The world in general seems too ready to praise men who are rich in rank and this world's goods, and yet who in their secret hearts must be ashamed of their Mammon-worship, and failure to attain to the highest. Some of these would confess to success with a sigh, knowing as they spoke that the spiritual life is the higher life, and the material, the lower life. Mr. Harry Quilter, in his admirable In Memoriam article on Frank Holl in the Universal Review, spoke strongly on this subject; and I should like to quote one sentence: "Is there no help for it? Must all our great artists nowadays succumb to this devil in disguise who whispers to them of social advancement, and an income of ten thousand a year? Believe me, such things are inimical to art, if not inconsistent with it. The artist has one great advantage over all the rest of mankind; it is this, that his best pleasures cost-nothing! Think what that means. It means that his ten thousand a year, his social position are in himself; they can never be taken from him save by his own act. But to preserve them he must live that straightforward, honest life in which alone they can flourish," &c. What is the value of success, when it depends on the verdict of the voice of the multitude? What matters failure, as viewed by the outside world, when the soul has entered the Holiest of Holies? I noticed in a painting of mountain glory how the central and loftiest peaks are most golden in the after sunset glow; the successive heights more or less in the glory, while the lower ranges fade from view, or are hidden by sunset clouds and mists. Surely this is typical of those who have truly succeeded. The nearer heaven, the greater the glory— this glory being reserved alike for the conclusion of day and life. What seems great to us in the mid-day glare may be hidden from sight in sunset clouds; while the highest mountains are often hidden from view at noontide in a haze of white heat. Looking backwards in history, how the glory centres on one pure lofty peak! And as we look again, we know that on that height a thick darkness once rested 1800 years ago, as though to blot out that scene of apparent failure, and the death on the Cross. But the darkness passed away, and the light shone, and has glowed yet brighter with every century, for the peak now so exalted was the once despised hill of Calvary. We are too ready to pass judgment on who succeed, and who fails. Oh, if one could but remember that the ground whereon we tread may be holy ground, that heaven may be about us; and we too blind to see, too ignorant to know. 166 LA SAISIAZ. BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON, SPROUSTON, ROXBURGHSHIRE, Read at the Sixty-third Meeting of the Browning Society, Friday, January 25, 1889. It is not surprising that Mr. Browning-the note of whose poetry is the interest displayed in all that helps or hinders, stimulates or depresses the individual soul in its moral development-should have very frequently touched upon the question of immortality and defined the influence which the acceptance or rejection of this doctrine has on human life. Not merely has he directly discussed certain bearings of the question in such poems as Easter Day, A Death in the Desert, Rabbi Ben Ezra, Cleon, and Karshish; in numberless others, of which In a Year, The Patriot, and The Grammarian's Funeral, may be named as examples of varying importance, he has-as if in an incidental manner-adverted to it as an ultimate conviction lying ready for use, so to speak, in the background of consciousness. But in taking up La Saisiaz as an expression of Mr. Browning's opinions we find certain features which distinguish it from the poems I have named. In the first place, it is the production of a considerably later period of his life; and the years which have intervened between the publication of this poem and of those I have just referred to, have been years in which all convictions have been shaken to their foundations. No man is so great as to be completely above and beyond the influences of the spirit of his time, and we shall not be surprised if we find that Mr. Browning's attitude in La Saisiaz towards the problem of the Future Life bears the marks of this world-conflict. A second distinguishing feature of La Saisiaz is that here we have, for once at least, a poem by Mr. Browning which is, in no sense of the word, dramatic. Mr. Browning, we all know only too well, has been true to the determination which he must have early formed, not to "unlock his heart with a sonnet-key." He has been exclusive: he has kept the world at arm's-length: he has not worn his heart upon his sleeve. We cannot, of course, for a moment admit that the reverent student of Browning is to be for ever excluded from a knowledge of his mind; but as little can it be denied that the veil is not uplifted to the careless eye: the secret is not yielded up to the hasty glance. He who runs may not read. Mr. Browning has spoken words which the children of wisdom justify; but if it was his intention, as it would appear to have been, to speak to the unthinking crowd in such manner that, hearing, they might hear and not understand, we must give him credit for having carried out his intention with singular success. La Saisiaz, however, we are permitted to believe, is not a dramatic poem. The writer speaks in his own person, and the opinions expressed are Mr. Browning's opinions. 