i> know something +of the nature of that Absolute through +the love which we know in the human heart +as well as the power we see displayed in +Nature.</p> + +<p>In connection with this subject, which for +lack of space can merely be touched on in +the present volume, it will be instructive to +round out Browning's presentations of his own +contributions to nineteenth-century thought +with two quotations, one from "The Parleyings:" +"With Bernard de Mandeville," +and one from a poem in his last volume +"Reverie." In the first, human love is symbolized +as the image made by a lens of the +sun, which latter symbolizes Divine Love.</p> + +<h3>BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2 dotwide">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4 class="sidenote">IX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Boundingly up through Night's wall dense and dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Embattled crags and clouds, outbroke the Sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above the conscious earth, and one by one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her heights and depths absorbed to the last spark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His fluid glory, from the far fine ridge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of mountain-granite which, transformed to gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laughed first the thanks back, to the vale's dusk fold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On fold of vapor-swathing, like a bridge<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">414</a></span> +<span class="i0">Shattered beneath some giant's stamp. Night wist<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her work done and betook herself in mist<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To marsh and hollow there to bide her time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blindly in acquiescence. Everywhere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did earth acknowledge Sun's embrace sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thrilling her to the heart of things: since there<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glad through the inrush—glad nor more nor less<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than, 'neath his gaze, forest and wilderness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The universal world of creatures bred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By Sun's munificence, alike gave praise—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All creatures but one only: gaze for gaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Joyless and thankless, who—all scowling can—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Protests against the innumerous praises? Man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sullen and silent.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">Stand thou forth then, state<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy wrong, thou sole aggrieved—disconsolate—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And glad acknowledges the bounteous day!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">X</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Man speaks now:—"What avails Sun's earth-felt thrill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To me? Sun penetrates the ore, the plant—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They feel and grow: perchance with subtler skill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He interfuses fly, worm, brute, until<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each favored object pays life's ministrant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By pressing, in obedience to his will,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up to completion of the task prescribed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So stands and stays a type. Myself imbibed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such influence also, stood and stand complete—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The perfect Man,—head, body, hands and feet,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">415</a></span> +<span class="i0">True to the pattern: but does that suffice?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How of my superadded mind which needs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Not to be, simply, but to do, and pleads<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For—more than knowledge that by some device<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sun quickens matter: mind is nobly fain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To realize the marvel, make—for sense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As mind—the unseen visible, condense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Myself—Sun's all-pervading influence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So as to serve the needs of mind, explain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What now perplexes. Let the oak increase<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His corrugated strength on strength, the palm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lift joint by joint her fan-fruit, ball and balm,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let the coiled serpent bask in bloated peace,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The eagle, like some skyey derelict,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drift in the blue, suspended glorying,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lion lord it by the desert-spring,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What know or care they of the power which pricked<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nothingness to perfection? I, instead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When all-developed still am found a thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All-incomplete: for what though flesh had force<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Transcending theirs—hands able to unring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tightened snake's coil, eyes that could outcourse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The eagle's soaring, voice whereat the king<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of carnage couched discrowned? Mind seeks to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Touch, understand, by mind inside of me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The outside mind—whose quickening I attain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To recognize—I only. All in vain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would mind address itself to render plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nature of the essence. Drag what lurks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behind the operation—that which works<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Latently everywhere by outward proof—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drag that mind forth to face mine? No! aloof<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I solely crave that one of all the beams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which do Sun's work in darkness, at my will<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">416</a></span> +<span class="i0">Should operate—myself for once have skill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To realize the energy which streams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flooding the universe. Above, around,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath—why mocks that mind my own thus found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Simply of service, when the world grows dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To half-surmise—were Sun's use understood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I might demonstrate him supplying food,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Warmth, life, no less the while? To grant one spark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Myself may deal with—make it thaw my blood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That somehow secretly is operant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A power all matter feels, mind only tries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At source why probe into? Enough: display,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make demonstrable, how, by night as day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all's informed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Equally by Sun's efflux!—source from whence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If just one spark I drew, full evidence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were mine of fire ineffably enthroned—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sun's self made palpable to Man!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i26">Thus moaned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man till Prometheus helped him,—as we learn,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Offered an artifice whereby he drew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sun's rays into a focus,—plain and true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The very Sun in little: made fire burn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And henceforth do Man service—glass-conglobed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though to a pin-point circle—all the same<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comprising the Sun's self, but Sun disrobed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of that else-unconceived essential flame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Borne by no naked sight. Shall mind's eye strive<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">417</a></span> +<span class="i0">Achingly to companion as it may<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The supersubtle effluence, and contrive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To follow beam and beam upon their way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hand-breadth by hand-breadth, till sense faint—confessed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frustrate, eluded by unknown unguessed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Infinitude of action? Idle quest!