Robert Browning: How To Know Him

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The philosophy of this poem is Browning's favorite philosophy of
development. He compares the perfection of Greek art with the
imperfection of the real human body. We know what a man ought to
look like; and if we have forgotten, we may behold a representation
by a Greek sculptor. Stand at the corner of a city street, and watch
the men pass; they are caricatures of the manly form. Yet ludicrously
ugly as they are, the intention is clear; we see even in these
degradations, what the figure of a man ought to be. In Greek art:

The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken,
Which the actual generations garble,
Was reuttered.

_Which the actual generations garble_--men as we see them are
clumsy and garbled versions of the original. But there is no value
in lamenting this; it is idle for men to gaze with regret and
longing at the Apollo Belvedere. It is much better to remember that
Perfection and Completion spell Death: only Imperfection has a future.
What if the souls in our ridiculously ugly bodies become greater and
grander than the marble men of Pheidias? Giotto's unfinished
Campanile is nobler than the perfect zero he drew for the Pope. In
our imperfect minds, housed in our over-fat, over-lean, and always
commonplace bodies, exists the principle of development, for whose
steady advance eternity is not too long. Statues belong to time: man
has Forever.

For some strange reason, no tourist ever goes to Fano. One reason
why I went there was simply because I had never met a person of any
nationality who had ever seen the town. Yet it is easily accessible,
very near Ancona, the scene of the _Grammarian's Funeral_, and the
place where Browning wrote _The Guardian Angel_. One day Mr. and
Mrs. Browning, walking about Fano, came to the church of San Agostino,
in no way a remarkable edifice, and there in the tiny chapel, over
the altar, they found Guercino's masterpiece. Its calm and serene
beauty struck an immortal poem out of Browning's heart; and thanks
to the poet, the picture is now one of the most familiar in the world.
But no copy comes near the ineffable charm of the original, as one
sees it in the dim light of the chapel.

The child on the tomb is looking past the angel's face into the
glory of heaven; but the poet, who wishes that he might take the
place of the little child, declares that he would gaze, not toward
heaven, but into the gracious face of the bird of God. If we could
only see life as the angel sees it, if we could only see the whole
course of history, we should then realise that:

All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.

We can not see the forest for the trees: the last place to obtain an
idea of the range, grandeur, and beauty of a forest, is in it: one
should climb a high mountain and look over its vast extent. So we,
in life, "where men sit and hear each other groan," believe that the
world is some dreadful mistake, full of meaningless anguish. This is
because we are in the midst of it all: we can not see far: the
nearest objects, though infinitesimal in size, loom enormous, as
with the palm of your hand you can cut off the sun. But if we could
only see the end from the beginning, if we could get the angel's
view-point, the final result would be beauty. Browning is not
satisfied with Keats's doctrine:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

He shows us what happened to Aprile with this philosophy. Browning
adds the doctrine of love. The moment we realise that the universe
is conceived in terms of beauty, love fills our hearts: love for our
fellow-beings, who are making the journey through life with us; and
love for God, the author of it all, just as a child loves one who
gives it the gift of its heart's desire. That the supreme duty of
life is love is simply one more illustration of Browning's steadfast
adherence to the Gospel of Christ.

THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL

A PICTURE AT FANO

1855

I

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve
Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

II

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,
From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,
--And suddenly my head is covered o'er
With those wings, white above the child who prays
Now on that tomb--and I shall feel thee guarding
Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding
Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.

III

I would not look up thither past thy head
Because the door opes, like that child, I know,
For I should have thy gracious face instead,
Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low
Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,
And lift them up to pray, and gently tether
Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?

IV

If this was ever granted, I would rest
My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands
Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,
Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,
Back to its proper size again, and smoothing
Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,
And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.

V

How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!
I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.
O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.
What further may be sought for or declared?

VI

Guercino drew this angel I saw teach
(Alfred, dear friend!)--that little child to pray,
Holding the little hands up, each to each
Pressed gently,--with his own head turned away
Over the earth where so much lay before him
Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him,
And he was left at Fano by the beach.

VII

We were at Fano, and three times we went
To sit and see him in his chapel there,
And drink his beauty to our soul's content
--My angel with me too: and since I care
For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power
And glory comes this picture for a dower,
Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)--

VIII

And since he did not work thus earnestly
At all times, and has else endured some wrong--
I took one thought his picture struck from me,
And spread it out, translating it to song.
My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend?
How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?
This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.

