Chapter V: Part II: The Vision. Sections XIII-XXXIII (3)

(_b_) Whilst, however, preserving these extreme views with regard to the position and tenets of the Church, the Cardinal, with statesmanlike wisdom, recognized that, in accordance with its genius as implied in the attribute Catholic, it must likewise keep pace with the intellectual advance of the age, not holding aloof from, but, where possible, assimilating the highest results of contemporary thought. Now it is easy to perceive that the onlooker of that day may have found these apparently conflicting tendencies in the Cardinal's mind difficult of reconcilement, and only to be accounted for by the supposition already suggested that the man capable of assuming such an attitude towards his creed must be, if not a fool, then an arch-hypocrite. It has been the work of Browning to show how, without detriment to his intellectual capacity, the Bishop may justify his position. To what extent, if at all, his moral character is affected thereby must depend upon the degree of sincerity which we allow to the entire exposition.

It is no part of the present plan to attempt a vindication of Browning's treatment of the character of Cardinal Wiseman; the issues suggested by the Apology lie deeper, and are far broader than those involved in such a discussion. One object, at least, of the design would appear to be that of a defence of belief in those tenets of a creed which transcend the powers of reason; the particular religious body to which the speaker belongs being of little import to the real issue. It seemed, however, that any treatment of the poem would be incomplete which did not contain some brief comparison such as has been here attempted. And even now there is danger lest the attempt may prove misleading. Whether or not Browning has given us the true character of the Cardinal is not the question; the only fact in that connection which we shall do well to bear in mind is that, working from the materials at his command--the outward and visible manifestations afforded by Wiseman's life as known to his contemporaries--the author of the Apology has given what may be a possible interpretation of character, sufficiently reasonable, at any rate, to account for, and to reconcile seeming inconsistencies, without laying its owner open to the charge of either folly or knavery.

In approaching a more detailed examination of the poem we must not neglect to take into account the peculiar conditions of religious life and thought prevailing in England at the time of the publication, 1855. Fourteen years earlier had appeared the celebrated No. 90 of _Tracts for the Times_. After an interval of six years, in 1847, had followed the secession of J. H. Newman to the Church of Rome, in 1853 that of Cardinal Manning. It was a time of anxiety and sorrow amongst all those most deeply attached to the Church of England, and of general unrest and uneasiness throughout the country. Sufficient evidence of the universal unsettlement and anxiety is afforded by the alarm, amounting almost to panic, excited by the Bull of 1850 announcing the territorial titles scheme. In a letter to Dean Stanley on the question of the Oxford University Reform Bill of 1854, Mr. Gladstone wrote, "The very words which you have let fall upon your paper 'Roman Catholics,' used in this connection (_i.e._, of extending full University privileges to students other than members of the Church of England) were enough to burn it through and through, considering we have a parliament which, _were the measure of 1829 not law at this moment, would, I think, probably refuse to make it law_."[56] Such was the spirit of the times in England at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century, and the existence of this spirit must not be left out of account in dealing with Bishop Blougram and his Apology.

