Life and Letters of Robert Browning [24]
excesses,
or even the poetic qualities, of `Pauline'. But this is a digression.
Mr. Fox, though an accomplished critic, made very light
of the artistic blemishes of the work. His admiration for it
was as generous as it was genuine; and, having recognized in it
the hand of a rising poet, it was more congenial to him
to hail that poet's advent than to register his shortcomings.
==
`The poem,' he says, `though evidently a hasty and imperfect sketch,
has truth and life in it, which gave us the thrill, and laid hold of us
with the power, the sensation of which has never yet failed us
as a test of genius.'
==
But it had also, in his mind, a distinguishing characteristic,
which raised it above the sphere of merely artistic criticism.
The article continues:
==
`We have never read anything more purely confessional. The whole composition
is of the spirit, spiritual. The scenery is in the chambers of thought;
the agencies are powers and passions; the events are transitions
from one state of spiritual existence to another.'
==
And we learn from the context that he accepted this
confessional and introspective quality as an expression
of the highest emotional life -- of the essence, therefore, of religion.
On this point the sincerest admirers of the poem may find themselves
at issue with Mr. Fox. Its sentiment is warmly religious; it is always,
in a certain sense, spiritual; but its intellectual activities are exercised
on entirely temporal ground, and this fact would generally be admitted
as the negation of spirituality in the religious sense of the word.
No difference, however, of opinion as to his judgment of `Pauline'
can lessen our appreciation of Mr. Fox's encouraging kindness to its author.
No one who loved Mr. Browning in himself, or in his work, can read
the last lines of this review without a throb of affectionate gratitude for
the sympathy so ungrudgingly, and -- as he wrote during his latest years --
so opportunely given:
==
`In recognizing a poet we cannot stand upon trifles nor fret ourselves
about such matters [as a few blemishes]. Time enough for that afterwards,
when larger works come before us. Archimedes in the bath
had many particulars to settle about specific gravities and Hiero's crown,
but he first gave a glorious leap and shouted `Eureka!''
==
Many persons have discovered Mr. Browning since he has been known to fame.
One only discovered him in his obscurity.
Next to that of Mr. Fox stands the name of John Forster
among the first spontaneous appreciators of Mr. Browning's genius;
and his admiration was, in its own way, the more valuable
for the circumstances which precluded in it all possible,
even unconscious, bias of personal interest or sympathy.
But this belongs to a somewhat later period of our history.
I am dwelling at some length on this first experience of Mr. Browning's
literary career, because the confidence which it gave him
determined its immediate future, if not its ultimate course -- because, also,
the poem itself is more important to the understanding of his mind
than perhaps any other of his isolated works. It was the earliest
of his dramatic creations; it was therefore inevitably the most instinct
with himself; and we may regard the `Confession' as to a great extent his own,
without for an instant ignoring the imaginative element
which necessarily and certainly entered into it. At one moment, indeed,
his utterance is so emphatic that we should feel it to be direct,
even if we did not know it to be true. The passage beginning,
`I am made up of an intensest life,' conveys something more
than the writer's actual psychological state. The feverish desire of life
became gradually modified into a more or less active
intellectual and imaginative curiosity; but the sense of an individual,
self-centred, and, as it presented itself to him, unconditioned existence,
survived all the teachings of experience, and often indeed
unconsciously imposed itself upon them.
I have already alluded to that other and more pathetic
or even the poetic qualities, of `Pauline'. But this is a digression.
Mr. Fox, though an accomplished critic, made very light
of the artistic blemishes of the work. His admiration for it
was as generous as it was genuine; and, having recognized in it
the hand of a rising poet, it was more congenial to him
to hail that poet's advent than to register his shortcomings.
==
`The poem,' he says, `though evidently a hasty and imperfect sketch,
has truth and life in it, which gave us the thrill, and laid hold of us
with the power, the sensation of which has never yet failed us
as a test of genius.'
==
But it had also, in his mind, a distinguishing characteristic,
which raised it above the sphere of merely artistic criticism.
The article continues:
==
`We have never read anything more purely confessional. The whole composition
is of the spirit, spiritual. The scenery is in the chambers of thought;
the agencies are powers and passions; the events are transitions
from one state of spiritual existence to another.'
==
And we learn from the context that he accepted this
confessional and introspective quality as an expression
of the highest emotional life -- of the essence, therefore, of religion.
On this point the sincerest admirers of the poem may find themselves
at issue with Mr. Fox. Its sentiment is warmly religious; it is always,
in a certain sense, spiritual; but its intellectual activities are exercised
on entirely temporal ground, and this fact would generally be admitted
as the negation of spirituality in the religious sense of the word.
No difference, however, of opinion as to his judgment of `Pauline'
can lessen our appreciation of Mr. Fox's encouraging kindness to its author.
No one who loved Mr. Browning in himself, or in his work, can read
the last lines of this review without a throb of affectionate gratitude for
the sympathy so ungrudgingly, and -- as he wrote during his latest years --
so opportunely given:
==
`In recognizing a poet we cannot stand upon trifles nor fret ourselves
about such matters [as a few blemishes]. Time enough for that afterwards,
when larger works come before us. Archimedes in the bath
had many particulars to settle about specific gravities and Hiero's crown,
but he first gave a glorious leap and shouted `Eureka!''
==
Many persons have discovered Mr. Browning since he has been known to fame.
One only discovered him in his obscurity.
Next to that of Mr. Fox stands the name of John Forster
among the first spontaneous appreciators of Mr. Browning's genius;
and his admiration was, in its own way, the more valuable
for the circumstances which precluded in it all possible,
even unconscious, bias of personal interest or sympathy.
But this belongs to a somewhat later period of our history.
I am dwelling at some length on this first experience of Mr. Browning's
literary career, because the confidence which it gave him
determined its immediate future, if not its ultimate course -- because, also,
the poem itself is more important to the understanding of his mind
than perhaps any other of his isolated works. It was the earliest
of his dramatic creations; it was therefore inevitably the most instinct
with himself; and we may regard the `Confession' as to a great extent his own,
without for an instant ignoring the imaginative element
which necessarily and certainly entered into it. At one moment, indeed,
his utterance is so emphatic that we should feel it to be direct,
even if we did not know it to be true. The passage beginning,
`I am made up of an intensest life,' conveys something more
than the writer's actual psychological state. The feverish desire of life
became gradually modified into a more or less active
intellectual and imaginative curiosity; but the sense of an individual,
self-centred, and, as it presented itself to him, unconditioned existence,
survived all the teachings of experience, and often indeed
unconsciously imposed itself upon them.
I have already alluded to that other and more pathetic