Edward Berdoe
The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning
Prologue to Ferishtah’s Fancies. This is intended to describe the peculiar construction of the volume of poems. The poet tells his readers how ortolans are eaten in Italy: the birds are stuck on a skewer, some dozen or more, each having interposed between himself and his neighbour on the spit a bit of toast and a strong sage leaf; and the eater is intended to bite through crust, seasoning, and bird altogether, so the lusciousness is curbed and the full flavour of the delicacy is obtained. The poem, we are told, is dished up on the same principle. We have sense, sight and song here, and all is arranged to suit our digestion. We have the fancy or fable, then a dialogue, and a melodious lyric to conclude; so, in the twelve poems, we may see twelve ortolans, with their accompanying toast and sage leaf.
Notes. —Ortolans (Emberiza hortulana): the garden bunting, a native of Continental Europe and Western Asia. It is very much like the yellowhammer. They are netted, and fed in a darkened room with oats and other grain. They soon become very fat, and are then killed for the table; the birds are much prized by gourmands. Gressoney, a village in the valley of the Aosta. Val d’Aosta, valley of the Aosta, in northern Piedmont.
Prologue to Pacchiarotto. The poet is imprisoned on a long summer day with his feet on a grass plot and his eyes on a red brick wall. True, the wall is clothed with a luxuriant creeper through which the bricks laugh, and the robe of green pulsates with life, beautifying the barrier. He reflects that wall upon wall divide us from the subtle thing that is spirit: though cloistered here in the body-barrier, he will hope hard, and send his soul forth to the congenial spirit beyond the ring of neighbours which, like a fence of brick and stone, divides him from his love.
Prospice == “Look forward” (Dramatis Personæ, 1864) was written in the autumn following Mrs. Browning’s death. St. Paul speaks of those “who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”: the author of Prospice and the Epilogue to Asolando was not of this class. Few men have written as nobly as he on the awful “minute of night,” and its fight with the “Arch Fear.” Estimating it at its fullest import, as only a great imaginative mind can do, he is in face of “the black minute” and “the power of the night” – the Mr. Greatheart of the pilgrims to the dark river. Nothing grander has been written on the subject than the poems we have named. In the short poem Prospice is concentrated the strength of a great soul and the courage of one who is prepared for the worst, with eyes unbandaged. As an example of the poet’s power nothing can be finer. The dramatic intensity of the opening lines – the fog, the mist, the snow, and the blasts which indicate the journey’s end, “the post of the foe” – is unsurpassed even by Shakespeare himself. It is a defiance of death, a challenge to battle.
Protus. (Men and Women, 1855; Romances, 1863; Dramatic Romances, 1868.) There is no historical foundation for the poem. In the declining years of the Roman Empire such rapid transitions of power were not uncommon. A baby Emperor Protus is described in some ancient work as absorbing the interest of the whole empire: queens ministered at his cradle. The world rose in war till he was presented at a balcony to pacify it. Greek sculptors and great artists strove to impress his graces on their work, his subjects learned to love the letters of his name; and on the same page of the history it was recorded how the same year a blacksmith’s bastard, by name John the Pannonian, arose and took the crown and wore it for six years, till his sons poisoned him. What became of the young Emperor Protus was then but mere hearsay: perhaps he was permitted to escape; he may have become a tutor at some foreign court, or, as others say, he may have died in Thrace a monk. “Take what I say,” wrote the annotator, “at its worth.”
Puccio. (Luria.) The officer in the Florentine army who was superseded by the Moorish leader Luria.
Queen, The. (In a Balcony.) The middle-aged woman who, though married, falls in love with Norbert, the lover of Constance. She prepares to divorce her husband and marry her officer. When, however, she discovers the truth about the young lovers, she is the prey of jealousy and offended dignity, and the drama closes with ominous prospects for the unfortunate couple.
Queen Worship. Under this title were originally published two poems: i., Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli; and ii., Cristina.
Quietism. See Molinists.
