Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  One tangible cause of his youthful restlessness has been implied in the foregoing remarks, but deserves stating in his sister’s words: ‘The fact was, poor boy, he had outgrown his social surroundings. They were absolutely good, but they were narrow; it could not be otherwise; he chafed under them.’ He was not, however, quite without congenial society even before the turning-point in his outward existence which was reached in the publication of ‘Pauline’; and one long friendly acquaintance, together with one lasting friendship, had their roots in these early Camberwell days. The families of Joseph Arnould and Alfred Domett both lived at Camberwell. These two young men were bred to the legal profession, and the former, afterwards Sir Joseph Arnould, became a judge in Bombay. But the father of Alfred Domett had been one of Nelson’s captains, and the roving sailor spirit was apparent in his son; for he had scarcely been called to the Bar when he started for New Zealand on the instance of a cousin who had preceded him, but who was drowned in the course of a day’s surveying before he could arrive. He became a member of the New Zealand Parliament, and ultimately, for a short time, of its Cabinet; only returning to England after an absence of thirty years. This Mr. Domett seems to have been a very modest man, besides a devoted friend of Robert Browning’s, and on occasion a warm defender of his works. When he read the apostrophe to ‘Alfred, dear friend,’ in the ‘Guardian Angel’, he had reached the last line before it occurred to him that the person invoked could be he. I do not think that this poem, and that directly addressed to him under the pseudonym of ‘Waring’, were the only ones inspired by the affectionate remembrance which he had left in their author’s mind.

  Among his boy companions were also the three Silverthornes, his neighbours at Camberwell, and cousins on the maternal side. They appear to have been wild youths, and had certainly no part in his intellectual or literary life; but the group is interesting to his biographer. The three brothers were all gifted musicians; having also, probably, received this endowment from their mother’s father. Mr. Browning conceived a great affection for the eldest, and on the whole most talented of the cousins; and when he had died — young, as they all did — he wrote ‘May and Death’ in remembrance of him. The name of ‘Charles’ stands there for the old, familiar ‘Jim’, so often uttered by him in half-pitying, and all-affectionate allusion, in his later years. Mrs. Silverthorne was the aunt who paid for the printing of ‘Pauline’.

  It was at about the time of his short attendance at University College that the choice of poetry as his future profession was formally made. It was a foregone conclusion in the young Robert’s mind; and little less in that of his father, who took too sympathetic an interest in his son’s life not to have seen in what direction his desires were tending. He must, it is true, at some time or other, have played with the thought of becoming an artist; but the thought can never have represented a wish. If he had entertained such a one, it would have met not only with no opposition on his father’s part, but with a very ready assent, nor does the question ever seem to have been seriously mooted in the family councils. It would be strange, perhaps, if it had. Mr. Browning became very early familiar with the names of the great painters, and also learned something about their work; for the Dulwich Gallery was within a pleasant walk of his home, and his father constantly took him there. He retained through life a deep interest in art and artists, and became a very familiar figure in one or two London studios. Some drawings made by him from the nude, in Italy, and for which he had prepared himself by assiduous copying of casts and study of human anatomy, had, I believe, great merit. But painting was one of the subjects in which he never received instruction, though he modelled, under the direction of his friend Mr. Story; and a letter of his own will presently show that, in his youth at least, he never credited himself with exceptional artistic power. That he might have become an artist, and perhaps a great one, is difficult to doubt, in the face of his brilliant general ability and special gifts. The power to do a thing is, however, distinct from the impulse to do it, and proved so in the present case.

  More importance may be given to an idea of his father’s that he should qualify himself for the Bar. It would naturally coincide with the widening of the social horizon which his University College classes supplied; it was possibly suggested by the fact that the closest friends he had already made, and others whom he was perhaps now making, were barristers. But this also remained an idea. He might have been placed in the Bank of England, where the virtual offer of an appointment had been made to him through his father; but the elder Browning spontaneously rejected this, as unworthy of his son’s powers. He had never, he said, liked bank work himself, and could not, therefore, impose it on him.

  We have still to notice another, and a more mistaken view of the possibilities of Mr. Browning’s life. It has been recently stated, doubtless on the authority of some words of his own, that the Church was a profession to which he once felt himself drawn. But an admission of this kind could only refer to that period of his childhood when natural impulse, combined with his mother’s teaching and guidance, frequently caused his fancy and his feelings to assume a religious form. From the time when he was a free agent he ceased to be even a regular churchgoer, though religion became more, rather than less, an integral part of his inner life; and his alleged fondness for a variety of preachers meant really that he only listened to those who, from personal association or conspicuous merit, were interesting to him. I have mentioned Canon Melvill as one of these; the Rev. Thomas Jones was, as will be seen, another. In Venice he constantly, with his sister, joined the congregation of an Italian minister of the little Vaudois church there.*

  * Mr. Browning’s memory recalled a first and last effort at

  preaching, inspired by one of his very earliest visits to a

  place of worship. He extemporized a surplice or gown,

  climbed into an arm-chair by way of pulpit, and held forth

  so vehemently that his scarcely more than baby sister was

  frightened and began to cry; whereupon he turned to an

  imaginary presence, and said, with all the sternness which

  the occasion required, ‘Pew-opener, remove that child.’

