Varied Types — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

The delightful new edition of Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows" which Mr. John Lane has just issued ought certainly to serve as an opportunity for the serious criticism and inevitable admiration to which a great poet is entitled.

For Mrs. Browning was a great poet, and not, as is idly and vulgarly supposed, only a great poetess.

The word poetess is bad English, and it conveys a particularly bad compliment.

Nothing is more remarkable about Mrs. Browning's work than the absence of that trite and namby-pamby elegance which the last two centuries demanded from lady writers.

Wherever her verse is bad it is bad from some extravagance of imagery, some violence of comparison, some kind of debauch of cleverness.

Her nonsense never arises from weakness, but from a confusion of powers.

If the phrase explain itself, she is far more a great poet than she is a good one.

Mrs. Browning often appears more luscious and sentimental than many other literary women, but this was because she was stronger.

It requires a certain amount of internal force to break down.

A complete self-humiliation requires enormous strength, more strength than most of us possess.

When she was writing the poetry of self-abandonment she really abandoned herself with the valour and decision of an anchorite abandoning the world.

Such a couplet as: "Our Euripides, the human, With his dropping of warm tears," gives to most of us a sickly and nauseous sensation.

Nothing can be well conceived more ridiculous than Euripides going about dropping tears with a loud splash, and Mrs. Browning coming after him with a thermometer.

But the one emphatic point about this idiotic couplet is that Mrs. Hemans would never have written it.

She would have written something perfectly dignified, perfectly harmless, perfectly inconsiderable.

Mrs. Browning was in a great and serious difficulty.

She really meant something.

She aimed at a vivid and curious image, and she missed it.

She had that catastrophic and public failure which is, as much as a medal or a testimonial, the badge of the brave.

In spite of the tiresome half-truth that art is unmoral, the arts require a certain considerable number of moral qualities, and more especially all the arts require courage.

The art of drawing, for example, requires even a kind of physical courage.

Anyone who has tried to draw a straight line and failed knows that he fails chiefly in nerve, as he might fail to jump off a cliff.

And similarly all great literary art involves the element of risk, and the greatest literary artists have commonly been those who have run the greatest risk of talking nonsense.

Almost all great poets rant, from Shakespeare downwards.

Mrs. Browning was Elizabethan in her luxuriance and her audacity, and the gigantic scale of her wit.

We often feel with her as we feel with Shakespeare, that she would have done better with half as much talent.

The great curse of the Elizabethans is upon her, that she cannot leave anything alone, she cannot write a single line without a conceit: "And the eyes of the peacock fans Winked at the alien glory," she said of the Papal fans in the presence of the Italian tricolour: "And a royal blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble, And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair," is her description of a beautiful and aristocratic lady.

The notion of peacock feathers winking like so many London urchins is perhaps one of her rather aggressive and outrageous figures of speech.

The image of a woman's hair as the softened shadow of a crown is a singularly vivid and perfect one.

But both have the same quality of intellectual fancy and intellectual concentration.

They are both instances of a sort of ethereal epigram.

This is the great and dominant characteristic of Mrs. Browning, that she was significant alike in failure and success.

Just as every marriage in the world, good or bad, is a marriage, dramatic, irrevocable, and big with coming events, so every one of her wild weddings between alien ideas is an accomplished fact which produces a certain effect on the imagination, which has for good or evil become part and parcel of our mental vision forever.

She gives the reader the impression that she never declined a fancy, just as some gentlemen of the eighteenth century never declined a duel.

When she fell it was always because she missed the foothold, never because she funked the leap.

"Casa Guidi Windows" is, in one aspect, a poem very typical of its author.

Mrs. Browning may fairly be called the peculiar poet of Liberalism, of that great movement of the first half of the nineteenth century towards the emancipation of men from ancient institutions which had gradually changed their nature, from the houses of refuge which had turned into dungeons, and the mystic jewels which remained only as fetters.

It was not what we ordinarily understand by revolt.

It had no hatred in its heart for ancient and essentially human institutions.

It had that deeply conservative belief in the most ancient of institutions, the average man, which goes by the name of democracy.

It had none of the spirit of modern Imperialism which is kicking a man because he is down.

But, on the other hand, it had none of the spirit of modern Anarchism and scepticism which is kicking a man merely because he is up.

It was based fundamentally on a belief in the destiny of humanity, whether that belief took an irreligious form, as in Swinburne, or a religious form, as in Mrs. Browning.

It had that rooted and natural conviction that the Millennium was coming to-morrow which has been the conviction of all iconoclasts and reformers, and for which some rationalists have been absurd enough to blame the early Christians.

But they had none of that disposition to pin their whole faith to some black-and-white scientific system which afterwards became the curse of philosophical Radicalism.