The three poems, _Caliban on Setebos, Rabbi Ben Ezra_, and _A Death
in the Desert_, should be read in that order; for there is a logical
order in the thought. The first is God as an amphibious brute would
imagine him: the second is noble Hebrew theism: the third is the
Christian God of Love. Whilst the second is the finest poem of the
three, the first is the most original. The word "upon" is ironical:
it is Caliban's treatise on theology. We read Caliban on God, as we
read Mill on Political Economy: for Caliban, like many a human
theologian, does not scruple to speak the last word on the nature of
the Supreme Being. The citation from the Psalms is a rebuke to gross
anthropomorphism: Caliban, like the Puritans, has simply made God in
his own image.

The difference between Shakespeare's and Browning's Caliban is
simply the difference between Shakespeare and Browning. Shakespeare
made the monster for decorative purposes, to satisfy his love of the
grotesque, as an architect placed gargoyles on a cathedral: the
grotesque is an organic part of romantic art. Browning is interested
not in Caliban's appearance, but in his processes of thought.
Suppose a monster, half fish, half beast, living with supreme
comfort in the slime, could think: what kind of God would he imagine
had created this world?

Caliban speaks in the third person (does Browning make a slip when
he changes occasionally to the first?) in order to have indicated
the low order of his intelligence; just as a little child says,
"Don't hurt her: she hasn't done anything wrong." He is lying in
liquid refuse, with little lizards deliciously tickling his spine
(such things are entirely a matter of taste, what would be odious to
us would be heaven to a sow) and having nothing to do for the moment,
like a man in absolute leisure, turns his thoughts to God. He
believes that God is neither good nor bad, but simply capricious.
What's the use of being God, if you can't do what you like? He
treats earth's creatures as a wanton boy treats his toys; they belong
to me; why shouldn't I break them if I choose? No one ought to
complain of misfortunes: you can not expect God is going to reward
the virtuous and punish the guilty. He has no standards whatever.
Just as I, Caliban, sit here and watch a procession of crabs: I
might lazily make up my mind, in a kind of sporting interest, to
count them as they pass; to let twenty go in safety, and smash the
twenty-first, loving not, hating not, just choosing so. When I feel
like it, I help some creatures; if in another mood, I torment others;
that's the way God treats us, that's the way I would act if I were
God.

As Caliban's theology has much of the human in it, so his practical
reasoning is decidedly human in its superstition. Granted that we
are in the hands of a childish and capricious God, who amuses himself
with torturing us, who laughs at our faces distorted with pain, what
is the thing we ought to do? How shall we best manage? Caliban's
advice is dear: don't let Him notice you: don't get prominent: above
all, never boast of your good fortune, for that will surely draw
God's attention, and He will put you where you belong. This
superstition, that God is against us, is deep-seated in human nature,
as the universal practice of "touching wood" sufficiently
demonstrates. If a man says, "I haven't had a cold this winter," his
friends will advise him to touch wood; and if he wakes up the next
morning snuffling, he will probably soliloquise, "What a fool I was!
Why couldn't I keep still? Why did I have to mention it? Now see
what I've got!"

Caliban disagreed with his mother Sycorax on one important point.
She believed in the future life. Caliban says such a belief is absurd.
There can be nothing worse than this life. Its good moments are
simply devices of God to strengthen us so that He can torture us
again, just as in the good old times the executioners gave the
sufferers they were tormenting some powerful stimulant, so that they
might return to consciousness and suffer; for nothing cheated the
spectators worse than to have the victim die during the early stages
of the torture. The object was to keep the wretch alive as long as
possible. Thus in this life we have moments of comparative ease and
rest, wherein we recuperate a little, just as the cat lets the mouse
recover strength enough to imagine he is going to get away.

Caliban is of course an absolute and convinced pessimist. A
malevolent giant is not so bad a God as an insane child. And
Browning means that pessimism is what we should naturally expect
from so rudimentary an intellect as Caliban's, which judges the
whole order of the universe from proximate and superficial evidences.

The close of the poem is a good commentary on some human ideas of
what kind of service is pleasing to God. Poor Caliban! he had saved
up some quails, meaning to have a delicious meal. But in his fear he
cries to God, I will let them fly, if you will only spare me this
time! I will not eat whelks for a month, I will eat no chocolates
during Lent, anything to please God!

CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS; OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND

1864

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself."

