ABSTRACT
In his last volume, Parleyings with Certain People, it must be admitted that Mr. Browning is harder and darker than ever. We are reminded of the intolerable puzzlement of Fifine at the Fair, rather than of the comparative perspicuity of Jocoseria and Ferishtah’s Fancies. In the first place, the ‘certain people who were of importance in their day’ have died out of the remembrance of the world at large. Special, and perhaps accidental, study has revealed their existence to Mr. Browning, but to most of us they are names to be searched for in a biographical dictionary. And, secondly, the style is more than usually involved, and the drift harder to be discovered. The Prologue, which takes the form of a dialogue between Apollo and the Fates, appears to be a balancing of arguments for and against the possibility of happiness to man. The Fates maintain that all joy is an illusion, wrought by the bright beams of the Sun God. Apollo, with the help of a bowl of wine, strives to convince them that pleasure is real. It would appear from the issue that ‘the Fates have it.’ At best, man’s life is a riddle. Sunshine and shade cross and recross, and at last-how else were life possible?— comes Death. The dramatic contrast of Apollo and the Moirai, and the marvellous way in which Mr. Browning has invested the ‘night born hags’ with a living personality, atones for much that is harsh and obscure. Of the Parleyings we prefer that with Francis Furini. A disquisition on the Nude resolves itself into a defence of the existence of a Cause. The picture of Joan of Arc bathing in the lake is in Mr. Browning’s happiest manner. But what shall we say of ‘Instigator Spasm’ as a paraphrase for the ‘Great First Cause?’ Positivity of Negation, as certain Hegelians used to have it, is comparatively intelligible.
