  LECTURE IV No poems of Browning’s have probably excited more widely-spread interest (the question of admiration being set aside) than those which we have before us for consideration in this and the two following Lectures. The interest so excited is due, one believes, less to artistic merit than to the character of the subjects treated—unfailing in their attraction for the speculative tendencies of the human intellect. The form in which they now make appeal is no longer identical with that in which they presented themselves when Christmas Eve and Easter Day appeared in the middle of the last century: fifty years hence the embodiment of thoughts thus suggested may well differ yet more widely from that obtaining at the present day. Nevertheless, beneath all external variations, that which is essentially permanent remains: and in this enduring interest of subject inevitably subsists the immortality of that literary work, whether poetry or prose, in which it has found, or is destined to find, a vehicle of expression. If it were permissible to suggest a division where the author clearly intended no division should be, it might on the foregoing hypothesis be reasonable to prognosticate for Easter Day a more enduring interest than for the companion poem; since, whilst the The all-stupendous tale,—that Birth, Thus in Easter Day is to be found no trace of that “easy tolerance” in matters spiritual which suggests itself—only, however, to be finally rejected—to the soliloquist of Christmas Eve as the result of his night’s experiences. But a comparison of the two poems will be more satisfactorily made after a brief separate consideration of each in this and Lecture V. Lecture VI will be mainly occupied with a discussion of criticisms relating to both, as well as to the question of vital importance touching Browning’s own position—How far must the conclusions of either or both be regarded as dramatic in character? From a merely artistic point of view Christmas Eve presents its own peculiar interest. Having once read it, in whatever degree our minds may have become impressed by its theological or dogmatic arguments, externals have been so forcibly presented, that Zion Chapel and the common outside “at the edge of which the Chapel stands,” always thereafter bear for us a curious kind of familiarity similar to that which attaches itself to remembered haunts of our childish days. The first three Sections of the Poem contain what may certainly be classed amongst the most grimly realistic descriptions in English literature. It may, indeed, be objected that these opening stanzas are perilously realistic in character where poetry is concerned, fitted rather for the pages of Dickens or of Gissing than for their present position.
Then “the many-tattered little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother,” “the sickly babe with its spotted face,” and the Tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief, In short, read the second Section in its entirety. Such description is certainly not “poetic.” But Browning knew well what he was doing. Influenced doubtless by his love of striking effects, we cannot but feel that he makes the unpleasing characteristics of the congregation assembled within the walls of Zion Chapel the more repellant, that the transition from the mundane to the divine may strike the reader with greater force. From the flock sniffing Its dew of Hermon the soliloquist of the poem calls us to follow him as he “flings out of the little chapel”; and with Section IV we have passed into the boundless waste of the common, where is A lull in the rain, a lull The scene thus outlined prepares us for the culmination of Section VI. For lo, what think you? suddenly So the poet leads us to the climax—to the silence awaiting the answer to the speaker’s query Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge? (l. 400.) Then follow Sections VII and VIII, revealing the vision. The too-much glory, as it seemed, But the writer keeps strictly within the bounds of reverence: I saw the back of him, no more. (ll. 424-432.) This treatment in itself may, I believe, be not unjustly taken as indicative of Browning’s devotional attitude towards the subject. When, in Section IX, the face is turned upon the narrator, he but records So lay I, saturate with brightness. (l. 491.) In addition to this vividness of contrast between the first three and the following Sections, the realistic force with which the poem opens has a yet further result. The uncompromising character of the realism opens the way for a more readily accorded credence in the subsequent events of the night. He who describes the vision has likewise seen the congregation in Zion Chapel. When he “flung out” of the meeting-house, his mood was certainly not indicative of imaginative idealism or mystic contemplation. He is in a frame of mind little likely to prove unduly susceptible to supernatural influences. A realization of this mental attitude is essential to a fair estimate of the line of argument throughout the poem. I. Sections I, II, and III are thus occupied with the description of the Chapel and the