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diff --git a/38420-0.txt b/38420-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f3fc0f --- /dev/null +++ b/38420-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18000 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tennyson and His Friends, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Tennyson and His Friends + +Author: Various + +Editor: Hallam Tennyson + +Release Date: December 27, 2011 [EBook #38420] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TENNYSON AND HIS FRIENDS *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +TENNYSON AND HIS FRIENDS + + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO + ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + TORONTO + + + + +[Illustration: _Alfred, Lord Tennyson (in his 80th year)_ + +_Barraud, photographer Emery Walker, Ph.sc._] + + + + + TENNYSON AND HIS FRIENDS + + + EDITED BY + HALLAM, LORD TENNYSON + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON + 1911 + + + + + Dedicated + TO + THE FRIENDS OF TENNYSON + BY + HIS SON + + + + +PREFACE + + +To those who have contributed to this volume their memories of my father, +criticisms of his work, or records of his friends, I owe a deep debt of +gratitude. Three of the writers, Henry Butcher, Sir Alfred Lyall, and +Graham Dakyns, have lately, to my great loss, passed away--into that +fuller "light of friendship"-- + + "a clearer day + Than our poor twilight dawn on earth." + +TENNYSON. + + + + +[The following chapters about my father are arranged, as far as possible, +according to the sequence of his life. Further reminiscences by the Duke +of Argyll, Gladstone, Jowett, Lecky, Locker-Lampson, Palgrave, Lord +Selborne, Tyndall, Aubrey de Vere, and other friends, will be found in +_Tennyson, a Memoir_.] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + RECOLLECTIONS OF MY EARLY LIFE. By EMILY, LADY TENNYSON 3 + + TENNYSON AND LINCOLNSHIRE. By WILLINGHAM RAWNSLEY-- + I. TENNYSON'S COUNTRY 8 + II. THE SOMERSBY FRIENDS 18 + + TENNYSON AND HIS BROTHERS, FREDERICK AND CHARLES. By CHARLES + TENNYSON 33 + + TENNYSON ON HIS CAMBRIDGE FRIENDS-- + ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 71 + TO JAMES SPEDDING 72 + TO EDWARD FITZGERALD 75 + TO JOHN MITCHELL KEMBLE 78 + TO J. W. BLAKESLEY 78 + TO R. C. TRENCH 79 + TO THE REV. W. H. BROOKFIELD 80 + TO EDMUND LUSHINGTON 81 + CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER 86 + + TENNYSON AND LUSHINGTON. By SIR HENRY CRAIK, K.C.B., M.P. 89 + + TENNYSON, FITZGERALD, CARLYLE, AND OTHER FRIENDS. By DR. WARREN, + President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and now Professor of + Poetry 98 + + SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF TENNYSON'S TALK FROM 1835 TO 1853. By + EDWARD FITZGERALD 142 + + TENNYSON AND THACKERAY. By LADY RITCHIE 148 + + TENNYSON ON HIS FRIENDS OF LATER LIFE-- + TO W. C. MACREADY 157 + TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE 157 + TO SIR JOHN SIMEON 159 + TO EDWARD LEAR ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE 160 + TO THE MASTER OF BALLIOL 161 + TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLL 162 + TO GIFFORD PALGRAVE 162 + TO THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA 165 + TO W. E. GLADSTONE 167 + TO MARY BOYLE 168 + W. G. WARD 171 + TO SIR RICHARD JEBB 171 + TO GENERAL HAMLEY 172 + LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE 173 + GENERAL GORDON 173 + G. F. WATTS, R.A. 173 + + TENNYSON AND BRADLEY (DEAN OF WESTMINSTER). By MARGARET + L. WOODS 175 + + NOTES ON CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON. By the late MASTER OF + BALLIOL (PROFESSOR JOWETT) 186 + + TENNYSON, CLOUGH, AND THE CLASSICS. By HENRY GRAHAM DAKYNS 188 + + RECOLLECTIONS OF TENNYSON. By the Rev. H. MONTAGU BUTLER, D.D., + Master of Trinity College, Cambridge 206 + + TENNYSON AND W. G. WARD AND OTHER FARRINGFORD FRIENDS. By + WILFRID WARD 222 + + TENNYSON AND ALDWORTH. By SIR JAMES KNOWLES, K.C.V.O. 245 + + THE FUNERAL OF DICKENS 253 + + FRAGMENTARY NOTES OF TENNYSON'S TALK. By ARTHUR + COLERIDGE 255 + + MUSIC, TENNYSON, AND JOACHIM. By SIR CHARLES STANFORD 272 + + THE ATTITUDE OF TENNYSON TOWARDS SCIENCE. By SIR OLIVER LODGE, + F.R.S. 280 + + TENNYSON AS A STUDENT AND POET OF NATURE. By SIR NORMAN + LOCKYER, F.R.S. 285 + + MEMORIES. By E. V. B. 292 + + TENNYSON AND HIS TALK ON SOME RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. By the Right + Rev. the BISHOP OF RIPON 295 + + TENNYSON AND SIR JOHN SIMEON, AND TENNYSON'S LAST YEARS. By + LOUISA E. WARD 306 + + SIR JOHN SIMEON. By AUBREY DE VERE 321 + + TENNYSON. By ARTHUR SIDGWICK, Fellow of Corpus Christi, Oxford, + and sometime Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge 322 + + TENNYSON: HIS LIFE AND WORK. By the Right Hon. SIR ALFRED + LYALL, G.C.B. 344 + + TENNYSON: THE POET AND THE MAN. By PROFESSOR HENRY BUTCHER 385 + + + JAMES SPEDDING. By W. ALDIS WRIGHT, Vice-Master of Trinity + College, Cambridge 393 + + ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM. By DR. JOHN BROWN 441 + + + APPENDICES + + A. THE COMMENTS OF TENNYSON ON ONE OF HIS LATER ETHICAL POEMS 475 + + B. "HANDS ALL ROUND," SET TO MUSIC BY EMILY, LADY TENNYSON 481 + + C. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN FRIENDS 485 + + D. TENNYSON'S ARTHURIAN POEM 498 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + FACE PAGE + + IN PHOTOGRAVURE + + + + Alfred, Lord Tennyson (in his 80th year) _Frontispiece_ + + Emily, Lady Tennyson. From a drawing by G. F. Watts, R.A. 3 + + + IN BLACK AND WHITE + + Frederick Tennyson 33 + + Charles Tennyson-Turner 58 + + A. H. H. 71 + + Edmund Lushington 89 + + The Drive at Farringford, showing on the left the "Wellingtonia" + planted by Garibaldi 163 + + Tennyson and his two Sons 188 + + Arthur Tennyson 222 + + Horatio Tennyson 229 + + The South Side of Entrance from below the Terrace, Aldworth 245 + + Summer-house at Farringford, where "Enoch Arden" was written 292 + + The Corner of the Study at Farringford where Tennyson wrote, + with his Deerhound "Lufra" and the Terrier "Winks" in the + foreground 306 + + Arthur Hallam reading "Walter Scott" aloud on board the "Leeds," + bound from Bordeaux to Dublin, Sept. 9, 1830 441 + + + + +TENNYSON AND HIS FRIENDS + + + + +JUNE BRACKEN AND HEATHER + +(DEDICATION OF "THE DEATH OF ŒNONE" TO EMILY, LADY TENNYSON) + + + There on the top of the down, + The wild heather round me and over me June's high blue, + When I look'd at the bracken so bright and the heather so brown, + I thought to myself I would offer this book to you, + This, and my love together, + To you that are seventy-seven, + With a faith as clear as the heights of the June-blue heaven, + And a fancy as summer-new + As the green of the bracken amid the gloom of the heather. + + + + +[Illustration: _Emily Lady Tennyson from a drawing by G. F. Watts, R.A._ + +_Emery Walker, Ph.sc._] + + +RECOLLECTIONS OF MY EARLY LIFE + +By EMILY, LADY TENNYSON + +Written for her son in 1896 + + +You ask me to tell you something of my life before marriage at Horncastle +in Lincolnshire. It would be hard indeed not to do anything you ask of me +if within my power. To say the truth, this particular thing you want is +somewhat painful. The first thing I remember of my father[1] is his +looking at me with sad eyes after my mother's[2] death. Her I recollect, +passing the window in a velvet pelisse, and then in a white shawl on the +sofa, and then crowned with roses--beautiful in death. I recollect, too, +being carried to her funeral; but I asked what they were doing, and in all +this had no idea of death. + +My life before marriage was in many ways sad: in one, however, unspeakably +happy. No one could have had a better father, or been happier with her two +sisters, Anne and Louisa. Although, if we were too merry and noisy in the +mornings, we were summoned by my Aunt Betsy (who lived with us) all three +into her room, to hold out our small hands for stripes from a certain +little riding-whip; or if, later in the day, our needlework was not well +done we had our fingers pricked with a needle, or if the lessons were not +finished, we had fools' caps put on our heads, and were banished to a +corner of the room. My aunt's nature was by no means cruel; she was, on +the whole, kind and dutiful to us, yet no doubt with effort on her part, +for she had no instinctive love of children. + +Among our neighbours we had as friends the Tennysons, the Rawnsleys, the +Bellinghams, and the Massingberds. The death of my cousin, Mr. Cracroft, +was among my early tragedies. He had been on public business at Lincoln: +and on his return to Horncastle, was seized at our house with Asiatic +cholera, a solitary case, which proved fatal. Ourselves and his daughters +heard of it in a strange way. We were in a tent at a sheep-shearing, the +great rustic festival of that day. A village boy came into our tent, and +swarmed up the pole, saying to us, "I know something; your father is +dead." We hurried home, and we, three sisters, were put by my aunt (to +keep us quiet) to the hitherto-unwonted task of stoning raisins. This made +me so indignant that I threw my raisins over the edge of the bowl, and +forthwith my aunt caught me up, and--so rough was the treatment of +children then--banged my head against the door of our old wainscoted +rooms, until I called out for my father, crying aloud, "Murder"; when he +rushed in and saved me. + +My next memory of my father is his giving me Latin lessons; and at this +time I somehow came across a copy of _Cymbeline_, which I read with great +delight. Then we had our first riding-lessons. I well recall my dislike of +riding, when my pony was fastened to a circus stake, which I had to go +round and round. Unfortunately, much as my father wished it, I never +became a good horsewoman. He himself was so good a rider, when all the +gentlemen of the county were volunteers, that he could ride horses which +no one else could ride--so my grandmother would tell me with +pride--adding, "Your father and his brother (both six foot three) were the +handsomest men among them all." At that time he kept guard with his +fellow-volunteers over the French prisoners, who, he said, were always +cheerful and always singing their patriotic songs. + +But to return to my sisters and myself. For exercise we generally took +long walks in the country, and I remember that when staying at my father's +house in Berkshire[3] we often used to wander up to a tower among our +woods where a gaunt old lady lived, called Black Jane, who told our +fortunes. We had our favourite theatricals, too, like other children. Our +dramatic performances were frequent, and our plays were, some of them, +drawn from Miss Edgeworth's tales. I was always fond of music, and used to +sing duets with my soldier cousin, Richard Sellwood. + +At eight years old I was sent, with my sisters, to some ladies for daily +lessons, and later to schools in Brighton and London, for my father +disliked having a governess in the house. So, much as he objected to young +girls being sent from home, school in our case seemed the lesser evil. My +sisters liked school; to me it was dreadful. As soon as I reached the +Brighton seminary, I remember that for weeks I appeared to be in a +horrible dream, and the voices of the mistresses and the girls around me +seemed to be all thin, like voices from the grave. I could not be happy +away from my father, who was my idol, though after a while I grew more +accustomed to the strange life. My father would never let us go the long, +cold journey at Christmas time from Brighton to Horncastle, but came up +to town for the vacation, and took us for treats to the National Gallery, +and other places of interest. Great was the joy, when the summer holidays +arrived, and after travelling by coach through the day and night, we three +sisters saw Whittlesea-mere gleaming under the sunrise. It seemed as if we +were within sight of home. + +When I was eighteen, my Aunt Betsy left us to live by herself alone. We +spent rather recluse lives, but we were perfectly happy, my father reading +to us every evening from about half-past eight to ten, the hour at which +we had family prayers. Most delightful were the readings; for instance, +all of Gibbon that could be read to us, Macaulay's _Essays_, Sir Walter +Scott's novels. For my private reading he gave me Dante, Ariosto, and +Tasso, Molière, Racine, Corneille. Later I read Schiller, Goethe, Jean +Paul Richter; and for English--Pearson, Paley's _Translation of the Early +Fathers_, Coleridge's works, Wordsworth, and of course Milton and +Shakespeare. We had walks and drives and music and needlework. Now and +again we dined in the neighbourhood, and some of the neighbours dined with +us; and once a year my father asked all the legal luminaries of Horncastle +to dinner with him. + +Before my sister Louy married your Uncle Charles (Tennyson-Turner) in +1836, my cousin, Catherine Franklin, daughter of Sir Willingham Franklin, +took up her abode with us, and we had several dances at our house. Two +fancy-dress dances I well remember. Louy and I disliked visiting in London +and in country-houses, and so we always refused, and sent Anne in our +stead. My first ball, I thought an