Sir, where’s the scrape you did not help me through,
You that are wise? And for the fools, the folk
Who came to see, — the guests, (observe that word!)
Pray do you find guests criticize your wine,
Your furniture, your grammar, or your nose?
Then, why your “medium”? What’s the difference?
Prove your madeira red-ink and gamboge, —
Your Sludge, a cheat — then, somebody ‘s a goose
For vaunting both as genuine. “Guests!” Don’t fear!
They ‘ll make a wry face, nor too much of that,
And leave you in your glory.
”No, sometimes
“They doubt and say as much!” Ay, doubt they do!
And what’s the consequence? “Of course they doubt” —
(You triumph) “that explains the hitch at once!
“Doubt posed our ‘medium,’ puddled his pure mind;
“He gave them back their rubbish: pitch chaff in,
“Could flour come out o’ the honest mill?” So, prompt
Applaud the faithful: cases flock in point,
“How, when a mocker willed a ‘medium’ once
“Should name a spirit James whose name was George,
“‘James’ cried the ‘medium,’ — ’t was the test of truth!”
In short, a hit proves much, a miss proves more.
Does this convince? The better: does it fail?
Time for the double-shotted broadside, then —
The grand means, last resource. Look black and big!
“You style us idiots, therefore — why stop short?
“Accomplices in rascality; this we hear
“In our own house, from our invited guest
“Found brave enough to outrage a poor boy
“Exposed by our good faith! Have you been heard?
“Now, then, hear us; one man ‘s not quite worth twelve.
“You see a cheat? Here ‘s some twelve see an ass!
“Excuse me if I calculate: good day!”
Out slinks the sceptic, all the laughs explode.
Sludge waves his hat in triumph!
Or — he don’t.
There’s something in real truth (explain who can!)
One casts a wistful eye at, like the horse
Who mopes beneath stuffed hay-racks and won’t munch
Because he spies a corn-bag: hang that truth,
It spoils all dainties proffered in its place!
I ‘ve felt at times when, cockered, cosseted
And coddled by the aforesaid company,
Bidden enjoy their bullying, — never fear,
But o’er their shoulders spit at the flying man, —
I ‘ve felt a child; only, a fractious child
That, dandled soft by nurse, aunt, grandmother,
Who keep him from the kennel, sun and wind,
Good fun and wholesome mud, — enjoined be sweet,
And comely and superior, — eyes askance
The ragged sons o’ the gutter at their game,
Fain would be down with them i’ the thick o’ the filth,
Making dirt-pies, laughing free, speaking plain,
And calling granny the grey old cat she is.
I ‘ve felt a spite, I say, at you, at them,
Huggings and humbug-gnashed my teeth to mark
A decent dog pass! It ‘s too bad, I say,
Ruining a soul so!
But what ‘s “so,” what ‘s fixed,
Where may one stop? Nowhere! The cheating’s nursed
Out of the lying, softly and surely spun
To just your length, sir! I’d stop soon enough:
But you’re for progress. “All old, nothing new?
“Only the usual talking through the mouth,
“Or writing by the hand? I own, I thought
“This would develop, grow demonstrable,
“Make doubt absurb, give figures we might see,
“Flowers we might touch. There’s no one doubts you, Sludge!
“You dream the dreams, you see the spiritual sights,
“The speeches come in your head, beyond dispute.
“Still, for the sceptics’ sake, to stop all mouths,
“We want some outward manifestation! — well,
“The Pennsylvanians gained such; why not Sludge?
“He may improve with time!”
Ay, that he may!
He sees his lot: there’s no avoiding fate.
‘T is a trifle at first. “Eh, David? Did you hear?
“You jogged the table, your foot caused the squeak,
“This time you’re . . . joking, are you not, my boy?”
“N-n-no!” — and I ‘m done for, bought and sold hence forth.
The old good easy jog-trot way, the . . . eh?
The . . . not so very false, as falsehood goes,
The spinning out and drawing fine, you know, —
Really mere novel-writing of a sort,
Acting, or improvising, make-believe,
Surely not downright cheatery, — any how,
‘T is done with and my lot cast; Cheat’s my name:
The fatal dash of brandy in your tea
Has settled what you’ll have the souchong’s smack:
The caddy gives way to the drain-bottle.
Then, it’s so cruel easy! Oh, those tricks
That can’t be tricks, those feats by sleight of hand,
Clearly no common conjuror’s! — no indeed!
A conjuror? Choose me any craft i’ the world
A man puts hand to; and with six months’ pains
I’ll play you twenty tricks miraculous
To people untaught the trade: have you seen glass blown,
Pipes pierced? Why, just this biscuit that I chip,
Did you ever watch a baker toss one flat
To the oven? Try and do it! Take my word,
Practise but half as much, while limbs are lithe,
To turn, shove, tilt a table, crack your joints,
Manage your feet, dispose your hands aright,
Work wires that twitch the curtains, play the glove
At end o’ your slipper, — then put out the lights
And . . . there, there, all you want you ‘ll get, I hope!
