登陆注册
5273800000024

第24章 PEN,PENCIL AND POISON -A STUDY IN GREEN(11)

Where one had fancied that he had something to conceal,they have proved that he had but little to reveal.But I speak merely of his incoherent work.Taken as a whole the man was great.He did not belong to the Olympians,and had all the incompleteness of the Titan.He did not survey,and it was but rarely that he could sing.His work is marred by struggle,violence and effort,and he passed not from emotion to form,but from thought to chaos.Still,he was great.He has been called a thinker,and was certainly a man who was always thinking,and always thinking aloud;but it was not thought that fascinated him,but rather the processes by which thought moves.It was the machine he loved,not what the machine makes.The method by which the fool arrives at his folly was as dear to him as the ultimate wisdom of the wise.So much,indeed,did the subtle mechanism of mind fascinate him that he despised language,or looked upon it as an incomplete instrument of expression.Rhyme,that exquisite echo which in the Muse's hollow hill creates and answers its own voice;rhyme,which in the hands of the real artist becomes not merely a material element of metrical beauty,but a spiritual element of thought and passion also,waking a new mood,it may be,or stirring a fresh train of ideas,or opening by mere sweetness and suggestion of sound some golden door at which the Imagination itself had knocked in vain;rhyme,which can turn man's utterance to the speech of gods;rhyme,the one chord we have added to the Greek lyre,became in Robert Browning's hands a grotesque,misshapen thing,which at times made him masquerade in poetry as a low comedian,and ride Pegasus too often with his tongue in his cheek.There are moments when he wounds us by monstrous music.Nay,if he can only get his music by breaking the strings of his lute,he breaks them,and they snap in discord,and no Athenian tettix,making melody from tremulous wings,lights on the ivory horn to make the movement perfect,or the interval less harsh.Yet,he was great:and though he turned language into ignoble clay,he made from it men and women that live.He is the most Shakespearian creature since Shakespeare.If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips,Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths.Even now,as I am speaking,and speaking not against him but for him,there glides through the room the pageant of his persons.There,creeps Fra Lippo Lippi with his cheeks still burning from some girl's hot kiss.There,stands dread Saul with the lordly male-sapphires gleaming in his turban.

Mildred Tresham is there,and the Spanish monk,yellow with hatred,and Blougram,and Ben Ezra,and the Bishop of St.Praxed's.The spawn of Setebos gibbers in the corner,and Sebald,hearing Pippa pass by,looks on Ottima's haggard face,and loathes her and his own sin,and himself.Pale as the white satin of his doublet,the melancholy king watches with dreamy treacherous eyes too loyal Strafford pass forth to his doom,and Andrea shudders as he hears the cousins whistle in the garden,and bids his perfect wife go down.Yes,Browning was great.And as what will he be remembered?

As a poet?Ah,not as a poet!He will be remembered as a writer of fiction,as the most supreme writer of fiction,it may be,that we have ever had.His sense of dramatic situation was unrivalled,and,if he could not answer his own problems,he could at least put problems forth,and what more should an artist do?Considered from the point of view of a creator of character he ranks next to him who made Hamlet.Had he been articulate,he might have sat beside him.The only man who can touch the hem of his garment is George Meredith.Meredith is a prose Browning,and so is Browning.He used poetry as a medium for writing in prose.

ERNEST.There is something in what you say,but there is not everything in what you say.In many points you are unjust.

GILBERT.It is difficult not to be unjust to what one loves.But let us return to the particular point at issue.What was it that you said?

ERNEST.Simply this:that in the best days of art there were no art-critics.

GILBERT.I seem to have heard that observation before,Ernest.It has all the vitality of error and all the tediousness of an old friend.