opening of the great portals of the +world, and I looked forward to it almost with awe. It is rather curious +that at one of my very few balls, Mr. Musters (Jack Musters his intimates +called him), who married Byron's Mary Chaworth, should have asked for, +and obtained, an introduction to me. + +In 1842 came Catherine's marriage to our true friend, Drummond Rawnsley, +the parson of the Rawnsley family; and then my sister Anne married Charles +Weld. After this my father and I lived together alone. The only change we +had from our routine life was a journey, one summer, to Tours, with Anne +and Charles Weld, and his brother Isaac Weld, the accomplished owner of +Ravenswell, near Bray, in Ireland. + +At your father's home, Somersby, we used to have evenings of music and +singing. Your Aunt Mary played on the harp as her father used to do. She +was a splendid-looking girl, and would have made a beautiful picture. Then +your Aunt Emily (beloved of Arthur Hallam) had wonderful eyes--depths on +depths they seemed to have--and a fine profile. "Testa Romana" an old +Italian said of her. She had more of the colouring of the South, +inherited, perhaps, from a member of Madame de Maintenon's family who +married one of the Tennysons. Your father had also the same kind of +colouring. All, brothers and sisters, were fair to see. Your father was +kingly, masses of fine, wavy hair, very dark, with a pervading shade of +gold, and long, as it was then worn. His manner was kind, simple, and +dignified, with plenty of sportiveness flashing out from time to time. +During my ten years' separation from him the doctors believed I was going +into a consumption, and the Lincolnshire climate was pronounced to be too +cold for me; and we moved to London, to look for a home in the south of +England. We found one at last at Hale near Farnham, which was called by +your father "my paradise." The recollection of this delightful country +made me persuade your father eventually to build a house near Haslemere. +We were married on June 13, 1850, at Shiplake on the Thames. + + + + +TENNYSON AND LINCOLNSHIRE + +By WILLINGHAM RAWNSLEY + + +I + +TENNYSON'S COUNTRY + + Calm and deep peace on this high wold, + And on these dews that drench the furze, + And all the silvery gossamers + That twinkle into green and gold. + + Calm and still light on yon great plain + That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, + And crowded farms and lessening towers, + To mingle with the bounding main. + +Lincolnshire is a big county, measuring seventy-five miles by forty-five, +but it is perhaps the least well known of all the counties of England. The +traveller by the Great Northern main line passes through but a small +portion of its south-western fringe near Grantham; and if he goes along +the eastern side from Peterborough to Grimsby or Hull, he gains no insight +into the picturesque parts of the county, for the line takes him over the +rich flat fenlands with their black vegetable mould devoid of any kind of +stone or pebble, and intersected by those innumerable dykes or drains +varying from 8 to 80 feet across, which give the southern division of +Lincolnshire an aspect in harmony with its Batavian name "the parts of +Holland." + +The Queen of this flat fertile plain is Boston, with her wonderful +church-tower and lantern 280 feet high, a marvel of symmetry when you are +near it, and visible for more than twenty miles in all directions. Owing +to its slender height it seems, from a distance, to stand up like a tall +thick mast or tree-trunk, and is hence known to all the countryside as +"Boston stump." + +At this town, the East Lincolnshire line divides: one section goes to the +left to Lincoln; the other, following the bend of the coast at about seven +miles' distance from the sea, turns when opposite Skegness and runs, at +right angles to its former course, to Louth,--Louth whose beautiful church +spire was painted by Turner in his picture of "The Horse Fair." + +The more recent Louth-to-Lincoln line completes the fourth side of a +square having Boston, Burgh, Louth, and Lincoln for its corners, which +contains the fairest portion of the Lincolnshire wolds, and within this +square is Somersby, Tennyson's birthplace and early home. It is a tiny +village surrounded by low green hills; and close at hand, here nestling in +a leafy hollow, and there standing boldly on the "ridgèd wold," are some +half a dozen churches built of the local "greensand" rock, from whose +towers the Poet in his boyhood heard: + + The Christmas bells from hill to hill + Answer each other in the mist-- + +the mist which lay athwart those "long gray fields at night," and marked +the course of the beloved Somersby brook. + +If we go past the little gray church with its perfect specimen of a +pre-Reformation cross hard by the porch, and past the modest house almost +opposite, which was for over thirty years the home of the Tennysons, we +shall come at once to the point where the road dips to a little wood +through which runs the rivulet so lovingly described by the Poet when he +was leaving the home of his youth: + + Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea + Thy tribute wave deliver: + No more by thee my steps shall be, + For ever and for ever. + +and again: + + Unloved, by many a sandy bar, + The brook shall babble down the plain, + At noon or when the lesser wain + Is twisting round the polar star; + + Uncared for, gird the windy grove, + And flood the haunts of hern and crake; + Or into silver arrows break + The sailing moon in creek and cove. + +Northward, beyond the stream, the white road climbs the wold above +Tetford, and disappears from sight. These _wolds_ are chalk; the greensand +ridge being all to the south of the valley, except just at Somersby and +Bag-Enderby, where the sandrock crops up by the roadside, and in the +little wood by the brook. + +This small deep channelled brook with sandy bottom--over which one may on +any bright day see, as described in "Enid," + + a shoal + Of darting fish, that on a summer morn... + Come slipping o'er their shadows on the sand, + But if a man who stands upon the brink + But lift a shining hand against the sun, + There is not left the twinkle of a fin + Betwixt the cressy islets white with flower-- + +was very dear to Tennyson. When in his "Ode to Memory" he bids Memory + + Come from the woods which belt the gray hillside, + The seven elms, the poplars four + That stand beside my father's door, + +he adds: + + And _chiefly_ from the brook that loves + To purl o'er matted cress and ribbèd sand, + Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves, + Drawing into his narrow earthen urn + In every elbow and turn, + The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland, + _O! hither lead thy feet!_ + +If we follow this + + pastoral rivulet that swerves + To left and right thro' meadowy curves, + That feed the mothers of the flock, + +we, too, shall hear + + the livelong bleat + Of the thick fleecèd sheep from wattled folds + Upon the ridgèd wolds. + +And shall see the cattle in the rich grass land, and mark on the right the +green-gray tower of Spilsby, where so many of the Franklin family lived +and died, the family of whom his future bride was sprung. + +Still keeping by the brook, we shall see, past the tower of Bag-Enderby +which adjoins Somersby, "The gray hill side" rising up behind the Old Hall +of Harrington, and + + The Quarry trenched along the hill + And haunted by the wrangling daw, + +above which runs the chalky "ramper" or turnpike-road which leads along +the eastern ridge of the wold to Alford, whence you proceed across the +level Marsh to the sea at Mablethorpe. + +_The Marsh_ in Lincolnshire is a word of peculiar significance. The whole +country is either _fen_, _wold_, or _marsh_. The wolds, starting from Keal +and Alford, run in two ridges on either side of the Somersby Valley, one +going north to Louth and onwards, and one west by Spilsby and Horncastle +to Lincoln. Here it joins the great spine-bone of the county on which, +straight as an arrow for many a mile northwards, runs the Roman Ermine +Street; and but for the Somersby brook these two ridges from Louth and +Lincoln would unite at Spilsby, whence the greensand formation, which +begins at Raithby, sends out two spurs, one eastwards, ending abruptly at +Halton, while the other pushes a couple of miles farther south, until at +Keal the road drops suddenly into the level fen, giving a view--east, +south, and west--of wonderful extent and colour, ending to the east with +the sea, and to the south with the tall pillar of Boston Church standing +up far above the horizon. This flat land is _the fen_; all rich cornland +and all well drained, but with few habitations, and with absolutely no +hill or even rise in the ground until, passing Croyland or Crowland Abbey, +which once dominated a veritable land of fens only traversable by boats, +you come, on the farther side of Peterborough, to the great North Road. +Such views as this from Keal, and the similar one from Lincoln Minster, +which looks out far to the south-west over a similar large tract of fen, +are not to be surpassed in all the land. + +But the Poet's steps from Somersby would not as a rule go westwards. The +coast would oftener be his aim; and leaving Spilsby to the right, and the +old twice-plague-stricken village of Partney, where the Somersby rivulet +becomes a river, he would pass from "the high field on the bushless pike" +to Miles-cross-hill, whence the panorama unfolds which he has depicted in +Canto XI. of "In Memoriam": + + Calm and still light on yon great plain, + That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, + And crowded farms and lessening towers, + To mingle with the bounding main. + +Thence descending from the wold he would go through Alford, and on across +the sparsely populated pasture-lands, till he came at last to + + Some lowly cottage whence we see + Stretched wide and wild the waste enormous marsh, + Where from the frequent bridge, + Like emblems of infinity, + The trenchèd waters run from sky to sky. + +This describes the third section of Lincolnshire called _the Marsh_, a +strip between five and eight miles wide, running parallel with the coast +from Boston to Grimsby, and separating the wolds from + + the sandbuilt ridge + Of heaped hills that mound the sea. + +This strip of land is not marsh in the ordinary sense of the word, but a +belt of the richest grass land, all level and with no visible fences, each +field being surrounded by a broad dyke or ditch with deep water, hidden in +summer by the tall feathery plumes of the "whispering reeds." Across this +belt the seawind sweeps for ever. The Poet may allude to this when, in his +early poem, "Sir Galahad," he writes: + + But blessed forms in whistling storms + Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields; + +and "the hard grey weather" sung by Kingsley breeds a race of hardy +gray-eyed men with long noses, the manifest descendants of the Danes who +peopled all that coast, and gave names to most of the villages there, +nine-tenths of which end in "by." + +This rich pasture-land runs right up to the sand-dunes,--Nature's own +fortification made by the winds and waves which is just outside the Dutch +and Roman embankments, and serves better than all the works of man to keep +out the waters of the North Sea from the low-lying levels of the _Marsh_ +and _Fen_. + +The lines in the "Lotos-Eaters": + + They sat them down upon the yellow sand + Between the sun and moon upon the shore, + +describes what the Poet might at any time of full moon have seen from that +"sand-built ridge" with the red sun setting over the wide marsh, and the +full moon rising out of the eastern sea; and "The wide winged sunset of +the misty marsh" recalls one of the most noticeable features of that +particular locality, where, across the limitless windy plain, the sun +would set in regal splendour; and when "cold winds woke the gray-eyed +morn" his rising over the sea would be equally magnificent in colour. + +Having crossed the "Marsh" by a raised road with deep wide dykes on either +side, and no vestige of hedge or tree in sight, except where a row of +black poplars or aspens form a screen from the searching wind round a +group of the plainest of farm buildings, red brick with roofing of black +glazed pan-tiles, you come to the once tiny village of Mablethorpe, +sheltering right under the sea-bank, the wind-blown sands of which are +held together by the penetrating roots of the tussocks of long, coarse, +sharp-edged grass, and the prickly bushes of sea buckthorn, gray-leaved +and orange-berried. + +You top the sand-ridge, and below, to right and left, far as eye can see, +stretch the flat, brown sands. Across these the tide, which at the full of +the moon comes right up to the barrier, goes out for three-quarters of a +mile; of this the latter half is left by the shallow wavelets all ribbed, +as you see it on the ripple-marked stone of the Horsham quarries, and +shining with the bright sea-water which reflects the low rays of the sun; +while far off, so far that they seem to be mere toys, the shrimper slowly +drives his small horse and cart, to the tail of which is attached the +primitive purse net, the