That Browning did not wholly escape its influence, even though removed from direct contact, is readily conceivable. And in spite of his own expressed surprise at the suggestion that he did not favourably regard the Roman Catholic creed, his natural sympathies would certainly appear to have inclined towards a Puritanic form of worship rather than to a more ornate ritual; setting aside questions of doctrine of which these may be the outward manifestations. This being the case, ample reason is at once discoverable for the resolve to examine the position more thoroughly, ascertaining how far it was possible to make out a case for the other side. For, whilst on the one hand, we have every right, despite his cosmopolitanism and his Italian sympathies to claim the author of the _Apology_ as a genuine Englishman, with a fair proportion of the Englishman's characteristics, on the other hand, we may exonerate him, if not wholly, yet to a very large extent, from insular prejudices and narrow-minded judgments. Had he designed to present Blougram either as fool or hypocrite, he might assuredly have attained his object with equal certainty by writing something less than the thousand and odd lines devoted to the work of psychological analysis: for, in making his defence, the Bishop is likewise revealing himself--to him who has eyes to see. Here, as elsewhere, it is Browning's intent to present to his readers not what man sees but "what _this_ man sees"; to lead them to judge of cause rather than of effect, of motive rather than of action, or of action by the recognition of motive. We may attempt to classify his characters, if we will: a Browning society may write and read papers on the "villains" or the "hypocrites" of Browning as distinguished from his saints. Such a classification is perhaps fairly possible in the case of a character delineator such as Dickens, whose lines of demarcation are stronger and broader, purposely so, than those of actual life; but it is questionable whether Browning himself could have thus labelled his people and separated them into distinct compartments. For if the complexity of human nature and character is fully recognized by any writer whether poet, novelist, or biographer, it has surely been so recognized by the author of _Paracelsus_, of _Sordello_, of _The Ring and the Book_. It has been so frequently remarked that it seems but reiterating a truism to repeat the assertion that he writes of the individual, not of the race, not of _man_ but of _men_; of men with much indeed which is common to the race, but with peculiar attention also to those idiosyncrasies which establish individuality. Hence the choice of soliloquists for the dramatic poems is most frequently made amongst those the interpretation of whose actions has presented special difficulty to the world at large. Thus to Browning was left the vindication of Paracelsus, and for the bombast, the quack, the drunkard, of contemporary biography has been substituted the pioneer and martyr of science, failing, but on account of the magnitude of his designs; recognizing even in defeat the divine nature of the mission entrusted to his charge. For an Andrea del Sarto--to a less profound student of character appearing as "an easy-going plebeian" satisfied with a social life among his compeers, as an artist "resting content in the sense of his superlative powers as an executant"--is offered the Andrea of the poem bearing his name; a sometime aspiring nature, now embittered by the struggle, wellnigh ended within the soul, between yearnings towards future greatness and the desire for present gain; a nature of insight sufficient to realize that the bonds of materialism are galling, of moral force inadequate to effect their rupture. The more subtle, the more outwardly misleading the character, the stronger the attraction it would appear to have borne for Browning. It is no matter for surprise that in _Prince Hohenstiel Schwangau_ he should have devoted over 2,000 lines to a study of that mysterious, if disappointing, figure in European politics of the middle of the last century--"at once the sabre of revolution and the trumpet of order." And if conflicting elements of character constituted the main attraction of the personality of Napoleon III, a similar cause of fascination, as we have already noticed, exists in the instance before us; viz., the possibility of reconciling the extreme opinions professed in matters of Church ritual and doctrine, with the erudition, the political ability, and width of intellectual outlook notably characteristic of Cardinal Wiseman.

I. For avoidance of misunderstanding as to the intention of the Apology it is well to read the Epilogue as Prologue, although, even with this introduction, it is not easy to decide how far the speaker is serious in his assertions--a definite answer to the question would probably have presented (so Browning would suggest) some difficulty to the Bishop himself.

For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke.
The other portion, as he shaped it thus
For argumentatory purposes,
He felt his foe was foolish to dispute.
Some arbitrary accidental thoughts
That crossed his mind, amusing because new,
He chose to represent as fixtures there,
Invariable convictions (such they seemed
Beside his interlocutor's loose cards
Flung daily down, and not the same way twice)
While certain hell-deep instincts, man's weak tongue
Is never bold to utter in their truth
Because styled hell-deep ('tis an old mistake
To place hell at the bottom of the earth)
He ignored these--not having in readiness
Their nomenclature and philosophy:
He said true things, but called them by wrong names.
"On the whole," he thought, "I justify myself
On every point where cavillers like this
Oppugn my life: he tries one kind of fence,
I close, he's worsted, that's enough for him.
He's on the ground: if ground should break away
I take my stand on, there's a firmer yet
Beneath it, both of us may sink and reach.
His ground was over mine and broke the first." (ll. 980-1004.)

II. Thus the Bishop believed himself to realize the weakness of his opponent; his superficiality in spite of his appeal to the ideal; the worldliness which would esteem this hour of intercourse with the prelate the highest honour of his life,

The thing, you'll crown yourself with, all your days.

An incident which he would not fail to turn to

Capital account;
"When somebody, through years and years to come,
Hints of the bishop,--names me--that's enough:
Blougram? I knew him"--(into it you slide)
"Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day,
All alone, we two: he's a clever man:
And after dinner,--why, the wine you know,--
Oh, there was wine, and good!--what with the wine ...
'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!
He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen
Something of mine he relished, some review:
He's quite above their humbug in his heart,
Half-said as much, indeed--the thing's his trade.
I warrant, Blougram's sceptical at times:
How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!" (ll. 31-44.)