ERNEST.It is true.Yes:there is no use your tossing your head in that petulant manner.It is quite true.In the best days of art there were no art-critics.The sculptor hewed from the marble block the great white-limbed Hermes that slept within it.The waxers and gilders of images gave tone and texture to the statue,and the world,when it saw it,worshipped and was dumb.He poured the glowing bronze into the mould of sand,and the river of red metal cooled into noble curves and took the impress of the body of a god.With enamel or polished jewels he gave sight to the sightless eyes.The hyacinth-like curls grew crisp beneath his graver.And when,in some dim frescoed fane,or pillared sunlit portico,the child of Leto stood upon his pedestal,those who passed by,[Greek text which cannot be reproduced],became conscious of a new influence that had come across their lives,and dreamily,or with a sense of strange and quickening joy,went to their homes or daily labour,or wandered,it may be,through the city gates to that nymph-haunted meadow where young Phaedrus bathed his feet,and,lying there on the soft grass,beneath the tall wind -whispering planes and flowering AGNUS CASTUS,began to think of the wonder of beauty,and grew silent with unaccustomed awe.In those days the artist was free.From the river valley he took the fine clay in his fingers,and with a little tool of wood or bone,fashioned it into forms so exquisite that the people gave them to the dead as their playthings,and we find them still in the dusty tombs on the yellow hillside by Tanagra,with the faint gold and the fading crimson still lingering about hair and lips and raiment.

同类推荐
  • 吴中故语

    吴中故语

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 图民录

    图民录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 天台传佛心印记注

    天台传佛心印记注

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 正一指教斋清旦行道仪

    正一指教斋清旦行道仪

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛说正恭敬经

    佛说正恭敬经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 爱在千年

    爱在千年

    她是来自未来的一缕幽魂,带着未来女孩子的坚强勇敢,在千年前的这里继续活了下去。重生后的她——宋元儿,开朗率真,真诚勇敢,一朝圣旨她陪着姐姐远赴国都,却意外的掉入了他们的阴谋算计中。兜兜转转间爱与被爱,真心与伤害,暮然回首谁才是愿为她付出一切的人。他是当朝王爷亦是当朝贵妃的亲侄子,同样是全天下最美的男子,看似温润如玉温柔有背后实际上冷漠如冰,心机重重,他善于把一切都掌控在自己的手中,可是他却永远也预料不到生命中还有一个如天气变化一样的她。他是当朝太子是整个天下的继承人,他慎深善谋,志在天下,只要是能够利用的东西必定物尽其用,他在桃树下对她一见倾心,他爱宋元儿可是他更爱仅仅一步之遥的天下。
  • 仙缘莲生

    仙缘莲生

    在浩瀚的银河畔,有一居所。名叫“莲居小筑”。有一天,“小筑”的莲花全部盛开了,莲香四溢,“小筑”的上方有无数的光华溢出。在“小筑”的莲池中,一朵青莲,缓缓的绽放。随着光华流转,一位身着淡绿色荷叶边下摆长纱衣,内穿白色衣裙的仙子浮立水中。身上的淡绿色纱衣随着微风拂……这朵青莲,幻化出人身后又将经历什么呢?从仙界辗转到人间,从仙子到凡人。这一切的一切,真的就是上天冥冥中的注定吗?如果是,那么青莲最后的结局又是什么呢?
  • 溥仪的屈辱之旅

    溥仪的屈辱之旅

    1931年,日本发动了九·一八事变,占领了中国东北,成立了伪满洲国,受到了国际社会的强烈谴责。日本天皇为了让全世界接受中日亲善、中日共荣的谎言,于1939年11月安排川岛芳子陪同伪满洲国皇帝爱新觉罗·溥仪到被日本人称作模范矿区的阜新视察,并邀请国际媒体前来采访,用以欺骗国际社会。但阜新人民的抗日斗争粉碎了日本人的政治阴谋,使伪皇帝溥仪的阜新之行成为一次惊险与伤心之旅。阜新车站戒备森严,一队队全副武装的日本兵和伪警察在站台持枪警戒。
  • 异世谋生,丑夫强势宠

    异世谋生,丑夫强势宠

    腊月生无可恋,一觉醒来竟跑到了另外一个世界。这还不要紧,竟然还把这了部落里最丑的人给玷污了!可她连他的手都没碰一下,是怎么把他给污了!!从此后悲剧的人生开始了!挚天:“月儿,你今天看了卷毛三眼,是我没满足你吗……”腊月扶着小蛮腰,咬牙切齿“他才三个月大,我能有啥企图?”“月儿!你为什么总是看那只狐狸?是故意让我吃醋吗?……”腊月在心底咆哮,别人家都是四夫,三郎,五小妾,而她就那么一个,还是最丑的!她想洗洗眼睛怎么了?怎么了?“你是说我丑?”“不是!”腊月用手摸摸他胸口上那撮毛,“不是的!你最伟岸,最男人。”
  • 澎湖台湾纪略

