Men and Women Part 9

I'm at ease now, friend; worldly in this world, I take and like its way of life; I think My brothers, who administer the means, Live better for my comfort--that's good too; 800 And G.o.d, if he p.r.o.nounce upon such life, Approves my service, which is better still.

If he keep silence--why, for you or me Or that brute beast pulled-up in to-day's "Times,"

What odds is 't, save to ourselves, what life we lead?

You meet me at this issue: you declare-- All special-pleading done with--truth is truth, And justifies itself by undreamed ways.

You don't fear but it's better, if we doubt, To say so, act up to our truth perceived 810 However feebly. Do then--act away!

'T is there I'm on the watch for you. How one acts Is, both of us agree, our chief concern: And how you 'll act is what I fain would see If, like the candid person you appear, You dare to make the most of your life's scheme As I of mine, live up to its full law Since there's no higher law that counterchecks.

Put natural religion to the test You've just demolished the revealed with--quick, 820 Down to the root of all that checks your will, All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve, Or even to be an atheistic priest!

Suppose a p.r.i.c.king to incontinence-- Philosophers deduce you chast.i.ty Or shame, from just the fact that at the first Whoso embraced a woman in the field, Threw club down and forewent his brains beside, So, stood a ready victim in the reach Of any brother savage, club in hand; 830 Hence saw the use of going out of sight In wood or cave to prosecute his loves: I read this in a French book t' other day.

Does law so a.n.a.lyzed coerce you much?

Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end, But you who reach where the first thread begins, You'll soon cut that!--which means you can, but won't, Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out, You dare not set aside, you can't tell why, But there they are, and so you let them rule. 840 Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I, A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite, Without the good the slave expects to get, In case he has a master after all!

You own your instincts? why, what else do I, Who want, am made for, and must have a G.o.d Ere I can be aught, do aught?--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, 850 And with it take the rest, this life of ours!

I live my life here; yours you dare not live,

--Not as I state it, who (you please subjoin) Disfigure such a life and call it names.

While, to your mind, remains another way For simple men: knowledge and power have rights, But ignorance and weakness have rights too.

There needs no crucial effort to find truth If here or there or anywhere about: We ought to turn each side, try hard and see, 860 And if we can't, be glad we've earned at least The right, by one laborious proof the more, To graze in peace earth's pleasant pasturage.

Men are not angels, neither are they brutes: Something we may see, all we cannot see.

What need of lying? 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, 870 Mankind may doubt there's any cloud at all.

You take the simple life--ready to see, Willing to see (for no cloud 's worth a face)-- And leaving quiet what no strength can move, And which, who bids you move? who has the right?

I bid you; but you are G.o.d's sheep, not mine; <"pastor est="" tui="" dominus."=""> You find In this the pleasant pasture of our life Much you may eat without the least offence, Much you don't eat because your maw objects, 880 Much you would eat but that your fellow-flock Open great eyes at you and even b.u.t.t, And thereupon you like your mates so well You cannot please yourself, offending them; Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep, You weigh your pleasure with their b.u.t.ts and bleats And strike the balance. Sometimes certain fears Restrain you, real checks since you find them so; Sometimes you please yourself and nothing checks: And thus you graze through life with not one lie, 890 And like it best.

But do you, in truth's name?

If so, you beat--which means you are not I-- Who needs must make earth mine and feed my fill Not simply unb.u.t.ted at, unbickered with, But motioned to the velvet of the sward By those obsequious wethers' very selves.

Look at me. sir; my age is double yours: At yours, I knew beforehand, so enjoyed, What now I should be--as, permit the word, I pretty well imagine your whole range 900 And stretch of tether twenty years to come.

We both have minds and bodies much alike: In truth's name, don't you want my bishopric, My daily bread, my influence and my state?

You're young. I'm old; you must be old one day; Will you find then, as I do hour by hour, Women their lovers kneel to, who cut curls From your fat lap-dog's ear to grace a brooch-- Dukes, who pet.i.tion just to kiss your ring-- With much beside you know or may conceive? 910 Suppose we die to-night: well, here am I, Such were my gains, life bore this fruit to me, While writing all the same my articles On music, poetry, the fictile vase Found at Albano, chess, Anacreon's Greek.

But you--the highest honor in your life, The thing you'll crown yourself with, all your days, Is--dining here and drinking this last gla.s.s I pour you out in sign of amity Before we part forever. Of your power 920 And social influence, worldly worth in short, Judge what's my estimation by the fact, I do not condescend to enjoin, beseech, Hint secrecy on one of all these words!

You're shrewd and know that should you publish one The world would brand the lie--my enemies first, Who'd sneer--"the bishop's an arch-hypocrite And knave perhaps, but not so frank a fool."

