The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1909-10-24
BROWNING PAPERS, NO. w.
BY n. c, EDGAR.
Tertium ouid.

STtlum QuIos
Hall Rome's prejudiced injustice
was horrible; Other Half Rome's ac-
| cidental part truths were mourntul in
their incompIeteness; Tertium Guilds
pOintless neutrality stirs a feeling of
contempt. The first angers US; the
second appeases us; the third bores
US, Like His Highness and His EX-
cellency (the Quality to whom he
talked) we prefer going and joining
play or retiring for the night; We
must alter the current of our thoughts,
or snatch a little feverish sleep-any-
thing as a rest from his inordinate-
ness, Personally whenever read
thisFOurth Book / cannot go On at
once to the Fifth. / feel too tired to-
enjoy company, and too unnerved to-
want to be alone. / must have at
least a day to Tecuperate my exhaust
ed mind and paralyzed feelings. l am
then in a condition. to enjoy commit
ting murder. l am starved for some
thing positive, anything if 1t is only
headlong. I am surfeited with luke
warm impartiality. Was Il q shake
OF Guido's bloody hand? Was it not
a knowledge OF the human instrument
that made his next tones jangling and
abrupt? Indeed, for a professed ad-
miTer of The Ring and the Book TO
deny he is bored by TeTtium Quid
would be to deny the subtlest OF
BTOwning's powers. 1t would DE fiat
self-contradiction. Browning set out
to make Tertium Quid a bore, and he
made him-a bore.
Only grant me that to appreciate is
to like a great poem, and l can say
that the more you are disguised with
this whole canto the better you are
pleased with il
Porter and Clarke in their Introduc-
ton rightly call these three books the
poets probation towards wisdom. But
| they are more than that. They do
prove our intelligence, and make US
fall back on our own wits with an ex-
perience-taught distrUst Of popular
opinions. But, besides putting US IN
the way to gain the real truth, they
show us whaC that truth thus gained
daring unconventional goodness may
often be apparently compromised;
how the world will easily condemn IT,
or easily COndone if, but rarely be
convinced OF its real innocence; yet
how such goodness is at times urgent
ly needed and will receive it's own
peculiar vindication-althou and
because there is this wrinkIed old so
phisticated world, so credulOus of
what is false, so skeptical Of what is
true
AS a matter of fact, If we consider
the thing properly, we perceive that,
with this precise subject, and this
precise number Of cantos, the fourth
ought TO be a bore. To be accurate,
We could add that, with any subject
and any number Of cantos, the in
teTest would flag when we were one
third through, and for purely psyche
logical reasons. This is the point in
the beginning for our initial interest
TO have been dissipated, and too far
from the end to feel the relentless
grip Of fate, the full force of the en-
tanglement, or a vulgar curiosity,
even This is the point where a poor
book is laid down; where a magazine
editor decides to return a poem. So
Browning made concession both to his
own art, and TO psychological neces-
sity.
1t would be interesting to trace by
chart the ebb and flow OF emotional
excitement as we read the poem. And
this will be attempted in a later pa
per. Suffice II Row that this is the
bottom level of interest-this inane
talk of Tertium Quid.
And IL the reader is ever more in
tensely bored than now, either he is
proved a reader out OF training or
Browning a bungler.
And now we ought TO consider the
special truth propounded IN this book,
aside from its relation to the entire
work In the first place, we observe
that the poet is laughing between the
lines. To catch his irony, put side by