Just or unjust, such is the Bishop's estimate of his companion--(if the opportunist is "quite above their humbug in his heart," not so the would-be idealist!) And, accepting this view, the futility of casting pearls before swine restrains him from a free expression of those deeper thoughts which rise to the surface only here and there throughout the monologue, evidence of the man beneath the prelate. There are problems which do not admit of discussion "to you, and over the wine." Hence Blougram holds himself justified in exercising that "reserve or economy of truth" recognized[57] by a contemporary writer of his own community as permissible under given conditions, within one class of which he may reasonably account as falling, his interview with Gigadibs; viz., that in which the listener is incapable of understanding truth stated exactly, when it may be presented in the nearest form likely to appeal to his comprehension. The journalist is thus from the first accepted by the Bishop as representative of his world--that portion of the lay world to which the position of this particular prelate of the Roman Catholic Church is one requiring justification. Scepticism is so easy to this special intellectual type of man, faith so difficult, that it is to him incomprehensible that the Bishop may be genuine in his profession. On these grounds Blougram bases the necessity for his defence.

III. Taking himself then at his critics' estimate, _i.e._, as a sceptic masquerading in the garb of an ecclesiastical dignitary, he opens his exposition by a comparison of his life as actually lived with the ideal life advocated by the critic and his compeers. Pursuing the subject--having attained even to the supreme honour to which his calling admits, having ascended the papal throne, the position would yet be but one of _outward_ splendour, incomparable with "the grand, simple life" a man _may_ lead; grand, because essentially genuine--"imperial, plain and true." Nevertheless, he would submit, it is better for a man so to order his life that it may be lived to his satisfaction in Rome or Paris of the nineteenth century, rather than to dissipate his powers in the evolution of some ideal scheme, impossible of practical execution. As illustration, follows the incident of the outward-bound vessel in which are provided cabins of equal dimensions for the accommodation of all passengers. One would fain fill his "six feet square" with all the luxuries which the mode of life hitherto pursued has rendered essential to his comfort. His neighbour, meanwhile, has limited his requirements to the possibilities of the space allotted; with the result that the man content with little finds himself satisfactorily equipped for the voyage; whilst he of great, but impracticable aspirations, is left with a bare cabin, one after the other the articles of his proposed outfit having been rejected by the ship's steward. Hence the deduction, that the man of moderate requirements is better fitted for life, as life now is, than he of the "artist nature." Later on (l. 763) the speaker again reverts to the same simile, passing to the further illustration of the traveller providing his equipment in advance, in each case adapting it to a climate to be subsequently reached, rather than to that in which he is at the moment living.

As when a traveller, bound from North to South,
Scouts fur in Russia: what's its use in France?
In France spurns flannel: where's its need in Spain?
In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers! (ll. 790-793.)

The question not unreasonably follows, "When, through his journey, was the fool at ease?"

Thus, according to the Bishop, he who can most completely accommodate himself to the exigencies of the present life, evinces his capability for adapting himself to that which is to come. A theory, in direct opposition, it would appear, to Browning's usual doctrine, repeated in so many of the familiar poems. It is difficult to imagine a figure affording more striking contrast to the prosperous prelate than that of the Grammarian, once the "Lyric Apollo, electing to live nameless," occupied with the pursuit of an abstract good; only paving the way for the attainment of his successors; and in death throwing on God the task of making "the heavenly period perfect the earthen," that incomplete phase of existence, full of unsatisfied aspirations, of unfinished attempts. Of him the poet gives us the assurance that he shall find the God whom he has sought: whilst for the worldling who

Has the world here--should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!

In _Cleon_, in _A Death in the Desert_, in _Dîs Aliter Visum_, and perhaps above all in _Abt Vogler_ (to refer to only a few illustrations out of the many possible), the fact that man is incapable of accommodating himself to his environment is treated as a proof that this is not his true sphere of existence; that he was designed, and is still destined, for something higher. So asks the lover of Pauline:

How should this earth's life prove my only sphere?
Can I so narrow sense but that in life
Soul still exceeds it?

In _Dîs Aliter Visum_, the assertion

What's whole, can increase no more,
Is dwarfed and dies, since here's its sphere;

has especial reference to love,

The sole spark from God's life "at strife"
With death, so, sure of range above
The limits here.

but there is a recognition of the general principle that that work alone is worth beginning here and now, which "cannot grow complete," and which "heaven (not earth) must finish." Even where, as in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, Browning lays strongest emphasis upon "the unity of life"; where age is regarded as the completion of the physical life begun in youth, the question is put, and left unanswered:

Thy body at its best,
How far can it project thy soul on its lone way?