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rather ask aid from optics. Sense, descry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The spectrum—mind, infer immensity!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little? In little, light, warmth, life are blessed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, in the large, who sees to bless? Not I<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than yourself: so, good my friend, keep still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trustful with—me? with thee, sage Mandeville!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The second "Reverie" has the effect of a +triumphant swan song, especially the closing +stanzas, the poem having been written very +near the end of the poet's life.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In a beginning God<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Made heaven and earth." Forth flashed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knowledge: from star to clod<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Man knew things: doubt abashed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Closed its long period.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Knowledge obtained Power praise.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Had Good been manifest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Broke out in cloudless blaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Unchequered as unrepressed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In all things Good at best—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then praise—all praise, no blame—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Had hailed the perfection. No!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As Power's display, the same<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Be Good's—praise forth shall flow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unisonous in acclaim!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">418</a></span> +<span class="i0">Even as the world its life,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So have I lived my own—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Power seen with Love at strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That sure, this dimly shown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Good rare and evil rife.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whereof the effect be—faith<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That, some far day, were found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ripeness in things now rathe,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wrong righted, each chain unbound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Renewal born out of scathe.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Why faith—but to lift the load,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To leaven the lump, where lies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mind prostrate through knowledge owed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the loveless Power it tries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To withstand, how vain! In flowed<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ever resistless fact:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No more than the passive clay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Disputes the potter's act,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Could the whelmed mind disobey<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knowledge the cataract.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But, perfect in every part,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Has the potter's moulded shape,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leap of man's quickened heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Throe of his thought's escape,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stings of his soul which dart<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through the barrier of flesh, till keen<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She climbs from the calm and clear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through turbidity all between,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From the known to the unknown here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven's "Shall be," from Earth's "Has been"?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">419</a></span> +<span class="i0">Then life is—to wake not sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rise and not rest, but press<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From earth's level where blindly creep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Things perfected, more or less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the heaven's height, far and steep,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where, amid what strifes and storms<br /></span> +<span class="i2">May wait the adventurous quest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Power is Love—transports, transforms<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who aspired from worst to best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I have faith such end shall be:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From the first, Power was—I knew.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life has made clear to me<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That, strive but for closer view,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love were as plain to see.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When see? When there dawns a day,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If not on the homely earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then yonder, worlds away,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where the strange and new have birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Power comes full in play.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">420</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">ART CRITICISM INSPIRED BY THE ENGLISH +MUSICIAN, AVISON</p> + +<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">In</span> the "Parleying" "With Charles Avison," +Browning plunges into a discussion of the +problem of the ephemeralness of musical expression. +He hits upon Avison to have his colloquy +with because a march by this musician +came into his head, and the march came into his +head for no better reason than that it was the +month of March. Some interest would attach +to Avison if it were only for the reason that he +was organist of the Church of St. Nicholas in +Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In the earliest accounts +St. Nicholas was styled simply, "The +Church of Newcastle-upon-Tyne," but in 1785 +it became a Cathedral. This was after Avison's +death in 1770. All we know about the +organ upon which Avison performed is found +in a curious old history of Newcastle by +Brand. "I have found," he writes, "no account +of any organ in this church during the +times of popery though it is very probable +there has been one. <a name='TC_40'></a><ins title="Removed starting quote">About</ins> the year 1676,<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">421</a></span> +the corporation of Newcastle contributed £300 +towards the erection of the present organ. +They added a trumpet stop to it June 22d, +1699."</p> + +<p>The year that Avison was born, 1710, it is +recorded further that "the back front of this +organ was finished which cost the said corporation +£200 together with the expense of +cleaning and repairing the whole instrument."</p> + +<p>June 26, 1749, the common council of Newcastle +ordered a sweet stop to be added to the +organ. This was after Avison became organist, +his appointment to that post having been in +1736. So we know that he at least had a +"trumpet stop" and a "sweet stop," with +which to embellish his organ playing.</p> + +<p>The church is especially distinguished for +the number and beauty of its chantries, and +any who have a taste for examining armorial +bearings will find two good-sized volumes devoted +to a description of those in this church, +by Richardson. Equal distinction attaches to +the church owing to the beauty of its steeple, +which has been called the pride and glory of +the Northern Hemisphere. According to the +enthusiastic Richardson it is justly esteemed +on account of its peculiar excellency of design +and delicacy of execution one of the finest +specimens of architectural beauty in Europe.<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">422</a></span> +This steeple is as conspicuous a feature of +Newcastle as the State House Dome is of +Boston, situated, as it is, almost in the center +of the town. Richardson gives the following +minute description of this marvel. "It consists +of a square tower forty feet in width, +having great and small turrets with pinnacles +at the angles and center of each front tower. +From the four turrets at the angles spring +two arches, which meet in an intersecting direction, +and bear on their center an efficient +perforated lanthorne, surmounted by a tall and +beautiful spire: the angles of the lanthorne +have pinnacles similar to those on the turrets, +and the whole of the pinnacles, being twelve +in number, and the spire, are ornamented with +crockets and vanes."