1. The introduction to La Saisiaz bulks somewhat largely when compared with the main body of the poem, occupying twenty-twoor, by another computation, thirty-two-pages out of eighty, and ought not therefore to be passed by without reference. The fulness of detail in these introductory pages would seem intended to preparo our minds for the impartiality and unflinching severity with which popular beliefs in the succeeding pages are to be treated, and the baldness of the question which is immediately to be asked and answered "How much, how little, do I inwardly believe True, that controverted doctrine ?" It is in no ordinary mood that he approaches the discussion. However coolly men may often take up the problem, for him it has become a matter of intense personal interest. He means on this occasion to grope his way back to the ultimate facts on which the conviction is based, and he seeks to prepare our minds for the earnestness of the discussion that is to follow by detailing the tragic circumstances which have forced the question upon him. With an artist's instinct, therefore, he opens his poem by picturing himself as standing on the height alone "Singly dared and done the climbing both of us were bound to do—" with the added hint that in the ascent every sweet was touched with bitter. He then works his way backward, not telling us the tale with the directness of a mere reporter, but in the form of such a soliloquy on recent events as might naturally occur to him at the moment. His mind wanders back over these events, the prevailing thought being his recollection how completely absent was all foreboding of coming ill, and his sense of the profound gulf that now divides him from his friend. Five days before he and she had determined to ascend the mountain. He recalls the light and careless talk of the evening preceding the day which had been fixed for their ascentevery word so significant now from its very triviality, so oppressive in its suggestion of human blindness and ignorance. Not thus would friends converse if they foresaw with what appalling suddenness the thick curtains of night were to fall and hide them from each other for ever. He recalls the commonplace close of that day, the injunction to remember to-morrow's engagement, the nothings of French politics hardly worth repeating, the last dying sparks of adieus on the stair landing-then all was dark. Next morning even there was still no premonitory hint of the coming cloud as he went for his early plunge in the pool. He returned, expecting everywhere to meet and greet the tall white figure, and entered the house just in time to find that death had, at that instant, "captured her in cold forever-" her, the full beauty of whose nature he alone had known, 66 an Alpine-rose which all beside named Edelweiss." The friends bury her body in the quiet little churchyard, and, now ill at ease in such a scene, they resolve to leave it; but before departing, the poet performs one loving duty in making the ascent "which both of them were bound to do." We are thus brought naturally round to the point from which we started—on the summit where the poet stands alone with the question forced upon him in a manner that cannot be evaded "Here I stand: but you-where?" It would have been my wish, had I been able to accomplish it, to have discoursed upon La Saisiaz as a work of art, and not merely as a contribution to the study of a problem of philosophy. To neglect the thought of Mr. Browning's poems, however, in order to devote our attention to the form, is not always an easy task, and less easy with regard to La Saisiaz than with most of his works: but before leaving these introductory pages we may look back for a moment and note some of their poetic features. Briefly then, it may be said, we observe many of the characteristic marks of Mr. Browning's stylesimplicity and directness of narration befitting the sad story; sustained vigour of thought, and picturesque force of language; the keenest observation of nature, and what we might call an almost ruthless accuracy of description. As regards the much-talked-of obscurity of Mr. Browning's writings-though its occurrence can only be denied by the blind worshipper of his genius-it must be concluded that he has been often charged with obscurity in passages which are only marked by conciseness, or are found on examination to be as simple and direct as the abstruse nature of his subject will admit. No one, certainly, can bring against the introduction to La Saisiaz the charge of needless obscurity. Coleridge, you recollect, in speaking of some verses of Wordsworth's declares that if he had met them howling in the desert he would have recognised their authorship. Similarly we might quote many verses from this introduction which bear every mark of Mr. Browning's peculiar genius. When we meet such lines as these "Five short days, sufficient hardly to entice, from out its den we feel how keen is the insight here, how vivid is the picture which is called up before us, and what a world of observation is condensed into the words, each of which is as a scintillating point of light. Such lines, in which he seems to take the first words that occur to him without regard to their lack of poetic association if only they are accurate, vivid, and forcible enough, could not be met with in any desert without proclaiming their author. And again, in lines such as these "Blanc, supreme above his earth-brood, needles red and white and green, Horns of silver, fangs of crystal set on edge in his demesne"; or this, in which he describes how the rising sun transmutes to glory the dark mass of Jura "Gay he hails her, and magnific, thrilled her black length burns to gold"; we have instances of Mr. Browning's characteristic power of passing at one instant, in the midst of an ordinary narrative, to the heights of imaginative expression. 2. At the close of these twenty-two pages of introduction we are brought round once more, as I said, to the point from which we started, but ten pages still intervene between us and the real commencement of the argument of the poem. The question to be answered-now so pressingly personal-is, "Does the soul survive the body?" and he asks himself if he can bear to know the truth, should the truth happen not to coincide with his wishes. He believes |