other end of it being towed by the patient, +long-haired donkey, ridden by a boy whose bare feet dangle in the shallow +wavelets. Farther to the south the tide ebbs quite out of sight. This is +at "Gibraltar Point," near Wainfleet Haven, where Somersby brook at length +finds the sea, a place very familiar to the Poet in his youth. The skin of +mud on the sands makes them shine like burnished copper in the level rays +of the setting sun, which here have no sandbank to intercept them, but at +other times it is a scene of dreary desolation, such as is aptly described +in "The Passing of Arthur": + + a coast + Of ever-shifting sand, and far away + The phantom circle of a moaning sea. + +It was near this part of the shore that, as a young man, he often walked, +rolling out his lines aloud or murmuring them to himself, a habit which +was also that of Wordsworth, and led in each case to the peasants +supposing the Poet to be "craäzed," and caused the Somersby cook to wonder +"what Mr. Awlfred was always a-praying for," and caused also the +fisherman, whom he met on the sands once at 4 A.M. as he was walking +without hat or coat, and to whom he bid good-morning, to reply, "Thou poor +fool, thou doesn't knaw whether it be night or daä." + +But at Mablethorpe the sea does not go out nearly so far, and at high tide +it comes right up to the bank with splendid menacing waves, the memory of +which furnished him, five and thirty years after he had left Lincolnshire +for ever, with the famous simile in "The Last Tournament": + + as the crest of some slow-arching wave, + Heard in dead night along that table shore, + Drops flat, and after the great waters break + Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves, + Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud, + From less and less to nothing. + +This accurately describes the flat Lincolnshire coast with its +"interminable rollers" breaking on the endless sands, than which waves the +Poet always said that he had never anywhere seen grander, and the clap of +the wave as it fell on the hard sand could be heard across that flat +country for miles. Doubtless this is what prompted the lines in "Locksley +Hall": + + Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, + And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. + +"We hear in this," says the "Lincolnshire Rector,"[4] writing in +_Macmillan's Magazine_ of December 1873, "the mighty sound of the breakers +as they fling themselves at full tide with long-gathered force upon the +slope sands of Skegness or Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast, nowhere +is ocean grander in a storm; nowhere is the thunder of the sea louder, nor +its waves higher, nor the spread of their waters on the beach wider." + +It is not only of the breakers that the Poet has given us pictures. Along +these sands it was his wont, no doubt, as it has often been that of the +writer, + + To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, + And tender curving lines of creamy spray, + +and it is still Skegness and Mablethorpe which may have furnished him with +his simile in "The Dream of Fair Women": + + So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land + Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, + Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, + Torn from the fringe of spray. + +Walking along the shore as the tide goes out, you come constantly on +creeks and pools left by the receding waves, + + A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand, + Left on the shore; that hears all night + The plunging seas draw backward from the land + Their moon-led waters white.[5] + +or little dimpled hollows of brine, formed by the wind-swept water washing +round some shell or stone: + + As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long + A little bitter pool about a stone + On the bare coast.[6] + +Many characteristics of Lincolnshire scenery and of Somersby in particular +are introduced in "In Memoriam." + +In Canto LXXXIX. the poet speaks of the hills which shut in the Somersby +Valley on the north: + + Nor less it pleased in lustier moods + Beyond the bounding hill to stray. + +In XCV. he speaks of the knolls, elsewhere described as "The hoary knolls +of ash and haw," where the cattle lie on a summer night: + + Till now the doubtful dusk reveal'd + The knolls once more where, couch'd at ease, + The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees + Laid their dark arms about the field: + +and in Canto C. he calls to mind: + + The sheepwalk up the windy wold, + +and many other features seen in his walks with Arthur Hallam at Somersby. + +In "Mariana" we have: + + From the dark fen the oxen's low + Came to her: without hope of change, + In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn, + Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn, + About the lonely moated grange. + +But no picture is more complete and accurate and remarkable than that of a +wet day in the Marsh and on the sands of Mablethorpe: + + Here often when a child I lay reclined: + I took delight in this fair strand and free: + Here stood the infant Ilion of the mind, + And here the Grecian ships all seem'd to be. + And here again I come, and only find + The drain-cut level of the marshy lea, + Gray sand-banks, and pale sunsets, dreary wind, + Dim shores, dense rains, and heavy-clouded sea. + +From what we have said it will be clear to the reader that while it is the +_fen_ land only that the railway traveller sees, it is the _Marsh_ and the +_Wolds_--and particularly in Lord Tennyson's mind the Wolds--that make +the characteristic charm of the county, a charm of which so many +illustrations are to be found throughout his poems. Certainly in her wide +extended views, in the open wolds with the villages and their gray church +towers nestling in the sheltered nooks at the wold foot, and also (to +quote again from the "Lincolnshire Rector") "in her glorious parish +churches and gigantic steeples, Lincolnshire has charms and beauties of +her own. And as to fostering genius, has she not proved herself to be the +'meet nurse of a poetic child'? for here, be it remembered, here in the +heart of the land, in Mid-Lincolnshire, Alfred Tennyson was born, here he +spent all his earliest and freshest days; here he first felt the divine +afflatus, and found fit material for his muse: + + The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the Camp of Dan + between Zorah and Eshtaol." + + +II + +THE SOMERSBY FRIENDS + + We leave the well-beloved place + Where first we gazed upon the sky; + The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, + Will shelter one of stranger race. + + * * * * * + + I turn to go: my feet are set + To leave the pleasant fields and farms; + They mix in one another's arms + To one pure image of regret. + +It is no wonder that the Tennysons loved Somersby. They were a large +family, and here they grew up together, making their own world and growing +ever more fond of the place for its associations. "How often have I +longed to be with you at Somersby!" writes Alfred Tennyson's sister, +Mary,[7] thirteen years after leaving the old home. "How delightful that +name sounds to me! Visions of sweet past days rise up before my eyes, when +life itself was new, + + And the heart promised what the fancy drew." + +Here, when childhood's happy days were over, the Tennyson girls rejoiced +in the society of their brothers' Cambridge friends, and, though the +village was so remote that they only got a post two or three times a +week,[8] here they not only drank in contentedly the beauty of the +country, but also passed delightful days with talk and books, with music +and poetry, and dance and song, when, on the lawn at Somersby, one of the +sisters + + brought the harp and flung + A ballad to the brightening moon. + +Here, as Arthur Hallam said, "Alfred's mind was moulded in silent sympathy +with the everlasting forms of Nature." + +I have said that they made their own world; and they were well able to do +it, for they were a very remarkable family. The Doctor was a very tall, +dark man, very strict with his boys, to whom he was schoolmaster as well +as parent. He was a scholar, and unusually well read, and possessed a good +library. Clever, too, he was with his hands, and carved the stone +chimney-piece in the dining-room, which his man Horlins built under his +direction. He and his wife were a great contrast, for she was very small +and gentle and highly sensitive. + +Edward FitzGerald speaks of her as "one of the most innocent and +tender-hearted ladies I ever saw"; and the Poet depicts her in "Isabel," +where he speaks of her gentle voice, her keen intellect and her + + Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign + The summer calm of golden charity. + +Mary was the letter-writer of the family, and a very clever woman, and her +letters show that she knew her Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and +Coleridge as well as her brother's poems. + +They were a united family, but Charles and Alfred were nearest to her in +age. She writes to one of her great friends: "O my beloved, what creatures +men are! my brothers are the exception to this general rule." Accordingly, +of Charles she writes: "If ever there was a sweet delightful character it +is that dear Charley," and of Alfred: "A. is one of the noblest of his +kind. You know my opinion of men in general is much like your own; they +are not like us, they are naturally _more_ selfish and _not so +affectionate_." She adds: + + Alfred is universally beloved by all his friends, and was long so + before he came to any fame.... + + We look upon him as the stay of the family; you know it is to him we + go when anything is to be done. Something lately occurred here which + was painful; we wrote to Alfred and he came immediately, after, I am + told, not speaking three days scarcely to any one from distress of + mind, and that _not_ for himself, mind, but for others. Did this look + like selfishness? + +After leaving Somersby she felt the loss of these brothers sorely. + +Alfred's devotion to his mother was always perfect. In October 1850 Mary +writes from Cheltenham: + + Yesterday, Mamma, I, and Fanny went to look for houses, as Alfred has + written to say that he should like to live by his Mother or in the + same house with us, if we could get one large enough, and he would + share the rent, which would be a great deal better. He wishes us to + take a house in the neighbourhood of London, if we can give up ours, + with him, or to take a small house for him and Emily[9] on the + outskirts of Cheltenham till we can move; so what will be done I know + not, but this I know that Alfred must come here and choose for + himself, so we have written to him to come immediately, and we are + daily expecting him. + +But though life at Cheltenham when the brothers were all away was dull for +Mary, it had not been so at Somersby; for there they had home interests +sufficient to keep them always occupied, and they were not without +neighbours. Ormsby was close at hand, to the north, where lived as Rector, +Frank Massingberd, afterwards Chancellor of Lincoln, a man of cultivation +and old-world courtesy. His wife Fanny was one of the charming Miss +Barings of Harrington, which was but a couple of miles off to the east. +Her sister Rosa was that "sole rose of beauty, loveliness complete," to +whom the Poet wrote such charming little birthday verses; and sixty-five +years afterwards Rosa, then Mrs. Duncombe Shafto, still spoke with +enthusiasm of those happy days. Mrs. Baring had married for her second +husband, Admiral Eden, a man of great conversational powers, and with a +very large circle of interesting friends. He took the old Hall of +Harrington, with its fine brick front, from the Cracrofts, who moved to +Hackthorn near Lincoln, and thus the families at Harrington and Somersby +saw a great deal of one another. + +There were two Eden daughters, the strikingly handsome Dulcibella and her +sister, who looked after the house and its guests. Hence their nicknames +of "Dulce" and "Utile." + +A mile or two beyond Harrington was Langton, where Dr. Johnson came to +visit his friend Bennet Langton, who died only seven years before Dr. +Tennyson came to Somersby. But, though the Langtons were friends of the +Doctor's, this was not a house the young people much frequented. Mary, +having come back to the old neighbourhood, writes from Scremby: "I am +going to Langton to-morrow to spend a few days with the Langtons, don't +you pity me? I hope I shall get something more out of Mrs. Langton than +Indeed, Yes, No!" + +Adjoining Langton the Tennysons had friends in the Swans of Saucethorpe, +and a little farther eastwards was Partney, where George Maddison and his +mother lived. He was a hero, of whom tales were told of many courageous +deeds, such as his going single-handed and taking a desperate criminal +who, being armed, had barricaded himself in an old building and set all +the police at defiance. It was a question whether people most admired the +courage of the man or the beauty of his charming wife, Fanny, one of the +three good-looking daughters of Sir Alan Bellingham, who all found +husbands in that neighbourhood. In the