These years of mortal life are to be devoted to the best use, so that it shall not be possible to say that "soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul." Nevertheless, the final result is to be that man, in yielding his physical life, passes

A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a god though in the germ.

It cannot be denied that the Bishop is taking a distinctly lower position than that suggested by any of the theories thus advanced. Nevertheless, he holds himself, and probably with reason, to be upon higher ground than that occupied by his critic. Recognizing his incapacity for experiencing the enthusiasm of a Luther, he does not, therefore, feel constrained to adopt the coldly critical attitude of a Strauss. In his own words--

My business is not to remake myself,
But make the absolute best of what God made. (ll. 355-356.)

So Luigi, in calculating his fitness for the office of assassin assigned him, is found reckoning his very insignificance as of greater worth, under the given conditions, than his strength--extending his philosophy in a general application to human life.

Every one knows for what his excellence
Will serve, but no one ever will consider
For what his worst defect might serve: and yet
Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder
In search of a distorted ash? I find
The wry, spoilt branch, a natural, perfect bow.[58]

There is a possible vocation in life for a Blougram as for a Luther.

IV. Admitting then the wide difference between the ideal life proposed by his critics, and the practical life which he has himself adopted, with line 144 the Bishop passes to a consideration of the possibility of effecting any form of reconciliation between the two theories. What restrained his college friend from seeking the position occupied by his comrade? What but his incapacity for belief, or, more accurately speaking, his incapacity for accepting any fixed and markedly defined creed. This difficulty the Bishop assumes himself to share: his faith is relative rather than absolute; hence, having adopted the position of unbelievers, so-called, the question remains, how may each in his several station, lead a life consistent with such profession? The prelate holds that to preserve a fixed attitude of unbelief is a feat of even greater difficulty than that of maintaining the opposed position of faith--neither being in fact absolutely and unalterably defined. It is easy enough for the onlooker to imagine that the creed of the Church is a matter straightforward and unperplexing for those living within the fold, admitting of no questioning, no error; faith or unfaith; no half measures possible. Not so; even within the Church the believer has his difficulties wherewith to contend, his doubts, his hesitations.

That way
Over the mountain, which who stands upon
Is apt to doubt if it be meant for road;
While, if he views it from the waste itself,
Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow,
Not vague, mistakeable! what's a break or two
Seen from the unbroken desert either side? (ll. 197-203.)

The Bishop would go yet further, and suggest that the inevitable doubts and questionings of the earnest believer are in themselves but a means of strengthening faith: this being so, what should restrain him from entering the Church's fold?

What if the breaks themselves should prove at last
The most consummate of contrivances
To train a man's eye, teach him what is faith?
And so we stumble at truth's very test! (ll. 205-208.)

Since consistent unbelief is at least as impossible as consistent faith, the conclusion follows that life must be either one of "faith diversified by doubt," or of "doubt diversified by faith." Well, he has chosen one, let Gigadibs enjoy the other--if he can.

V. Which life is preferable, that which calls the chess-board white, the life of faith (in so far as faith is possible); or that which calls the chess-board black, the life of doubt? The predominating (though by no means absolute) influence of belief or of unbelief, determines the lines on which character and life alike shall develop. Now, the Bishop asserts that for him belief will bring, nay, has indeed brought, what he most desires in life--"power, peace, pleasantness, and length of days." If Gigadibs suggests that in his case unbelief will bring the satisfaction which belief affords his companion of the dinner-table, then the Bishop demurs. The faith of which he makes profession is calculated to meet all exigencies--faith is in short his "waking life." The scepticism of the journalist is, on the contrary, void of all practical utility. Should he wish to live consistently he must cut himself off from those everyday demands of life to which faith is an absolute requisite. He must "live to sleep." And here the Bishop emphasizes an obvious, though not commonly recognized fact--a powerful argument in favour of faith--in the abstract, at least. He who professes himself a sceptic in matters spiritual, is yet compelled to the exercise of faith in each act of practical life. Mutual confidence abolished between man and man, business transactions become impossible, and mercantile activity is brought to a standstill. Belief involved in matters such as these, must, would the sceptic prove consistent, be cast overboard with the other faiths of his childhood: and the active man of the world becomes "bed-ridden." Amongst the temporal advantages which the Bishop accounts as resulting from his profession, first rank is accorded "the world's estimation, which is half the fight," to gain which nothing less than a positive confession of unswerving faith is required. Hence circumstances have forced from him the assertions:

Friends,
I absolutely and peremptorily
Believe! (ll. 243-245.)

