The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-10

fOr MS ire s set prize, be 1t what IL VIII.
An excellent illustration of Brownings
manliness and robust common sense is
found in his handling of young lovers.
give a single illustration. In the Last
Ride Together" the youth gets the sack.
Instead of sniveling over it, he walks up
to his mistress like a man and asks for
the privilege of one more ride together.
She says yes" They get into the cart
and the old intoxication returns. Behind
a rapid PAGER with his arm around his best
girl, what care the youths, he or she. for
church or state present or future, this
world or the next? But for all his intoxi-
cation our boy takes a common-sense view
of the situation. He asks himself
What need to strive with life Away?
Had l said that, had l done this,
So might | gain, so might miss.
Might she have loved me? Just as well
She might have hated. Who can tell?
Where had been now had the worst be-
fell?"
And then the youth further moralizes:
What heart and brain went ever paired,
What heart alike conceived and dared,
What act proved all it's thought had been,
What will but felt the fleshy screen?
All labor. yet no less
Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
Look at the end of work; contrast
The petty done, the undone vast,
This present of ours with the hopeful
past"
The ordinary poet would have put words
like these in the mouth of the blubbering,
rejected youth:
"a few more years of smiles and tears,
And few more years of pain,
And the weary smart of wounded heart
never shall know again."
Not SO this Robert; he was not built that
THE world is the enigma, God the solu-
ton" This great saying is good and grand
enough We must have a solution of the
ineffable teTTn-God. Is God force, law,
person, the unthinkable the unconditional,
or what? 1t is self-evident that we cannot
get very far in our thought until this enigma
Of God is cleared up Browning does it in
with him is a Person whose dominating
trait is not power but love. Personality and
Iove-not power and Notwithstanding TO
browning, are the keys to this solution Of
this greatest mystery of mysteries which,
to veil our ignorance, we call God and think
that we have solved the problem. God is
brated dictum that He is 1.-The power, not
ourselves, which makes for righteousness,
entirely fails to reach Him Power is an
Supreme Being except as an incident of
and controlled by love. With Browning in
tellect is always a secondary consideration.
With him the greatest things in the whole
world are personality and love. For this
reason we take our religions from the East
and our philosophy from the West. The
great Semitic nations have produced Christ,
Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius and Mo-
manned, but never great philosopher like
Browning teaches that this tangled,
strange and insolvable world is unity
and divine plan. He insists that man was
made in the image of God that this life is
discipline and a preparations; that we are
not so much judged by what we accomplish
as by what we attempt. and that a life
hereafter is a necessity both for man and
God.
IT'S wiser being good than bad:
It's safer being meek than fierce;
1t S filter being sane than mad
My own hope is the sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That after last returns the first,
Though wide compass round be fetched:
That what began best can't end worst,
Nor what God blest once prove accurst'
The last line of this glorious stanza shows
what Browning thought of the dogma of
everlasting punishment, for ii God ever
blest anything in this world 1t is sweet
innocent sinlesS babe.
BroWntngs optimism Is the best part of
Browning. Through the vast mass of his
poetry there is not note of despair. Oh
epM graaa are a6p Ben The
Saul,-a quartet of speckless diamonds
But these mastery poems yield their hid
den treasures only to the severeSt and the
most patient study. 1 can only quote a
line or two from each:
Poor v2unt OF life indeed.
Were man but formed to feed.
To solely seek and find and feast:
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
inks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt
the maW-crammed beast!
Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earths smoothness rough,
Each sting. that bids nor sit nor stand
but goi
Be our joys three parts pain!
Strive. and hold cheap the strain;
Learn nor account the pang; dare never
grudge the throe!'
Here is word from the "Grammarian's
Funeral"
'"That low man seeks little thing to do,
Sees it and does it;
This high man, with great ling to pur-
sue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundreds soon HIT
This high man, aiming at million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here-should he need
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and, upper
Seeking, shall find Him"
In other words God will Judge US at last
not by what we do, but by what we aspire
and persistently attempt to do, even
';Abt Vogler'' is a tribute to music as
the greatest of all arts to express the in
ends. Over its airy abutmentS and aerial
bridges the instructed soul can pass from
the seen and temporal to the unseen and
eternal; from the kingdom of flesh and
blood to that shoreless and fenceless other
kingdom, where dwells the Invisible. King
in all His beauty. For this reason music
is closer to religion than all the rest of the
fine arts combined. Here is a taste of this
great poem:
Sorrow is hard to bear and doubt is slow
Each sufferer says his say, his scheme
of the veal and Woe
But God has a few OF us whom he whis-
pers in the ear;
The rest may reason and Welcome-'tiS
we musicians know
saul" is a search after God. After go
ing the whole round of creation, the royal
singer David, is driven to this conclusion:
. what stops my despair?
This: tits not what man does which exalts
him. but what man would do.
See the Kng-I would help him, but can
not the wishes fall through.
Could 1 wrestle to save him from sorrow,
grow poor to enrich,
To FIJI up his life. staTve my own out, /
mountaineering which,
I know that my service is perfect. Oh,
speak through me now!
Would I suffer for him l love? So wouldst
thou-so wilt thou!
SO shall crown thee the topmost, fneffa-
blest, uttermost crown
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor
leave UP nor down
One spot for the creature to stand in! 1t
is by no breath
Turn of eve wave of hand. that salvation
Joins issue with DEATH
AS thy love is discovered almighty, al
mighty be proved
Thy power that exists with and for it, of
being beloved!
Ha who did most shall bear most; the
strongest shall stand the most weak.
'1fs the weakness In strength that / cry
for; my flesh that seek
T., 10 cd / seek / %