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Life and Letters of Robert Browning-Part14_Mrs.Sutherland Orr(1828-1903)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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the picturesque counterpart of its intricacy of thought,

and, perhaps for this very reason, never so fully displayed



in any subsequent work. Mr. Browning's genuinely modest attitude towards it

could not preclude the consciousness" target="_blank" title="n.意识；觉悟；知觉">consciousness of the many imaginative beauties



which its unpopularcharacter had served to conceal; and he was glad to find,

some years ago, that `Sordello' was represented in a collection



of descriptive passages which a friend of his was proposing to make.

`There is a great deal of that in it,' he said, `and it has always



been overlooked.'

--



* The term Gothic has been applied to Mr. Browning's work, I believe,

by Mr. James Thomson, in writing of `The Ring and the Book',



and I do not like to use it without saying so. But it is one of those

which must have spontaneously suggested themselves



to many other of Mr. Browning's readers.

--



It was unfortunate that new difficulties of style should have added themselves

on this occasion to those of subject and treatment; and the reason of it



is not generally known. Mr. John Sterling had made some comments

on the wording of `Paracelsus'; and Miss Caroline Fox,



then quite a young woman, repeated them, with additions, to Miss Haworth,

who, in her turn, communicated them to Mr. Browning,



but without making quite clear to him the source from which they sprang.

He took the criticism much more seriously than it deserved,



and condensed the language of this his next important publication

into what was nearly its present form.



In leaving `Sordello' we emerge from the self-conscious stage

of Mr. Browning's imagination, and his work ceases to be autobiographic



in the sense in which, perhaps erroneously, we have hitherto felt it to be.

`Festus' and `Salinguerra' have already given promise



of the world of `Men and Women' into which he will now conduct us.

They will be inspired by every variety of conscious motive,



but never again by the old (real or imagined) self-centred,

self-directing Will. We have, indeed, already lost the sense of disparity



between the man and the poet; for the Browning of `Sordello'

was growing older, while the defects of the poem were in many respects



those of youth. In `Pippa Passes', published one year later,

the poet and the man show themselves full-grown. Each has entered



on the inheritance of the other.

Neither the imagination nor the passion of what Mr. Gosse so fitly calls



this `lyrical masque'* gives much scope for tenderness;

but the quality of humour is displayed in it for the first time;



as also a strongly marked philosophy of life -- or more properly,

of association -- from which its idea and development are derived.



In spite, however, of these evidences of general maturity,

Mr. Browning was still sometimes boyish in personal intercourse,



if we may judge from a letter to Miss Flower written at about the same time.

--



* These words, and a subsequentparagraph, are quoted from

Mr. Gosse's `Personalia'.



--

==



Monday night, March 9 (? 1841).

My dear Miss Flower, -- I have this moment received your very kind note --



of course, I understand your objections. How else? But they are

somewhat lightened already (confess -- nay `confess' is vile --



you will be rejoiced to holla from the house-top) -- will go on,

or rather go off, lightening, and will be -- oh, where WILL they be



half a dozen years hence?

Meantime praise what you can praise, do me all the good you can,



you and Mr. Fox (as if you will not!) for I have a head full of projects --

mean to song-write, play-write forthwith, -- and, believe me,



dear Miss Flower,

Yours ever faithfully,



Robert Browning.




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