Life of Robert Browning [37]
his "volatile essence"
to a living rhythmic joy. In this deep sense, and this only,
the poet is born, not made. He may learn to fashion anew
that which he hath seen: the depth of his insight depends upon
the depth of his spiritual heritage. If wonder dwell not in his eyes and soul
there can be no "far ken" for him. Here it seems apt to point out
that Browning was the first writer of our day to indicate this transmutive,
this inspired and inspiring wonder-spirit, which is the deepest motor
in the evolution of our modern poetry. Characteristically,
he puts his utterance into the mouth of a dreamy German student,
the shadowy Schramm who is but metaphysics embodied,
metaphysics finding apt expression in tobacco-smoke: "Keep but ever looking,
whether with the body's eye or the mind's, and you will soon find something
to look on! Has a man done wondering at women? -- there follow men,
dead and alive, to wonder at. Has he done wondering at men? --
there's God to wonder at: and the faculty of wonder may be,
at the same time, old and tired enough with respect to its first object,
and yet young and fresh sufficiently, so far as concerns its novel one."
This wonder is akin to that `insanity' of the poet which is
but impassioned sanity. Plato sums the matter when he says,
"He who, having no touch of the Muse's madness in his soul,
comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of Art --
he, I say, and his poetry, are not admitted."
In that same wood beyond Dulwich to which allusion has already been made,
the germinal motive of "Pippa Passes" flashed upon the poet.
No wonder this resort was for long one of his sacred places,
and that he lamented its disappearance as fervently
as Ruskin bewailed the encroachment of the ocean of bricks and mortar
upon the wooded privacies of Denmark Hill.
Save for a couple of brief visits abroad, Browning spent the years,
between his first appearance as a dramatic writer and his marriage,
in London and the neighbourhood. Occasionally he took long walks
into the country. One particular pleasure was to lie beside a hedge,
or deep in meadow-grasses, or under a tree, as circumstances
and the mood concurred, and there to give himself up so absolutely
to the life of the moment that even the shy birds would alight close by,
and sometimes venturesomely poise themselves on suspicious wings
for a brief space upon his recumbent body. I have heard him say that
his faculty of observation at that time would not have appeared despicable
to a Seminole or an Iroquois: he saw and watched everything,
the bird on the wing, the snail dragging its shell up the pendulous woodbine,
the bee adding to his golden treasure as he swung in the bells
of the campanula, the green fly darting hither and thither
like an animated seedling, the spider weaving her gossamer from twig to twig,
the woodpecker heedfully scrutinising the lichen on the gnarled oak-bole,
the passage of the wind through leaves or across grass,
the motions and shadows of the clouds, and so forth.
These were his golden holidays. Much of the rest of his time,
when not passed in his room in his father's house, where he wrote
his dramas and early poems, and studied for hours daily,
was spent in the Library of the British Museum, in an endless curiosity
into the more or less unbeaten tracks of literature. These London experiences
were varied by whole days spent at the National Gallery,
and in communion with kindred spirits. At one time he had rooms,
or rather a room, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Strand,
whither he could go when he wished to be in town continuously for a time,
or when he had any social or theatrical engagement.
Browning's life at this period was distraught by more than one
episode of the heart. It would be strange were it otherwise.
He had in no ordinary degree a rich and sensuous nature,
and his responsiveness was so quick that the barriers of prudence
were apt to be as shadowy to him as to the author of "The Witch of Atlas".
But he was
to a living rhythmic joy. In this deep sense, and this only,
the poet is born, not made. He may learn to fashion anew
that which he hath seen: the depth of his insight depends upon
the depth of his spiritual heritage. If wonder dwell not in his eyes and soul
there can be no "far ken" for him. Here it seems apt to point out
that Browning was the first writer of our day to indicate this transmutive,
this inspired and inspiring wonder-spirit, which is the deepest motor
in the evolution of our modern poetry. Characteristically,
he puts his utterance into the mouth of a dreamy German student,
the shadowy Schramm who is but metaphysics embodied,
metaphysics finding apt expression in tobacco-smoke: "Keep but ever looking,
whether with the body's eye or the mind's, and you will soon find something
to look on! Has a man done wondering at women? -- there follow men,
dead and alive, to wonder at. Has he done wondering at men? --
there's God to wonder at: and the faculty of wonder may be,
at the same time, old and tired enough with respect to its first object,
and yet young and fresh sufficiently, so far as concerns its novel one."
This wonder is akin to that `insanity' of the poet which is
but impassioned sanity. Plato sums the matter when he says,
"He who, having no touch of the Muse's madness in his soul,
comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of Art --
he, I say, and his poetry, are not admitted."
In that same wood beyond Dulwich to which allusion has already been made,
the germinal motive of "Pippa Passes" flashed upon the poet.
No wonder this resort was for long one of his sacred places,
and that he lamented its disappearance as fervently
as Ruskin bewailed the encroachment of the ocean of bricks and mortar
upon the wooded privacies of Denmark Hill.
Save for a couple of brief visits abroad, Browning spent the years,
between his first appearance as a dramatic writer and his marriage,
in London and the neighbourhood. Occasionally he took long walks
into the country. One particular pleasure was to lie beside a hedge,
or deep in meadow-grasses, or under a tree, as circumstances
and the mood concurred, and there to give himself up so absolutely
to the life of the moment that even the shy birds would alight close by,
and sometimes venturesomely poise themselves on suspicious wings
for a brief space upon his recumbent body. I have heard him say that
his faculty of observation at that time would not have appeared despicable
to a Seminole or an Iroquois: he saw and watched everything,
the bird on the wing, the snail dragging its shell up the pendulous woodbine,
the bee adding to his golden treasure as he swung in the bells
of the campanula, the green fly darting hither and thither
like an animated seedling, the spider weaving her gossamer from twig to twig,
the woodpecker heedfully scrutinising the lichen on the gnarled oak-bole,
the passage of the wind through leaves or across grass,
the motions and shadows of the clouds, and so forth.
These were his golden holidays. Much of the rest of his time,
when not passed in his room in his father's house, where he wrote
his dramas and early poems, and studied for hours daily,
was spent in the Library of the British Museum, in an endless curiosity
into the more or less unbeaten tracks of literature. These London experiences
were varied by whole days spent at the National Gallery,
and in communion with kindred spirits. At one time he had rooms,
or rather a room, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Strand,
whither he could go when he wished to be in town continuously for a time,
or when he had any social or theatrical engagement.
Browning's life at this period was distraught by more than one
episode of the heart. It would be strange were it otherwise.
He had in no ordinary degree a rich and sensuous nature,
and his responsiveness was so quick that the barriers of prudence
were apt to be as shadowy to him as to the author of "The Witch of Atlas".
But he was