congregation gathered within its walls, of the preacher and the spiritual food whereby he proposes to sustain the members of his flock. And notice: the speaker has entered perforce, driven within the sacred precincts by the violence of the elements. He is an outsider, and, as such, prepared to assume the attitude of critic rather than of sympathizer. And the severity of the criticism is intensified by physical and intellectual repulsion at the scene before him. Hence he recognizes all that is peculiarly objectionable in the special aspect of non-conformity presented within the Chapel. He perceives at once (1) “the trick of exclusiveness,” and the consequent self-satisfaction induced; and (2) the “fine irreverence” of the preacher in presenting the “treasure hid in the Holy Bible” as “a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance, not improved by [his] The men, and [that] wisdom shall die with [them], Later, when freed from the physical irritation attendant on proximity to this special collection of representatives of humanity, his prejudices are sufficiently modified to allow of the perception that some explanation of this exclusiveness is possible. These people have really felt, no doubt, The speaker is quite willing (when at a distance from the Chapel) to admit this right of attempting a reproduction of that mood in which the original conversion may have been effected. Nevertheless, he will not admit the right of the flock to shut the gate of the fold in the face of any outsider seeking entrance. Still Mine’s the same right with your poorest and sickliest In Johannes Agricola in Meditation this personal satisfaction of the Calvinist is presented in a still more extreme form. Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, I have God’s warrant, could I blend Thus happiness assured, inevitable, for the elect. For those excluded from the sacred number— I gaze below on hell’s fierce bed, It is difficult to believe that the author of this poem, at any rate, would willingly have identified himself with the Calvinistic creed. To Caliban, a creature so largely devoid of moral sense, we have, indeed, seen him assigning a belief closely akin to that involved in the meditations of Johannes, when he refers to the difference of the fates irrevocably allotted by Setebos to himself and to Prospero; both theories in curious contrast with the reflections of the Book of Wisdom: “For thou lovest all the things that are, and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made: for never wouldest thou have made anything, if thou hadst hated it.... But thou sparest all, for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls.”[62] Thus is explained “the trick of exclusiveness.” What of the “fine irreverence” of the preacher? Here the success of ’Tis the taught already that profits by teaching. (l. 255.) The method employed is only “abundantly convincing” to “those convinced before.” To the critic possessed of unprejudiced intellectual faculties, the arbitrary collection of texts and chapters brought into connection by the capricious choice of the preacher is deserving of condemnation as a misrepresentation of the truth, by “provings and parallels twisted and twined,” which would draw from even the more obvious Old Testament narrative proof of some doctrinal mystery of his creed—that Pharaoh received a demonstration By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three, Those of us who are inclined to reproach Browning for the severity of the condemnation of Roman Catholic ritual ascribed to the soliloquist in Section XI will do well to read again Sections I to IV, which assuredly place the service of Zion Chapel in a far less attractive light than that thrown upon the ceremony in progress beneath the dome of St. Peter’s. II. Thus the listener passes from the confines of the Chapel to the limitless expanse of the common without: and the change in externals is indicative also of that within. Whilst discerning the errors of preacher and congregation, the critic has been blinded to the fact that he, too, is equally removed from the spirit of love designed to prove the inspiring principle of all forms of Christianity, however crude their mode of expression. The soothing influence of Nature to which he has ever been peculiarly susceptible, causes at once
So he stands, recalling the visions of youth, when he “looked to these very skies, probing their immensities,” and “found God there, his visible power.” The power was unquestionable, a mere response to the evidence of the senses; but reason, coming to the aid of sight, pointed to the existence also of Love, “the nobler dower.” The deduction is logical, since the absence of Love at once imposes limitations to power otherwise apparently infinite. The craving for love existent within the human heart demands satisfaction, and if in this direction the Deity is unable to satisfy the needs of his creatures, man here surpasses his maker, the creature the creator. Irresponsible power, not comprehensive of love, is of the character of that exercised by Setebos according to the theory of Caliban. Here man