co-operating forces from the soul God is powerless to compass and bring to perfection His scheme in the creation of the being of man; that without soul co-operation God Himself is powerless : As I am a man," says the poem, "I mourn this poverty I must impute." "Such as man is, limited, bounded, I conceive God to be." That the mystery of soul baffled human comprehension; that the gap between body and soul, material and spiritual, death and life, was capable of explanation only by grasps of guess by imagination's leaps towards the sun; that the mystery was beyond human comprehension-proved its probability. How could finite being comprehend the Infinite? In the Prologue to "Dramatic Idylls," Second Series, Browning draws attention to the inability of the intellect to understand the workings of the body: how, then, understand soul? In the Epilogue he gives the opinion that the quickly receptive sense is not the soil from which the seed of genius springs to its true height. In other poems he draws attention to the mystery of sense impressions and their translation into knowledge by the apparatus designed to relate man to his external world : the ear with its mysterious mechanism hungry for sound, in the poem of "Cleon "; the analogy of the cricket-chirp in the Epilogue to the "Two Poets of Croisic"; the cricket with note so attenuated that only exceptional hearing can catch all its vibrations, is the analogy of responsiveness to vibrations of spiritual love. The power of human receptiveness is unequal, decaying with disuse, growing into use. Colour-blindness is drawn attention to in the poem "La Saisiaz "; about four men in a hundred are deficient in power to distinguish colours, we are told. Is man's power, to add by his spirit a further extension of sense perception, a finer sense to seize finer being? 66 The poem "La Saisiaz "La Saisiaz" opened up the vast question again for Browning, the question that he faced in "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," 'Sordello" and "Paracelsus" why should some "believe" and others not? Is it a question of fundamentals, heredity, race, more developed aptitudes? Is it merely a finer discriminating power in recognising and interpreting and seizing finer sense impressions? 66 Can those believe only who are built that way? Must 'flesh refine to spirit's use"? Is it the taught already who can alone benefit by teaching? In this poem the poet draws attention to the question of sense perception. Sense apprehension being proficient, a certain mode of motion produces perfection of physical sight, or produces limitations of discrimination if further light rays fail the apparatus of the eye. Is it but a finer mode of motion, this, he speculates, which relates a finer environment to a finer organ-as sense perception varies as there are extensions of seeing, hearing, rarely if ever overtaken by the natural eye or ear (e.g., the cricket-chirp in "A Tale ")? May not the question of why some believe, and not others, belong to a domain of spiritual physics, out of the possibility of the many to compass, to be taken on the faith of the graduate in spiritual physics? May not varying modes of motion between the ethereal environment of man and his organs of apprehension be responsible for the mystic's faith? In the analogy of the power of discriminating certain waves of energy beating upon the apparatus of the eye, Browning draws a probable parallel of the mystery of why some believe, in a finer organ of environment beating upon a finer organ of apprehension of ethereal energy-the spiritual environment-the soul. How the rich apprehensions of the eye are produced in co-operation with the organism of the eye and its environment, explain first, says the poem. The transcendental moment out of which "believing " springs is no figment of the brain, Browning iterates and reiterates; it is through some great complex of emotion that faith becomes lost in sight. The moment of ecstasy out of which the new life of the mystic rises is a culminating-point of emotion leading to new conceptions which both add to, and displace, the old stock, and rearrange to new light. He retraces his previous day's walk with his friend, recalls her living charm, pays tribute to her gracious friendship to him. In this poem he places in art again the varied beauty of the Italian landscape, and marvels upon the mystery of man's possession of the world of beauty around him by the wonder of the senses by which he relates the world of material beauty to himself. He joys in this world of beauty and his possession of it: "Oh, the little more, and how much it is! The mysteries of the human mechanism are beyond human comprehension. How the mystery of the senses developed can only be postulated as certain nervous matter becoming sensitive to environment, perfecting by the sum of inherited adaptations, the condition of development, of life itself being adaptability to environment-the readiness of certain mechanism to receive impressions and tenacity in retaining them, the power to reason upon the process essential to the evolution from lower to higher organisms. There are gaps inexplicable to the evolutionary process. When faith takes its flying leap, says Browning, the soul uses its wings. In the poem Browning pays tribute to the memories of the men who have made the neighbourhood of La Saisiaz famous-Voltaire, Rousseau, Byron, Gibbon-asking what each gave worth remembering. Was it their fame gave the words of those men their power over their kind? "Fame! Then give me fame a moment," says the writer of "La Saisiaz": "Lo, I lift the coruscating marvel-Fame! and, famed, declare Learned for the nonce as Gibbon, witty as wit's self Voltaire. O the sorriest of conclusions to whatever man of sense 'Mid the millions stands the unit, takes no flare for evidence! Yet the millions have their portion, live their calm or troublous day, Find significance in fireworks: so, by help of mine, they may Confidently lay to heart and lock in head their life longthis: "He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o'er night's forlorn abyss, Crowned by prose and verse; and wielding, with Wit's bauble, Learning's rod Well? Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God." Browning and Miss Egerton Smith had first met in Florence. She was an English lady of means, and of a reserved temperament which kept her aloof from people in general. The death of Miss Egerton Smith left a serious blank in Browning's life. Their bond had been interest in music. She was possessed of an independency, and their practical sympathy with music was to attend musical entertainments together, and to share summer holidays with the poet and his sister. The visit to La Saisiaz was the third holiday so spent, and the catastrophe there, says Mrs. Orr, "closed a comprehensive chapter in his habits and experience. It impelled him to break with the associations of the last seventeen summers. The always latent desire for Italy sprang up in him, and with it the often present thought and wish to give his sister the opportunity of seeing it. Florence and Rome were not included in the scheme; but he hankered for Asolo and Venice. They travelled to Asolo in the September of 1878, and then on to Venice, and seven times more in the eleven years remaining the autumn holiday was spent in Venice." CHAPTER XI "THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC" Poems resulting from summer holidays in Brittany and Normandy-Two French poets-Mystic worldling-Tricking the critics-Appreciation of French friend of poet, Joseph Milsand-Characters of Browning and Milsand by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie-Mystical lines as epilogue to poem-Divine love Human love-Sarcasm of Browning for interpreters. IN 1878, in the same volume as "La Saisiaz," appeared "The Two Poets of Croisic." "The Two Poets of Croisic" is a poem recalling two poets who became famous in the annals of the town of Croisic, in Brittany. The region is described in the poem with all the realism of Browning's truth to Nature. The first personage it immortalised was Rene Gentilhomme, a rhymer, who had hopes of succeeding his cousin in his dukedom, but the birth of an heir dashed his dream. The disaster had been heralded by the striking of the ducal crown by lightning, interpreted by the page of Rene Gentilhomme, who was also called Rene, and also wrote sonnets and madrigals. This power of prophecy was appropriated by his master, who was thenceforward honoured by the name Royal Poet. The second poet of Croisic was a man who was famous for having done something to make Voltaire ridiculous. His poem submitted to the Academy was rejected. The enraged Poet offered his work to the editor of the Paris Mercury, who also rejected it, because he couldn't afford to offend the Academicians. After listening to the abuse and remonstrance of Paul, the editor confessed that his real reason for rejecting the poem was because it was execrable work, but he would have preferred not giving this true reason to the poet. This further enraged Paul, |