  It would be far less surprising if we were told, on sufficient authority, that he had been disturbed by hankerings for the stage. He was a passionate admirer of good acting, and would walk from London to Richmond and back again to see Edmund Kean when he was performing there. We know how Macready impressed him, though the finer genius of Kean became very apparent to his retrospective judgment of the two; and it was impossible to see or hear him, as even an old man, in some momentary personation of one of Shakespeare’s characters, above all of Richard III., and not feel that a great actor had been lost in him.

  So few professions were thought open to gentlemen in Robert Browning’s eighteenth year, that his father’s acquiescence in that which he had chosen might seem a matter scarcely less of necessity than of kindness. But we must seek the kindness not only in this first, almost inevitable, assent to his son’s becoming a writer, but in the subsequent unfailing readiness to support him in his literary career. ‘Paracelsus’, ‘Sordello’, and the whole of ‘Bells and Pomegranates’ were published at his father’s expense, and, incredible as it appears, brought no return to him. This was vividly present to Mr. Browning’s mind in what Mrs. Kemble so justly defines as those ‘remembering days’ which are the natural prelude to the forgetting ones. He declared, in the course of these, to a friend, that for it alone he owed more to his father than to anyone else in the world. Words to this effect, spoken in conversation with his sister, have since, as it was right they should, found their way into print. The more justly will the world interpret any incidental admission he may ever have made, of intellectual disagreement between that father and himself.

  When the die was cast, and young Browning was definitely to adopt literature as his profession, he qualified himself for it by reading and digesting the whole of Johnson’s Dictionary. We can
not be surprised to hear this of one who displayed so great a mastery of words, and so deep a knowledge of the capacities of the English language.

  Chapter 5

  1833-1835

  ‘Pauline’ — Letters to Mr. Fox — Publication of the Poem; chief Biographical and Literary Characteristics — Mr. Fox’s Review in the ‘Monthly Repository’; other Notices — Russian Journey — Desired diplomatic Appointment — Minor Poems; first Sonnet; their Mode of Appearance — ’The Trifler’ — M. de Ripert-Monclar — ’Paracelsus’ — Letters to Mr. Fox concerning it; its Publication — Incidental Origin of ‘Paracelsus’; its inspiring Motive; its Relation to ‘Pauline’ — Mr. Fox’s Review of it in the ‘Monthly Repository’ — Article in the ‘Examiner’ by John Forster.

  Before Mr. Browning had half completed his twenty-first year he had written ‘Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession’. His sister was in the secret, but this time his parents were not. This is why his aunt, hearing that ‘Robert’ had ‘written a poem,’ volunteered the sum requisite for its publication. Even this first instalment of success did not inspire much hope in the family mind, and Miss Browning made pencil copies of her favourite passages for the event, which seemed only too possible, of her never seeing the whole poem again. It was, however, accepted by Saunders and Otley, and appeared anonymously in 1833. Meanwhile the young author had bethought himself of his early sympathizer, Mr. Fox, and he wrote to him as follows (the letter is undated):

  Dear Sir, — Perhaps by the aid of the subjoined initials and a little reflection, you may recollect an oddish sort of boy, who had the honour of being introduced to you at Hackney some years back — at that time a sayer of verse and a doer of it, and whose doings you had a little previously commended after a fashion — (whether in earnest or not God knows): that individual it is who takes the liberty of addressing one whose slight commendation then, was more thought of than all the gun drum and trumpet of praise would be now, and to submit to you a free and easy sort of thing which he wrote some months ago ‘on one leg’ and which comes out this week — having either heard or dreamed that you contribute to the ‘Westminster’.

  Should it be found too insignificant for cutting up, I shall no less remain, Dear sir, Your most obedient servant, R. B.

  I have forgotten the main thing — which is to beg you not to spoil a loophole I have kept for backing out of the thing if necessary, ‘sympathy of dear friends,’ &c. &c., none of whom know anything about it.

  Monday Morning; Rev. — Fox.