</p> + +<p>There is a stirring tradition in regard to +this structure related by Bourne to the effect +that in the time of the Civil Wars, when the +Scots had besieged the town for several weeks, +and were still as far as at first from taking it, +the general sent a messenger to the mayor of +the town, and demanded the keys, and the +delivering up of the town, or he would immediately +demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas. +The mayor and aldermen upon hearing this, +immediately ordered a certain number of the +chiefest of the Scottish prisoners to be carried<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">423</a></span> +up to the top of the tower, the place below +the lanthorne and there confined. After this, +they returned the general an answer to this +purpose,—that they would upon no terms deliver +up the town, but would to the last moment +defend it: that the steeple of St. Nicholas +was indeed a beautiful and magnificent piece +of architecture, and one of the great ornaments +of the town; but yet should be blown into +atoms before ransomed at such a rate: that, +however, if it was to fall, it should not fall +alone, that the same moment he destroyed the +beautiful structure he should bathe his hands +in the blood of his countrymen who were +placed there on purpose either to preserve it +from ruin or to die along with it. This message +had the desired effect. The men were +there kept prisoners during the whole time +of the siege and not so much as one gun fired +against it.</p> + +<p>Avison, however, had other claims to distinction, +besides being organist of this ancient +church. He was a composer, and was remembered +by one of his airs, at least, into the +nineteenth century, namely "Sound the Loud +Timbrel." He appears not to be remembered, +however, by his concertos, of which +he published no less than five sets for a full +band of stringed instruments, nor by his<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">424</a></span> +quartets and trios, and two sets of sonatas for +the harpsichord and two violins. All we have +to depend on now as to the quality of his +music are the strictures of a certain Dr. Hayes, +an Oxford Professor, who points out many +errors against the rules of composition in the +works of Avison, whence he infers that his +skill in music is not very profound, and the +somewhat more appreciative remarks of Hawkins +who says "The music of Avison is light +and elegant, but it wants originality, a necessary +consequence of his too close attachment +to the style of Geminiani which in a few particulars +only he was able to imitate."</p> + +<p>Geminiani was a celebrated violin player +and composer of the day, who had come to +England from Italy. He is said to have held +his pupil, Avison, in high esteem and to have +paid him a visit at Newcastle in 1760. Avison's +early education was gained in Italy; and +in addition to his musical attainments he was a +scholar and a man of some literary acquirements. +It is not surprising, considering all +these educational advantages that he really +made something of a stir upon the publication +of his "small book," as Browning calls it, +with, we may add, its "large title."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">425</a></span></p> +<div class="center"> + +<p>AN<br /> +<span class="larger">ESSAY</span><br /> +ON<br /> +MUSICAL EXPRESSION<br /> +BY CHARLES AVISON<br /> +<i>Organist</i> in <span class="smcap">Newcastle</span><br /> +With <span class="smcap">Alterations</span> and Large <span class="smcap">Additions</span></p> + +<p>To which is added,<br /> +A LETTER to the AUTHOR<br /> +concerning the Music of the <span class="smcap">Ancients</span><br /> +and some Passages in <span class="smcap">Classic Writers</span><br /> +relating to the Subject.</p> + +<p class="smaller"><span class="smcap">likewise</span><br /> +Mr. AVISON'S REPLY to the Author of<br /> +<i>Remarks on the Essay on <span class="smcap">Musical Expression</span></i><br /> +In a Letter from Mr. <i>Avison</i> to his Friend in <i>London</i></p> + +<p class="larger">THE THIRD EDITION<br /> +LONDON<br /> +Printed for LOCKYER DAVIS, in <i>Holborn</i>.<br /> +Printer to the <span class="smcap">Royal Society</span>.<br /> +MDCCLXXV.</p> +</div> + +<p>The author of the "Remarks on the Essay +on Musical Expression" was the aforementioned +Dr. W. Hayes, and although the +learned doctor's pamphlet seems to have +died a natural death, some idea of its strictures +may be gained from Avison's reply. +The criticisms are rather too technical to be<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">426</a></span> +of interest to the general reader, but one is +given here to show how gentlemanly a temper +Mr. Avison possessed when he was under +fire. His reply runs "His first critique, and, +I think, his masterpiece, contains many circumstantial, +but false and virulent remarks +on the first allegro of these concertos, to +which he supposes I would give the name of +<i>fugue</i>. Be it just what he pleases to call it +I shall not defend what the public is already +in possession of, the public being the most +proper judge. I shall only here observe, that +our critic has wilfully, or ignorantly, confounded +the terms <i>fugue</i> and <i>imitation</i>, which +latter is by no means subject to the same laws +with the former.</p> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_23" id="linki_23"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus023.jpg" width="354" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Handel</p> +</div> + +<p>"Had I observed the method of answering +the <i>accidental subjects</i> in this <i>allegro</i>, as laid +down by our critic in his remarks, they must +have produced most shocking effects; which, +though this mechanic in music, would, perhaps, +have approved, yet better judges might, +in reality, have imagined I had known no +other art than that of the spruzzarino." There +is a nice independence about this that would +indicate Mr. Avison to be at least an aspirant +in the right direction in musical composition. +His criticism of Handel, too, at a time when +the world was divided between enthusiasm for<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">427</a></span> +Handel and enthusiasm for Buononcini, shows +a remarkably just and penetrating estimate +of this great genius.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Handel is, in music, what his own +Dryden was in poetry; nervous, exalted, and +harmonious; but voluminous, and, consequently, +not always correct. Their abilities +equal to every thing; their execution frequently +inferior. Born with genius capable of <i>soaring +the boldest flights</i>; they have sometimes, to +suit the vitiated taste of the age they lived in, +<i>descended to the lowest</i>. Yet, as both their +excellencies are infinitely more numerous than +their deficiencies, so both their characters will +devolve to latest posterity, not as models of +perfection, yet glorious examples of those +amazing powers that actuate the human +soul."</p> + +<p>On the whole, Mr. Avison's "little book" +on Musical Expression is eminently sensible +as to the matter and very agreeable in style. +He hits off well, for example, the difference +between "musical expression" and imitation.</p> + +<p>"As dissonances and shocking sounds cannot +be called Musical Expression, so neither +do I think, can mere imitation of several other +things be entitled to this name, which, however, +among the generality of mankind hath +often obtained it. Thus, the gradual rising<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">428</a></span> +or falling of the notes in a long succession is +often used to denote ascent or descent; broken +intervals, to denote an interrupted motion; +a number of quick divisions, to describe +swiftness or flying; sounds resembling laughter, +to describe laughter; with a number of other +contrivances of a parallel kind, which it is +needless here to mention. Now all these I +should chuse to style imitation, rather than +expression; because it seems to me, that their +tendency is rather to fix the hearer's attention +on the similitude between the sounds and +the things which they describe, and thereby +to excite a reflex act of the understanding, than +to affect the heart and raise the passions of +the soul.</p> + +<p>"This distinction seems more worthy our +notice at present, because some very eminent +composers have attached themselves chiefly to +the method here mentioned; and seem to +think they have exhausted all the depths of +expression, by a dextrous imitation of the +meaning of a few particular words, that occur +in the hymns or songs which they set to music. +Thus, were one of these gentlemen to express +the following words of <i>Milton</i>,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i26">—Their songs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heav'n:<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">429</a></span>it is highly probable, that upon the word <i>divide</i>, +he would run a <i>division</i> of half a dozen bars; +and on the subsequent part of the sentence, +he would not think he had done the poet justice, +or <i>risen</i> to that <i>height</i> of sublimity which +he ought to express, till he had climbed up to +the very top of his instrument, or at least as +far as the human voice could follow him. And +this would pass with a great part of mankind +for musical expression; instead of that noble +mixture of solemn airs and various harmony, +which indeed elevates our thoughts, and gives +that exquisite pleasure, which none but true +lovers of harmony can feel." What Avison +calls "musical expression," we call to-day +"content." And thus Avison "tenders evidence +that music in his day as much absorbed +heart and soul then as Wagner's music now." +It is not unlikely that this very passage may +have started Browning off on his argumentative +way concerning the question: how lasting +and how fundamental are the powers of +musical expression.</p> + +<p>The poet's memory goes back a hundred +years only to reach "The bands-man Avison +whose little book and large tune had led him +the long way from <a name='TC_41'></a><ins title="Added period">to-day.</ins>"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">430</a></span></p> +<h3>CHARLES AVISON</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2 dotwide">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And to-day's music-manufacture,—Brahms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wagner, Dvorak, Liszt,—to where—trumpets, shawms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Show yourselves joyful!—Handel reigns—supreme?