ABSTRACT
Every new volume of Mr. Browning’s affords fresh proof that he is as vigorous, as fertile, and as wilful as ever. His late poems have for the most part had a narrative form, and therefore they have not placed an extraordinary strain on the faculties of the reader. On the present occasion he has reverted to the didactic and enigmatic style. Ferishtah, a dervish who is a kind of Persian Socrates, propounds to successive disciples mysterious doctrines, sometimes expressed in parables, and for the most part tending to the refutation of their supposed errors. It is not surprising that the oracular response should, until its full import has been mastered, appear perplexing and ambiguous. Profundity is, as Mr. Browning explained in a satirical poem published a few years ago, mistaken for obscurity merely because it is intrinsically difficult of expression. A great thought requires a corresponding phrase, whereas the geese to whom Mr. Browning unkindly compared his critics had no difficulty in finding a vehicle for their simple conceptions. ‘Plain quack, quack,’ said the poet, ‘is easily uttered.’ The victims of his sarcasm reminded him in vain that ‘quack’ is the note of the duck and not of the goose. His contempt would not be modified by the substitution of cackling for quacking. It is perhaps presumptuous to wish that Ferishtah or the author of his being could bring hard sayings within the reach of the ordinary understanding; but genius must be accepted in the shape which it condescends to assume, and the student well knows that Mr. Browning’s riddles are worth solving, both on account of the meaning which may be eventually disclosed, and for the pleasure of observing the elaborate art with which the puzzles have been constructed. One of the reasons of Mr. Browning’s popularity is the activity of mind which he stimulates by insisting on laborious efforts to appreciate his imaginative wisdom. The successful interpreter feels proud of his collaboration with the poet, and he would be ill pleased to learn that his labour and ingenuity have been wasted. On
find the other quotations equally appropriate. It is to be hoped that Mr. Browning, who began the same practice in a former publication, will be merciful in his future employment of unknown or out-of-the-way tongues. Ferishtah’s Fancies are not, like one or two of Mr. Browning’s poems, dependent for comprehension on an external cipher.