Lincolnshire poem, "The Spinster's +Sweet-Arts," the Poet has immortalized their name: + + Goä to the laäne at the back, and loök thruf Maddison's gaäte! + +From Partney the hill rises to Dalby, where lived John Bourne, whose wife +was an aunt of the young Tennysons, and here they would meet the handsome +Miss Bournes of Alford; one, Margaret, was dark, the other was Alice, a +beautiful fair girl. They married brothers, Marcus and John Huish. Mrs. +John Bourne was the Doctor's sister Mary, and the young Tennysons would +have been oftener at Dalby had it been their Aunt Elizabeth Russell[10] +who lived there, of whom they always spoke in terms of the strongest +affection. + +The old house at Dalby was burnt down in 1841. About this Mr. Marcus Huish +tells me that his mother wrote in a diary at the time: + + _Jan. 5, 1841._--On this day Dalby House, the seat of the Bournes, + and round whose simple Church, standing embosomed in trees, my family, + including my dear sister Mary Hannah, lie buried, was burnt to the + ground; + +and on the 7th Mrs. Huish wrote: + + I have this morning received intelligence that the dear House at Dalby + was on Tuesday night burnt down, and is now a wreck. I feel very + deeply this disastrous circumstance, endeared as it was to me by ties + of time and association. Mr. Tennyson has written to me as follows on + this catastrophe. + +The letter was a long one, two pages being left for it in the diary, but +unfortunately it was never copied in. + +The villages here are very close together, and going from Partney, two +miles eastward, you come to Skendleby, where Sir Edward Brackenbury lived, +whose elder brother Sir John was Consul at Cadiz, and used to send over +some good pictures and some strong sherry, known by the diners-out as "the +Consul's sherry." The Rector of the next village of Scremby was also a +Brackenbury, and here Mary Tennyson most loved to visit. Mrs. Brackenbury, +whom she always calls "Gloriana," was adored by all who knew her. Mary +says, "She is so sweet a character, and she has always been so kind and so +anxious for our family ... I look upon her as already a saint." Two of the +Rectors of Halton had also been Brackenburys--a father and son in +succession, and they were followed by two generations of Rawnsleys--Thomas +Hardwicke and his son Drummond. + +Adjoining Scremby is Candlesby, where Tennyson's genial friend, John +Alington, who had married another of the beautiful Miss Bellinghams, was +Rector; and within half a mile is Gunby, the delightful old home of the +Massingberds. In Dr. Tennyson's time Peregrine Langton, who had married +the heiress of the Massingberds and taken her name, was living there. + +It was from Gunby that Algernon Massingberd disappeared, going to America +and never being heard of again, which gave rise to a romance in "Novel" +form, that came out many years later called _The Lost Sir Massingberd_. +Going on eastward still, by Boothby, where Dr. Tennyson's friends the +Walls family lived, in a house to which you drove up across the grass +pasture, the sheep grazing right up to the front door, a thing still +common in the Lincolnshire Marsh, you come to Burgh, with its magnificent +Church tower and old carved woodwork. Here was the house of Sir George +Crawford, and here from the edge of the high ground on which the Church +stands you plunge down on to the level Marsh across which, at five miles' +distance, is Skegness, at that time only a handful of fishermen's +cottages, with "Hildred's Hotel," one good house occupied by a large +tenant farmer, and a reed-thatched house right on the old Roman sea bank, +built by Miss Walls, only one room thick, so that from the same room she +could see both the sunrise and the sunset. Here all the neighbourhood at +different times would meet, and enjoy the wide prospect of sea and Marsh +and the broad sands and the splendid air. When the tide was out the only +thing to be seen, as far as eye could reach, were the two or three +fishermen, like specks on the edge of the sea, and the only sounds were +the piping of the various sea-birds, stints, curlews, and the like, as +they flew along the creeks or over the gray sand-dunes. Mablethorpe was +nearer to Somersby, but had no house of any size at which, as here, the +dwellers on the wold knew that they were always welcome. + +But we have other houses to visit, so let us return by Burgh and Bratoft, +where above the chancel arch of the ugly brick Church is a remarkable +picture of the Spanish Armada, represented as a huge red dragon, with the +ships of Effingham's fleet painted in the corner of the picture. + +Passing Bratoft, the next thing we come to is the Somersby brook, which +is here "the Halton River," and on the greensand ridge, overlooking the +fen as far as "Boston Stump," stands the fine Church of Halton Holgate. In +this Church, as at Harrington, Alfred as a boy must have seen the old +stone effigy of a Crusader as described in "Locksley Hall Sixty Years +After" + + with his feet upon the hound, + Cross'd! for once he sailed the sea to crush the Moslem in his pride. + +The road ascends the "hollow way" cut through the greensand, and a timber +footbridge is flung across it leading from the Church to the Rectory. Dr. +Tennyson could tell the story of how his old friend T. H. Rawnsley, the +Rector, and Mr. Eden, brother of the Admiral, being in London, looked in +at the great Globe in Leicester Square and heard a man lecturing on +Geology. They listened till they heard "This Greensand formation here +disappears" (he was speaking of Sussex) "and crops up again in an obscure +little village called Halton Holgate in Lincolnshire." "Come along, Eden!" +said the Rector; "this is a very stupid fellow." + +Halton was the house, and Mr. and Mrs. Rawnsley the people, whom Dr. +Tennyson most loved to visit. She had been previously known to him as the +beautiful Miss Walls of Boothby. The Rector was the most genial and +agreeable of men, and her charm of look and manner made his wife a +universal favourite. + +Here are two characteristic letters from Dr. Tennyson to Mr. Rawnsley: + + _Tuesday 28th, 1826._ + + DEAR RAWNSLEY--In your not having come to see me for so many months, + when you have little or nothing to do but warm your shins over the + fire while I, unfortunately, am frozen or rather suffocated with Greek + and Latin, I consider myself as not only slighted but spifflicated. + You deserve that I should take no notice of your letter whatever, but + I will comply with your invitation partly to be introduced to the + agreeable and clever lady, but more especially to have the pleasure + of seeing Mrs. Rawnsley, whom, you may rest assured, I value + considerably more than I do you. Mrs. T. is obliged by your + invitation, but the weather is too damp and hazy, Mr. Noah,--so I + remain your patriarchship's neglected servant, + + G. C. TENNYSON. + +This letter was addressed to the Rev. T. H. Rawnsley, Halton Parsonage. +The next was addressed to Halton Palace, and runs thus: + + SOMERSBY, _Monday_. + + DEAR RAWNSLEY--We three shall have great pleasure in dining with you + to-morrow. We hope, also, that Mr. and Mrs. Clarke and yourselves will + favour us with their and your company to dinner during their stay. I + like them very much, and shall be very happy to know more of + them.--Very truly yours, + + G. C. TENNYSON. + + _P.S._--How the devil do you expect that people are to get up at seven + o'clock in the morning to answer your notes? However, I have not kept + your Ganymede waiting. + +The friendship between the families, which was further cemented when the +Rector's son Drummond married Kate Franklin, whose cousin, Emily Sellwood, +afterwards became the Poet's wife, has been maintained for three +generations. Alfred shared his father's opinion of Halton, and often wrote +both to the Rector and his wife. In one letter to her, after pleading a +low state of health and spirits as his reason for not joining her party at +Halton, he says: "At the same time, believe me it is not without +considerable uneasiness that I absent myself from a house where I visit +with greater pleasure than at any other in the country, if indeed I may be +said to visit any other." + +After leaving Somersby, he wrote on Jan. 28, 1838, from High Beech, Epping +Forest: + + MY DEAR MRS. RAWNSLEY--I have long been intending to write to you, for + I think of you a great deal, and if I had not a kind of antipathy + against taking pen in hand I would write to you oftener; but I am + nearly as bad in this way as Werner, who kept an express (horse and + man) from his sister at an inn for two months before he could prevail + upon himself to write an answer to her, and her letter to him was, + nevertheless, on family business of the last importance. But my chief + motive in writing to you now is the hope that I may prevail upon you + to come and see us as soon as you can. I understood from some of my + sisters that Mr. Rawnsley was coming in February to visit his friend + Sir Gilbert. Now I trust that you and Sophy will come with him--of + course he would not pass without calling, whether alone or not. I was + very sorry not to have seen Drummond. I wish he would have dropt me a + line a few days before, that I might have stayed at home and been + cheered with the sight of a Lincolnshire face; for I must say of + Lincolnshire, as Cowper said of England, + + With all thy faults I love thee still. + + You hope our change of residence is for the better. The only advantage + in it is that one gets up to London oftener. The people are + sufficiently hospitable, but it is not in a good old-fashioned way, so + as to do one's feelings any good. Large set dinners with stores of + venison and champagne are very good things of their kind, but one + wants something more; and Mrs. Arabin seems to me the only person + about who speaks and acts as an honest and true nature dictates: all + else is artificial, frozen, cold, and lifeless. + + Now that I have said a good word for Lincolnshire and a bad one for + Essex, I hope I have wrought upon your feelings, and that you will + come and see us with Mr. Rawnsley. Pray do. You could come at the same + time with Miss Walls when she pays her visit to the Arabins, and so + have all the inside of the mail to yourselves; for though you were + very heroic last summer on the high places of the diligence, I presume + that this weather is sufficient to cool any courage down to + zero.--Believe me, with love from all to all, always yours, + + A. TENNYSON. + + BEECH HILL, HIGH BEECH, LOUGHTON, ESSEX. + +To this letter Mrs. Tennyson, the Poet's mother, adds a postscript, though +she complains that Alfred has scarcely left her room to do so. The letter +is dated in her hand. + +The Halton family consisted of Edward, Drummond, and Sophy. The latter, +with Rosa Baring, were two of Alfred's favourite partners at the Spilsby +and Horncastle balls. Sophy Rawnsley became Mrs. Ed. Elmhirst; she often +talked of the old Halton and Somersby days. "He was," she said, "so +interesting, because he was so unlike other young men; and his +unconventionality of manner and dress had a charm which made him more +acceptable than the dapper young gentleman of the ordinary type at ball or +supper party. He was a splendid dancer, for he loved music, and kept such +time; but you know," she would say, "we liked to talk better than to dance +together at Horncastle, or Spilsby, or Halton; he always had something +worth saying, and said it so quaintly." Rosa at eighty-three recalled the +same times with animation, and said to me, "You know we used to spoil him, +for we sat at his feet and worshipped him; and he read to us, and how well +he read! and when he wrote us those little poems we were more than proud. +Ah, those days at Somersby and Harrington and Halton, how delightful they +were!" + +The Halton family were a decade younger than Charles, Alfred, and Mary +Tennyson, but Drummond married eight years before Alfred. Emily Sellwood, +just before her marriage with Alfred, wrote to Mrs. Drummond Rawnsley: + + MY DEAREST KATIE--You and Drummond are among the best and kindest + friends I have in the world, and let me not be ungrateful, I have some + very good and very kind--Thy loving sister + + EMILY. + +The use of the _thy_ is very frequent with the Sellwoods, and in all Mary +Tennyson's letters too. + +It was at Halton, in the time of its next Rector, Drummond Rawnsley, that +the farmer Gilbey Robinson gave his son Canon H. D. Rawnsley the famous +advice which the Poet has preserved in his Lincolnshire poem "The +Churchwarden and the Curate": + + But creeäp along the hedge bottoms an thou'll be a Bishop yit. + +And it was at Halton that Mr. Hoff, a large tenant farmer, lived of whom +Dr. Tennyson heard many a story from the Rector. He was quite a character, +and the Lord Chancellor Brougham was brought over by Mr. Eden from +Harrington to see and talk with him. I knew Mr. Hoff, and have heard the +Rector describe the lively afternoon they had. Farming was one of Lord +Brougham's hobbies, and he talked of farming to his heart's content, and +was delighted with the old fellow's shrewdness and independence, and his +racy sayings in the Lincolnshire dialect, the kind of sayings which +Tennyson