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By no means! Buononcini's work is theme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For fit laudation of the impartial few:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(We stand in England, mind you!) Fashion too<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Favors Geminiani—of those choice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Concertos: nor there wants a certain voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Raised in thy favor likewise, famed Pepusch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dear to our great-grandfathers! In a bush<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Doctor's wig, they prized thee timing beats<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While Greenway trilled "Alexis." Such were feats<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of music in thy day—dispute who list—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Avison, of Newcastle organist!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">V</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And here's your music all alive once more—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As once it was alive, at least: just so<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The figured worthies of a waxwork-show<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Attest—such people, years and years ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Looked thus when outside death had life below,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Could say "We are now," not "We were of yore,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—"Feel how our pulses leap!" and not "Explore—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Explain why quietude has settled o'er<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surface once all-awork!" Ay, such a "Suite"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Roused heart to rapture, such a "Fugue" would catch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soul heavenwards up, when time was: why attach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blame to exhausted faultlessness, no match<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For fresh achievement? Feat once—ever feat!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How can completion grow still more complete?<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">431</a></span> +<span class="i0">Hear Avison! He tenders evidence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That music in his day as much absorbed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heart and soul then as Wagner's music now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perfect from center to circumference—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Orbed to the full can be but fully orbed:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet—and yet—whence comes it that "O Thou"—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sighed by the soul at eve to Hesperus—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will not again take wing and fly away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Since fatal Wagner fixed it fast for us)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In some unmodulated minor? Nay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even by Handel's help!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Having stated the problem that confronts +him, namely, the change of fashion in music, +the poet boldly goes on to declare that there +is no truer truth obtainable by man than comes +of music, because it does give direct expression +to the moods of the soul, yet there is a +hitch that balks her of full triumph, namely +the musical form in which these moods are +expressed does not stay fixed. This statement +is enriched by a digression upon the +meaning of the soul.</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">VI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i20">I state it thus:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is no truer truth obtainable<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By Man than comes of music. "Soul"—(accept<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A word which vaguely names what no adept<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In word-use fits and fixes so that still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thing shall not slip word's fetter and remain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Innominate as first, yet, free again,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">432</a></span> +<span class="i0">Is no less recognized the absolute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fact underlying that same other fact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Concerning which no cavil can dispute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our nomenclature when we call it "Mind"—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Something not Matter)—"Soul," who seeks shall find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distinct beneath that something. You exact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An illustrative image? This may suit.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">VII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We see a work: the worker works behind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Invisible himself. Suppose his act<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be to o'erarch a gulf: he digs, transports,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shapes and, through enginery—all sizes, sorts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lays stone by stone until a floor compact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proves our bridged causeway. So works Mind—by stress<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of faculty, with loose facts, more or less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Builds up our solid knowledge: all the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Underneath rolls what Mind may hide not tame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An element which works beyond our guess,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soul, the unsounded sea—whose lift of surge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spite of all superstructure, lets emerge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In flower and foam, Feeling from out the deeps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mind arrogates no mastery upon—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distinct indisputably. Has there gone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To dig up, drag forth, render smooth from rough<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mind's flooring,—operosity enough?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still the successive labor of each inch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who lists may learn: from the last turn of winch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That let the polished slab-stone find its place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the first prod of pick-axe at the base<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the unquarried mountain,—what was all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mind's varied process except natural,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, easy, even, to descry, describe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">After our fashion? "So worked Mind: its tribe<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">433</a></span> +<span class="i0">Of senses ministrant above, below,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far, near, or now or haply long ago<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brought to pass knowledge." But Soul's sea,—drawn whence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fed how, forced whither,—by what evidence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ebb and flow, that's felt beneath the tread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soul has its course 'neath Mind's work over-head,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who tells of, tracks to source the founts of Soul?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet wherefore heaving sway and restless roll<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This side and that, except to emulate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stability above? To match and mate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Feeling with knowledge,—make as manifest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soul's work as Mind's work, turbulence as rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hates, loves, joys, woes, hopes, fears, that rise and sink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ceaselessly, passion's transient flit and wink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A ripple's tinting or a spume-sheet's spread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whitening the wave,—to strike all this life dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Run mercury into a mould like lead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And henceforth have the plain result to show—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How we Feel, hard and fast as what we Know—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This were the prize and is the puzzle!—which<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Music essays to solve: and here's the hitch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That balks her of full triumph else to boast.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then follows his explanation of the "hitch," +which necessitates a comparison with the +other arts. His contention is that art adds +nothing to the <i>knowledge</i> of the mind. It +simply moulds into a fixed form elements already +known which before lay loose and dissociated, +it therefore does not really create. +But there is one realm, that of feeling, to +which the arts never succeed in giving per<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">434</a></span>manent +form though all try to do it. What is +it they succeed in getting? The poet does +not make the point very clear, but he seems +to be groping after the idea that the arts present +only the <i>phenomena</i> of feeling or the +image of feeling instead of the <i>reality</i>. Like +all people who are appreciative of music, he +realizes that music comes nearer to expressing +the spiritual reality of feeling than the other +arts, and yet music of all the arts is the least +permanent in its appeal.