ABSTRACT
We never read Heinsius-a great admission for a reviewer-but we learn from M.Arago that that formidably erudite writer pronounces Aristotle’s works to be characterized by a majestic obscurity which repels the ignorant.1 We borrow these words to indicate what is likely to be the first impression of a reader who, without any previous familiarity with Browning, glances through his two new volumes of poems. The less acute he is, the more easily will he arrive at the undeniable criticism, that these poems have a ‘majestic obscurity’, which repels not only the ignorant but the idle. To read poems is often a substitute for thought: fine-sounding conventional phrases and the sing-song of verse demand no co-operation in the reader; they glide over his mind with the agreeable unmeaningness of ‘the compliments of the season’, or a speaker’s exordium on ‘feelings too deep for expression’. But let him expect no such drowsy passivity in reading Browning. Here he will find no conventionality, no melodious commonplace, but freshness, originality, sometimes eccentricity of expression; no didactic layingout of a subject, but dramatic indication, which requires the reader to trace by his own mental activity the underground stream of thought that jets out in elliptical and pithy verse. To read Browning he must exert himself, but he will exert himself to some purpose. If he finds the meaning difficult of access, it is always worth his effort-if he has to dive deep, ‘he rises with his pearl’. Indeed, in Browning’s best poems he makes us feel that what we took for obscurity in him was superfici ality in ourselves. We are far from meaning that
even irritating sometimes, and should at least be kept under restraint in printed poems, where the writer is not merely indulging his own vein, but is avowedly appealing to the mind of his reader. Turning from the ordinary literature of the day to such a writer as Browning, is like turning from Flotow’s music, made up of well-pieced shreds and patches, to the distinct individuality of Chopin’s Studies or Schubert’s Songs. Here, at least, is a man who has something of his own to tell us, and who can tell it impressively, if not with faultless art. There is nothing sickly or dreamy in him: he has a clear eye, a vigorous grasp, and courage to utter what he sees and handles. His robust energy is informed by a subtle, penetrating spirit, and this blending of opposite qualities gives his mind a rough piquancy that reminds one of a russet apple. His keen glance pierces into all the secrets of human character, but, being as thoroughly alive to the outward as to the inward, he reveals those secrets, not by a process of dissection, but by dramatic painting. We fancy his own description of a poet applies to himself:
He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, The man who slices lemons into drink, The coffee-roaster’s brazier, and the boys That volunteer to help him at the winch. He glanced o’er books on stalls with half an eye, And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor’s string, And broad-edge hold-print posters by the wall He took such cognizance of men and things, If any beat a horse, you felt he saw; If any cursed a woman, he took note; Yet stared at nobody,—they stared at him, And found, less to their pleasure than surprise, He seemed to know them and expect as much.1