Rabbi Ben Ezra. (Dramatis Personæ, 1864.) The character is historical. The Encyclopædia Britannica gives the name as Abenezra, or Ibn Ezra, the full name being Abraham Ben Meir Ben Ezra; he was also called Abenare or Evenare. “He was one of the most eminent of the Jewish literati of the Middle Ages. He was born at Toledo about 1090, left Spain for Rome about 1140, resided afterwards at Mantua in 1145, at Rhodes in 1155 and 1166, in England in 1159, and died probably in 1168. He was distinguished as a philosopher, astronomer, physician, and poet; but especially as a grammarian and commentator. The works by which he is best known form a series of Commentaries on the books of the Old Testament, which have nearly all been printed in the great Rabbinic Bibles of Bomberg (1525-26), Buxtorf (1618-19), and Frankfurter (1724-27). Abenezra’s commentaries are acknowledged to be of very great value. He was the first who raised biblical exegesis to the rank of a science, interpreting the text according to its literal sense, and illustrating it from cognate languages. His style is elegant, but is so concise as to be sometimes obscure; and he occasionally indulges in epigram. In addition to the commentaries, he wrote several treatises on astronomy or astrology, and a number of grammatical works.” He appears to have possessed extraordinary natural talents; to these he added “indefatigable ardour and industry in the pursuit of knowledge, and he enjoyed besides, in his youth, the advantage of the best teachers, among whom was the Karaite, Japhet Hallevi or Levita, to whom he is believed to have owed his taste for etymological and grammatical investigation, and his preference for the literal to the allegorical and cabalistic interpretation of Scripture. He was afterwards married to Levita’s daughter.” He did not consider his life a fortunate one as men look upon life. “I strive to grow rich,” he said; “but the stars are against me. If I sold shrouds, none would die. If candles were my wares the sun would not set till the day of my death.” The cause of his leaving Spain was an outbreak against the Jews. Hitherto, he said of himself, he had been “as a withered leaf; I roved far away from my native land, from Spain, and went to Rome with a troubled soul.” He seems to have written no books until after his exile, and then he actively engaged in literary work. The most complete catalogue of his works is contained in Furst’s Bibliotheca Judaica (Leipzig, 1849). “Maimonides, his great contemporary, esteemed his writings so highly for learning, judgment, and elegance, that he recommended his son to make them for some time the exclusive object of his study. By Jewish scholars he is preferred, as a commentator, even to Raschi in point of judiciousness and good sense; and in the judgment of Richard Simon, confirmed by De Rossi, he is the most successful of all the rabbinical commentators in the grammatical and literal interpretation of the Scriptures” (Imp. Dict. Biog.). According to Rabbi Ben Ezra, man’s life is to be viewed as a whole. God’s plan in our creation has arranged for youth and age, and no view of life is consistent with it which ignores the work of either. Man is not a bird or a beast, to find joy solely in feasting; care and doubt are the life stimuli of his soul: the Divine spark within us is nearer to God than are the recipients of His inferior gifts. So our rebuffs, our stings to urge us on, our strivings, are the measure of our ultimate success: aspiration, not achievement, divides us from the brute. The body is intended to subserve the highest aims of the soul: it will do so if we live and learn. The flesh is pleasant, and can help soul as that helps the body. Youth must seek its heritage in age; in the repose of age he is to take measures for his last adventure. This he can do with prospect of success proportionate to his use of the past. Wait death without fear, as you awaited age. Sentence will not be passed on mere “work” done: our purposes, thoughts, fancies, all that the coarse methods of human estimates failed to appreciate, these will be put in the diamond scales of God and credited to us. God is the Potter; we are clay, receiving our shape and form and ornament by every turn of the wheel and faintest touch of the Master’s hand. The uses of a cup are not estimated by its foot or by its stem; but by the bowl which presses the Master’s lips to slake the Divine thirst. We cannot see the meaning of the wheel and the touches of the potter’s hand and instrument; we know this, and this only, – our times are in His hand who has planned a perfect cup. – I am indebted to Mr. A. J. Campbell