* * * * *

I say, I see all,
And swear to each detail the most minute
In what I think a Pan's face--you, mere cloud:
I swear I hear him speak and see him wink,
For fear, if once I drop the emphasis,
Mankind may doubt there's any cloud at all. (ll. 866-871.)

The world has decided that with regard to

Certain points, left wholly to himself,
When once a man has arbitrated on,
... he must succeed there or go hang. (ll. 289-291.)

And of the most important of these "points" is

The form of faith his conscience holds the best,
Whate'er the process of conviction was. (ll. 296-297.)

The Roman Catholic faith is that in which the Bishop was born and educated. It had been decided from childhood that he should become a priest: hence his choice of vocation. And this faith is, for him, one in which power temporal, as well as spiritual, puts forth its claims. Its undaunted champion may assert "I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile," but in drawing the distinction between "Peter's creed" and that of Hildebrand, Blougram recognizes by implication the political aspect of the cause for which the struggle thus closing had been sustained.

VI. If then, in satisfaction of the demands of those uncompromising advocates of truth of whom Gigadibs is representative, the prelate of the nineteenth century shall renounce his position as confessor of the creed of the eleventh, in what rank of life may he take his stand? From what career may faith be, without injurious effects, wholly excluded? For if faith, to merit its title, is to be unmixed with doubt, equally must unbelief be unalloyed in quality. A life apart from faith? That of Napoleon? If so, then does the critic claim that Napoleon shares with him the "common primal element of unbelief," belief being an impossibility. Yet to such an admission the Corsican's whole career would give the lie. Whatever the character of the faith which sustained him, faith there was, sufficient to lead him on to colossal deeds: his trust may have been "crazy," "God knows through what, or in what"; but to all intents and purposes it was faith, possessing the essential element of faith, _life_, and the inspiration of life:

It's alive
And shines and leads him, and that's all we want.

But to the Bishop such a life would have been impossible, since he has not the clue to Napoleon's faith. "The noisy years" would not have offered him his ideal, even were this life all. And he does not himself believe that this life _is_ all: although he will not assert that to him a future state of existence is matter of absolute certainty. If the career of "the world's victor" is not then possible without faith of some kind, what of that of the artist, of the poet? With a return to the earlier cynical recognition of his own limitations, the Bishop enquires of what use an attempt on his part to emulate Shakespeare when endowed by nature with neither dramatic nor poetic faculty? Nevertheless he finds that he has much in life which Shakespeare would have been glad to possess. The author of _Hamlet_ and of _Othello_ might in truth enjoy the good things of earth by the mere exercise of imagination; yet, strange anomaly, he built himself

The trimmest house in Stratford town;
Saves money, spends it, owns the worth of _things_.

Even a Shakespeare, then, may be more or less of a materialist. Thus the successful churchman who has attained the object of his ambition, whose life is one of pleasantness and peace, may with confidence, turning to the poet, ask him--

If this life's all, who wins the game?

VII. If, however, the existence of another life _is_ to be recognized; if belief is to be allowed to take the place of scepticism, then the face of the argument is at once changed, and the Bishop is as ready as is his critic to admit that enthusiasm is the grandest inspiration of human nature. But he is--or so he would have his listener believe--no more capable of the enthusiastic faith of Luther than of the strategic achievements of Napoleon or the dramatic creations of Shakespeare. Nevertheless, the negations of the sceptic's creed bear for him no attraction. In either case remains the risk that faith or absence of faith may prove error. The uncertainty on both sides being equal, it is _not_ as well to be Strauss as Luther. Better even the mere desire for belief in the story of the Gospels, than a dispassionately critical attempt to reconcile discrepencies in that which has no personal interest for the enquirer: the one means spiritual vitality, the other stagnation.

