I am dwelling at some length on this first experience of Mr.Browning's literary career,because the confidence which it gave him determined its immediate future,if not its ultimate course --because,also,the poem itself is more important to the understanding of his mind than perhaps any other of his isolated works.It was the earliest of his dramatic creations;it was therefore inevitably the most instinct with himself;and we may regard the 'Confession'as to a great extent his own,without for an instant ignoring the imaginative element which necessarily and certainly entered into it.At one moment,indeed,his utterance is so emphatic that we should feel it to be direct,even if we did not know it to be true.The passage beginning,'I am made up of an intensest life,'conveys something more than the writer's actual psychological state.The feverish desire of life became gradually modified into a more or less active intellectual and imaginative curiosity;but the sense of an individual,self-centred,and,as it presented itself to him,unconditioned existence,survived all the teachings of experience,and often indeed unconsciously imposed itself upon them.
I have already alluded to that other and more pathetic fragment of distinct autobiography which is to be found in the invocation to the 'Sun-treader'.Mr.Fox,who has quoted great part of it,justly declares that 'the fervency,the remembrance,the half-regret mingling with its exultation,are as true as its leading image is beautiful.'
The 'exultation'is in the triumph of Shelley's rising fame;the regret,for the lost privilege of worshipping in solitary tenderness at an obscure shrine.The double mood would have been characteristic of any period of Mr.Browning's life.
The artistic influence of Shelley is also discernible in the natural imagery of the poem,which reflects a fitful and emotional fancy instead of the direct poetic vision of the author's later work.
'Pauline'received another and graceful tribute two months later than the review.In an article of the 'Monthly Repository',and in the course of a deion of some luxuriant wood-scenery,the following passage occurs:
'Shelley and Tennyson are the best books for this place....
They are natives of this soil;literally so;and if planted would grow as surely as a crowbar in Kentucky sprouts tenpenny nails.
'Probatum est.'Last autumn L----dropped a poem of Shelley's down there in the wood,amongst the thick,damp,rotting leaves,and this spring some one found a delicate exotic-looking plant,growing wild on the very spot,with 'Pauline'hanging from its slender stalk.
Unripe fruit it may be,but of pleasant flavour and promise,and a mellower produce,it may be hoped,will follow.'
This and a bald though well-meant notice in the 'Athenaeum'
exhaust its literary history for this period.''Pauline:a Fragment of a Confession',pp.71.London,1833.
Saunders and Otley.
'Somewhat mystical,somewhat poetical,somewhat sensual,and not a little unintelligible,--this is a dreamy volume,without an object,and unfit for publication.'
--
The anonymity of the poem was not long preserved;there was no reason why it should be.But 'Pauline'was,from the first,little known or discussed beyond the immediate circle of the poet's friends;and when,twenty years later,Dante Gabriel Rossetti unexpectedly came upon it in the library of the British Museum,he could only surmise that it had been written by the author of 'Paracelsus'.
The only recorded event of the next two years was Mr.Browning's visit to Russia,which took place in the winter of 1833-4.
The Russian consul-general,Mr.Benckhausen,had taken a great liking to him,and being sent to St.Petersburg on some special mission,proposed that he should accompany him,nominally in the character of secretary.
The letters written to his sister during this,as during every other absence,were full of graphic deion,and would have been a mine of interest for the student of his imaginative life.They are,unfortunately,all destroyed,and we have only scattered reminiscences of what they had to tell;but we know how strangely he was impressed by some of the circumstances of the journey:
above all,by the endless monotony of snow-covered pine-forest,through which he and his companion rushed for days and nights at the speed of six post-horses,without seeming to move from one spot.
He enjoyed the society of St.Petersburg,and was fortunate enough,before his return,to witness the breaking-up of the ice on the Neva,and see the Czar perform the yearly ceremony of drinking the first glass of water from it.He was absent about three months.
The one active career which would have recommended itself to him in his earlier youth was diplomacy;it was that which he subsequently desired for his son.He would indeed not have been averse to any post of activity and responsibility not unsuited to the training of a gentleman.
Soon after his return from Russia he applied for appointment on a mission which was to be despatched to Persia;and the careless wording of the answer which his application received made him think for a moment that it had been granted.He was much disappointed when he learned,through an interview with the 'chief',that the place was otherwise filled.
In 1834he began a little series of contributions to the 'Monthly Repository',extending into 1835-6,and consisting of five poems.The earliest of these was a sonnet,not contained in any edition of Mr.Browning's works,and which,I believe,first reappeared in Mr.Gosse's article in the 'Century Magazine',December 1881;now part of his 'Personalia'.
The second,beginning 'A king lived long ago',was to be published,with alterations and additions,as one of 'Pippa's'songs.
'Porphyria's Lover'and 'Johannes Agricola in Meditation' were reprinted together in 'Bells and Pomegranates' under the heading of 'Madhouse Cells'.The fifth consisted of the Lines beginning 'Still ailing,Wind?wilt be appeased or no?' afterwards introduced into the sixth section of 'James Lee's Wife'.