</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">VIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All Arts endeavor this, and she the most<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Attains thereto, yet fails of touching: why?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Does Mind get Knowledge from Art's ministry?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What's known once is known ever: Arts arrange,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dissociate, re-distribute, interchange<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Part with part, lengthen, broaden, high or deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Construct their bravest,—still such pains produce<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Change, not creation: simply what lay loose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At first lies firmly after, what design<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was faintly traced in hesitating line<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once on a time, grows firmly resolute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Henceforth and evermore. Now, could we shoot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Liquidity into a mould,—some way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Arrest Soul's evanescent moods, and keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unalterably still the forms that leap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To life for once by help of Art!—which yearns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To save its capture: Poetry discerns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Painting is 'ware of passion's rise and fall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bursting, subsidence, intermixture—all<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">435</a></span> +<span class="i0">A-seethe within the gulf. Each Art a-strain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would stay the apparition,—nor in vain:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Poet's word-mesh, Painter's sure and swift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Color-and-line-throw—proud the prize they lift!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus felt Man and thus looked Man,—passions caught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I' the midway swim of sea,—not much, if aught,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of nether-brooding loves, hates, hopes and fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enwombed past Art's disclosure. Fleet the years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And still the Poet's page holds Helena<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At gaze from topmost Troy—"But where are they,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My brothers, in the armament I name<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hero by hero? Can it be that shame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For their lost sister holds them from the war?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Knowing not they already slept afar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each of them in his own dear native land.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still on the Painter's fresco, from the hand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of God takes Eve the life-spark whereunto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She trembles up from nothingness. Outdo<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both of them, Music! Dredging deeper yet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drag into day,—by sound, thy master-net,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The abysmal bottom-growth, ambiguous thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unbroken of a branch, palpitating<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With limbs' play and life's semblance! There it lies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marvel and mystery, of mysteries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And marvels, most to love and laud thee for!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save it from chance and change we most abhor!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give momentary feeling permanence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So that thy capture hold, a century hence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth's very heart of truth as, safe to-day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Painter's Eve, the Poet's Helena,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still rapturously bend, afar still throw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wistful gaze! Thanks, Homer, Angelo!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could Music rescue thus from Soul's profound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give feeling immortality by sound,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">436</a></span> +<span class="i0">Then were she queenliest of Arts! Alas—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As well expect the rainbow not to pass!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Praise 'Radaminta'—love attains therein<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To perfect utterance! Pity—what shall win<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy secret like 'Rinaldo'?"—so men said:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once all was perfume—now, the flower is dead—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They spied tints, sparks have left the spar! Love, hate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Joy, fear, survive,—alike importunate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As ever to go walk the world again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor ghost-like pant for outlet all in vain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till Music loose them, fit each filmily<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With form enough to know and name it by<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For any recognizer sure of ken<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sharp of ear, no grosser denizen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of earth than needs be. Nor to such appeal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is Music long obdurate: off they steal—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How gently, dawn-doomed phantoms! back come they<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full-blooded with new crimson of broad day—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Passion made palpable once more. Ye look<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your last on Handel? Gaze your first on Gluck!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why wistful search, O waning ones, the chart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of stars for you while Haydn, while Mozart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Occupies heaven? These also, fanned to fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flamboyant wholly,—so perfections tire,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whiten to wanness, till ... let others note<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ever-new invasion!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The poet makes no attempt to give any +reason why music should be so ephemeral in +its appeal. He merely refers to the development +of harmony and modulation, nor does +it seem to enter his head that there can be +any question about the appeal being eph<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">437</a></span>emeral. +He imagines the possibility of resuscitating +dead and gone music with modern +harmonies and novel modulations, but gives +that up as an <a name='TC_42'></a><ins title="Was 'irreverant'">irreverent</ins> innovation. His +next mood is a historical one; dead and gone +music may have something for us in a historical +sense, that is, if we bring our life to +kindle theirs, we may sympathetically enter +into the life of the time.</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">IX</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i20">I devote<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rather my modicum of parts to use<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What power may yet avail to re-infuse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(In fancy, please you!) sleep that looks like death<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With momentary liveliness, lend breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make the torpor half inhale. O Relfe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An all-unworthy pupil, from the shelf<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of thy laboratory, dares unstop<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bottle, ope box, extract thence pinch and drop<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of dusts and dews a many thou didst shrine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each in its right receptacle, assign<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To each its proper office, letter large<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Label and label, then with solemn charge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reviewing learnedly the list complete<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of chemical reactives, from thy feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Push down the same to me, attent below,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Power in abundance: armed wherewith I go<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To play the enlivener. Bring good antique stuff!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was it alight once? Still lives spark enough<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For breath to quicken, run the smouldering ash<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Red right-through. What, "stone-dead" were fools so rash<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">438</a></span> +<span class="i0">As style my Avison, because he lacked<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Modern appliance, spread out phrase unracked<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By modulations fit to make each hair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stiffen upon his wig? See there—and there!