VIII. With line 647, once more reverting to his earlier demonstration of the impossibility of a "pure faith," the Bishop would submit that the Divine Presence is veiled rather than revealed by Nature, until such time as man shall have become capable of being "confronted with the truth of him." But what of the mediaeval days, "that age of simple faith"? Were men the better for their simplicity of belief? By no means, replies the casuist of the nineteenth century, whose faith "means perpetual unbelief." The simple faith proved itself unequal to the task of inspiring a life of outward morality: men could and did

Lie, kill, rob, fornicate
Full in beliefs face

Rather the lifelong struggle with doubt, than this childish credulity empty of practical result. And in spite of his doubts, Blougram holds his faith "sufficient," since it just suffices to keep the doubts in check. Nevertheless he will not incur the risk of shaking unduly such faith as he possesses. He must not, therefore, begin to question even the most questionable of ecclesiastical miracles. Whilst he cannot trust himself to criticize things spiritual, he may yet prevent himself from taking the first step in that direction. And here Browning has been accused of implying that the Roman Catholic Church demands of its members acceptance of miracles, such as that held to affect the blood of S. Januarius, referred to as "the Naples' liquefaction." The Bishop is obviously intended to suggest no universal obligation; with him the matter is purely personal. He has not, as he has already admitted, sufficient confidence in the calibre of his faith to allow reason to step in and question the reliability of that which he would fain hold implicitly as truth. He fears to take the first step on the road of criticism which ends in the definition of God as "the moral order of the universe." Is not this, allowing for the assumed scepticism of the Bishop, consistent with what we find Cardinal Wiseman writing of his experiences in the early days of struggle with doubts and questionings which cost him so much? Thus he writes to a nephew twenty years after the worst of the conflict was over; "During the struggle the simple submission of faith is the only remedy. Thoughts against faith must be treated at the time like temptations against any other virtue--put away--though in cooler moments they may be safely analysed and unravelled."[59]

In conclusion, the prelate emphatically reasserts the _practical_ superiority of his choice of a career over that of this particular sceptic, since it is in fact impossible for the journalist to live his life of negation. He obeys the dictates of reason only where these do not run counter too markedly to the prejudices of others: there he is forced to yield to some extent. Thus he "grazes" through life, with "not one lie," escaping the censure of his fellow men, but not gaining their esteem or admiration, essentials to the happiness of his companion. So the Bishop remains victorious on all counts, and emphasizes the superiority of his position by bestowing upon his guest practical proof in the "three words" of introduction to publishers in London, Dublin, or New York, securing

Such terms as never [he] aspired to get
In all our own reviews and some not ours.

IX. A few supplementary observations upon those points at which the Apologist touches the firmer ground which he recognizes as existing beneath the surface on which he bases his defence. That he is not entirely satisfied with the conditions of his existence is obvious from the character of the apology, which suggests, from time to time, thoughts higher than those to which he gives direct utterance. Opportunist as he would present himself to be, lines 693-698, are unmistakably the expression of inmost experience--

When the fight begins within himself,
A man's worth something. God stoops o'er his head,
Satan looks up between his feet--both tug--
He's left, himself, i' the middle: the soul wakes
And grows. Prolong that battle through his life!
Never leave growing till the life to come!

It is here almost as if Browning cannot restrain the expression of his own personal feeling, so markedly characteristic is this passage of his general teaching. That which holds good of all struggle is applicable also to the contest between faith and doubt. That implicit faith of mediaeval times, which exerted too little influence on practical life, was in character less virile, a factor less potent for good than is the Bishop's own limited belief, constantly assailed by doubt. Good strengthened by the contest with evil, faith increased by the conflict with doubt. The creed of Browning, in brief:

I shew you doubt, to prove that faith exists.
The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,
If faith o'ercomes doubt. How I know it does?
By life and man's free will, God gave for that! (ll. 602-605.)

* * * * *

Let doubt occasion still more faith. (l. 675.)

Words recalling Tennyson's reference to the spiritual struggles of a more finely tempered nature than that of Blougram:

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own.[60]

And the Bishop may not unjustly claim

The sum of all is--yes, my doubt is great,
My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough. (ll. 724-725.)

These higher utterances, intermingled as they are with the openly expressed tenets of the opportunist; whilst testifying most clearly to the genius of Browning in its penetrative comprehension of human nature, that admixture of noble aspiration and base compromise; find their counterpart in the memorable advice of Polonius to Laertes, constituted for the main part of prudential maxims regulating the social comportment of the successful worldling; then, almost suddenly, as it were, at the close, breaking through to deeper ground and striking upon that unalterable principle of life, of universal import, of inexhaustible illuminative power, since it treats only of that which is in its essence infinite--

To thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Though the life which the Bishop defends may not be the highest measured by the standard of his own ideal, yet, "truth is truth, and justifies itself in undreamed ways." And there _is_ truth in the recognition that the faith to which he looks for inspiration and guidance is a faith barely capable of holding its own in face of the battalion of assailant doubts. It may yet be that "the dayspring's faith" shall finally crush "the midnight doubt." Some solution of the problems of life must be sought, and why should that alone be rejected which alone offers a satisfactory clue? There is perhaps no finer passage in Browning, certainly none more melodious, than that in which Blougram, after comparing the relative positions of faith and unbelief as influencing life, concludes with this query.

Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower bell, some one's death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides,--
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as nature's self,
To rap and knock and enter in our soul,
Take hands and dance there, fantastic ring,
Round the ancient idol, on his base again,--
The grand Perhaps! We look on helplessly.
There the old misgivings, crooked questions are--
This good God,--what he could do, if he would,
Would, if he could--then must have done long since:
If so, when, where and how? Some way must be,--
Once feel about, and soon or late you hit
Some sense, in which it might be, after all.
Why not, "The Way, the Truth, the Life?" (ll. 182-197.)

It must be left to the individual decision to acquit or condemn the Bishop. The decision may perhaps depend upon the acceptance or rejection of the alternative, "Whole faith or none?" And "whole faith" as defined by the Apology is that which accepts all things, from the existence of a God down to the latest ecclesiastical miracle. Such an attitude is possible only to the uncritical mind. The spheres of faith and reason are not identical. The childlike intelligence may receive without question or effort of faith all that is offered it of things spiritual. It sees no cause for question, hence doubt does not arise. The logical and critical faculties have not been developed. But in the mind of the thinker, the logician, the metaphysician, reason will assert itself; judgment will not be blindfolded. If the postulates of faith are capable of proof by reason, then is faith no longer necessary; its sphere is usurped by reason which has become all-sufficient. To the man, therefore, whose intellect questions, analyses, dissects truths as they present themselves to him, a proportionately stronger faith is a necessity: the doubts so arising being, "the most consummate of contrivances to teach men faith."

Having once satisfied the insistent yearning of a nature which declares, I ...

want, am made for, and must have a God
... No mere name
Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth,
To wit, a relation from that thing to me,
Touching from head to foot--which touch I feel. (ll. 846-850.)

(With this compare Mr. W. Ward on Cardinal Wiseman, "his own early doubts ... had been the alternative to a passionate, mystical, and absorbing faith.") This relation having been attained, the speaker is prepared

To take the rest, this life of ours.

Faith in the greatest having been assured, faith in that which is less may or may not follow. He who feels in touch with the Divine may well endure the existence of doubts and questionings inevitable in matters of less vital import. To the child "who knows his father near" tears are not an unalloyed bitterness; or, to adopt the Bishop's own simile, so be it the path leads to the mountain top, a break or two by the way matters little.

LECTURE IV

CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (i)

LECTURE IV

CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (i)

No poems of Browning's have probably excited more widely-spread interest (the question of admiration being set aside) than those which we have before us for consideration in this and the two following Lectures. The interest so excited is due, one believes, less to artistic merit than to the character of the subjects treated--unfailing in their attraction for the speculative tendencies of the human intellect. The form in which they now make appeal is no longer identical with that in which they presented themselves when _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_ appeared in the middle of the last century: fifty years hence the embodiment of thoughts thus suggested may well differ yet more widely from that obtaining at the present day. Nevertheless, beneath all external variations, that which is essentially permanent remains: and in this enduring interest of subject inevitably subsists the immortality of that literary work, whether poetry or prose, in which it has found, or is destined to find, a vehicle of expression. If it were permissible to suggest a division where the author clearly intended no division should be, it might on the foregoing hypothesis be reasonable to prognosticate for _Easter Day_ a more enduring interest than for the companion poem; since, whilst the dramatic attraction is less powerful than in _Christmas Eve_, the treatment of subject goes deeper, and is more independent of temporary accessaries. In a memorable phrase Professor Dowden has defined the subjects of the two poems as "the spiritual life individual, and the spiritual life corporate."[61] Both indeed deal with faith in its relation to life: the first with faith as found incorporated in typical religious communities of the civilized world; the second with faith as it makes direct appeal to the individual apart from the influence of external formulae. The one aspect of the subject is obviously regarded by Browning as complementary to the other. "Easter Day" is essential to the completion of "Christmas Eve." Both poems were originally published in one volume (1850), and still remain united by the joint title standing at the head of both. Individual faith is necessary to the vitality of faith corporate. The considerations engaging the attention of the soliloquist of _Christmas Eve_ are confined to a decision as to which of the forms of creed presented for choice shall receive his adherence; or whether it may be justly yielded to that which he finally accounts no creed, the theory of life based upon the teaching of the Professor of Göttingen? In _Easter Day_ the debate in the mind of the speaker goes deeper yet, and relates mainly to the difficulties attendant upon a practical and consistent acceptance of Christian belief in its simplest form: an acceptance involving a necessary reconstruction of life on the lines of faith. In another sense also are the two poems complementary. As indicated by the sequence of names in the title, the love and universal tolerance suggested by the Peace and Goodwill of Christmas find their fuller development, their essential, practical outcome in the personal faith, implying a personal acceptance of the sacrifice of which Easter Day marks the triumphant culmination. Hence the more notable _asceticism_, if we are so to term it, of the second poem as compared with the first. Rightly, he who would fain be a Christian stands in awe before