is seen endowed with gifts of heart and brain, to exercise through his own will, but for the glory of his creator “as a mere machine could never do.” Power (in this place synonymous with force combined with knowledge) may advance by degrees, not so Love. Love does not admit of measurement, since it is by nature infinite. As with eternity, so with Love. By no relative estimate of time can any possible realization of eternity be approached; the sole result of any such attempt at exposition being necessarily conducive to a wholly erroneous impression on the mind, since that which is in its essence infinite admits of no defined measure. Thus infinite Love remains infinite in spite of human limitations. Whilst absolute truth remains, though the revelation to man is gradual, so does Love remain unimpaired, though man may profit by or abuse it. ’Tis not a thing to bear increase Thus S. Augustine: “Do heaven and earth then contain Thee, since Thou fillest them?... The vessels which are full of Thee do not confine Thee, though they should be shattered, Thou wouldest not be poured out.”[63] To sum up: Where Power alone was at first discernible, in the wonderful care manifested in the smallest creation, “in the leaf, in the stone,” the work of Love eventually became equally clear. For a similar expression of Browning’s more immediately personal faith we have only to turn to his latest published work, The Reverie of Asolando. From the first Power was—I knew. In simple faith in this all-prevailing Providence, in a recognition of the immanence of the Divine Love, the critic of Zion Chapel believes himself to have found the highest form of worship. Before the night is ended he is, however, to learn differently. The Vision of Sections VII to IX renders still more forcible the revelation already begun with the escape from the Chapel—that the Love which may be duly worshipped alone in spirit and in truth yet recognizes the feeblest manifestation of either in the worshipper: and that the nearest approach to union with the Divine Love is to be sought in a fuller and more immediate response to the human. And it is worthy of notice that the Vision does not reveal itself within the confines of Zion Chapel, the abode of religious exclusiveness and intolerance; only when the freer atmosphere of Nature has been reached. In expectation And here is to be found all that was wanting to the bare whitewashed interior of “Mount Zion” with its “lath and plaster entry,” with “the forms burlesque, uncouth” of its worship. Here the vast building Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding, In place of the “snuffle” of the Methodist congregation and the “immense stupidity” of the utterances of the preacher is the silence which may be felt of that solemn moment preceding the elevation, when “the organ blatant holds his breath.... As if God’s hushing finger grazed him.” (ll. 574-575.) Whatever the sympathies of spectator or author, no lines in the entire poem are more impressive for the reader than those which follow: Earth breaks up, time drops away, The conviction is almost inevitable that here something beyond even the power of dramatic genius has to be reckoned with; that some spirit more nearly akin to intimate personal sympathy served as inspiration of this passage. Carried away by the infection of the prevailing enthusiasm, the spectator questions as to the cause which has led him to remain without upon the threshold-stone of the cathedral, whilst He who has led him hither is within. And the answer which Reason returns is, that whilst the Divine Wisdom may be capable of discerning the faith and love existent beneath the outward imagery, yet with “mere man” the case is otherwise; hence for him to disregard the inward promptings of his nature is dangerous to his spiritual welfare. Thus the decision: I, a mere man, fear to quit For him to whom the bare walls of Zion Chapel have proved repellant, the glories of St. Peter’s may conceivably be fatally attractive in their appeal to the senses: such, reasonably or unreasonably, is at least the belief of the soliloquist. The argument of this eleventh Section is perhaps the most difficult to follow satisfactorily of all those leading to the ultimate choice of creed. Before attempting to estimate the worth of (1) The spectator, at first struck by the glory of outward display as a means of still imposing upon the world “Rome’s gross yoke,” is yet led, through proximity to the Divine Presence, whilst seeing the error, “above the scope of error” to realize the love. And further, to admit (2) that the love inspiring the worshippers of St. Peter’s on this Christmas Eve of 1849 was also “the love of those first Christian days,” a love which did not hesitate to sacrifice all which might interpose between itself and the Divine Love whence it emanated. When The antique sovereign Intellect Subsequently followed all the wealth of poetry and rhetoric, of sculpture and painting sometime the pride of the classical world. Love, and it was Love which was acting, drew her children aside from these intellectual and sensuous gratifications, and pointed to