Whereas I should not dare for both my ears Breathe one such syllable, smile one such smile, 930 Before the chaplain who reflects myself-- My shade's so much more potent than your flesh.

What's your reward, self-abnegating friend?

Stood you confessed of those exceptional And privileged great natures that dwarf mine-- A zealot with a mad ideal in reach, A poet just about to print his ode, A statesman with a scheme to stop this war, An artist whose religion is his art-- I should have nothing to object: such men 940 Carry the fire, all things grow warm to them, Their drugget's worth my purple, they beat me.

But you--you 're just as little those as I-- You, Gigadibs, who, thirty years of age, Write statedly for Blackwood's Magazine, Believe you see two points in Hamlet's soul Unseized by the Germans yet--which view you'll print-- Meantime the best you have to show being still That lively lightsome article we took Almost for the true d.i.c.kens--what's its name? 950 "The Slum and Cellar, or Whitechapel life Limned after dark!" it made me laugh, I know, And pleased a month, and brought you in ten pounds.

--Success I recognize and compliment, And therefore give you, if you choose, three words (The card and pencil-scratch is quite enough) Which whether here, in Dublin or New York, Will get you, prompt as at my eyebrow's wink, Such terms as never you aspired to get In all our own reviews and some not ours. 960 Go write your lively sketches! be the first "Blougram, or The Eccentric Confidence"-- Or better simply say, "The Outward-bound."

Why, men as soon would throw it in my teeth As copy and quote the infamy chalked broad About me on the church-door opposite.

You will not wait for that experience though, I fancy, howsoever you decide, To discontinue--not detesting, not Defaming, but at least--despising me! 970 __________________________________________

Over his wine so smiled and talked his hour Sylvester Blougram, styled --(the deuce knows what It's changed to by our novel hierarchy) With Gigadibs the literary man, Who played with spoons, explored his plate's design, And ranged the olive-stones about its edge, While the great bishop rolled him out a mind Long crumpled, till creased consciousness lay smooth.

For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke. 980 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 h.e.l.l-deep instincts, man's weak tongue 990 Is never bold to utter in their truth Because styled h.e.l.l-deep ('t is an old mistake To place h.e.l.l 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. 1000 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: So, let him sit with me this many a year!"

He did not sit five minutes. Just a week Sufficed his sudden healthy vehemence.

Something had struck him in the "Outward-bound"

Another way than Blougram's purpose was: And having bought, not cabin-furniture 1010 But settler's-implements (enough for three) And started for Australia--there, I hope, By this time he has tested his first plough, And studied his last chapter of St. John.

NOTES

"Bishop Blougram's Apology" is made over the wine after dinner to defend himself from the criticisms of a doubting young literary man, who despises him because he considers that he cannot be true to his convictions in conforming to the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

He builds up his defence from the proposition that the problem of life is not to conceive ideals which cannot be realized, but to find what is and make it as fair as possible. The bishop admits his unbelief, but being free to choose either belief or unbelief, since neither can be proved wholly true, chooses belief as his guiding principle, because he finds it the best for making his own life and that of others happy and comfortable in this world. Once having chosen faith on this ground, the more absolute the form of faith, the more potent the results; besides, the bishop has that desire of domination in his nature, which the authorization of the Church makes safer for him. To Gigadibs' objection that were his nature n.o.bler, he would not count this success, he replies he is as G.o.d made him, and can but make the best of himself as he is. To the objection that he addresses himself to grosser estimators than he ought, he replies that all the world is interested in the fact that a man of his sense and learning, too, still believes at this late hour. He points out the impossibility of his following an ideal like Napoleon's, for, conceding the merest chance that doubt may be wrong, and judgment to follow this life, he would not dare to slaughter men as Napoleon had for such slight ends. As for Shakespeare's ideal, he can't write plays like his if he wanted to, but he has realized things in his life which Shakespeare only imagined, and which he presumes Shakespeare would not have scorned to have realized in his life, judging from his fulfilled ambition to be a gentleman of property at Stratford. He admits, however, that enthusiasm in belief, such as Luther's, would be far preferable to his own way of living, and after this, enthusiasm in unbelief, which he might have if it were not for that plaguy chance that doubt may be wrong. Gigadibs interposes that the risk is as great for cool indifference as for bold doubt. Blougram disputes that point by declaring that doubts prove faith, and that man's free will preferring to have faith true to having doubt true tips the balance in favor of faith, and shows that man's instinct or aspiration is toward belief; that unquestioning belief, such as that of the Past, has no moral effect on man, but faith which knows itself through doubt is a moral spur. Thus the arguments from expediency, instinct, and consciousness, all bear on the side of faith, and convince the bishop that it is safer to keep his faith intact from his doubts. He then proves that Gigadibs, with all his a.s.sumption of superiority in his frankness of unbelief, is in about the same position as himself, since the moral law which he follows has no surer foundation than the religious law the bishop follows, both founded upon instinct. The bishop closes as he began, with the consciousness that rewards for his way of living are of a substantial nature, while Gigadibs has nothing to show for his frankness, and does not hesitate to say that Gigadibs will consider his conversation with the bishop the greatest honor ever conferred upon him. The poet adds some lines, somewhat apologetic for the bishop, intimating that his arguments were suited to the calibre of his critic, and that with a profounder critic he would have made a more serious defence. Speaking of a review of this poem by Cardinal Wiseman (1801-1865), Browning says in a letter to a friend, printed in

