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Life and Letters of Robert Browning-Part9_Mrs.Sutherland Orr(1828-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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and those who fare least delicately, but an insignificant shot to discharge --



or, as the tuneful Quarles well phraseth it --

He's most in DEBT who lingers out the day,



Who dies betimes has less and less to pay.

So far, therefore, from these sagacious ethicsholding that



Debt cramps the energies of the soul, &c.

as thou pratest, 'tis plain that they have willed on the very outset



to inculcate this truth on the mind of every man, --

no barren and inconsequential dogma, but an effectual,



ever influencing and productive rule of life, -- that he is born a debtor,

lives a debtor -- aye, friend, and when thou diest, will not



some judicious bystander, -- no recreant as thou to the bonds of nature,

but a good borrower and true -- remark, as did his grandsire before him



on like occasions, that thou hast `paid the DEBT of nature'?

Ha! I have thee `beyond the rules', as one (a bailiff) may say!



--

* Miss Hickey, on reading this passage, has called my attention to the fact



that the sentiment which it parodies is identical with that expressed

in these words of `Prospice',



. . . in a minute pay glad life's arrears

Of pain, darkness, and cold.



--

==



Such performances supplied a distraction to the more serious work

of writing `Paracelsus', which was to be concluded in March 1835,



and which occupied the foregoing winter months. We do not know

to what extent Mr. Browning had remained in communication with Mr. Fox;



but the following letters show that the friend of `Pauline'

gave ready and efficient help in the strangely difficult task



of securing a publisher for the new poem.

The first is dated April 2, 1835.



==

Dear Sir, -- I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter: --



Sardanapalus `could not go on multiplying kingdoms' -- nor I protestations --

but I thank you very much.



You will oblige me indeed by forwarding the introduction to Moxon.

I merely suggested him in particular, on account of his good name and fame



among author-folk, besides he has himself written -- as the Americans say --

`more poetry 'an you can shake a stick at.' So I hope we shall come to terms.



I also hope my poem will turn out not utterly unworthy your kind interest,

and more deserving your favour than anything of mine you have as yet seen;



indeed I all along proposed to myself such an endeavour,

for it will never do for one so distinguished by past praise



to prove nobody after all -- `nous verrons'.

I am, dear sir,



Yours most truly and obliged

Robt. Browning.



==

On April 16 he wrote again as follows:



==

Dear Sir,



Your communication gladdened the cockles of my heart. I lost no time

in presenting myself to Moxon, but no sooner was Mr. Clarke's letter perused



than the Moxonian visage loured exceedingly thereat -- the Moxonian accent

grew dolorous thereupon: -- `Artevelde' has not paid expenses



by about thirty odd pounds. Tennyson's poetry is `popular at Cambridge',

and yet of 800 copies which were printed of his last, some 300 only






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