has preserved in his "Northern Farmer." The farmer, too, was +pleased with his visitor, but he said to the Rector afterwards, "He is +straänge cliver mon is Lord Brougham, and he knaws a vast, noä doubt, but +he knaws nowt about ploughing." It was the same farmer who was introduced +by the Rector to the leading Barrister at the Spilsby sessions, where both +the Rector and Dr. Tennyson were always in request to dine with the bar, +when the Judge was at Spilsby, for the charm of their presence and the +brightness of their conversation. Mr. Hoff had seen "Councillor Flowers" +in Court in his wig and gown, but meeting him now in plain clothes, and +finding him a very small man, he said to him straight out, "Why, you're +nobbut a meän-looking little mon after all." These tenant farmers, whether +in the Marsh, wold, or fen, were very considerable people in days when +agriculture was at its best. In the Marsh, one in particular, Marshal +Heanley, was always termed the Marsh King. He it was who at the Ram-show +dinner at Halton, when Ed. Stanhope, the Minister for War, had spoken of +the future which was opening for the great agriculturists, and, after +alluding to Lord Brougham's visit to the Shire and the sending of some +farmers' sons to the Bar, had suggested the possibility of one of them +arriving at the top of the tree and sitting some day on the Woolsack. The +"Marsh King" got up and said, "I allus telled yer yer must graw wool; but +when you've grawed it, yer mustn't sit on it, yer must sell it." + +There was a good deal of humour and also of characteristic independence +about both the farmers and their men in those days; the Doctor's own man, +when found fault with, had flung the harness in a heap on the drawing-room +floor, saying, "Cleän it yersen then." And at Halton Rectory an old +Waterloo cavalryman was coachman, who kept in the saddle-room the sword he +had drawn at Quatre-Bras, a delight to us boys to see and hear about. He +had a way of thinking aloud, and when, driving once at Skegness, he saw +the Halton schoolmaster, his particular aversion, Mrs. Rawnsley heard him +say, "If there ain't that conceäted aäpe of ourn." On a later occasion, +when, at a rent-day dinner, he was handing round the beer, and the +schoolmaster asked, "Is it ale or porter?" in a voice heard by all the +table he replied, "It's näyther aäle nor poörter, but very good beer, much +too good for the likes o' you, so taäke it and be thankful." Perhaps his +most famous saying was addressed to my younger brother who, when +attempting to copy his elders who always jumped the quickset hedge +opposite the saddle-room as a short cut to the house, had stuck in the +thorns and cried, "Grayson, Grayson, come and help me out!" The old man +slowly wiped his hands, and with his usual deliberation said, "Yis, I'm +a-coming." "But look sharp, confound you, it's pricking me." "Oh, if +you're going to sweër you may stay theër, and be damned to you." + +From Halton the way is short to Spilsby, the market town where the +Franklins had lived, and the statue of Sir John resting his hand on an +anchor looks down every Monday on the chaffering Market folk at one end of +the Market Place, whilst the women still crowd round the old Butter-cross +at the other end. In the Church is the Willoughby chapel, full of +interesting monuments. + +Many of the Franklin family lie in the Churchyard, and on the Church wall +are three tablets to the three most distinguished brothers,--James, the +soldier, who made the first ordnance survey of India; Sir Willingham, the +Judge of the Supreme Court of Madras; and Sir John, the discoverer of the +North-West Passage. Hundleby adjoins Spilsby where Mr. John Hollway lived, +of whom the Poet wrote: "People say and I feel that you are the man with +the finest taste and knowledge in literary matters here." Next to Hundleby +comes Raithby, the home of the Edward Rawnsleys, where the Poet was a +frequent visitor, and thence passing Mavis-Enderby on the left, the road +runs on the Ridge of the Wold through Hagworthingham to Horncastle, the +home of the Sellwoods. Mavis-Enderby is referred to in Jean Ingelow's +poem, "The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571": + + Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! + + * * * * * + + The brides of Mavis Enderby. + +After a visit to Raithby in 1874 Alfred wrote to Mrs. Edward Rawnsley: + + MY DEAR MARY--I stretch out arms of love to you all across the + distance,--all the Rawnsleys are dear to me, and you, though not an + indigenous one, have become a Rawnsley, and I invoke you in the same + embrace of the affection, tho' memory has not so much to say about + you. + +At Keal, east of Mavis-Enderby, the Cracrofts, whom the Doctor knew well, +were living; and below the far-famed Keal Hill, in the flat fen, lay +Hagnaby Priory, the home of Thomas Coltman, whose nephews Tom and George +were often there. George, a genial giant of the heartiest kind, became +Rector of Stickney, half-way between Keal and Boston; he was one of the +Poet's closest friends. In a letter to the Rector of Halton he says, +"Remember me to all old friends, particularly to George Coltman"; and in +after years he seldom met a Lincolnshire man without asking, "How is +George Coltman? He was a good fellow." Agricultural depression has altered +things in Lincolnshire. Among the farmers the larger holders have +disappeared in many places, and in the pleasant homes of Halton and +Somersby, such men as the Rectors in those Georgian and early Victorian +days, Nature does not repeat. + +The departure of the Tennyson family made a blank which could never be +filled. The villagers whom they left behind never forgot them, and even in +extreme old age they were still full of memories of the family, and talked +of the learning and cleverness of "the owd Doctor," the fondness of the +children for their mother and, most noticeable of all, their +"book-larning," + + And boöks, what's boöks? thou knaws thebbe naither 'ere nor theer. + +The old folk all seemed to think that "to hev owt to do wi boöks" was a +sign of a weak intellect. "The boys, _poor things!_ they would allus hev a +book i' their hands as they went along." A few years ago there was still +one old woman in Somersby who remembered going, seventy-one years back, +when she was eleven years old, for her first place to the Tennysons. What +she thought most of was "the young laädies." She was blind, but she said, +"I can see 'em all now plaän as plaän; and I would have liked to hear Mr. +Halfred's voice ageän--sich a voice it wer." + + + + +[Illustration: FREDERICK TENNYSON.] + + +TENNYSON AND HIS BROTHERS FREDERICK AND CHARLES + +By CHARLES TENNYSON[11] + + My uncle Frederick lived near St. Heliers, and my father and I visited + him (1887) in his house, overlooking the town and harbour of St. + Heliers, Elizabeth Castle, and St. Aubyn's Bay. The two old brothers + talked much of bygone days; of the "red honey gooseberry," and the + "golden apples" in Somersby garden, and of the tilts and tourneys they + held in the fields; of the old farmers and "swains"; of their college + friends; and of the waste shore at Mablethorpe: and then turned to + later days, and to the feelings of old age. My father said of + Frederick's poems that "they were organ-tones echoing among the + mountains." Frederick told Alfred as they parted that "not for twenty + years had he spent such a happy day."--_Tennyson: a Memoir, by his + Son._ + + To C. T. + + True poet, surely to be found + When Truth is found again. + + +Of all the brothers of Alfred Tennyson the closest akin to him were +Frederick and Charles. The three were born in successive years, Frederick +in 1807, Charles in 1808, and Alfred in 1809. They slept together in a +little attic under the roof of the old white Rectory at Somersby, they +played together, read together, studied together under the guidance of +their father, and all three left home to go together to the school at +Louth, which Alfred and Charles at least held in detestation until their +latest years. Frederick was the first to break up the brotherhood, for, +in 1817, he left Louth for Eton, but to the end of his long life--he +outlived all his brothers--he seems to have looked back on the days of his +childhood through the medium of this fraternal trinity. Years afterwards +he wrote of their common submission to the influence of Byron, who "lorded +it over them, with an immitigable tyranny," and a fire at Farringford in +1876 brings to his mind the destruction of their Aunt Mary's house at +Louth, in the gardens of which he wrote: "I, and Charles, and Alfred, +enthusiastic children, used to play at being Emperors of China, each +appropriating a portion of the old echoing garden as our domain, and +making them reverberate our tones of authority." + +At school the brothers seem to have kept much to themselves; they took +little interest in the school sports, in which their great size and +strength would have well qualified them to excel, and passed their time +chiefly in reading and wandering over the rolling wold and flat shores of +their native Lincolnshire. They began at an early age their apprenticeship +to poetry. Alfred, at least, had written a considerable volume of verse by +the time he was fourteen, and all three contributed to the _Poems by Two +Brothers_, which were published at Louth in 1827, when Frederick, the +author of four of the poems, had just entered St. John's, Cambridge (his +father's old College). Charles used to tell how, when the tiny volume was +published, he and Alfred hired a conveyance out of the £10 which the +publisher had given them, and drove off for the day to their favourite +Mablethorpe, where they shouted themselves hoarse on the shore as they +rolled out poem by poem in one another's ears. The notes and headings to +the poems give some idea of the breadth and variety of reading for which +the brothers had found opportunity in their quiet country life, for the +volume contains twenty quotations from Horace, eight from Virgil, six from +Byron, five from Isaiah, four from Ossian, three from Cicero, two apiece +from Moore, Xenophon, Milton, Claudian, and the Book of Jeremiah, with +others from Addison, John Clare, Juvenal, Ulloa's _Voyages_, Beattie, +Rennel's _Herodotus_, Savary's _Letters_, Tacitus' _Annals_, Pliny, +Suetonius' _Lives of the Caesars_, Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, Racine, +the _Mysteries of Udolpho_, _La Auruncana_, the _Songs of Jayadeva_, Sir +William Jones (_History of Nadir Shah_, _Eastern Plants_, and _Works_, +vol. vi.), Cowper, Ovid, _Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful_, Dr. +Langhorne's _Collins_, Mason's _Caractacus_, Rollin, Contino's _Epitaph on +Camoens_, Hume, Scott, the Books of Joel and Judges, Berquin, Young, +Sale's Koran, Apollonius of Rhodes, Disraeli's _Curiosities of +Literature_, Sallust, Terence, Lucretius, Coxe's _Switzerland_, Rousseau, +the _Ranz des Vaches_, _Baker on Animalculae_, Spenser, Shakespeare, +Chapman and various old English ballads, while many notes give odd scraps +of scientific, geographical, and historical learning. + +Alfred and Charles followed Frederick to Cambridge in 1828 and entered +Trinity, whither their elder brother had just migrated from John's. All +the three brothers attained a certain amount of rather unconventional +distinction at the University; Frederick, who had taken a high place on +his entrance into Eton and subsequently became Captain of the Oppidans, +obtained the Browne Gold Medal for a Greek Ode (in Sapphic metre) on the +Pyramids, the last cadence of which, "[Greek: ollumenôn gar achthôn +exapoleitai]," is the only fragment which tradition has preserved. Charles +obtained a Bell Scholarship in 1829, chiefly through the beauty of his +translations into English (one line, "And the ruddy grape shall droop from +the desert thorn," was always remembered by Alfred), and the youngest +brother secured, as is well known, the University Prize for English Verse +with his "Timbuctoo." None of the brothers, however, attained great +distinction in the schools, though Frederick and Charles graduated B.A. in +1832. With the end of their Cambridge careers the brotherhood finally +dissolved. It was at first proposed that all three should (in deference to +the wish of their grandfather), become clergymen. Frederick had always +shown a certain independence and intractability of character. At Eton, +though a skilful and ardent cricketer, he acquired a reputation for +eccentricity, and Sir Francis Doyle describes him as "rather a silent, +solitary boy, not always in perfect harmony with Keate,"--a gentleman with +whom most spirits, however ardent, generally found it convenient to agree. + +Sir Francis recounts one typical incident: Frederick, then in the sixth +form, had returned to school four days late after the Long Vacation. Keate +sent for him and demanded an explanation. None was forthcoming. Keate +stormed in his best manner, his prominent eyebrows shooting out, and his +Punch-like features working with fury, Frederick remaining all the while +cynically calm. Finally the fiery doctor insists with many objurgations on +a written apology from the boy's father, whereupon the culprit leisurely +produces a crumpled letter from his pocket and hands it coolly to the +head-master. A fresh tirade follows, accusing Frederick of every defect of +character and principle known to ethics, and concluding, "_and showing +such a temper too_"! + +How little Frederick regarded himself as fitted for Holy Orders may be +judged from a letter he wrote in 1832 to his friend John Frere: "I +expect," he says, "to be ordained in June, without much reason, for +hitherto I have made no kind of preparation, and a pretty parson I shall +make, I'm thinking." The grandfather came apparently to share this +conclusion, for the ordination never took place. + +It must have been about this time that Frederick made the acquaintance of +Edward FitzGerald, who was two years his junior. The pair maintained a +close correspondence for many years, and "Fitz" became godfather to one of +his friend's sons and left a legacy to be divided among his three +daughters. + +Frederick's fine presence and frank, tempestuous, independent nature seem +to have made a powerful appeal to the younger man, for he had the great +height, noble proportions, and dome-like forehead of the Tennyson family, +and was so robustly built that it is said that in later years, when he +lived in Florence, a new servant girl, on seeing him for the first time +speeding up his broad Italian staircase in British knee-breeches, fell +back against the wall in astonishment, exclaiming, "Santissima Madonna, +che gambe!" Unlike his brothers, however, his hair (which he wore rather +longer than was common even at that time) was fair and his eyes blue. + + "I remember," wrote Fitz in 1843, "the days of the summer when you and + I were together quarrelling and laughing.... Our trip to Gravesend has + left a perfume with me. I can get up with you on that everlastingly + stopping coach on which we tried to travel from Gravesend to Maidstone + that Sunday morning: worn out with it we got down at an Inn and then + got up on another coach, and an old smiling fellow passed us holding + out his hat--and you said, "That old fellow must go about as Homer + did," and numberless other turns of road and humour, which sometimes + pass before me as I lie in bed." + +And in the next year he writes: + + How we pulled against each other at Gravesend! You would stay--I + wouldn't--then I would--then we did. Do you remember that girl at the + bazaar ... then the gentleman who sang at Ivy Green? + +And seven years later Gravesend and its [Greek: anêrithmoi] shrimps are +still in his memory. + +Very soon, however, after leaving Cambridge, Frederick, who had inherited +a comfortable property at Grimsby, set out for Italy, and in Italy and +near the Mediterranean he remained, with the exception of an occasional +visit to England, until 1859. + +He was passionately fond of travel, which, as he used to say, "makes +pleasure solemn and pain sweet," and even his marriage in 1839 to Maria +Giuliotti, daughter of the chief magistrate of Siena, could not induce him +to make a settled home. In 1841 we hear of him (through "Fitz") in Sicily, +playing a cricket match against the crew of the _Bellerophon_ on the +Parthenopaean Hills, and "_sacking_ the sailors by ninety runs." "I like +that such men as Frederick should be abroad," adds the writer, "so strong, +haughty, and passionate," and in 1842 "Fitz" pictures him "laughing and +singing, and riding into Naples with huge self-supplying beakers full of +the warm South." All the while he continued to write to FitzGerald +"accounts of Italy, finer" (says the latter) "than any I ever heard." + +Once he describes himself coming suddenly upon Cicero's Formian villa, +with its mosaic pavement leading through lemon gardens down to the sea, +and a little fountain bubbling up "as fresh as when its silver sounds +mixed with the deep voice of the orator sitting there in the stillness of +the noonday, devoting the siesta hours to study." FitzGerald replies with +letters full of affection; he sighs for Frederick's "Englishman's +humours"--for their old quarrels: "I mean quarrel in the sense of a good, +strenuous difference of opinion, supported on either side by occasional +outbursts of spleen. Come and let us try," he adds, "you used to irritate +my vegetable blood." "I constantly think of you," he writes, "and as I +have often sincerely told you, with a kind of love I feel towards but two +or three friends ... you, Spedding, Thackeray, and only one or two more." +And again: "It is because there are so few F. Tennysons in the world that +I do not like to be wholly out of hearing of the one I know.... I see so +many little natures that I must draw to the large." + +All this time Frederick was writing verse and Fitz constantly urges him to +publish. "You are now the only man I expect verse from," he writes in +1850, after he had given Alfred up as almost wholly fallen from grace. +"Such gloomy, grand stuff as you write." Again: "We want some bits of +strong, genuine imagination.... There are heaps of single lines, couplets, +and stanzas that would consume the ----s and ----s like stubble." + +Much of their correspondence is taken up with the discussion of music. +They both agree in placing Mozart above all other composers. Beethoven +they find too analytical and erudite. Original, majestic, and profound, +they acknowledge him, but at times bizarre and morbid. + +"We all raved about Byron, Shelley, and Keats," wrote Frederick long +after, in 1885, "but none of them have retained their hold on me with the +same power as that little tone poet with the long nose, knee-breeches, and +pigtail." Indeed he was at different times told by two mediums that the +spirit of Mozart in these same knee-breeches and pigtail accompanied him, +invisibly to the eye of sense, as a familiar. Music was the passion of +Frederick Tennyson's life. It was said among his friends that when he +settled in Florence (as he did soon after 1850), he lived in a vast Hall +designed by Michael Angelo, surrounded by forty fiddlers, and he used to +improvise on a small organ until he was over eighty years of age. + + "After all," he wrote in 1874, "Music is the Queen of the Arts. What + are all the miserable concrete forms into which we endeavour to throw + 'thoughts too deep for tears' or too rapturous for mortal mirth, + compared with the divine, abstract, oceanic utterances of that voice + which can multiply a thousandfold and exhaust in infinite echoes the + passions that on canvas, in marble, or even in poesy (the composite + style in aesthetics), so often leave us cold and emotionless! I + believe Music to be as far above the other Arts as the affections of + the soul above the rarest ingenuity of the perfect orator! Perhaps you + are far from agreeing with me. Indeed the common charge brought + against her by her sisters among the Pierides--and by the + transcendentalists and philosophical Critics--is that She has no type + like the other Arts on which to model her creations and to regulate + her inspirations. I say her inexhaustible spring is the soul itself, + and its fiery inmost--the chamber illuminated from the centre of + Being--as the finest and most subtle ethers are begotten of, and flow + nearest to the Sun." + +Frederick lived at Florence till 1857 and found there, after years of +wandering, his first settled home. The idea of settling tickled his +humour, and in 1853 he writes: "I am a regular family man now with four +children (the last of whom promises to be the most eccentric of a humorous +set) and an Umbrella." In Florence he came in contact with Caroline Norton +and her son Brinsley, of the latter of whom he writes an amusing account: + + Young Norton has married a peasant girl of Capri, who, not a year ago, + was scampering bare-footed and bare-headed over the rocks and shingles + of that island. He has turned Roman Catholic among other + accomplishments--being in search, he said, of a "graceful faith."... + Parker has just published a volume of his which he entitled "Pinocchi: + or Seeds of the Pine," meaning that out of this small beginning he, + Brin, would emerge, like the pine, which is to be "the mast of some + great Admiral," from its seedling. He is quite unable to show the + applicability of this title, and, seeing that the book has been very + severely handled in one of the periodicals under the head of "Poetical + Nuisances," some are of opinion that "Pedocchi" would have been a more + fitting name for it. However, to do him no injustice, he has sparks of + genius, plenty of fancy and improvable stuff in him, and is, moreover, + a young gentleman of that irrepressible buoyancy which, to use the + language of the _Edinburgh Review_, "rises by its own rottenness...." + As I said, he is not more than three-and-twenty, but is very much in + the habit of commencing narrative in this manner: "In my young days + when I used to eat off gold plate!" to which I reply, "Really a fine + old gentleman like you should have more philosophy than to indulge in + vain regrets." + + While we were located at Villa Brichieri, up drove one fine day the + famous Caroline, his mother, who, not to speak of her personal + attractions, is really, I should say, a woman of genius, if only + judged by her novel, _Stuart of Dunleath_, which is full of deep + pathos to me. I asked Brin one day what his mother thought of me. He + stammers very much, and he said, "She th-th-th-thinks very well of + you, but I d-d-don't think she likes your family." "Good heavens! + here's news," I said. Well, afterwards she told me of having met + Alfred at Rogers', and of having heard that he had taken a dislike to + her. "Why, Mrs. Norton," I said, "that must be nearly thirty years + ago, and do you harbour vindictive feelings so long?" "Oh!" she said, + "why, I'm not thirty!" + + Again, one day we met her in a country house where we were invited to + meet her, and soon after she had shaken hands with me she said, with a + dubious kind of jocosity, "I should like to see all the Tennysons hung + up in a row before the Villa Brichieri." Upon the whole, I thought her + a strange creature, and she has not yet lost her beauty--a grand + Zenobian style certainly, but, like many celebrated beauties, she + seems to have won the whole world. Among other things she said in + allusion to some incident, "What mattered it to me whether it was an + old or a young man--I who all my life have made conquests?" It seemed + to me that to dazzle in the great world was her principal ambition, + and literary glory her second.[12] + +But Frederick was too much of a man of moods to care for society. He used +to describe himself as a "person of gloomy insignificance and unsocial +monomania." Society he dismissed contemptuously as "Snookdom," and would +liken it gruffly to a street row. The "high-jinks of the high-nosed" (to +use another phrase of his) angered him, as did all persons "who go about +with well-cut trousers and ill-arranged ideas." The consequence was that +his acquaintance in Florence long remained narrow. In 1854, shortly after +the birth of his second son, he wrote: + + Sponsors I have succeeded in hooking, one in this manner: A friend of + mine called yesterday and introduced a Mr. Jones. "Sir," said I, + "happy to see you. Like to be a godfather?" "Really," he said, not + quite prepared for the honour, "do my best." "Thank you, then I'll + call for you on my way to the church"; so Mr. Jones was booked. + +One hears, however, of a visit of Mrs. Sartoris (Adelaide Kemble) in 1854. +"I had not seen her for twenty years," writes Frederick; "she is grown +colossal, but all her folds of fat have not extinguished the love of music +in her." But one friendship which Frederick made in Florence was destined +to be a lifelong pleasure to him. In 1853 he writes: + + The Brownings I have but recently become acquainted with. They really + are the very best people in the world, and a real treasure to that + Hermit, a Poet. Browning is a wonderful man with inexhaustible memory, + animal spirits, and bonhomie. He is always ready with the most apropos + anecdote, and the happiest bon mot, and his vast acquaintance with + out-of-the-way knowledge and the quaint Curiosity Shops of Literature + make him a walking encyclopaedia of marvels. Mrs. B., who never goes + out--being troubled like other inspired ladies with a chest--is a + little unpretending woman, yet full of power, and, what is far better, + loving-kindness; and never so happy as when she can get into the thick + of mysterious Clairvoyants, Rappists, Ecstatics, and Swedenborgians. + Only think of their having lived full five years at Florence with all + these virtues hidden in a bushel to me! + +In 1854 he published his first volume of verse, _Days and Hours_. The book +was, on the whole, well received. Charles Kingsley (whose early and +discriminating recognition of the merits of George Meredith places him +high among the critics of his day) wrote: "The poems are the work of a +finished scholar, of a man who knows all schools, who has profited more or +less by all, and who often can express himself, while revelling in +luxurious fancies, with a grace and terseness which Pope himself might +have envied." There was, however, a good deal of adverse criticism, and it +was probably mainly