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sprinkle my reactives, pitch broadcast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Discords and resolutions, turn aghast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Melody's easy-going, jostle law<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With license, modulate (no Bach in awe),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Change enharmonically (Hudl to thank),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lo, up-start the flamelets,—what was blank<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turns scarlet, purple, crimson! Straightway scanned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By eyes that like new lustre—Love once more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yearns through the Largo, Hatred as before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rages in the Rubato: e'en thy March,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My Avison, which, sooth to say—(ne'er arch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eyebrows in anger!)—timed, in Georgian years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The step precise of British Grenadiers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To such a nicety,—if score I crowd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If rhythm I break, if beats I vary,—tap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At bar's off-starting turns true thunder-clap,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ever the pace augmented till—what's here?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Titanic striding toward Olympus!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">X</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i26">Fear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No such irreverent innovation! Still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glide on, go rolling, water-like, at will—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nay, were thy melody in monotone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The due three-parts dispensed with!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i28">This alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes of my tiresome talking: Music's throne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seats somebody whom somebody unseats,<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">439</a></span> +<span class="i0">And whom in turn—by who knows what new feats<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of strength,—shall somebody as sure push down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Consign him dispossessed of sceptre, crown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And orb imperial—whereto?—Never dream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That what once lived shall ever die! They seem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead—do they? lapsed things lost in limbo? Bring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our life to kindle theirs, and straight each king<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Starts, you shall see, stands up, from head to foot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No inch that is not Purcell! Wherefore? (Suit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Measure to subject, first—no marching on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet in thy bold C Major, Avison,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As suited step a minute since: no: wait—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the minor key first modulate—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gently with A, now—in the Lesser Third!)<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The really serious conclusion of the poem +amounts to a doctrine of relativity in art and +not only in art but in ethics and religion. It is +a statement in poetry of the prevalent thought +of the nineteenth century, of which the most +widely known exponent was Herbert Spencer. +The form in which every truth manifests +itself is partial and therefore will pass, but the +underlying truth, the absolute which unfolds +itself in form after form is eternal. Every +manifestation in form, according to Browning, +however, has also its infinite value in relation +to the truth which is preserved through it.</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">XII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of all the lamentable debts incurred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By Man through buying knowledge, this were worst:<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">440</a></span> +<span class="i0">That he should find his last gain prove his first<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was futile—merely nescience absolute,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not knowledge in the bud which holds a fruit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haply undreamed of in the soul's Spring-tide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pursed in the petals Summer opens wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Autumn, withering, rounds to perfect ripe,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not this,—but ignorance, a blur to wipe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From human records, late it graced so much.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Truth—this attainment? Ah, but such and such<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beliefs of yore seemed inexpugnable.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><a name='TC_43'></a><ins title="Added beginning quote">"When</ins> we attained them! E'en as they, so will<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This their successor have the due morn, noon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Evening and night—just as an old-world tune<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wears out and drops away, until who hears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smilingly questions—'This it was brought tears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once to all eyes,—this roused heart's rapture once?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So will it be with truth that, for the nonce,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Styles itself truth perennial: 'ware its wile!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knowledge turns nescience,—foremost on the file,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Simply proves first of our delusions."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XIII</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i30">Now—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blare it forth, bold C Major! Lift thy brow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man, the immortal, that wast never fooled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With gifts no gifts at all, nor ridiculed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man knowing—he who nothing knew! As Hope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fear, Joy, and Grief,—though ampler stretch and scope<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They seek and find in novel rhythm, fresh phrase,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were equally existent in far days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Music's dim beginning—even so,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth was at full within thee long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alive as now it takes what latest shape<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">441</a></span> +<span class="i0">May startle thee by strangeness. Truths escape<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time's insufficient garniture; they fade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They fall—those sheathings now grown sere, whose aid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was infinite to truth they wrapped, saved fine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And free through March frost: May dews crystalline<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nourish truth merely,—does June boast the fruit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As—not new vesture merely but, to boot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Novel creation? Soon shall fade and fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Myth after myth—the husk-like lies I call<br /></span> +<span class="i0">New truth's corolla-safeguard: Autumn comes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So much the better!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As to the questions why music does not give +feeling immortality through sound, and why +it should be so ephemeral in its appeal, there +are various things to be said. It is just possible +that it may soon come to be recognized +that the psychic growth of humanity is more +perfectly reflected in music than any where +else. Ephemeralness may be predicated of +culture-music more certainly than of folk-music, +why? Because culture-music often has +occupied itself more with the technique than +with the content, while folk-music, being the +spontaneous expression of feeling must have +content. Folk-music, it is true, is simple, but +if it be genuine in its feeling I doubt whether +it ever loses its power to move. Therefore, +in folk-music is possibly made permanent +simple states of feeling. Now in culture-music, +the development has constantly been<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">442</a></span> +in the direction of the expression of the ultimate +spiritual reality of emotions. Music is +now actually trying to accomplish what Browning +demands of it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i20">"Dredging deeper yet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drag into day,—by sound, thy master-net,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The abysmal bottom-growth, ambiguous thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unbroken of a branch, palpitating<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With limbs' play and life's semblance! There it lies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marvel and mystery, of mysteries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And marvels, most to love and laud thee for!