for the following notes, the result of his researches in endeavouring to trace the real Rabbi Ibn Ezra in the poem Rabbi Ben Ezra. His fellow-religionists say of the Rabbi that he was “a man of strongly marked individuality and independence of thought, keen in controversy, yet genial withal; and it is in words such as these that the final estimate of his own people is given. ‘He was the wonder of his contemporaries and of those who came after him … profoundly versed in every branch of knowledge, with unfailing judgment, a man of sharp tongue and keen wit’ (Dr. J. M. Jost, Geschichte des Judenthums, 2nd Abth., p. 419). And again: ‘This man possessed an immense erudition; but his masterly spirit is far more to be wondered at than the mass of knowledge he acquired’ (Id., Geschichte des Israeliten, 6te Theil, p. 162).” Mr. Campbell thinks that the distinctive features of the Rabbi of the poem were drawn by Mr. Browning from the writings of the real Rabbi, and that the philosophy which he puts into the mouth of Rabbi Ben Ezra was actually that of Rabbi Ibn Ezra. “It was no worldly success that gave peace to his age; but he had won a spiritual calm, no longer troubled by the doubts that at one time or another must come to all who think. ‘While this remarkable man was roving about from east to west and from north to south, his mind remained firm in the principles he had once for all accepted as true… His advocacy of freedom of thought and research, his views concerning angels, concerning the immortality of the soul, are the same in the earlier commentaries … as with [those] which were written later; the same in his grammatical works as in his theological discourses’” (Dr. M. Friedlander, Essays on Ibn Ezra, Preface and p. 139). “Our times are in His hand,” says Browning’s Rabbi; so, too, Ibn Ezra, in a poem quoted by Dr. Michael Sachs (Die Religiose Poesie der Juden in Spanien, p. 117) – “In deiner Hand liegt mein Geschichte.” Says Dr. Friedlander, “He had very little money, and very much wit, and was a born foe to all superficiality. So he had spent his youth in preparing himself for his future career by collecting and storing up materials, in cultivating the garden of his mind so that it might at a later period produce the choicest and most precious fruits” (Ibn Ezra’s Comment., Isaiah, Introduction by Dr. Friedlander). Mr. Campbell says that the keynote of Ibn Ezra’s teaching is that the essential life of man is the life of the soul. “Man has the sole privilege of becoming superior to the beast and the fowl, according to the words ‘He teacheth him to raise himself above the cattle of the earth’” (Ibn Ezra, Comment., Job xxxv. 11). “He ascribes to man’s soul a triple nature, or three faculties roughly corresponding to the division of St. Paul of man into body, soul and spirit. The soul of man, he holds, can exist with or without the body, and did, in fact, pre-exist” (Friedlander, Essays on Ibn Ezra, pp. 27-8). This is Browning’s theory in verse 27. In Browning’s poem the Rabbi describes man’s life as the lone way of the soul (verse 8). Ibn Ezra, in his Commentary, Psalm xxii. 22, says, “The soul of man is called lonely because it is separated during its union with the body from the universal soul, into which it is again received when it departs from its earthly companion.” When Rabbi Ben Ezra, in Mr. Browning’s poem, speaks of the body at its best projecting the soul on its way (verse 8), he is uttering the thought of Ibn Ezra, who says, “It is well known that, as long as the bodily desires are strong, the soul is weak and powerless against them, because they are supported by the body and all its powers: hence those who only think of eating and drinking will never be wise. By the alliance of the intellect with the animal soul [sensibility, the higher quality of the body] the desires [the lower quality or appetite of the body] are subordinated, and the eyes of the soul are opened a little, so as to comprehend the knowledge of material bodies; but the soul is not yet prepared for pure knowledge, on account of the animal soul which seeks dominion and produces all kinds of passion; therefore, after the victory gained with the support of the animal soul over the desires, it is necessary that the soul should devote itself to wisdom, and seek its support for the subjection of the passions, in order to remain under the sole control of knowledge” (Ibn Ezra, Comment., Eccl. vii. 3). Mr. Campbell has shown how much Mr. Browning has assimilated Ibn Ezra’s philosophy in many other points in the poem. (For an extended explanation of the poem see my Browning’s Message to his Time, pp. 157-72.)