They were not like the sociologists who lay down a final rectification of things, amounting to nothing except an end of the world, a great deal more depressing than would be the case if it were knocked to pieces by a comet.

Their ideal, like the ideal of all sensible people, was a chaotic and confused notion of goodness made up of English primroses and Greek statues, birds singing in April, and regiments being cut to pieces for a flag.

They were neither Radicals nor Socialists, but Liberals, and a Liberal is a noble and indispensable lunatic who tries to make a cosmos of his own head.

Mrs. Browning and her husband were more liberal than most Liberals.

Theirs was the hospitality of the intellect and the hospitality of the heart, which is the best definition of the term.

They never fell into the habit of the idle revolutionists of supposing that the past was bad because the future was good, which amounted to asserting that because humanity had never made anything but mistakes it was now quite certain to be right.

Browning possessed in a greater degree than any other man the power of realising that all conventions were only victorious revolutions.

He could follow the mediæval logicians in all their sowing of the wind and reaping of the whirlwind with all that generous ardour which is due to abstract ideas.

He could study the ancients with the young eyes of the Renaissance and read a Greek grammar like a book of love lyrics.

This immense and almost confounding Liberalism of Browning doubtless had some effect upon his wife.

In her vision of New Italy she went back to the image of Ancient Italy like an honest and true revolutionist; for does not the very word "revolution" mean a rolling backward.

All true revolutions are reversions to the natural and the normal.

A revolutionist who breaks with the past is a notion fit for an idiot.

For how could a man even wish for something which he had never heard of?

Mrs. Browning's inexhaustible sympathy with all the ancient and essential passions of humanity was nowhere more in evidence than in her conception of patriotism.

For some dark reason, which it is difficult indeed to fathom, belief in patriotism in our day is held to mean principally a belief in every other nation abandoning its patriotic feelings.

In the case of no other passion does this weird contradiction exist.

Men whose lives are mainly based upon friendship sympathise with the friendships of others.

The interest of engaged couples in each other is a proverb, and like many other proverbs sometimes a nuisance.

In patriotism alone it is considered correct just now to assume that the sentiment does not exist in other people.

It was not so with the great Liberals of Mrs. Browning's time.

The Brownings had, so to speak, a disembodied talent for patriotism.

They loved England and they loved Italy; yet they were the very reverse of cosmopolitans.

They loved the two countries as countries, not as arbitrary divisions of the globe.

They had hold of the root and essence of patriotism.

They knew how certain flowers and birds and rivers pass into the mills of the brain and come out as wars and discoveries, and how some triumphant adventure or some staggering crime wrought in a remote continent may bear about it the colour of an Italian city or the soul of a silent village of Surrey.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VARIED TYPES ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U. S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!

) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties.

Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark.

Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark.

If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy.

You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.

Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U. S.

copyright law.

Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License available with this file or online at www.

gutenberg.

org/license.

Section 1.

General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg electronic works 1. A.

By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement.

If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your possession.

If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1. E.

8. 1. B.

“Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark.

It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.

There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.

See paragraph 1. C below.

There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg electronic works.

See paragraph 1. E below.

1. C.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg electronic works.

Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States.

If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed.

Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg name associated with the work.

You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you share it without charge with others.

1. D.

The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work.

Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change.

If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg work.

The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1. E.

Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: 1. E.

1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed: This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.

You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with this eBook or online at www.

gutenberg.

org.

If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1. E.

2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U. S.

copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges.

If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1. E.

1 through 1. E.

7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1. E.

8 or 1. E.

9. 1. E.

3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1. E.

1 through 1. E.

7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder.

Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1. E.

4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1. E.

5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1. E.

1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg License.

1. E.

6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form.

However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg website (www.

gutenberg.

org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form.

Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph 1. E.

1. 1. E.

7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works unless you comply with paragraph 1. E.

8 or 1. E.

9. 1. E.

8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided that: • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.

The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.

Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns.

Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.

” • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License.

You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1. F.

3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1. E.

9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark.

Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1. F.

1. F.

1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U. S.

copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection.

Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1. F.

2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1. F.

3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees.

YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.

F.

3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1. F.

3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from.

If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation.

The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund.

If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.

If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1. F.

4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1. F.

3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1. F.

5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.

If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law.

The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1. F.

6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2.

Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.

It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely available for generations to come.

In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg and future generations.

To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.

gutenberg.

org.

Section 3.

Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.

The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.

S.

federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516, Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.

gutenberg.

org/contact Section 4.

Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment.

Many small donations ( to ,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.

Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements.

We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.

To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.

gutenberg.

org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States.

U.

S.

laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses.

Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.

To donate, please visit: www.

gutenberg.

org/donate.

Section 5.

General Information About Project Gutenberg electronic works Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone.

For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U. S.

unless a copyright notice is included.

Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.

gutenberg.

org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.