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Life and Letters of Robert Browning-Part8_Mrs.Sutherland Orr(1828-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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yet confusing, intensity of the reminiscences of which it consists.

But we are left in complete doubt as to whether the crisis



is that of approaching death or incipient convalescence,

or which character it bears in the sufferer's mind; and the language used



in the closing pages is such as to suggest, without the slightest break

in poetic continuity, alternately the one conclusion and the other.



This was intended by Browning to assist his anonymity;

and when the writer in `Tait's Magazine' spoke of the poem as a piece



of pure bewilderment, he expressed the natural judgment of the Philistine,

while proving himself such. If the notice by J. S. Mill, which this



criticism excluded, was indeed -- as Mr. Browning always believed --

much more sympathetic, I can only record my astonishment;



for there never was a large and cultivated intelligence

one can imagine less in harmony than his with the poetic excesses,



or even the poetic qualities, of `Pauline'. But this is a digression.

Mr. Fox, though an accomplishedcritic, made very light



of the artistic blemishes of the work. His admiration for it

was as generous as it was genuine; and, having recognized in it



the hand of a rising poet, it was more congenial to him

to hail that poet's advent than to register his shortcomings.



==

`The poem,' he says, `though evidently a hasty and imperfect sketch,



has truth and life in it, which gave us the thrill, and laid hold of us

with the power, the sensation of which has never yet failed us



as a test of genius.'

==



But it had also, in his mind, a distinguishing characteristic,

which raised it above the sphere of merely artisticcriticism.



The article continues:

==



`We have never read anything more purely confessional. The whole composition

is of the spirit, spiritual. The scenery is in the chambers of thought;



the agencies are powers and passions; the events are transitions

from one state of spiritualexistence to another.'



==

And we learn from the context that he accepted this



confessional and introspective quality as an expression

of the highest emotional life -- of the essence, therefore, of religion.



On this point the sincerest admirers of the poem may find themselves

at issue with Mr. Fox. Its sentiment is warmly religious; it is always,



in a certain sense, spiritual; but its intellectual activities are exercised

on entirely temporal ground, and this fact would generally be admitted



as the negation of spirituality in the religious sense of the word.

No difference, however, of opinion as to his judgment of `Pauline'



can lessen our appreciation of Mr. Fox's encouraging kindness to its author.

No one who loved Mr. Browning in himself, or in his work, can read



the last lines of this review without a throb of affectionategratitude for

the sympathy so ungrudgingly, and -- as he wrote during his latest years --



so opportunely given:

==



`In recognizing a poet we cannot stand upon trifles nor fret ourselves

about such matters [as a few blemishes]. Time enough for that afterwards,



when larger works come before us. Archimedes in the bath

had many particulars to settle about specific gravities and Hiero's crown,



but he first gave a glorious leap and shouted `Eureka!''

==



Many persons have discovered Mr. Browning since he has been known to fame.

One only discovered him in his obscurity.



Next to that of Mr. Fox stands the name of John Forster




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