['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.
And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,
And feels about his spine small eft-things course,
Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:
And while above his head a pompion-plant,
Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,
Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,
And now a flower drops with a bee inside,
And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,--
He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross
And recross till they weave a spider-web
(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times)
And talks to his own self, howe'er he please,
Touching that other, whom his dam called God.
Because to talk about Him, vexes--ha,
Could He but know! and time to vex is now,
When talk is safer than in winter-time.
Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep
In confidence he drudges at their task,
And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,
Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]

Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!
'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.
'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;
Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:
Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,
And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.
'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:
He hated that He cannot change His cold,
Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish
That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived,
And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine
O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,
A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;
Only, she ever sickened, found repulse
At the other kind of water, not her life,
(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun)
Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,
And in her old bounds buried her despair,
Hating and loving warmth alike: so He
Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,
Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.
Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;
Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,
That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown
He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye
By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue
That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,
And says a plain word when she finds her prize,
But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves
That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks
About their hole--He made all these and more,
Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?
He could not, Himself, make a second self
To be His mate; as well have made Himself:
He would not make what he mislikes or slights,
An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains:
But did, in envy, listlessness or sport,
Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be--
Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,
Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,
Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it.
Because, so brave, so better though they be,
It nothing skills if He begin to plague.
Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,
Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,
Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,--
Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,
Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain;
Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme,
And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.
Put case, unable to be what I wish,
I yet could make a live bird out of clay:
Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban
Able to fly?--for, there, see, he hath wings,
And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,
And there, a sting to do his foes offence,
There, and I will that he begin to live,
Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns
Of grigs high up that make the merry din,
Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not.
In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,
And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh;
And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,
Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,
Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,--
Well, as the chance were, this might take or else
Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,
And give the mankin three sound legs for one,
Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg,
And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.
Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,
Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,
Making and marring clay at will? So He.
'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,
Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.
'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs
That march now from the mountain to the sea;
'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.
'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots
Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;
'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,
And two worms he whose nippers end in red;
As it likes me each time, I do: so He.

Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main,
Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,
But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!
Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,
And envieth that, so helped, such things do more
Than He who made them! What consoles but this?
That they, unless through Him, do nought at all,
And must submit: what other use in things?
'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint
That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay
When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue:
Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay
Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt:
Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth
"I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,
I make the cry my maker cannot make
With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!"
Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.

But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?
Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that,
What knows,--the something over Setebos
That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,
Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.
There may be something quiet o'er His head,
Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,
Since both derive from weakness in some way.
I joy because the quails come; would not joy
Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:
This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.
'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,
But never spends much thought nor care that way.
It may look up, work up,--the worse for those
It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos
The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,
Who, making Himself feared through what He does,
Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar
To what is quiet and hath happy life;
Next looks down here, and out of very spite
Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,
These good things to match those as hips do grapes.
'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.
Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books
Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:
Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,
Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;
Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;
Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe
The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;
And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,
A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,
Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,
And saith she is Miranda and my wife:
'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane
He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;
Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,
Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,
And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge
In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban;
A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.
'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,
Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.

His dam held that the Quiet made all things
Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.
Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex,
Had He meant other, while His hand was in,
Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,
Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,
Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint,
Like an orc's armour? Ay,--so spoil His sport!
He is the One now: only He doth all.
'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.
Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?
'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast
Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose,
But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate
Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.
Also it pleaseth Setebos to work,
Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,
By no means for the love of what is worked.
'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world
When all goes right, in this safe summer-time,
And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,
Than trying what to do with wit and strength.
'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs,
And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,
And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,
And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,
And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,
Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.
No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake;
'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.
'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!
One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.
He hath a spite against me, that I know,
Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why?
So it is, all the same, as well I find.
'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm
With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises
Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,
Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,
Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,
And licked the whole labour flat: so much for spite.
'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)
Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade:
Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!
'Dug up a newt He may have envied once
And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone.
Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does?
Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He!
There is the sport: discover how or die!
All need not die, for of the things o' the isle
Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;
Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most
When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice!
Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.
You must not know His ways, and play Him off,
Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself:
'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears
But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,
And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:
'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,
Curls up into a ball, pretending death
For fright at my approach: the two ways please.
But what would move my choler more than this,
That either creature counted on its life
To-morrow and next day and all days to come,
Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart,
"Because he did so yesterday with me,
And otherwise with such another brute,
So must he do henceforth and always."--Ay?
Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means!
'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.

'Conceiveth all things will continue thus,
And we shall have to live in fear of Him
So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,
If He have done His best, make no new world
To please Him more, so leave off watching this,--
If He surprise not even the Quiet's self
Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it
As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,
And there is He, and nowhere help at all.

'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.
His dam held different, that after death
He both plagued enemies and feasted friends:
Idly! He doth His worst in this our life,
Giving just respite lest we die through pain,
Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end.
Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire
Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself,
Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,
Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.
'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball
On head and tail as if to save their lives:
Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.

Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose
This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,
And always, above all else, envies Him;
Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,
Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,
And never speaks his mind save housed as now:
Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here,
O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?"
'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off,
Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,
Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,
Or push my tame beast for the ore to taste:
While myself lit a fire, and made a song
And sung it, "_What I hate, be consecrate
To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate
For Thee; what see for envy in poor me_"?
Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,
Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,
That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch
And conquer Setebos, or likelier He
Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.

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