Life of Robert Browning [8]
. . most distinct amid
The fever and the stir of after years."
(`Pauline'.)
Another great writer of our time was born in the same parish:
and those who would know Herne Hill and the neighbourhood
as it was in Browning's youth will find an enthusiastic guide
in the author of `Praeterita'.
Browning's childhood was a happy one. Indeed, if the poet had been able
to teach in song only what he had learnt in suffering,
the larger part of his verse would be singularly barren of interest.
From first to last everything went well with him, with the exception
of a single profound grief. This must be borne in mind by those
who would estimate aright the genius of Robert Browning.
It would be affectation or folly to deny that his splendid physique --
a paternal inheritance, for his father died at the age of eighty-four,
without having ever endured a day's illness -- and the exceptionally
fortunate circumstances which were his throughout life,
had something to do with that superb faith of his which finds
concentrated expression in the lines in Pippa's song --
"God's in His Heaven, All's right with the world!"
It is difficult for a happy man with an imperturbable digestion
to be a pessimist. He is always inclined to give Nature
the benefit of the doubt. His favourite term for this mental complaisance
is "catholicity of faith", or, it may be, "a divine hope".
The less fortunate brethren bewail the laws of Nature,
and doubt a future readjustment, because of stomachs chronically out of order.
An eminent author with a weak digestion wrote to me recently
animadverting on what he calls Browning's insanity of optimism:
it required no personal acquaintanceship to discern the dyspeptic
well-spring of this utterance. All this may be admitted lightly
without carrying the physiological argument to extremes.
A man may have a liberal hope for himself and for humanity,
although his dinner be habitually a martyrdom. After all,
we are only dictated to by our bodies: we have not perforce to obey them.
A bitter wit once remarked that the soul, if it were ever discovered,
would be found embodied in the gastric juice. He was not altogether a fool,
this man who had learnt in suffering what he taught in epigram;
yet was he wide of the mark.
As a very young child Browning was keenly susceptible to music.
One afternoon his mother was playing in the twilight to herself.
She was startled to hear a sound behind her. Glancing round,
she beheld a little white figure distinct against an oak bookcase,
and could just discern two large wistful eyes looking earnestly at her.
The next moment the child had sprung into her arms, sobbing passionately
at he knew not what, but, as his paroxysm of emotion subsided,
whispering over and over, with shy urgency, "Play! play!"
It is strange that among all his father's collection
of drawings and engravings nothing had such fascination for him
as an engraving of a picture of Andromeda and Perseus by Caravaggio.
The story of the innocent victim and the divine deliverer
was one of which in his boyhood he never tired of hearing:
and as he grew older the charm of its pictorial presentment
had for him a deeper and more complex significance.
We have it on the authority of a friend that Browning had this engraving
always before his eyes as he wrote his earlier poems.
He has given beautiful commemoration to his feeling for it in "Pauline": --
"Andromeda!
And she is with me -- years roll, I shall change,
But change can touch her not -- so beautiful
With her dark eyes, earnest and still, and hair
Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze;
And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven,
Resting upon her eyes and face and hair,
As she awaits the snake on the wet beach,
By the dark rock, and the white wave just breaking
At her feet; quite naked and alone, -- a thing
You doubt not, nor fear for, secure that God
Will come in thunder
The fever and the stir of after years."
(`Pauline'.)
Another great writer of our time was born in the same parish:
and those who would know Herne Hill and the neighbourhood
as it was in Browning's youth will find an enthusiastic guide
in the author of `Praeterita'.
Browning's childhood was a happy one. Indeed, if the poet had been able
to teach in song only what he had learnt in suffering,
the larger part of his verse would be singularly barren of interest.
From first to last everything went well with him, with the exception
of a single profound grief. This must be borne in mind by those
who would estimate aright the genius of Robert Browning.
It would be affectation or folly to deny that his splendid physique --
a paternal inheritance, for his father died at the age of eighty-four,
without having ever endured a day's illness -- and the exceptionally
fortunate circumstances which were his throughout life,
had something to do with that superb faith of his which finds
concentrated expression in the lines in Pippa's song --
"God's in His Heaven, All's right with the world!"
It is difficult for a happy man with an imperturbable digestion
to be a pessimist. He is always inclined to give Nature
the benefit of the doubt. His favourite term for this mental complaisance
is "catholicity of faith", or, it may be, "a divine hope".
The less fortunate brethren bewail the laws of Nature,
and doubt a future readjustment, because of stomachs chronically out of order.
An eminent author with a weak digestion wrote to me recently
animadverting on what he calls Browning's insanity of optimism:
it required no personal acquaintanceship to discern the dyspeptic
well-spring of this utterance. All this may be admitted lightly
without carrying the physiological argument to extremes.
A man may have a liberal hope for himself and for humanity,
although his dinner be habitually a martyrdom. After all,
we are only dictated to by our bodies: we have not perforce to obey them.
A bitter wit once remarked that the soul, if it were ever discovered,
would be found embodied in the gastric juice. He was not altogether a fool,
this man who had learnt in suffering what he taught in epigram;
yet was he wide of the mark.
As a very young child Browning was keenly susceptible to music.
One afternoon his mother was playing in the twilight to herself.
She was startled to hear a sound behind her. Glancing round,
she beheld a little white figure distinct against an oak bookcase,
and could just discern two large wistful eyes looking earnestly at her.
The next moment the child had sprung into her arms, sobbing passionately
at he knew not what, but, as his paroxysm of emotion subsided,
whispering over and over, with shy urgency, "Play! play!"
It is strange that among all his father's collection
of drawings and engravings nothing had such fascination for him
as an engraving of a picture of Andromeda and Perseus by Caravaggio.
The story of the innocent victim and the divine deliverer
was one of which in his boyhood he never tired of hearing:
and as he grew older the charm of its pictorial presentment
had for him a deeper and more complex significance.
We have it on the authority of a friend that Browning had this engraving
always before his eyes as he wrote his earlier poems.
He has given beautiful commemoration to his feeling for it in "Pauline": --
"Andromeda!
And she is with me -- years roll, I shall change,
But change can touch her not -- so beautiful
With her dark eyes, earnest and still, and hair
Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze;
And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven,
Resting upon her eyes and face and hair,
As she awaits the snake on the wet beach,
By the dark rock, and the white wave just breaking
At her feet; quite naked and alone, -- a thing
You doubt not, nor fear for, secure that God
Will come in thunder