Introduction to Robert Browning [145]
Christianity in the future, and especially of those which have been raised in our own times. The historical bulwarks which the Strausses and the Renans have endeavored to destroy, Christianity, in its essential, absolute character, its adaptiveness to spiritual vitality, and the wants of the soul, can do without. Indeed, there will be much gained when the historical character of Christianity is generally disregarded. Its impregnable fortress, namely, the Personality, Jesus Christ, will remain, and mankind will forever seek and find refuge in it. Arthur Symons, in his `Introduction to the Study of Browning', remarks: . . ."it is as a piece of ratiocination -- suffused, indeed, with imagination -- that the poem seems to have its raison d'etre. The bearing of this argument on contemporary theories, may to some appear a merit, to others a blemish. To make the dying John refute Strauss or Renan, handling their propositions with admirable dialectical skill, is certainly, on the face of it, somewhat hazardous. But I can see no real incongruity in imputing to the seer of Patmos a prophetic insight into the future -- no real inconsequence in imagining the opponent of Cerinthus spending his last breath in the defence of Christian truth against a foreseen scepticism." --
"And how shall I assure them? Can they share -- They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strength About each spirit, that needs must bide its time, [200] Living and learning still as years assist Which wear the thickness thin, and let man see -- With me who hardly am withheld at all, But shudderingly, scarce a shred between, Lie bare to the universal prick of light? [205] Is it for nothing we grow old and weak, We whom God loves? When pain ends, gain ends too. To me, that story -- ay, that Life and Death Of which I wrote `it was' -- to me, it is; -- Is, here and now: I apprehend naught else. [210] Is not God now i' the world His power first made? Is not His love at issue still with sin, Visibly when a wrong is done on earth? Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around? Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise [215] To the right hand of the throne -- what is it beside, When such truth, breaking bounds, o'erfloods my soul, And, as I saw the sin and death, even so See I the need yet transiency of both, The good and glory consummated thence? [220] I saw the Power; I see the Love, once weak, Resume the Power: and in this word `I see', Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of both That moving o'er the spirit of man, unblinds His eye and bids him look. These are, I see; [225] But ye, the children, His beloved ones too, Ye need, -- as I should use an optic glass I wondered at erewhile, somewhere i' the world, It had been given a crafty smith to make; A tube, he turned on objects brought too close, [230] Lying confusedly insubordinate For the unassisted eye to master once: Look through his tube, at distance now they lay, Become succinct, distinct, so small, so clear! Just thus, ye needs must apprehend what truth [235] I see, reduced to plain historic fact, Diminished into clearness, proved a point And far away: ye would withdraw your sense From out eternity, strain it upon time, Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death, [240] Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread, As though a star should open out, all sides, Grow the world on you, as it is my world.
-- 202. "Oh, not alone when life flows still do truth and power emerge, but also when strange chance ruffles its current; in unused conjuncture, when sickness breaks the body -- hunger, watching, excess, or languor -- oftenest death's approach -- peril, deep joy, or woe." -- Browning's `Paracelsus'.
"The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made. Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new." -- Edmund
"And how shall I assure them? Can they share -- They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strength About each spirit, that needs must bide its time, [200] Living and learning still as years assist Which wear the thickness thin, and let man see -- With me who hardly am withheld at all, But shudderingly, scarce a shred between, Lie bare to the universal prick of light? [205] Is it for nothing we grow old and weak, We whom God loves? When pain ends, gain ends too. To me, that story -- ay, that Life and Death Of which I wrote `it was' -- to me, it is; -- Is, here and now: I apprehend naught else. [210] Is not God now i' the world His power first made? Is not His love at issue still with sin, Visibly when a wrong is done on earth? Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around? Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise [215] To the right hand of the throne -- what is it beside, When such truth, breaking bounds, o'erfloods my soul, And, as I saw the sin and death, even so See I the need yet transiency of both, The good and glory consummated thence? [220] I saw the Power; I see the Love, once weak, Resume the Power: and in this word `I see', Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of both That moving o'er the spirit of man, unblinds His eye and bids him look. These are, I see; [225] But ye, the children, His beloved ones too, Ye need, -- as I should use an optic glass I wondered at erewhile, somewhere i' the world, It had been given a crafty smith to make; A tube, he turned on objects brought too close, [230] Lying confusedly insubordinate For the unassisted eye to master once: Look through his tube, at distance now they lay, Become succinct, distinct, so small, so clear! Just thus, ye needs must apprehend what truth [235] I see, reduced to plain historic fact, Diminished into clearness, proved a point And far away: ye would withdraw your sense From out eternity, strain it upon time, Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death, [240] Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread, As though a star should open out, all sides, Grow the world on you, as it is my world.
-- 202. "Oh, not alone when life flows still do truth and power emerge, but also when strange chance ruffles its current; in unused conjuncture, when sickness breaks the body -- hunger, watching, excess, or languor -- oftenest death's approach -- peril, deep joy, or woe." -- Browning's `Paracelsus'.
"The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made. Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new." -- Edmund