owing to his irritation at many of the strictures +(often futile enough) which were passed upon him at this time that he kept +silence for the next thirty-six years. At any rate, he was always ready to +the end of his life for a growl or a thunder at the critics. + +In 1857 Frederick Tennyson left Florence and after spending some time in +Pisa and Genoa finally settled in Jersey, where he made his home for +nearly forty years. During all this period he maintained a regular and +detailed correspondence with Mrs. Brotherton, the wife of his friend +Augustus Brotherton, the artist, with whom he had begun to exchange +letters while still at Florence. His life was now a very quiet one, for, +except for an occasional visit to England, he never left home. His +children with their families visited him from time to time. His brother +Charles came with his wife to see him in 1867, as did the Brownings on +their way to Italy, and Alfred also paid him visits, the last of which was +in 1892. On the whole, however, his days, for one who had been so +passionately fond of travel and of a life of colour, warmth, and +excitement, were singularly peaceful. But he retained to the last his +astonishing vitality. His health remained tolerably good in spite of the +nervous irritability and reactions of melancholy which were inseparable +from the extraordinary energy and vivacity of his temperament. "Poor +Savile Morton used to stare at me with wonder," he writes. "'I cannot +conceive,' he said, 'how a man with such a stomach can be subject to +hypochondria.'" In 1867, at the age of sixty, he batted for an hour to his +nephew Lionel's bowling, hoping thereby to be able "to revive the cricket +habit," and his mind continued extraordinarily active; not a movement in +world politics or thought escaped him; he read voraciously and continued +to write verse in a rather desultory fashion. His appetite for beauty, +too, remained as keen as ever and even developed. "The longer I live," he +wrote in 1885, "the more delicate become my perceptions of beautiful +nature." And that appetite found ample food in the scenery of the bowery +island, the whole ambit of which, with its curling tree-tops and distant +lawny spaces dappled with sunshine and surrounded, as it seemed, by the +whole immensity of the globe, could be seen from a point near his house. + +In his isolation, however, his active mind tended to become more and more +possessed by certain ideas, with which everything he read and heard was +brought into relation. While still at Florence he had (possibly under the +influence of Mrs. Browning) become greatly interested in the teachings of +Swedenborg and the phenomena of spiritualism which seemed to him a natural +development of Swedenborg's theories. At first he was apt to speak rather +lightly of spirit revelations. In 1852 he wrote to Alfred: + + "Powers the sculptor here, who is a Swedenborgian, says he once had a + vision of two interwoven angels upon a ground of celestial azure + clearly revealed to him by supernatural light after he had put out his + candle and was lying awake in bed, and believes that these are only + the beginning of wonders; the spirits themselves announce the dawn of + a new time and the coming of the Millennium, and he firmly believes + that all we now do by costly material processes will in the returning + Golden Age of the world be accomplished for us by ministering spirits. + 'Thou shalt see the angels of heaven ascending and descending on the + Son of man.' I go with him as far as to believe that these are + spiritual revelations, but I confess I cannot accompany him in his + belief in their beneficent intentions. God speaks to the heart of man + by His Spirit, not thro' table legs; the miracles of Christ were of + inestimable worth, but these unfortunate ghosts either drivel like + schoolgirls or bounce out at once into the most shameful falsehoods, + and by their actual presence, pretending to be in their final state, + they seem to have for their object, tho' they carefully avoid touching + on those subjects, to undermine in the hearts of Christians the + spiritual doctrines of the Resurrection of the spiritual body and of + the judgment to come. And the more effectually to unsettle the old + Theology, the cant of these spirits is that God is a God of Love, + Love, Love, continually repeated _ad nauseam_. So He is, but 'My + thoughts are not your thoughts, nor My ways your ways,' 'He scourgeth + every son that He receiveth,' 'He loveth those whom He chasteneth,' + 'it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,' 'the + pitiful God trieth the hearts and the reins.' But these spirits, by + for ever harping upon the Love of God in their insipid language, seem + to me to be anxious to persuade us that He is a 'fine old country + gentleman with large estate,' or something of that kind, seated in a + deeply-cushioned armchair, and patting the heads of His rebellious + children when they come whimpering to Him, yielding to anything in the + shape of intercession, and, rather than that St. Joseph or any other + saint should be offended, ready to admit a brigand into Heaven. So + that I thoroughly distrust your spirits and expect no virtue will come + out of them. They only seem to me last links in the chain of modern + witchcrafts which will probably end with the Devil."[13] And a little + later he writes: "Owen the Socialist and a host of infidels by a + peculiar logical process of their own, after seeing a table in motion, + instantly believe in the immortality of the Soul. To me it is + astounding and even awful, that in this nineteenth century after + Christ--whose resurrection of the body rests on as strong a ground of + proof as many of the best attested historical events--men should be + beginning again with that vague and unsatisfactory phantom of a creed + which must have been old in the time of Homer." + +It was not long before he became a complete convert to Swedenborgianism +and firmly convinced of the reality of the Spiritualistic phenomena with +which the press and literature of the day began to be flooded. Indeed at +one time he believed that spirits communicated with himself by a kind of +electrical ticking, which he was constantly hearing in his room at night, +and used at their dictation to do a certain amount of automatic writing. +The results, however, were so unsatisfactory that he was forced to +conclude the spirits to be of an evil and untrustworthy nature, and he +therefore abandoned the practice of spiritualism altogether. He remained, +however, convinced of the fact that living men were able to communicate +with the spirits of the departed, who had been able, since the end (in +1757) of the second dispensation (according to Swedenborg) and the +abolition of the intermediate state of purgatory which accompanied it, to +establish direct intercourse with our world, and he believed that this +rapid increase of communication was a sign of the approach of the kingdom +of heaven, that is to say, of the total abolition of all barriers between +the material and spiritual worlds, and the actual physical regeneration of +man in the Millennium predicted by Christ and the prophets. The natural +and political tumults of which the nineteenth century was so prolific +seemed to him to point in the same direction, and to fall in with the +prophecy of Daniel which he was never tired of quoting. + +Frederick abandoned these views at the end of his life, but it is not +difficult to see how they came to acquire such a hold on him. He was +essentially a mystic and clung most fervently to the belief in a future +life, where all good things should be taken up into the spiritual life and +glorified. + + "My daylight," he wrote in 1853, "is sombered by a natural instinct of + unearthliness, a looking backwards and forwards for that sunny land + which Imagination robes in unfailing Summer where no tears dim the + Light, and no graves lie underneath our feet, by the side of which + Riches, honors, even Health the first of blessings, all, in short, + that is commonly called Happiness, looks cold and imperfect--while + the great Shadow of Death fills up the distance, and the steps to it + lie over withered garlands and dry bones." And again: "For an + illustration of the bliss and delight of that higher state of being + which under the influence of that Spirit-Sun shall hereafter rise + daily to its appointed task, whatever that may be, with full heart and + mind--I go back to 'the days that are no more,' when I used to dive + into the sunny morn, rejoicing in my strength, refreshed with + dreamless sleep 'like a giant with wine,' carrying my whole soul with + me without fears or regrets, with a joy focussed like sunlight through + a lens, on the infinite present moment! Such memories, tho' mournful, + are blessed if they bring with them analogies of the 'Higher State to + Be.' For the angel is but the infant sublimated--the rapture and the + innocence, with the Wisdom and the Power adjoined, and crowned with + Immortality! That is to say his will being in all things conformable + to the Divine--he receives the divine influences which are heaven! And + surely my unshakable belief is that all created beings--even those who + have chosen the lowest Hell--will be eventually redeemed, exalted, and + glorified--or there would be an Infinite Power of Good unable or + unwilling to subdue Finite Evil." + +His mind, however, was too independent to accept any of the creeds of +orthodoxy. He is perpetually thundering against the "frowzy diatribes of +black men with white ties--too often the only white thing about them" (one +can hear him rap out the parenthesis), and the "little papacies" that +dominate a country town or village. Rome he regarded with an excessive +hatred, and Oxford and Cambridge, twin homes of orthodoxy, did not escape +his wrath. + +Indeed, he regarded most modern Christianity as a perversion of the +original truth, and Atheism in all its guises he hated with an even +greater bitterness, as the following letter shows: + + This, as you truly say, is the age of Atheism--both practical and + professional. But it is not only Bradlaugh and Mrs. ---- who + distinguish it as such--multitudes of most worthy and respectable + people (in their own estimation) are classifiable under this + category. Indeed all worldly people whose religion consists in saving + appearances, all self-interested folk whose lives are passed in + struggles with their neighbour for their own advantage--all such as + wear down heart and mind and even physical well-being in the feverish + ambition to pile up riches, not knowing who shall gather them or + purely for the renown of possessing them. All ritualists who think + they get to heaven by peculiar haberdashery, and intoning the prayers, + which makes a farce of them by depriving them of articulate meaning. + All believers in the vicarious atonement of faith alone, which creed + signifies that all _has been done_ instead of all has _to be done_ for + them. All who hurry to conventicles on Sunday with gilt-edged + prayer-books, and begin on Monday morning to slander, ill-treat, or + cheat their neighbours. In short all that excludes the spiritual from + _this_ life--which generally indicates unbelief in any other and + virtually denies the _necessity_, and therefore the existence, of a + Divine Governor. All Professors ---- and ---- in Physical science, all + Herbert Spencers, etc. in metaphysical--who arrive by different + courses at the same conclusion, viz. that God is _unknowable_ [_sic_] + and that therefore they need not take the trouble to know Him. All + this is but Atheism virtual and avowed. + +And materialism he considered little better than rank Atheism. + +It was not unnatural, therefore, that he should have come to regard the +phenomena of spiritualism as the strongest evidence of those beliefs which +were to him more important than life itself, and, this conviction once +established, submission to the strange genius of Swedenborg followed +almost as a matter of course, for by his "science of correspondencies," +the new phenomena seemed to fall naturally and inevitably into their +proper place in that strange dual scheme of spirit and matter into which +Swedenborg had resolved the Universe. When he had once embarked upon +Occultism, other curious beliefs followed in the train of these main +convictions. He became greatly impressed with the work of a certain Mr. +Melville who believed that he had rediscovered an ancient and long +forgotten method of reading the stars which was in fact the original +mystery of Freemasonry. Frederick took eagerly to this idea which seemed +to fall naturally into place with the Swedenborgian science of +correspondencies, and in 1872 he actually came to England with Mr. +Melville in the hope of being able to convince the Freemasons that all +modern Masonry with its boasted mysteries was futile and meaningless +without the key of Mr. Melville's discovery in which lay the true +explanation of all the masonic signs and symbols. Unfortunately an +interview with the Duke of Leinster, the then Grand Master, gave the two +apostles little satisfaction. It was on this visit that Frederick saw +FitzGerald for the last time, and the latter