  The answer was clearly encouraging, and Mr. Browning wrote again:

  Dear Sir, — In consequence of your kind permission I send, or will send, a dozen copies of ‘Pauline’ and (to mitigate the infliction) Shelley’s Poem — on account of what you mentioned this morning. It will perhaps be as well that you let me know their safe arrival by a line to R. B. junior, Hanover Cottage, Southampton Street, Camberwell. You must not think me too encroaching, if I make the getting back ‘Rosalind and Helen’ an excuse for calling on you some evening — the said ‘R. and H.’ has, I observe, been well thumbed and sedulously marked by an acquaintance of mine, but I have not time to rub out his labour of love. I am, dear sir, Yours very really, R. Browning. Camberwell: 2 o’clock.

  At the left-hand corner of the first page of this note is written: ‘The parcel — a “Pauline” parcel — is come. I send one as a witness.’

  On the inner page is written:

  ‘Impromptu on hearing a sermon by the Rev. T. R. — pronounced “heavy” —

  ‘A heavy sermon! — sure the error’s great, For not a word Tom uttered had its weight.’

  A third letter, also undated, but post-marked March 29, 1833, refers probably to the promise or announcement of a favourable notice. A fourth conveys Mr. Browning’s thanks for the notice itself:

  My dear Sir, — I have just received your letter, which I am desirous of acknowledging before any further mark of your kindness reaches me; — I can only offer you my simple thanks — but they are of the sort that one can give only once or twice in a life: all things considered, I think you are almost repaid, if you imagine what I must feel — and it will have been worth while to have made a fool of myself, only to have obtained a ‘case’ which leaves my fine fellow Mandeville at a dead lock.

  As for the book — I hope ere long to better it, and to deserve your goodness.

  In the meantime I shall not forget the extent to which I am, dear sir, Your most obliged and obedient servant R. B. S. & O.’s, Conduit St., Thursday m-g.

  I must intrude on your attention, my dear sir, once more than I had intended — but a notice like the one I have read will have its effect at all hazards.

  I can only say that I am very proud to feel as grateful as I do, and not altogether hopeless of justifying, by effort at least, your most generous ‘coming forward’. Hazlitt wrote his essays, as he somewhere tells us, mainly to send them to some one in the country who had ‘always prophesied he would be something’! — I shall never write a line without thinking of the source of my first praise, be assured. I am, dear sir, Yours most truly and obliged, Robert Browning. March 31, 1833.

  Mr. Fox was then editor of a periodical called the ‘Monthly Repository’, which, as his daughter, Mrs. Bridell-Fox, writes in her graceful article on Robert Browning, in the ‘Argosy’ for February 1890, he was endeavouring to raise from its original denominational character into a first-class literary and political journal. The articles comprised in the volume for 1833 are certainly full of interest and variety, at once more popular and more solid than those prescribed by the present fashion of monthly magazines. He reviewed ‘Pauline’ favourably in its April number — that is, as soon as it had appeared; and the young poet thus received from him an introduction to what should have been, though it probably was not, a large circle of intelligent readers.

  The poem was characterized by its author, five years later, in a fantastic note appended to a copy of it, as ‘the only remaining crab of the shapely Tree of Life in my Fool’s Paradise.’ This name is ill bestowed upon a work which, however wild a fruit of Mr. Browning’s genius, contains, in its many lines of exquisite fancy and deep pathos, so much that is rich and sweet. It had also, to discard metaphor, its faults of exaggeration and confusion; and it is of these that Mr. Browning was probably thinking when he wrote his more serious apologetic preface to its reprint in 1868. But these faults were partly due to his conception of the character which he had tried to depict; and partly to the inherent difficulty of depicting one so complex, in a succession of mental and moral states, irrespectively of the conditions of time, place, and circumstance which were involved in them. Only a very powerful imagination could have inspired such an attempt. A still more conspicuous effort of creative genius reveals itself at its close. The moment chosen for the ‘Confession’ has been that of a supreme moral or physical crisis. The exhaustion attendant on this is directly expressed by the person who makes it, and may also be recognized in the vivid, yet confusing, intensity of the reminiscences of which it consists. But we are left in complete doubt as to whether the crisis is that of approaching death or incipient convalescence, or which character it bears in the sufferer’s mind; and the language used in the closing pages is such as to suggest, without the slightest break in poetic continuity, alternately the one conclusion and the other. This was intended by Browning to assist his anonymity; and when the writer in ‘Tait’s Magazine’ spoke of the poem as a piece of pure bewilderment, he expressed the natural judgment of the Philistine, while proving himself such. If the notice by J. S. Mill, which this criticism excluded, was indeed — as Mr. Browning always believed — much more sympathetic, I can only record my astonishment; for there never was a large and cultivated intelligence one can imagine less in harmony than his with the poetic 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: