They give their time for nothing,offer their little entertainment for nothing,and certainly get next to nothing in the way of thanks --unless from myself who feel grateful to the faces I shall never see,the voices I shall never hear.The kindest notices I have had,or at all events those that have given me most pleasure,have been educed by this Society --A.Sidgwick's paper,that of Professor Corson,Miss Lewis'article in this month's 'Macmillan'--and I feel grateful for it all,for my part,--and none the less for a little amusement at the wonder of some of my friends that I do not jump up and denounce the practices which must annoy me so much.
Oh!my 'gentle Shakespeare',how well you felt and said --'never anything can be amiss when simpleness and duty tender it.'
So,dear Lady,here is my duty and simplicity tendering itself to you,with all affection besides,and I being ever yours,R.Browning.
That general disposition of the London world which left the ranks of the little Society to be three-fourths recruited among persons,many living at a distance,whom the poet did not know,became also in its way a satisfaction.It was with him a matter of course,though never of indifference,that his closer friends of both sexes were among its members;it was one of real gratification that they included from the beginning such men as Dean Boyle of Salisbury,the Rev.Llewellyn Davies,George Meredith,and James Cotter Morison --that they enjoyed the sympathy and co-operation of such a one as Archdeacon Farrar.But he had an ingenuous pride in reading the large remainder of the Society's lists of names,and pointing out the fact that there was not one among them which he had ever heard.It was equivalent to saying,'All these people care for me as a poet.No social interest,no personal prepossession,has attracted them to my work.'
And when the unknown name was not only appended to a list;when it formed the signature of a paper --excellent or indifferent as might be --but in either case bearing witness to a careful and unobtrusive study of his poems,by so much was the gratification increased.
He seldom weighed the intrinsic merit of such productions;he did not read them critically.No man was ever more adverse to the seeming ungraciousness of analyzing the quality of a gift.
In real life indeed this power of gratitude sometimes defeated its own end,by neutralizing his insight into the motive or effort involved in different acts of kindness,and placing them all successively on the same plane.
In the present case,however,an ungraduated acceptance of the labour bestowed on him was part of the neutral attitude which it was his constant endeavour to maintain.He always refrained from noticing any erroneous statement concerning himself or his works which might appear in the Papers of the Society:since,as he alleged,if he once began to correct,he would appear to endorse whatever he left uncorrected,and thus make himself responsible,not only for any interpretation that might be placed on his poems,but,what was far more serious,for every eulogium that was bestowed upon them.
He could not stand aloof as entirely as he or even his friends desired,since it was usual with some members of the Society to seek from him elucidations of obscure passages which,without these,it was declared,would be a stumbling-block to future readers.But he disliked being even to this extent drawn into its operation;and his help was,I believe,less and less frequently invoked.Nothing could be more false than the rumour which once arose that he superintended those performances of his plays which took place under the direction of the Society.
Once only,and by the urgent desire of some of the actors,did he witness a last rehearsal of one of them.
It was also a matter of course that men and women brought together by a pre-existing interest in Mr.Browning's work should often ignore its authorized explanations,and should read and discuss it in the light of personal impressions more congenial to their own mind;and the various and circumstantial views sometimes elicited by a given poem did not serve to render it more intelligible.But the merit of true poetry lies so largely in its suggestiveness,that even mistaken impressions of it have their positive value and also their relative truth;and the intellectual friction which was thus created,not only in the parent society,but in its offshoots in England and America,was not their least important result.
These Societies conferred,it need hardly be said,no less real benefits on the public at large.They extended the sale of Mr.Browning's works,and with it their distinct influence for intellectual and moral good.
They not only created in many minds an interest in these works,but aroused the interest where it was latent,and gave it expression where it had hitherto found no voice.One fault,alone,could be charged against them;and this lay partly in the nature of all friendly concerted action:they stirred a spirit of enthusiasm in which it was not easy,under conditions equally genuine,to distinguish the individual element from that which was due to contagion;while the presence among us of the still living poet often infused into that enthusiasm a vaguely emotional element,which otherwise detracted from its intellectual worth.
But in so far as this was a drawback to the intended action of the Societies,it was one only in the most negative sense;nor can we doubt,that,to a certain extent,Mr.Browning's best influence was promoted by it.
The hysterical sensibilities which,for some years past,he had unconsciously but not unfrequently aroused in the minds of women,and even of men,were a morbid development of that influence,which its open and systematic extension tended rather to diminish than to increase.