I found it slip, easy as an old shoe.
Now, lights on table again! I ‘ve done my part,
You take my place while I give thanks and rest.
“Well, Judge Humgruffin, what ‘s your verdict, sir?
“You, hardest head in the United States, —
“Did you detect a cheat here? Wait! Let ‘s see!
“Just an experiment first, for candour’s sake!
“I ‘ll try and cheat you, Judge? The table tilts:
“Is it I that move it? Write! I’ll press your hand:
“Cry when I push, or guide your pencil, Judge!”
Sludge still triumphant! “That a rap, indeed?
“That, the real writing? Very like a whale!
“Then, if, sir, you — a most distinguished man,
“And, were the Judge not here, I’d say, . . . no matter!
“Well, sir, if you fail, you can’t take us in, —
“There ‘s little fear that Sludge will!”
Won’t he, ma’am
But what if our distinguished host, like Sludge,
Bade God bear witness that he played no trick,
While you believed that what produced the raps
Was just a certain child who died, you know,
And whose last breath you thought your lips had felt?
Eh? That’s a capital point, ma’am; Sludge begins
At your entreaty with your dearest dead,
The little voice set lisping once again,
The tiny hand made feel for yours once more,
The poor lost image brought back, plain as dreams,
Which image, if a word had chanced reca
ll,
The customary cloud would cross your eyes,
Your heart return the old tick, pay its pang!
A right mood for investigation, this!
One’s at one’s ease with Saul and Jonathan,
Pompey and Caesar: but one’s own lost child . . .
I wonder, when you heard the first clod drop
From the spadeful at the grave-side, felt you free
To investigate who twitched your funeral scarf
Or brushed your flounces? Then, it came of course
You should be stunned and stupid; then, (how else?)
Your breath stopped with your blood, your brain struck work.
But now, such causes fail of such effects,
All ‘s changed, — the little voice begins afresh,
Yet, you, calm, consequent, can test and try
And touch the truth. “Tests? Didn’t the creature tell
“Its nurse’s name, and say it lived six years,
“And rode a rocking-horse? Enough of tests!
“Sludge never could learn that!”
He could not, eh?
You compliment him. “ Could not?” Speak for yourself!
I ‘d like to know the man I ever saw
Once, — never mind where, how, why, when, — once saw,
Of whom I do not keep some matter in mind
He ‘d swear I “could not” know, sagacious soul!
What? Do you live in this world’s blow of blacks,
Palaver, gossipry, a single hour
Nor find one smut has settled on your nose,
Of a smut’s worth, no more, no less? — one fact
Out of the drift of facts, whereby you learn
What someone was, somewhere, somewhen, somewhy?
You don’t tell folk — ”See what has stuck to me!
“Judge Humgruffin, our most distinguished man,
“Your uncle was a tailor, and your wife
“Thought to have married Miggs, missed him, hit you!” —
Do you, sir, though you see him twice a-week?
“No,” you reply, “what use retailing it?
“Why should I?” But, you see, one day you should,
Because one day there ‘s much use, — when this fact
Brings you the Judge upon both gouty knees
Before the supernatural; proves that Sludge Knows,
as you say, a thing he “could not” know:
Will not Sludge thenceforth keep an outstretched face
The way the wind drives?
”Could not!” Look you now,
I ‘ll tell you a story! There ‘s a whiskered chap,
A foreigner, that teaches music here
And gets his bread, — knowing no better way:
He says, the fellow who informed of him
And made him fly his country and fall West
Was a hunchback cobbler, sat, stitched soles and sang,
In some outlandish place, the city Rome,
In a cellar by their Broadway, all day long;
Never asked questions, stopped to listen or look,
Nor lifted nose from lapstone; let the world
Roll round his three-legged stool, and news run in
The ears he hardly seemed to keep pricked up.
Well, that man went on Sundays, touched his pay,
And took his praise from government, you see;
For something like two dollars every week,
He’d engage tell you some one little thing
Of some one man, which led to many more,
(Because one truth leads right to the world’s end)
And make you that man’s master — when he dined
And on what dish, where walked to keep his health
And to what street. His trade was, throwing thus
His sense out, like an ant-eater’s long tongue,
Soft, innocent, warm, moist, impassible,
And when ‘t was crusted o’er with creatures — slick,
Their juice enriched his palate. “Could not Sludge!”
I ‘ll go yet a step further, and maintain,
Once the imposture plunged its proper depth
I’ the rotton of your natures, all of you, —
(If one ‘s not mad nor drunk, and hardly then)
It ‘s impossible to cheat — that ‘s, be found out!
Go tell your brotherhood this first slip of mine,
All to-day’s tale, how you detected Sludge,
Behaved unpleasantly, till he was fain confess,
And so has come to grief! You’ll find, I think,
Why Sludge still snaps his fingers in your face.
There now, you’ve told them! What’s their prompt reply?