the Crucified. She thus, says the soliloquist, had demanded of her votaries vast sacrifices which might reasonably have been held essential in the early days of Christianity. We have already seen, indeed, how empty of ultimate satisfaction had been these same intellectual pleasures to Cleon: how obviously light would have been, to him, the sacrifice involved in an acceptance of any faith which should afford a definite and reasonable hope for a future state of existence: how small a price would have been the loss of life temporal in view of the gain of life eternal. (3) But the critic, whilst admitting the sublimity of the sacrifice of the first century of the Christian era, deprecates the demand made for its repetition in the nineteenth. It is How far is he justified in such criticism? Unquestionably he is prejudiced. There exists an unconscious mental bias towards that creed which he is represented as finally accepting; and there is little doubt that it is Browning’s intention to expose the prejudice. The failure in appreciation of the ceremonial at St. Peter’s arises from inability to apprehend beauty in the outward accessories of the service of which he is witness. To his nature it would appear that the demand upon the sensuous side is not so strong as he imagines when he expresses the fear of entering the cathedral and joining the worshipping crowd. He seems, moreover, to ignore, or to pass over lightly, the productions of Christian Love, surely, from that music’s lingering, He ignores, too, the value of symbolism in the later mocking allusion to this experience as “buffoonery—posturings and petticoatings.” In the main line of thought, however, beginning with Section XI, and developed more fully in XII, is treated no imaginary danger, but that bound inevitably to attend on any religious system in which authority is paramount. The error attributed to the advocates of the Roman Catholic creed is that of rendering the head too completely subservient to the heart. Faith cannot indeed be acquired by any considerations of logic; nevertheless, there is no necessity that Reason and Faith should prove antagonistic forces. To the brain, as well as to the heart, must be allowed scope for development. Hence the speaker represents that Church, in which freedom of thought is limited, as interposing as an intermediary between the conscience and the Divine influence. Such Church he regards as having devoted its energies to the development of a single element or faculty of human nature to the exclusion or limitation of the rest. Nevertheless, in one direction there has been development to an extraordinary degree: and Browning himself, as we have good reason to know, would have been unlikely to criticize adversely this whole-hearted devotion to a cause. For illustration the soliloquist employs that of the sculptor who, without calculating the dimensions of his marble, devotes his energies to the production of a perfect head and shoulders only. This, though necessarily unfinished in actual IV. With Section XIII the critic of Zion Chapel passes once more into the night in search of satisfaction for those demands of the intellect which have been left unanswered at St. Peter’s; and in Section XIV he is represented as finding that which he seeks. Love and Faith to the exclusion of intellectual development he has left in the cathedral at Rome; Intellect without Love he meets in the Lecture Hall at GÖttingen. Believing himself to have learned the lesson that wherever even nominal followers of Christ are to be found, there, too, is the Divine Presence, he is now “cautious” how he “suffers to slip” The chance of joining in fellowship Hence, entering the Hall, he follows the course of the consumptive Lecturer’s reasoning on “the myth of Christ.” As to this fable which “Millions believe to the letter” he (the Lecturer) proposes to attempt the work of discrimination between truth and legend. A Man!—a right true man, however, Moreover Was he not surely the first to insist on As it were in startling comment upon the assertion of this natural sovereignty, the Professor’s further speech is interrupted by a fit of coughing, and the listener avails himself of the opportunity thus offered to leave the Hall. Once more free to breathe the outer air his critical powers reassert themselves, and he sees from a point of observation, sufficiently removed, the relative effects of the excesses of the most widely differing forms of Christianity and of that form of belief or of scepticism which denies the divinity of the founder of the creed. His decision is given in favour of superstition as opposed to scepticism. Truth’s atmosphere may grow mephitic Then follows the criticism of the Critic. (1) Intellect? Is the possession of pure intellect to be accounted cause for worship? Even so, others have taught morality as Christ taught it, with the difference (and this surely an advantage from the critic’s standpoint) that these teachers have failed to assert of themselves that to which Christ laid claim on his own behalf: that, He, the sage and humble, (2) Worship of the intellect being thus disallowed, what