The all-stupendous tale,--that Birth,
That Life, that Death! (_E. D._, ll. 233-234.)

Thus in _Easter Day_ is to be found no trace of that "easy tolerance" in matters spiritual which suggests itself--only, however, to be finally rejected--to the soliloquist of _Christmas Eve_ as the result of his night's experiences. But a comparison of the two poems will be more satisfactorily made after a brief separate consideration of each in this and Lecture V. Lecture VI will be mainly occupied with a discussion of criticisms relating to both, as well as to the question of vital importance touching Browning's own position--How far must the conclusions of either or both be regarded as dramatic in character?

From a merely artistic point of view _Christmas Eve_ presents its own peculiar interest. Having once read it, in whatever degree our minds may have become impressed by its theological or dogmatic arguments, externals have been so forcibly presented, that Zion Chapel and the common outside "at the edge of which the Chapel stands," always thereafter bear for us a curious kind of familiarity similar to that which attaches itself to remembered haunts of our childish days. The first three Sections of the Poem contain what may certainly be classed amongst the most grimly realistic descriptions in English literature. It may, indeed, be objected that these opening stanzas are _perilously_ realistic in character where poetry is concerned, fitted rather for the pages of Dickens or of Gissing than for their present position.

The fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones.

Then "the many-tattered little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother," "the sickly babe with its spotted face," and the

Tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief. (ll. 48-82.)

In short, read the second Section in its entirety. Such description is certainly not "poetic." But Browning knew well what he was doing. Influenced doubtless by his love of striking effects, we cannot but feel that he makes the unpleasing characteristics of the congregation assembled within the walls of Zion Chapel the more repellant, that the transition from the mundane to the divine may strike the reader with greater force. From the flock sniffing

Its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle.

the soliloquist of the poem calls us to follow him as he "flings out of the little chapel"; and with Section IV we have passed into the boundless waste of the common, where is

A lull in the rain, a lull
In the wind too; the moon ... risen
[Which] would have shone out pure and full,
But for the ramparted cloud-prison,
Block on block built up in the West. (ll. 185-189.)

The scene thus outlined prepares us for the culmination of Section VI.

For lo, what think you? suddenly
The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky
Received at once the full fruition
Of the moon's consummate apparition.
The black cloud-barricade was riven,
Ruined beneath her feet, and driven
Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,
North and South and East lay ready
For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,
Sprang across them and stood steady.
'Twas a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect.

* * * * *
* * * * *

But above night too, like only the next,
The second of a wondrous sequence,
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,
Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed,
Another rainbow rose, a mightier,
Fainter, flushier and flightier,--
Rapture dying along its verge. (ll. 373-399.)

So the poet leads us to the climax--to the silence awaiting the answer to the speaker's query

Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge? (l. 400.)

Then follow Sections VII and VIII, revealing the vision.

The too-much glory, as it seemed,
Passing from out me to the ground,
Then palely serpentining round
Into the dark with mazy error.

* * * * *

All at once I looked up with terror.
He was there.
He himself with his human air.
On the narrow pathway, just before.

But the writer keeps strictly within the bounds of reverence:

I saw the back of him, no more. (ll. 424-432.)

This treatment in itself may, I believe, be not unjustly taken as indicative of Browning's devotional attitude towards the subject. When, in