Rawdon Brown. “Mr. Rawdon Brown, an Englishman of culture, well known to visitors in Venice, died in that city in the summer of 1883. He went to Venice for a short visit, with a definite object in view, and ended by staying forty years. During one of his rare runs to England, I met him at Ruskin’s at Denmark Hill, somewhere about 1860. He englished, abstracted, and calendared for our Record Office, a large number of the reports of the Venetian Ambassadors in England in the days of Elizabeth, etc. His love for Venice was so great, that some one invented about him the story which Browning told in the following sonnet, which was printed by Browning’s permission, and that of Mrs. Bronson – at whose request it was written – in the Century Magazine ‘Bric-à-Brac’ for February 1884” (Dr. Furnivall in Browning Society’s Papers, vol. i., p. 132*).
“Tutti ga i so gusti, e mi go i mii.” —Venetian Saying.
(Tr. Everybody follows his taste, and I follow mine.)
Sighed Rawdon Brown: “Yes, I’m departing, Toni!
I needs must, just this once before I die,
Revisit England: Anglus Brown am I,
Although my heart’s Venetian. Yes, old crony —
Venice and London – London’s ‘Death the bony’
Compared with Life – that’s Venice! What a sky,
A sea, this morning! One last look! Good-bye.
Cà Pesaro! No, lion – I’m a coney
To weep – I’m dazzled; ’tis that sun I view
Rippling the – the —Cospetto, Toni! Down
With carpet-bag, and off with valise-straps!
Bella Venezia, non ti lascio più!”
Nor did Brown ever leave her: well, perhaps
Browning, next week, may find himself quite Brown!
Nov. 28th, 1883. Robert Browning.
Reason and Fancy. The discussion between Reason and Fancy is in La Saisiaz.
Red Cotton Night-cap Country, or Turf and Towers (1873). This may be termed a pathological poem, a study of suicidal mania and religious insanity in a young man of dissipated habits whose “mind” was scarcely worthy of the poet’s analysis. The title given to the work was so bestowed in consequence of Mr. Browning having met Miss Thackeray in a part of Normandy which she jokingly christened “White Cotton Night-cap Country,” on account of its sleepiness. Mr. Browning having heard the tragedy which his story tells, said “Red Cotton Night-cap Country” would be the more appropriate term. The alternative title, “Turf and Towers,” is much more likely to have been suggested by the scenery of the place than by the more fanciful reasons which have sometimes been imagined for it. The scene of the story is in the department of Calvados, close to the city of Caen. The whole country is very interesting, from its historical associations and architectural remains, and the scenery is exceedingly beautiful. M. de Caumont, the distinguished archæologist of Caen, enumerates nearly seventy specimens of the Norman architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries existing in it. Battlemented walls furnished with towers, picturesque chateaux, old churches and tall spires in a landscape of luxuriant pastures and grey and purple hills, justified the title “Turf and Towers,” even apart from the particular circumstances connected with the story. Mr. Browning visited St. Aubin’s in 1872, and was interested in the singular history of the family which owned Clairvaux, a restored priory in the locality. Léonce Miranda, the son and heir of a wealthy Paris jeweller, led a dissipated life in his times of leisure, but industriously pursued his calling in strictly business hours. After devoting his attentions to a number of light-o’-loves, he one day fell in love with an adventuress, one Clara Mulhausen, who succeeded in securing him in her toils. As she was already married, the connection was of a nature to be carried on in seclusion, and the jeweller accordingly left a manager in charge of his business, retiring with the woman to Clairvaux, where his father had already purchased property. For five years the couple lived together in what was considered to be happiness. Then Miranda was suddenly called to Paris to account to his mother for his extravagance: he had spent large sums in building operations, having amongst other things erected a Belvedere (a sort of tower above the roof built for viewing the scenery). He so felt the reproaches of