then of the moral worth of the Man Christ as admitted by the Lecturer? Is mere virtue, however great in degree, sufficient to claim as of right for its possessor the submission of his fellow men? Perfection of moral character being allowed, is this adequate reason that the Christ should be held supreme ruler of the race? To answer the question satisfactorily one of two theories must be accepted: either “goodness” is of human “invention” or it is a divine gift freely bestowed. If the first, the Professor’s listener holds that “worship were that man’s fit requital” who should have proved himself capable of exhibiting in his own life, for the first time in the world’s history, that which “goodness” really is. Recognizing, however, the incontrovertible fact that moral worth was present in the world prior to the foundation of Christianity, the so-called “invention” of goodness resolves itself into a mere matter of definition, and the adjustment of names to qualities already existent. In this case he who has achieved this work is no more deserving of worship as the originator or creator of goodness than is Harvey to be adjudged inventor of the circulation of the blood. One is inclined here to question whether the speaker is not carrying his argument Is there any point at which the faith of the Christian may come into contact with that of him who, whilst calling himself a follower of Christ, by a denial of His divinity refuses credence to a direct assertion on the part of his leader? To the Christian the main proof of divine inspiration is the spark of divine light kindled within the human breast, that which supplies motive for action, which instigates to practical application of the good already recognized as good by the intelligence: not identical with conscience (as is clear from Whom do you count the worst man upon earth? To know is not to do: a distinction akin to that drawn in the Epistle of James[64] between intellectual credence and living faith—between belief, the result of the acceptance of certain facts making inevitable appeal to the intellect, and faith inspiring life, the ultimate results of which are manifest in action. This distinction we find again strikingly presented in parabolic form in Shah Abbas of Ferishtah’s Fancies. The most marked lines of divergence between listener and lecturer would appear then to be that mere abstract good, even morality personified, is insufficient for the satisfaction of the demands of human nature: that the life lived in Palestine did not denote a mere renewal of things old, a more extended development of the good already existent in the world. It introduced a new and more active principle of life, that to which all past history had been leading up, that from which the future history of the human race must take its starting point. The revelation of God in man had been made to men. To sum up— Morality to the uttermost, These the lines of divergence. Are there none of approach? asks the listener who is gradually learning from his night’s experience to seek a common bond of sympathy between himself and his fellow men, rather than an increase of the repulsion so spontaneously awakened within the walls of Zion Chapel. At Rome he took his share in the “feast of love,” which afforded little satisfaction to intellectual cravings; here he would fain accept all that may accrue to him from the pursuit of learning apart from love. Unlearned love was safe from spurning— Recognizing the zeal for truth which has instigated the critical investigations of the lecturer, he is prepared, with a liberality of which he is clearly sufficiently conscious, to allow to him and to his followers such benefit as may be derived from the acceptance of “a loveless creed”; even conceding to them, so be it they still desire it, the name of Christian, which he too bears. With generosity yet greater he will refrain from all attempt to disturb that condition of stoical calm to which they have at length attained, by pointing out to them the weaknesses of their theory, which he has just so amply demonstrated to his own satisfaction. That all paths to the Father lead Where Moravian hymn and Roman chant and all Discords find harmonious close, Of what nobler conception, it may be asked, is the human imagination capable? Nevertheless, to certain natures (so holds the soliloquist, clearly recognizing his own as of this calibre) there is danger lest this generous comprehensiveness should prove inseparable from the “mild indifferentism” fatal to action. Hence in Section XX, whilst engaged in watching his Foolish heart expand he is not surprised to perceive, in the token of the receding vesture, indications of the divine disapproval of his position. And he is led to the conclusion that not only for the individual worshipper must there be some special form of creed best adapted to the individual needs of temperament, but (as ll. 1158-1159 would appear to suggest) some absolute God, by God’s own ways occult, Thus unity is attained, but with a suggestion of methods of attainment other than those indicated at the close of Section XIX. The main difference of