“Sir, did that youth confess he had cheated me,
“I’d disbelieve him. He may cheat at times;
“That’s in the ‘medium’-nature, thus they’re made,
“Vain and vindictive, cowards, prone to scratch
“And so all cats are; still, a cat ‘s the beast
“You coax the strange electric sparks from out,
“By rubbing back its fur; not so a dog,
“Nor lion, nor lamb: ‘t is the cat’s nature, sir!
“Why not the dog’s? Ask God, who made them beasts!
“D’ ye think the sound, the nicely-balanced man
“(Like me” — aside) — ”like you yourself,” — (aloud)
‘ — He ‘s stuff to make a ‘medium’? Bless your soul,
“‘T is these hysteric, hybrid half-and-halfs,
“Equivocal, worthless vermin yield the fire!
“We take such as we find them, ‘ware their tricks,
“Wanting their service. Sir, Sludge took in you —
“How, I can’t say, not being there to watch:
“He was tried, was tempted by your easiness, —
“He did not take in me!”
Thank you for Sludge!
I ‘m to be grateful to such patrons, eh,
When what you hear’s my best word? ‘T is a challenge
“Snap at all strangers, half-tamed prairie-dog,
“So you cower duly at your keeper’s beck!
“Cat, show what claws were made for, muffling them
“Only to me! Cheat others if you can,
“Me, if you dare!” And, my wise sir, I dared —
Did cheat you first, made you cheat others next,
And had the help o’ your vaunted manliness
To bully the incredulous. You used me?
Have not I used you, taken full revenge,
Persuaded folk they knew not their own name,
And straight they’d own the error! Who was the fool
When, to an awe-struck wide-eyed open-mouthed
Circle of sages, Sludge would introduce
Milton composing baby-rhymes, and Locke
Reasoning in gibberish, Homer writing Greek
In noughts and crosses, Asaph setting psalms
To crotchet and quaver? I ‘ve made a spirit squeak
In sham voice for a minute, then outbroke
Bold in my own, defying the imbeciles —
Have copied some ghost’s pothooks, half a page,
Then ended with my own scrawl undisguised.
“All right! The ghost was merely using Sludge,
“Suiting itself from his imperfect stock!
“Don’t talk of gratitude to me! For what?
For being treated as a showman’s ape,
Encouraged to be wicked and make sport,
Fret or sulk, grin or whimper, any mood
So long as the ape be in it and no man —
Because a nut pays every mood alike.
Curse your superior, superintending sort,
Who, since you hate smoke, send up boys that climb
To cure your chimney, bid a “medium” lie
To sweep you truth down! Curse your women too,
Your insolent wives
and daughters, that fire up
Or faint away if a male hand squeeze theirs,
Yet, to encourage Sludge, may play with Sludge
As only a “medium,” only the kind of thing
They must humour, fondle . . . oh, to misconceive
Were too preposterous! But I’ve paid them out!
They ‘ve had their wish — called for the naked truth,
And in she tripped, sat down and bade them stare:
They had to blush a little and forgive!
“The fact is, children talk so; in next world
“All our conventions are reversed, — perhaps
“Made light of: something like old prints, my dear!
“The Judge has one, he brought from Italy,
“A metropolis in the background, — o’er a bridge,
“A team of trotting roadsters, — cheerful groups
“Of wayside travellers, peasants at their work,
“And, full in front, quite unconcerned, why not?
“Three nymphs conversing with a cavalier,
“And never a rag among them: ‘fine,’ folk cry —
“And heavenly manners seem not much unlike!
“Let Sludge go on; we ‘ll fancy it ‘s in print!
“If such as came for wool, sir, went home shorn,
Where is the wrong I did them? ‘T was their choice;
They tried the adventure, ran the risk, tossed up
And lost, as some one’s sure to do in games;
They fancied I was made to lose,– smoked glass
Useful to spy the sun through, spare their eyes:
And had I proved a red-hot iron plate
They thought to pierce, and, for their pains, grew blind,
Whose were the fault but theirs? While, as things go,
Their loss amounts to gain, the more ‘s the shame!
They’ve had their peep into the spirit-world,
And all this world may know it! They’ve fed fat
Their self-conceit which else had starved: what chance
Save this, of cackling o’er a golden egg
And compassing distinction from the flock,
Friends of a feather? Well, they paid for it,
And not prodigiously; the price o’ the play,
Not counting certain pleasant interludes,
Was scarce a vulgar play’s worth. When you buy
The actor’s talent, do you dare propose
For his soul beside? Whereas my soul you buy!
Sludge acts Macbeth, obliged to be Macbeth,
Or you’ll not hear his first word! Just go through
That slight formality, swear himself ‘s the Thane,
And thenceforth he may strut and fret his hour,
Spout, spawl, or spin his target, no one cares!
Why hadn’t I leave to play tricks, Sludge as Sludge?
Enough of it all! I’ve wiped out scores with you —
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 72