, May, 1896: "The most curious notice I ever had was from Cardinal Wiseman on --, himself. It was in the , a Catholic journal of those days, and certified to be his by Father Prout, who said n.o.body else would have dared put it in."

This review praises the poem for its "fertility of ill.u.s.tration and felicity of argument," and says that "though utterly mistaken in the very groundwork of religion, though starting from the most unworthy notions of the work of a Catholic bishop, and defending a self-indulgence every honest man must feel to be disgraceful, [it]

is yet in its way triumphant."

6. Brother Pugin: (1810-1852), an eminent English architect, who, becoming a Roman Catholic, designed many structures for that Church.

34. Corpus Christi Day: Thursday after Trinity Sunday, when the Feast of the Sacrament of the Altar is celebrated.

45. Che: what.

54. Count D' Orsay: (1798-1852), a clever Frenchman, distinguished as a man of fas.h.i.+on, and for his drawings of horses.

113. Parma's pride, the 'Jerome . . . Correggio . . . the Modenese: the picture of Saint Jerome in the Ducal Academy at Parma, by Correggio, who was born in the territory of Modena, Italy.

184. A chorus-ending from Euripides: the Greek dramatist, Euripides (480 B. C.- 406 B. C.), frequently ended his choruses with this thought--sometimes with slight variations in expression: "The G.o.ds perform many things contrary to our expectations, and those things which we looked for are not accomplished; but G.o.d hath brought to pa.s.s things unthought of."

316. Peter's . . . or rather, Hildebrand's: the claim of Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) for temporal power and authority exceeding Saint Peter's, the founder of the Roman Church.

411. Sch.e.l.ling: the German philosopher (1775-1854).

472. Austrian marriage: the marriage of Marie Louise, daughter of the Emperor of Austria, to Napoleon I.

475. Austerlitz: fought with success by Napoleon, in 1805, against the coalition of Austria, Russia, and England, and resulting in the alliance mentioned with Austria and fresh overtures to the Papal power and the old French n.o.bility.

514. Trimmest house in Stratford: New Place, a mansion in the heart of the town, built for Sir Hugh Clopton, and known for two centuries as his "great house," bought with nearly an acre of ground by Shakespeare, in 1597.

516. Giulio Romano: Italian painter (1492-1546), referred to in "Winter's Tale," v. ii. 105. --Dowland: English musician, praised for his lute-playing in a sonnet in "The Pa.s.sionate Pilgrim,"

attributed to Shakespeare.

519. "Pandulph," etc.: quotation from "King John," iii. i. 138.

568. Luther: Martin (1483-1546), whose enthusiasm reformed the Church.

577. Strauss: (1808-1874), one of the Tuebingen philosophers, author of a Rationalistic "Life of Jesus."

626. "What think ye," etc.: Matthew 22.42.

664. Ichors o'er the place: ichor=serum, which exudes where the skin is broken, coats the hurt, and facilitates its healing.

667. Snake 'neath Michael's foot: Rafael's picture in the Louvre of Saint Michael slaying the dragon.

703. Brother Newman: John Henry (1801-1890), leader of the Tractarian movement at Oxford, which approached the doctrines of the Roman Church. The last (90th) tract was entirely written by him.

The Bishop of Oxford was called upon to stop the series, and in 1845 Dr. Newman entered the Romish Church.

715. King Bomba: means King Puffcheek, King Liar, a sobriquet given to Ferdinand II, late king of the Two Sicilies. --Lazzaroni: Naples beggars, so called from the Lazarus of the Parable, Luke 16.20.

716. Antonelli: Cardinal, secretary of Pope Pius IX.

728. Naples' liquefaction: the supposed miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of Saint Januarius the Martyr. A small quant.i.ty of it is preserved in a crystal reliquary in the great church at Naples, and when brought into the presence of the head of the saint, it melts.