intention between the two Sections would appear to be that whilst here (XX) also ultimate unity is to be achieved through the divine providence, yet something more is required of the individual believer than a passive reliance on the assurance of this future fusion of creeds. And further, the manifest and immediate duty being the discovery of the, for him, “best way of worship,” this once reached, he must rest satisfied with no merely personal acceptance: the benefits resultant from his own spiritual experiences are designed for a wider use, a more extended service of human fellowship; he, too, may seek to “bring back wanderers to the single track.” Here again is perceptible one of Browning’s prevailing ideas. Never (I believe) is he to be found advocating any vast corporate revolution for the amelioration of mankind: the advance of the race is to be secured through the advance of individual members. VI. As a practical result of the foregoing conclusions follow (in Section XXII) a return to the Chapel, and an application to the special form of worship therein celebrated, of the genial “glow of benevolence” already kindling within the breast of the sometime critic. And here the dramatic character of the poem becomes perhaps more strikingly obvious than hitherto. By one or two able and characteristic strokes is suggested the egotistical temperament of the soliloquist, with its susceptibility to external influences, its Nevertheless, in spite of practical result, very ably does the speaker in Section XXII theoretically define the essence of true worship, the spirit of devotion. Whilst human nature remains untranslated, and man is possessed of physical perceptions, and of ratiocinative faculties, the nasal intonation, and logical and grammatical lapses of the preacher, though they may be condoned, can hardly be ignored. But to the seeker after truth, so ardent should be the yearning towards the attainment of the end, that all defects in the means should be cheerfully accepted. It is perhaps not easy to put the case strongly enough, without going too far on the other side, and ignoring the means absolutely, thus returning to the position, already renounced by the soliloquist in Section V, where man looks direct “through Nature to Nature’s God.” A condition which, whilst unquestionably the highest and most purely spiritual, would appear to be possible to a certain type of mind only, and that in moments of special illumination. To the average temperament might arise from such a system the danger lest, whilst dispensing with forms, Better have knelt at the poorest stream To the question of main import advanced in the present instance, Is there water or not to drink? (l. 1288.) the latest comer to Zion Chapel replies in the affirmative; though he would fain wish The flaws were fewer We are inclined to ask, might he not, too, have returned an affirmative answer in yet another relation, had he but regarded the celebrants of St. Peter’s in that spirit of tolerance with which he now condones the defects of the Methodist preacher: since, on his own showing, there prevails in Zion Chapel the jealous exclusivism resultant from spiritual pride. Was not some valuable residuum of truth to be found in Rome? Surely so. But had the soliloquist proved capable of giving this answer, with the change of personal The reason for his present choice he makes sufficiently clear. That form of creed shall be his which takes into account the complexity of human nature. The emotions (so he holds) alone received satisfaction at Rome; intellectual development being checked. At GÖttingen the intellect was cultivated at the expense of the spiritual faculties. Now in the poverty and ignorance of Zion Chapel he believes himself to discern provision, however poor in quality, for all man’s requirements and aspirations. Immeasurably inferior to Rome in beauty of architectural form, in the impressiveness of its ritual; incomparably below GÖttingen in intellectual attainment, it is yet in some sort superior to both alike. Superior to Rome in that it allows scope for the development of the intellectual capacity, coarse and poor as is the quality of the mental pabulum offered by its minister. Superior to GÖttingen in that the preacher would fain afford some satisfaction to the emotional as well as to the intellectual cravings of his congregation. To these poor “ruins of humanity,” a personal Saviour is a necessity: Something more substantial Some one, not something, who in the critical hour of life shall do for him What no mere man shall, Clearly to the speaker, in spite of the objectionable character of the surroundings, they secure a “comfort”— Which an empire gained, were a loss without. (ll. 1308-1309.) Thus the choice is made in face of defects seemingly at first hopelessly repellant. And in leaving the soliloquist of From the gift ... to the giver, Such deductions as to the intention of this poem are at least fully in accordance with those suggestions of theories which we have so far gathered from a consideration of other of Browning’s works. |
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