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save it from chance and change we most abhor."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This is true no matter what the emotion +may be. Hate may have its "eidolon" as +well as love. Above all arts, music has the +power of raising evil into a region of the artistically +beautiful. Doubt, despair, passion, become +blossoms plucked by the hand of God +when transmuted in the alembic of the brain +of genius—which is not saying that he need +experience any of these passions himself. In +fact, it is his power of perceiving the eidolon +of beauty in modes of passion or emotion not +his own that makes him the great genius.</p> + +<p>It is doubtless true that whenever in culture-music +there has really been content aroused +by feeling, no matter what the stage of technique +reached, <i>that</i> music retains its power to +move. It is also highly probably that in the<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">443</a></span> +earlier objective phases of music, even the +contemporary audiences were not moved in +the sense that we should be moved to-day. +The audiences were objective also and their +enthusiasm may have been aroused by merely +the imitative aspects of music as Avison called +them. It is certainly a fact that content and +form are more closely linked in music than in +any other art. Suppose, however, we imagine +the development of melody, counterpoint, harmony, +modulation, etc., to be symbolized by +a series of concrete materials like clay bricks, +silver bricks, gold bricks, diamond bricks; +a beautiful thought might take as exquisite +a form in bricks of clay as it would in diamond +bricks, or diamond bricks might be flung together +without any informing thought so that +they would attract only the thoughtless by +their glitter. But it also follows that, with +the increase in the kinds of bricks, there is an +increase in the possibilities for subtleties in +psychic expression, therefore music to-day is +coming nearer and nearer to the spiritual +reality of feeling. It requires the awakened +soul that Maeterlinck talks about, that is, the +soul alive to the spiritual essences of things to +recognize this new realm which composers +are bringing to us in music.</p> + +<p>There are always, at least three kinds of<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">444</a></span> +appreciators of music, those who can see +beauty only in the masters of the past, those +who can see beauty only in the last new composer, +and those who ecstatically welcome +beauty past, present and to come. These +last are not only psychically developed themselves, +but they are able to retain delight in +simpler modes of feeling. They may be +raised to a seventh heaven of delight by a Bach +fugue played on a clavichord by Mr. Dolmetsch, +feeling as if angels were ministering +unto them, or to a still higher heaven of delight +by a Tschaikowsky symphony or a string +quartet of Grieg, feeling that here the seraphim +continually do cry, or they may enter +into the very presence of the most High through +some subtly exquisite and psychic song of an +American composer, for some of the younger +American composers are indeed approaching +"Truth's very heart of truth," in their music.</p> + +<p>On the whole, one gets rather the impression +that the poet has here tackled a problem +upon which he did not have great insight. He +passes from one mood to another, none of +which seem especially satisfactory to himself, +and concludes with one of the half-truths of +nineteenth-century thought. It is true as far +as it goes that forms evolve, and it is a good +truth to oppose to the martinets of settled<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">445</a></span> +standards in poetry, music and painting; it is +also true that the form is a partial expression +of a whole truth, but there is the further truth +that, let a work of art be really a work of +genius, and the form as well as the content +touches the infinite; that is, we have as Browning +says in a poem already <a name='TC_44'></a><ins title="Added comma">quoted,</ins> "Bernard +de Mandeville," the very sun in little, or as he +makes Abt Vogler say of his music, the broken +arc which goes to the formation of the perfect +round, or to quote still another poem of Browning's, +"Cleon," the perfect rhomb or trapezoid +that has its own place in a mosaic pavement.</p> + +<p>The poem closes in a rolicking frame of +mind, which is not remarkably consistent +with the preceding thought, except that the +poet seems determined to get all he can out of +the music of the past by enlivening it with his +own jolly mood. To this end he sets a patriotic +poem to the tune of Avison's march, in +honor of our old friend, Pym. It is a clever +<i>tour de force</i> for the words are made to match +exactly in rhythm and quantity the notes of +the march. Truth to say, the essential goodness +of the tune comes out by means of these +enlivening words.</p> + +<h4 class="sidenote">XIV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i20">Therefore—bang the drums,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blow the trumpets, Avison! March-motive? that's<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">446</a></span> +<span class="i0">Truth which endures resetting. Sharps and flats,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lavish at need, shall dance athwart thy score<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When ophicleide and bombardon's uproar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mate the approaching trample, even now<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Big in the distance—or my ears deceive—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of federated England, fitly weave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">March-music for the Future!<br /></span> +</div></div> +<h4 class="sidenote">XV</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i22">Or suppose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Back, and not forward, transformation goes?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once more some sable-stoled procession—say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From Little-ease to Tyburn—wends its way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of the dungeon to the gallows-tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where heading, hacking, hanging is to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of half-a-dozen recusants—this day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three hundred years ago! How duly drones<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Elizabethan plain-song—dim antique<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grown clarion-clear the while I humbly wreak<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A classic vengeance on thy March! It moans—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Larges and Longs and Breves displacing quite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crotchet-and-quaver pertness—brushing bars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aside and filling vacant sky with stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hidden till now that day returns to night.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figtag"> +<a name="linki_24" id="linki_24"></a> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img class="plain" src="images/illus024.jpg" width="413" height="600" alt="" title="" /> +<p class="caption">Avison's March</p> + +<p class="center"> <a href="music/avison.mid">Listen</a> </p> +</div> + +<h4 class="sidenote">XVI</h4> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nor night nor day: one purpose move us both,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be thy mood mine! As thou wast minded, Man's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cause our music champions: I were loth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To think we cheered our troop to Preston Pans<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ignobly: back to times of England's best!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Parliament stands for privilege—life and limb<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Guards Hollis, Haselrig, Strode, Hampden, Pym,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The famous Five. There's rumor of arrest.<br /></span><span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">447</a></span> +<span class="i0">Bring up the Train Bands, Southwark! They protest:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall we not all join chorus? Hark the hymn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Rough, rude, robustious—homely heart a-throb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Harsh voises a-hallo, as beseems the mob!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How good is noise! what's silence but despair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of making sound match gladness never there?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give me some great glad "subject," glorious Bach,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where cannon-roar not organ-peal we lack!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Join in, give voice robustious rude and rough,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Avison helps—so heart lend noise enough!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fife, trump, drum, sound! and singers then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marching, say "Pym, the man of men!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up, head's, your proudest—out, throats, your loudest—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Somerset's Pym!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Strafford from the block, Eliot from the den,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Foes, friends, shout "Pym, our citizen!