    澎湖台湾纪略

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 太阳系法师

    太阳系法师

    “谁能告诉我,为什么一觉睡醒后,我的体内就多了个太阳系?”唐木:〣(?Δ?)〣
  • 翘家皇后

    翘家皇后

    我叫司马龙儿,司马山庄二小姐、天临皇朝的八公主,身份特殊、背景深厚。人生的最大理想就是,在十六岁的时风光大嫁,但我十六岁被皇子退婚,十八岁被相公休弃,好不容易熬到了艰难的十九岁,成了老姑娘,变成了政治交易品。母后说娶我的人生的貌美、脾气温和,最重要的是他家世代出情种,一生只会对一个女人好;听见这话我很开心。可当我见到迎娶之人是他时,死活抱着父皇的大腿不肯上花轿,快要喷火的眼睛,横眉倒竖的眉毛让我不顾仪态的奔向他,揪着他的领口大怒:“你的大夫人、二夫人、三夫人、四夫人……美妾、小官呢?”听见我的控诉,他笑的天真无害,说在他准备娶我的时候已经全部遣散,现在整座府邸连一只母鸡都没有,要我绝对放心。我叉腰悔婚,指着眼前笑颜如花的他,嗤之以鼻:“他曾经说过,他这辈子当和尚都不会娶我,而本公主也说过,就算是当尼姑都不会嫁他。”我出言不逊、抵死顽抗,他被当面拒婚、颜面扫地,发誓就算是抢,也要把我变成他的女人;一场婚姻,一次迎亲,让我和他、他还有他再次相遇;这是什么情况?都亮着招牌喊着抢婚?四个男人抢一个,不是比武艺,也不是比权利,更不是斗财富智慧,而是要转头问问我,本姑娘想跟谁走。老人们常说,闺女桃花多了好,但为什么跑到我身边的都是烂桃花、烂桃花。一个个都弃我、伤害我、欺骗我,现在又想要唤回我,嘿嘿,本姑娘,不稀罕了。===========我看着独御栖凤憋红的俊脸,心疼的想要上去摸两把,但是却被他发狠的眼神吓的又缩回来。“你给我吃了什么?”“媚药。”“为什么要这么做?”“我想要一个孩子,而你,就不要吝啬的给我提供一下帮助嘛;要是一个人能搞定,我也不会麻烦你呀。”我笑的贼兮兮,然后壮着胆往他身上靠,学着花娘娇滴滴的口气,委屈巴巴的望着他:“父皇要我回宫,我想要准备份大礼给他,礼物就是我的肚皮,我想让他当姥爷。”“干我鸟事。”独御栖凤火大,她要孩子为什么要找上他?“你长的够帅,武功够好,身份够高,当然是我孩子爹爹的不二人选;我告诉你独御栖凤,整个璇玑山庄从上到下所有母的都被我送出去了,你要是不介意,可以找俩男的给你解解渴;但你这武林盟主好男风的癖好我就会好好帮你宣扬出去;到时候,嘻嘻……。”我看着独御栖凤发青的脸笑的花枝乱颤;其实本公主可是处子,将第一次交给他那是他的荣幸。===========夜燃香……推荐凉拌韭菜的超级好看文
  • 残种

    残种

    盛朝二百零八年,天地摇曳,西南腹地裂渊千里,深不可知,方圆寸草不生皆成荒漠…… 一段曲折的爱情故事,一个剑指苍天的传奇,搅动天地的大事,譿世倾心制作大场景 神魔巨作,三年一剑成,万年阴谋破! “待我剑指苍天,破凡成圣,定回来还你十里红妆相伴到老!”
  • 新兴女性:女性未来人格与修养的10大全新展现

    新兴女性:女性未来人格与修养的10大全新展现

    成功的女性身上自有许多美好的精神和思想,完全可以借鉴和发扬。本书介绍了新时代女性人格与修养的十大特点,系统阐述了自我主见能力、人格魅力、个性的独特、高雅的气质、卓越的品位等。
  • 养心食谱

    养心食谱

    《养心食谱》精选了近百种养心食谱的做法,你能在短时间内享用色香昧美的养心菜肴。这里既有大众熟悉的传统菜式,也有名厨新近的创新品种,种类齐全,制作简单,操作方便,内容实用。