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Updated: May 29, 2025
One of Matthew's anecdotes was, no doubt, somewhat suggested by the occasion, and I should add that he had always somewhat of an ecclesiastical bias would, I believe, have ended some day as a Monsignor, a notable 'Bishop Blougram. His story was of an evangelistic preacher who desired to impress his congregation with the unmistakable reality of hell-fire.
Only at the last, were it not that we know that there is a firmer ground for Blougram than this on which he takes his stand in after-dinner controversy, we might be inclined to close the subject by adapting to its uses the title of a pamphlet connected with the Kingsley and Newman debate "But was not Mr Gigadibs right after all?"
A Luther would surely be the wiser for an evening spent in company with a Blougram; and Blougram has things to tell us which Luther never knew. But precisely because truth is relative we must finally adhere to our own perceptions; they constitute the light for us; and the justice we would do to others we must also render to ourselves. A wide survey may be made from a fixed centre.
And there is indeed little danger that such optimism will become weak and sentimental and popular, the refuge of every idler, the excuse of every ne'er-do-well. There is little danger that men will desire to excuse their souls before God by presenting themselves before men as such snobs as Bishop Blougram, or such dastards as Sludge the Medium.
It is amusing to note, if the authority of the bibliographers is to be trusted, that these volumes were reviewed, in the Roman Catholic paper called The Rambler, by no less a person than Cardinal Wiseman, who was extremely complimentary to "Bishop Blougram," and did not by any means despair of the writer's conversion. After "Men and Women" the poet was silent for a long time.
'But you haven't kept up with philosophical speculation on the points involved in orthodox religion? 'I confess my ignorance of everything of the kind unless you include Bishop Blougram among the philosophers? Godwin bore the gaze which accompanied this significant inquiry. For a moment he smiled, but there followed an expression of gravity touched with pain.
Browning's moral sympathies, we may rest assured, do not go with one who like Blougram finds satisfaction in things realised on earth; one who declines at least as he represents himself for the purposes of argument to press forward to things which he cannot attain but might nobly follow after.
The Bishop frankly admits that the unqualified believer, the enthusiast, is more fortunate than he; he, Sylvester Blougram, is what he is, and all that he can do is to make the most of the nature allotted to him. That there has been a divine revelation he cannot absolutely believe; but neither can he absolutely disbelieve.
In that inmost chamber of his consciousness where he allowed himself the luxury of absolute frankness, however, the artist confessed that his animosity to the young rector had other causes. As Fenton sank into his seat, Mrs. Staggchase leaned over to quote from the poem, "'For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke."
What I have been saying is not strictly original. I took it on the stump, that's all. I didn't expect it to have much effect in this campaign, but it was an opportunity to sow a few seeds, to start a sense of personal dissatisfaction in the minds of a few voters. What is it Browning says? It's in Bishop Blougram, I believe.
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