"Oh , to be in England . . ."
[This is the second of Mr. Benson's articles on Browning.— ED. Spectator.] TT was a thrilling moment for that excitable young family when they were told that the great man had written to say that he would be "delighted to accept" and was actually coming to dinner ; for the eldest Of them had lately read a paper about him to a Cambridge literary society, and another knew " Saul " by heart, and confidently declared that she would serve " Paracelsus " as she had served " Saul " ; and another, who had lately won some athletic competition at school, had bought with the money that should have gone to the purchase of a silver cup engraved with his name, the six-volumed edition of the poet's works. Already this family had literary ambitions ; the epiphany of any author who had appeared in print would have been a pleasant event, and if they had been given their choice as to which out of all living writers should eat at their parents' table, they would have probably plumped for him.
So he came, and he was voted an immense success. He ate and drank so genially ; he appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself ; he appeared also to be genuinely interested in the views and experiences of other people. Almost too much so, perhaps ; for when one impudent creature, greatly daring, asked him what he thought of a very charming minor poet of whom the family rather approved, he would not directly state his verdict. He sipped his port and laughed, and then with a confidential air he said, "Well, some people like carved cherry-stones . . . " Th2 family next day agreed that his verdict was "carved cherry-stones," but noted that he only said that other people liked them. He seemed, in fact, to lay stress on what other people thought.
These personal characteristics—enjoyment, geniality, and above all this interest in what other people thought, are the chief driving motives of his work. All that is most notable in it describes other people's points of view vividly recorded by himself : he is always presenting to us lyrically and dramatically the workings of other minds, painters and poets, saints and sinners, abominable monks, and tyrants and lovers. The great poet is usually strongly subjective ; he creates for us a new world fashioned out of his own intense and personal perceptions, whereas Browning rapturously takes a header, so to speak, into the souls of others, whom he admires or detests—it makes no difference—and dives not into his own deep waters, but into theirs, coming up again, breathless, with pearls of great price or monstrous reptiles from the unfathomed ooze. Like some magni- ficent burglar he forces the safe in other houses, but not his own, and throwing open the window proclaims with glee what treasures or what horrors he has found. • He reveals little of himself, except as audience to his own announcement, and may, safely be described as the least egoistic poet who has ever played Pied Piper to the world. In his work and his life alike he was the prince of optimists, for while the pessimist has two main causes for gloom, the first that he and everybody else is alive, and the second that he and everybody else will soon be dead, Browning always found an intense happiness in living, and one, even interiser, in the conviction; often and plainly stated, that when he was dead he would be immeasurably more alive than ever before. He passionately believed, even as he preached, that "God's in His heaven : all's right with the world."
But unrivalled, even perhaps by Shakespeare, as was his presentment of dramatic situations, none of Ins many dramas are fine plays, and the reason for this is that the processes of thought which result in action concerned him far more than the action itself. In his plays he continually defers action in order to probe more deeply into motive, and this on the stage is a fatal defect. An instance, small in itself, but typical, occurs in the second act of A Blot on the Seutcheon, where Mildred Tresham falls in a dead faint, and her sister, completely disregarding her, addresses a long and subtle Argument to Austin, defining their position towards the senseless lady. This won't do : drama demands some sort of action, a burnt feather, a glass of water, slappings, loosening of strings or buttons Was essential : they can argue when the poor thing is better. But Browning was always apt to think of the stage as his study, to make plain by lengthy reasoning situations which were already clear enough for stage purposes. He is supreme as the skilled dissector of thought, but not as the showman of action.
And he dissected lyrically, with passion : the strokes of his unerring knife were as beautiful in themselves as the oaring of swifts in summer twilights.
Of that first memorable evening when he showed himself so genial and kindly and appreciative, there remains one moment which is still wholly enigmatical. Rather shyly, and very boyishly (his age being about seventy-five), he asked my father what class of his work he liked best. My father instantly replied, Your lyrics. . ." And then came the still unsolved surprise. Browning bounced on his chair, gratified and excited, " Lyrics ? " he said, "I've got deskfuls of •them." But forty years have passed since then, and where are those desks and where their contents ? Except for " Asolando," which was published on the day of the poet's death, no trace of them has come to light. In this sad November of poesy, when dead, joyless pages fall from the Press thick as the sapless leaves of autumn, they might make spring for us again. "Oh, to be in England" if such an April visits it.
E. F. BENSON.'
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