his mother that he attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Seine. He was saved, however, and having been restored by Clara’s nursing, was convalescent when he was again urgently summoned to his mother, only to find her dead. He was told that his conduct was responsible for his mother’s death; and his relatives, careless of the consequences to a mind so unhinged as Miranda’s, spared him none of their upbraidings. All this had the anticipated effect: he gave up the bulk of his property to his relatives, reserving only enough for his decent support and that of Clara. When the day arrived for the legal arrangements to be completed, he was found in a room reading and burning in the fire a number of letters. He had afterwards, so it was discovered, placed a number of the papers in a bag and held it in the fire till his hands were destroyed, at the same time crying, “Burn, burn and purify my past.” If anything more than what had already happened were necessary to prove the man’s insanity, the fact that he inflicted this terrible injury upon himself was sufficient evidence on the point. He declared that he was working out his salvation, and had to be dragged from the room protesting that the sacrifice was incomplete: “I must have more hands to burn!” He lay in a fevered condition for three months, raving against the temptress. When he was sufficiently restored to health he took her back to his heart, saying however, “Her sex is changed: this is my brother – he will tend me now.” He disposed of the jeweller’s shop to his relatives, and went back to Clairvaux with the woman. At this point Mr. Browning brings the would-be suicide under the influence of religion; the man devoted his substance liberally to the poor, and made many gifts to the Church: it was “ask and have” with this kind Miranda, who was striving to save his soul by acts of charity. It happened that there was a pilgrimage chapel of La Déliverande near Clairvaux, called in the poem, rather oddly, “The Ravissante.” The Norman sailors and peasants have resorted to this place of devotion for the last eight hundred years. Murray says: “It is a small Norman edifice. The statue of the Virgin, which now commands the veneration of the faithful, was resuscitated in the reign of Henry I. from the ruins of a previous chapel destroyed by the Northmen, through the agency of a lamb constantly grubbing up the earth over the spot where it lay. Such is the tenor of the legend. The reputation of the image for performing miracles, especially in behalf of sailors, has been maintained from that time to the present.” Of course Miranda paid many visits to Our Lady’s shrine; many prayers had been heard and answered there, – why should not La Déliverande help him? One splendid day in spring he mounts the stairs of his view-tower, and, as the poet imagines, addresses the Virgin in exalted phrase. He declares that he burned his hands off because she had prompted, “Purchase now by pain pleasure hereafter in the world to come.” He had lightened his purse even if his soul still retained forbidden treasure, and “Where is the reward?” He reproaches Our Lady that she has done nothing to help him. She is Queen of Angels: will she suspend for him the law of gravity if he casts himself from the tower? He tells her it will restore religion to France, to the world, if this miracle is worked. He sees Our Lady smile assent: he will trust himself. He springs from the balustrade, and lies stone dead on the turf the next moment. “Mad!” exclaimed a gardener who saw him fall. “No! Sane,” says Mr. Browning. “He put faith to the proof. He believed in Christianity for its miracles, not for its moral influence on the heart of man; better test such faith at once – ‘kill or cure.’” By a later will Miranda had bequeathed all his property to the Church, reserving sufficient for the support of Clara. Of course the relatives interfered, with the idea of securing the property for themselves. This led to a trial, which was decided in the lady’s favour, and she was châtelaine of Clairvaux where Browning saw her in 1872. The real names of the persons and places are not given in the poem, and there is no good purpose to be served by giving a key to them.
Notes. – [The pages are those of the first edition of the Poem.] Page 2, “Un-Murrayed”: unfrequented by tourists who carry Murray’s or Bædeker’s guide-books. p. 4, Saint-Rambert == St. Aubin, a pretty bathing-place in Calvados, Normandy; Joyous-Gard: the estate given by King Arthur to Sir Launcelot of the Lake for defending Guinevere. p. 6, Rome’s Corso: the principal modern thoroughfare of Rome is the Corso. p. 18, Guarnerius, Andreas, and his son Giuseppe, early Italian violin makers; Straduarius, Antonio: a famous violin maker of Cremona (1649-1737). p. 19, Corelli (1653-1713): a celebrated violin player and composer; cushat-dove == the ring-dove or wood-pigeon; giga == gigg: a jig, a dance; Saraband: a grave Spanish dance in triple time. p. 23, “Quod semel, semper, et ubique”: what was once, and is always and everywhere. This would seem to be intended for the celebrated rule of St. Vincent of Lerins as to the Catholic Faith – “Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ad omnibus creditum est. Hoc est etenim vere proprieque catholicum” (Comm., c. 3) – that is to say, the Catholic doctrine is that which has been believed in all places, at all times, and by all the faithful. p. 24, Rahab-thread: see Joshua ii. 18. p. 25, Octroi: a tax levied at the gate of Continental cities on food, etc., brought within the walls. p. 29, The Conqueror’s country: Normandy, the native country of William the Conqueror. p. 30, Lourdes and La Salette: celebrated places of pilgrimage in France. p. 37, Abaris: a priest of Apollo; he rode through the air, invisible, on a golden arrow, curing diseases and giving oracles. p. 42, Madrilene, of Madrid. p. 73, Father Secchi: the great Jesuit astronomer of Rome. p. 83, Acromia: in anatomy, the outer extremities of the shoulder-blades. p. 84, Sganarelle: the hero of Molière’s comedy Le Mariage Forcé. A man aged about fifty-four proposes to marry a fashionable young woman, but he has certain scruples which, however, are allayed by the cudgel of the lady’s brother. p. 87, Caen: an ancient and celebrated city of Normandy. p. 88, “Inveni ovem [meam] quæ perierat”: “I have found my sheep which was lost” (St. Luke xv. 6). p. 108, Favonian breeze: the west wind, favourable to vegetation; Auster: an unhealthy wind, the same as the Sirocco. p. 140, L’Ingegno, Andrea Luigi. p. 141, Boileau: the great French poet, born at Paris 1636; Louis Quatorze: Louis XIV., king of France; Pierre Corneille: the great dramatic poet (1606-84), born at Rouen. p. 177, “Religio Medici”: a doctor’s religion; the title of the celebrated book of Sir Thomas Browne, a devout Christian writer; the new religion of the hyper-scientific school of doctors is mere materialism. p. 193, Rouher, Eugene: French politician (1814-84); Œcumenical Assemblage at Rome: a general or universal council of the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. p. 202, fons et origo: the fount and origin. p. 203, “On Christmas morn – three Masses”: the first is the midnight mass, the second at break of day, the third is the Christmas morning mass. p. 204, Cistercian monk: of an Order established at Citeaux, in France, by Robert, abbot of Moleme. The Order is very severe; but its rule is similar to that of the Benedictines; Capucin: a monk of the Order of St. Francis; Benedict: St. Benedict, “the most illustrious name in the history of Western monasticism”: he was born at Nursia, in Umbria, about the year 480; Scholastica: St. Scholastica was the sister of St. Benedict: she established a convent near Monte Cassino. p. 210, Star of Sea: Stella Maris, one of the titles of Our Lady, because mare means “the sea” in Latin. p. 229, Commines (more correctly Comines): Philippe de Comines (1445-1509), called “the father of modern history.” Hallam says that his Memoirs “almost make an epoch in modern history.” p. 234, “Queen of Angels”: one of the titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary. p. 235, “Legations to the Pope”: ambassadors or envoys to the Pope of Rome. p. 238, Alacoque: the Ven. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who founded the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in France; “Renan burns his book”: Ernest Renan, born 1823, the famous French philologist and historian, author of the Rationalistic Life of Jesus, which of course he did not burn! “Veuillot burns Renan”: Louis Veuillot (1813-83), a celebrated French writer of the Ultramontane school, who would gladly have suppressed Renan if he had had the opportunity; “The Universe”: the famous Catholic journal edited by Veuillot. p. 245, Lignum vitæ: Guaiacum wood, used in rheumatism, etc.; grains of Paradise: an aromatic drug with carminative properties, like ginger. p. 268, “Painted Peacock”: the butterfly whose scientific name is the Vanessa io; Brimstone-wing: the species of butterfly so called from its bright yellow colour. Its scientific name is the Rhodocera Rhamna.
Religious Belief of Browning. There was little or no dogmatism in Browning’s religious faith. He was at least a Theist. “He believed in Soul, and was very sure of God.” Whether the orthodox would consider him a Christian in the sense of the old churches is a matter we cannot discuss here; in the widest sense, however, he has given abundant evidence that he was a Christian. Those who maintain him to be a believer in the Divinity of Christ ground their opinion on such poems as A Death in the Desert and The Epistle of Karshish– which, nevertheless, it is objected, are merely dramatic utterances, and cannot fairly be held to set forth the poet’s own convictions; to such an opponent I should be content to point to the following letter, published just after the poet’s death in The Nonconformist, and reprinted in the Transactions of the Browning Society. It was written by Browning in 1876 to a lady, who, believing herself to be dying, wrote to thank him for the help she had derived from his poems, mentioning particularly Rabbi Ben Ezra and Abt Vogler, and giving expression to the deep satisfaction of her mind that one so highly gifted with genius should hold, as Browning held, to the great truths of our religion, and to a belief in the glorious unfolding and crowning of life in the world beyond the grave: – “19, Warwick Crescent, W., May 11th, 1876. Dear Friend, – It would ill become me to waste a word on my own feelings, except inasmuch as they can be common to us both in such a situation as you described yours to be – and which, by sympathy, I can make mine by the anticipation of a few years at most. It is a great thing – the greatest – that a human being should have passed the probation of life, and sum up its experience in a witness to the power and love of God. I dare congratulate you. All the help I can offer, in my poor degree, is the assurance that I see ever more reason to hold by the same hope – and that, by no means in ignorance of what has been advanced to the contrary; and for your sake I would wish it to be true that I had so much of ‘genius’ as to permit the testimony of an especially privileged insight to come in aid of the ordinary argument. For I know I myself have been aware of the communication of something more subtle than a ratiocinative process, when the convictions of ‘genius’ have thrilled my soul to its depth, as when Napoleon, shutting up the New Testament, said of Christ – ‘Do you know that I am an understander of men? Well, He was no man!’ (‘Savez-vous que je me connais en hommes? Eh bien, celui-là ne fut pas un homme.’) Or as when Charles Lamb, in a gay fancy with some friends as to how he and they would feel if the greatest of the dead were to appear suddenly in flesh and blood once more – on the final suggestion, ‘And if Christ entered this room?’ changed his manner at once, and stuttered out – as his manner was when moved, ‘You see – if Shakespeare entered, we should all rise; if He appeared, we must kneel.’ Or, not to multiply instances, as when Dante wrote what I will transcribe from my wife’s Testament – wherein I recorded it fourteen years ago – ‘Thus I believe, thus I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that from this life I shall pass to another better, there, where that lady lives, of whom my soul was enamoured.’ Dear Friend, I may have wearied you in spite of your good will. God bless you, sustain, and receive you! Reciprocate this blessing with yours affectionately, Robert Browning.” The Agnostic school is indefatigable in endeavouring to secure Browning as a great representative of their “know-nothingism,” whatever that may be. They might as reasonably claim Robert Browning on the side of Agnosticism as John Henry Newman on the side of Atheism, which also certain wiseacres in their crass hebetude or vain affectation have pretended to do.
