Robert Browning: How to Know Him

by William Lyon Phelps

This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?
Patience a moment!
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
Still there's the comment.
Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
painful or easy!
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
Ay, nor feel queasy."
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts—
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!

(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place
Gaping before us.)
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace
(Hearten our chorus!)
That before living he'd learn how to live—
No end to learning:
Earn the means first—God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:
Live now or never!"
He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever."
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:
Calculus racked him:
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:
Tussis attacked him.
"Now, master, take a little rest!"—not he!
(Caution redoubled,
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)
Not a whit troubled
Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
Bad is our bargain!
Was it not great? did not he throw on God,
(He loves the burthen)—
God's task to make the heavenly period
Perfect the earthen?
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant?
He would not discount life, as fools do here,
Paid by instalment
He ventured neck or nothing—heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes:
Hence with life's pale lure!"
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer
He settled Hoti's business—let it be!—
Properly based Oun—
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,
Dead from the waist down.
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below
Live, for they can, there:
This man decided not to Live but Know—
Bury this man there?
Here—here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects:
Loftily lying,
Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and dying.

In the amusing poem, Up at a Villa—Down in the City, Browning compares the beauty of city and country life from an unusual point of view. It is generally assumed that the country is more poetical than the city; but it would be difficult to prove this, if we were put to the test. Natural scenery is now much admired, and mountains are in the height of fashion; every one is forced to express raptures, whether one feels them or not. But this has not always been the case. When Addison travelled to Italy, he regarded the Alps as disgusting; they were a disagreeable and dangerous barrier, that must be crossed before he could reach the object of his journey. He wrote home from Italy that he was delighted at the sight of a plain—a remark that would damn a modern pilgrim. The first man in English literature to bring out the real beauty of mountains was Thomas Gray.

Very few people have a sincere and genuine love of the country—as is proved by the way they flock to the cities. We love the country for a change, for a rest, for its novelty: how many of us would be willing to live there the year around? We know that Wordsworth loved the country, for he chose to live among the lonely lakes when he could have lived in London. But most intelligent persons live in towns, and take to the country for change and recreation.

The speaker in Browning's poem is an absolutely honest Philistine, who does not know that every word he says spells artistic damnation. He is disgusted with the situation of his house:

…. stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull.

In other words the site is so magnificent that to-day expensive hotels are built there, and people come from all over the world to enjoy the view. In fact it is just this situation which Browning admires in the poem De Gustibus.

What I love best in all the world
Is a castle, precipice-encurled,
In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.

But our man does not know what he ought to say; he says simply what he really thinks. The views of a sincere Philistine on natural scenery, works of art, pieces of music, are interesting because they are sincere. The conventional admiration may or may not be genuine.

This man says the city is much cooler in summer than the country: that spring visits the city earlier: that what we call the monotonous row of houses in a city street is far more beautiful than the irregularity of the country. It appeals to his sense of beauty.