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wail, the foes he quelled,—hail, the friends he held,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Tavistock's Pym!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hearts prompt heads, hands that ply the pen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Teach babes unborn the where and when<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—Tyrants, he braved them,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Patriots, he saved them—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Westminster's Pym."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Another English musician, Arthur Chappell, +was the inspiration of a graceful little sonnet +written by the poet in an album which was +presented to Mr. Chappell in recognition of +his popular concerts in London. Browning +was a constant attendant at these. It gives a<span class="pagenum pncolor"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">448</a></span> +true glimpse of the poet in a highly appreciative +mood:</p> + +<h3>THE FOUNDER OF THE FEAST</h3> + +<p class="poemctr">1884</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Enter my palace," if a prince should say—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Feast with the Painters! See, in bounteous row,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They range from Titian up to Angelo!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could we be silent at the rich survey?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A host so kindly, in as great a way<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Invites to banquet, substitutes for show<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sound that's diviner still, and bids us know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bach like Beethoven; are we thankless, pray?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thanks, then, to Arthur Chappell,—thanks to him<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose every guest henceforth not idly vaunts<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Sense has received the utmost Nature grants,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My cup was filled with rapture to the brim,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When, night by night,—ah, memory, how it haunts!—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Music was poured by perfect ministrants,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By Halle, Schumann, Piatti, Joachim."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"> +<span class="label">[1]</span></a> See the Tempest volume in First Folio Shakespeare. +(Crowell & Co.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"> +<span class="label">[2]</span></a> Estes and Lauriat, Boston, Mass.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"> +<span class="label">[3]</span></a> Religious Progress of the Century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"> +<span class="label">[4]</span></a> See Withrow.</p></div> + +</div> + +<div class="trnote"> +<p><b>Transcriber Notes</b></p> +<p>Typographical inconsistencies have been changed and are +<ins title="Was 'hgihligthed'">highlighted</ins> and +listed below.</p> +<p>Archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation are preserved.</p> +<p>Author's punctuation style is preserved, except where noted.</p> +<p class='padtop'><b>Transcriber Changes</b></p> +<p>The following changes were made to the original text:</p> + +<p><a href='#TC_1'>Page 10</a>: Removed extra quote after Keats (What porridge had John <b>Keats?</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_2'>Page 21</a>: Was 'blurrs' (Stray-leaves, fragments, <b>blurs</b> and blottings)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_3'>Page 49</a>: Paragraph continued, no quote needed (<b>Tibullus</b> gives Virgil equal credit for having in his writings touched with telling truth)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_4'>Page 53</a>: Was 'Shakesspeare' (Jonson wrote for the First Folio edition of <b>Shakespeare</b> printed in 1623)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_5'>Page 53</a>: Was 'B. I.' (<b>B. J.</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_6'>Page 53</a>: Added single quotes (Shakespeare's talk in "At the <b>'Mermaid'</b>" grows out of the supposition)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_7'>Page 69</a>: Was 'Shakepeare's' (He thinks the opening Sonnets are to the Earl of Southampton, known to be <b>Shakespeare's</b> patron)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_8'>Page 81</a>: Added comma after Strafford (not Pym, the leader of the people, but <b>Strafford,</b> the supporter of the King.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_9'>Page 85</a>: Added end quote (some half-dozen years of immunity to the 'fretted tenement' of Strafford's 'fiery <b>soul'</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_10'>Page 91</a>: Capitalized King (The <b>King</b>, upon his visit to Scotland, had been shocked)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_11'>Page 100</a>: Was 'Finnees' (Hampden, Hollis, the <em>younger</em> Vane, Rudyard, <b>Fiennes</b> and many of the Presbyterian Party)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_12'>Page 136</a>: Removed extra start quote ("Be my friend <b>Of</b> friends!"—My King! I would have....)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_13'>Page 137</a>: Was 'brillance' (The else imperial <b>brilliance</b> of your mind)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_14'>Page 137</a>: Was 'you way' (If Pym is busy,—<b>you may</b> write of Pym.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_15'>Page 140</a>: Capitalized King (the <b>King</b>, therefore, summoned it to meet on the third of November.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_16'>Page 142</a>: Matching the original: leaving it hyphenated (the greatest in England would have stood <b>dis-covered</b>.')</p> +<p><a href='#TC_17'>Page 172</a>: Was 'Partiot' (The <b>Patriot</b> Pym, or the Apostate Strafford!)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_18'>Page 174</a>: Was 'perfers' (The King <b>prefers</b> to leave the door ajar)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_19'>Page 178</a>: Was 'her's' (I am <b>hers</b> now, and I will die.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_20'>Page 193</a>: Was 'Bethrothal' (Till death us do join past parting—that sounds like <b>Betrothal</b> indeed!)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_21'>Page 200</a>: Was 'canonade' (Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of <b>cannonade</b>: 'Tis when foes are foiled and fighting's finished that vile rains invade)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_22'>Page 203</a>: Inserted stanza (<b>Down</b> I sat to cards, one evening)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_23'>Page 203</a>: Added starting quote (<b>"When</b> he found his voice, he stammered 'That expression once again!')</p> +<p><a href='#TC_24'>Page 204</a>: Added starting quote (<b>'End</b> it! no time like the present!)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_25'>Page 224</a>: Changed comma to period (the morning's lessons conned with the <b>tutor.</b> There, too, it was that he impressed on the lad those maxims)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_26'>Page 236</a>: Added end quote (Why, he makes sure of her—"do you say, <b>yes"</b>— "She'll not say, no,"—what comes it to beside?)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_27'>Page 265</a>: Added stanza ("'<b>I've</b> been about those laces we need for ... never mind!)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_28'>Page 266</a>: Keeping original spelling (With <b>dreriment</b> about, within may life be found)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_29'>Page 267</a>: Added stanza ("'<b>Wicked</b> dear Husband, first despair and then rejoice!)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_30'>Page 276</a>: Was 'checks' (The dryness of "Aristotle's <b>cheeks</b>" is as usual so enlivened by Browning that the fate of Halbert and Hob grows)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_31'>Page 289</a>: Added starting quote (<b>"You</b> wrong your poor disciple.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_32'>Page 290</a>: Removed end quote (Wish I could take you; but fame travels <b>fast</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_33'>Page 291</a>: Was 'aud' (Aunt <b>and</b> niece, you and me.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_34'>Page 294</a>: Was 'oustide' (Such <b>outside</b>! Now,—confound me for a prig!)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_35'>Page 299</a>: Changed singe quote to double (<b>"Not</b> you! But I see.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_36'>Page 315</a>: Was 'Descretion' (To live and die together—for a month, <b>Discretion</b> can award no more!)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_37'>Page 329</a>: Removed starting quote ("He may believe; and yet, and yet <b>How</b> can he?" All eyes turn with interest.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_38'>Page 344</a>: Left in ending quote with unknown start (High Church, and the Evangelicals, or Low <b>Church."</b>)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_39'>Page 370</a>: Changed period to comma (Judgment drops her damning <b>plummet,</b> Pronouncing such a fatal space)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_40'>Page 421</a>: Removed starting quote (<b>About</b> the year 1676, the corporation of Newcastle contributed)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_41'>Page 429</a>: Added period (whose little book and large tune had led him the long way from <b>to-day.</b>")</p> +<p><a href='#TC_42'>Page 437</a>: Was 'irreverant' (gives that up as an <b>irreverent</b> innovation.)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_43'>Page 440</a>: Added beginning quote (<b>"When</b> we attained them!)</p> +<p><a href='#TC_44'>Page 445</a>: Added comma (we have as Browning says in a poem already <b>quoted,</b> "Bernard de Mandeville,")</p> + +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROWNING’S ENGLAND ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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