described him to Mrs. Kemble +as being "quite grand and sincere in this as in all else; with the Faith +of a gigantic child--pathetic and yet humorous to consider and consort +with." + +The influence of these ideas gradually coloured Frederick's view on all +current subjects. His years in Florence had been spent in the "hubbub of +imminent war," and he writes indignantly of "the rottenness of these +pitiable petty States and the incredible fantastic tricks of their +abominable rulers." None the less, though he hated and despised most +existing monarchies, he was too much imbued with the romance and dignity +of the past to look with a very favourable eye on revolution. At first he +dismissed Mazzini as "deserving a hempen collar with Nana Sahib and the +King of Delhi," an opinion which the experience of later years compelled +him to reverse. The story of nineteenth-century Europe seemed to him +chaos, but it was the chaos which was to precede the new spiritual +dispensation, and political prejudice never hindered him from the true +appreciation of progress. Thus he writes in 1869: + + It is certain that Evil has never been more rampant than during the + last century--witness the great French Revolution, subsequent wars, + minor revolutions, and minor wars throughout the globe, the hundreds + of millions wasted on warlike machinery, the countless numbers of + young men sacrificed to the fiends of ambition and racial jealousy, + society honeycombed with frauds, conspiracies, and class animosities, + etc. etc. On the other hand, never has knowledge of all kinds been + more progressive, never have the Arts and Sciences and Literature been + so rapidly multiplied and so various. Never were charitable + institutions more widely extended or practically beneficent. Never, in + short, were the researches into all kinds of truths, especially those + which concern the relations of man to God and his neighbour, more + earnest, and if this seems to contradict the notorious fact that we + are living at present in a world of Atheism and Materialism--which is + the same thing--it does not really do so, for the two movements, + though separate, are parallel and simultaneous. In short, "The Time of + the End" is a transitional state--which will eventually issue in the + triumph of Good over Evil once and for ever. + +France he always hated as the leader of materialism, and he would repeat +with a snort of disgust the remark of M. Bert, who, during the debate in +the Chamber on the secularization of Education, observed that it was +superfluous to exclude what did not exist. The debacle of 1870 seemed a +just if tragic retribution. + + "One cannot help, however," he wrote on October 19, 1870, "feeling for + beautiful Paris as one would for a Marie Antoinette passing on her way + to execution. There she is in her solitude and in her beauty. Around + her a circle of iron and fire--within her a restless seething of + tumultuous passions embittering the present--her future a prospect of + burning and famine. Such a downfall is unparalleled in history, and + the agonies of her expiration--if things are carried to their bitter + end--promise to equal those of the terrible siege of Jerusalem." + +As might be expected, he tended to Conservatism in politics; Home Rule was +anathema, and Disraeli, endeared to him as the possible leader of a +United Israel, he regarded as a sincerer statesman than Gladstone. None +the less he was able to applaud Gladstone's action on the occasion of the +Bulgarian atrocities, though "even he" seemed to have yielded so much + + ... to the delicacies and squeamish sensibility, and fluttering nerves + of a lolling generation--an age of sofas and carpets--the rousing of + which even in the justest of causes, the vindication of the rights of + unoffending humanity outraged by savages in comparison with whom + niggers and Red Indians are angels, is not to be attempted without + careful thought--and though a great cry has gone through the land I + fear there will be little wool. There is, however, one + consolation--neither Turkey, nor Egypt, nor any ruffian with a bundle + of dirty clothes upon his head instead of a hat, will ever get another + farthing of _our_ money. + +None the less he hated a bigoted Toryism, and thought that "a proper +democratic spirit which aims at a reconstruction of society on the +principle of 'each for all and all for each,' the correlation of +privileges and duties, worth and honour, wealth and charity (in its best +sense), the substitution of altruism for egoism, ought to find its echo in +every loyal heart--and would in fact be the very 'end of Sin, and bringing +in of the Everlasting Righteousness' foretold." + +In literature, too, his mind--in spite of an occasional failure to +recognize individual genius--was remarkably alive to the progressive +movements of the day. Indeed, for a man so steeped in classicism, his +freedom from prejudice was remarkable. Browning's poetry, however, in +spite of his affection for the author, he could never appreciate. He wrote +to Mrs. Brotherton: + + "What you say of Browning's _Ring and the Book_," he says, soon after + the publication of that work, "I have no doubt is strictly applicable, + however slashing.... I confess, however, that I have never had the + courage to read the book. He is a great friend of mine.... But it + does not follow that I should put up with obsolete horrors, and + unrhythmical composition. What has come upon the world that it should + take any metrical (?) arrangement of facts for holy Poesy? It has been + my weakness to believe that the Fine Arts and Imaginative Literature + should do something more than astonish us by _tours de force_, black + and white contrasts, outrageous inhumanities, or anything criminally + sensational, or merely intellectually potent. As you say a good heart + is better than a clever head, so I say better a page of feeling than a + volume of spasms. Spasms, I fear, is the order of the day. The late + Lord Robertson, a legal celebrity at Edinburgh, pleading on behalf of + some one, said, with his serious face, which was more tickling than + the happiest efforts of Pantaloon: 'We are bound to respect his + feelings as a man and a butcher.' Here the man and the butcher are + bound up in one. Now, in Browning's case, I separate the man from the + butcher. I have nothing to say to him in his blue apron and steel by + his side, but if I meet him in plain clothes I honour him as a + gentleman." And in 1885 he writes: "The Public, it would seem, is + beginning to rouse itself to a perception of the unreliability of the + Browningian school--I have seen several articles on that subject. How + is it that it has never struck his partisans that the probability of + one man being so infinitely superior to his contemporaries as to be + totally unintelligible to them--is infinitely small? + + "One thing appears to me certain in Browning, that all his + performances are pure _brain-work_--whatever that may be worth--but as + for the 'divine heat of temperament,' where is it? I can find nothing + but the inextricably hard and the extravagantly fantastical. On such + diet I cannot live." + +Nevertheless, it was always the future of Art, not its past, which stirred +his interest, and a letter of his written in 1885, when he was +seventy-eight, shows a youth and vitality of mind truly remarkable in one +whose life had been so cloistered. + + "There can never," he says, "be a second Shakespeare, that is to say, + given a man of equal Genius he cannot in this complex and analytical + age of Literature embody himself in the metrical and dramatic form if + his purpose is to 'hold up the mirror to Nature, and to give the Time + its form and pressure.' The form of prose fiction is a vastly greater + one, indeed it may be termed all-comprehensive, and admits of the + introduction of lyric or epic verse, in all varieties, as well as the + profoundest analysis of character and motive, and is susceptible of + the highest range of eloquence and unrhythmical poetry, and whatever + it may lose in metrical melody (which, however, is not greatly + regarded in dramatic dialogue) it gains immeasurably in its other + elements. All things considered, I am of opinion that if a man were + endowed with such faculties as Shakespeare's, they would be more + freely and effectively exercised in prose fiction with its wider + capabilities than when 'cribbed, cabined, and confined' in the + trammels of verse." + +It may be that the very remoteness of his life was in part the cause of +this lasting freshness and freedom of his mind. He lived so far from the +world as to be almost entirely removed from any bias of self-interest--the +most fruitful source of prejudice. Ambition played no part in his life. + + "Once," he wrote in 1888, "I used to have some ambition--that is when + I was a boy at school--I verily believe that at that early age I + exhausted the demoniacal passion which chains you to fixed purposes + like a Prometheus and preys upon you like a Vulture. Though many great + works have been accomplished under the spur of this (so-called) noble + passion, think how much chaotic rubbish has been projected into Space + and Time which ought to have been imprisoned to Eternity--how many + heart-burnings, jealousies, and disappointments--how often the love of + the Beautiful and True is entirely subordinated to that of mere + distinction to be won at any cost. How seldom do we hear writers of + the same school speak well of one another. Especially poisonous are + poets, I think, wherever they apprehend a rival--Honey-suckers like + the Bee, they know how to use their stings even while sipping the + flowers. The unambitious man is at any rate free to use his eyes, to + walk up to and contemplate in the pure clear air and solitude of his + mountain-top the face and form of Nature, and like Turner a-fishing, + see wonderful effects never to be come at by the hosts of those who + get on (or off) by copying one another. I daresay you will disapprove + all this and attribute it to indolent epicurism. + + "Latterly since the supernatural and the Future Life, and its + conditions 'such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it + entered into the heart of man to conceive,' have occupied and absorbed + my whole soul to the exclusion of almost every subject which the + Gorillas of this world most delight in, whether scientific, political, + or literary--I have been led to see what men in general consider a + proper use of their stewardship, _i.e._ ruin of body and soul by + inordinate superhuman struggles for supremacy--Samson-like heavings to + upset the neighbour, or supplant him--carbonic acid-breathing + creepings along the dark floors of stifling caverns such as may enable + them to scrape together a preponderance of a certain mineral, etc. + etc.--as the most lamentable examples of Phrenitis--arising simply + from the ineradicable instinct--of Immortality it is true, but + misplaced Immortality--Immortality in this life." + +The death of his wife in 1880 was a severe blow to him. + + "In answer to your kind letters of sympathy," he wrote to Mr. and Mrs. + Brotherton, "I can say but little. Sorrow such as mine when it falls + upon the aged is virtual paralysis, mental and bodily. I know not what + I may do for the brief period remaining to me in this world. At + present my daughter-in-law attends to household matters, and I still + have the presence of children and grandchildren to remind me that I am + not left entirely desolate. But my chief consolation is that the + beloved of my youth and the friend of my age is already risen, and has + cast off the burthen of her mortal cares and pains, and my only hope + that, God willing, I may follow quickly." + +A great but less tremendous shock to him was the death in 1887 of his +sister Emily, once the betrothed of Arthur Hallam. On this occasion he +sent the following lines to his friend: + + Farewell, dear sister, thou and I + Will meet no more beneath the sky: + But in the high world where thou art + Mind speaks to Mind, and Heart to Heart, + Not in faint wavering tones, but heard + As twin sweet notes that sound accord. + Thy dwelling in the Angel sphere + Looks forth on a sublimer whole, + Where all that thou dost see and hear + Is in true concord with thy soul-- + A great harp of unnumbered strings + Answering to one voice that sings: + Where thousand blisses spring and fade + Swiftly, as in diviner dream, + And inward motions are portrayed + In outward shows that move with them: + After the midnight and dark river + No more to be o'erpast for ever. + Behold the lover of thy youth, + That spirit strong as Love and Truth, + Many a long year gone before, + Awaits thee on the sunny shore: + In that high world of endless wonder + Nor Space, nor Time can hold asunder + Twin souls--as Space and Time have done-- + Whom kindest instincts orb in One. + +It was inevitable that the later years of one so aged and so solitary +should be more and more filled with the chronicle and anticipation of +death. But he never sank into lethargy, as the following letter, written +in his eighty-first year, shows: + + My own sorrow is indeed continually revived by memories continually + reawakened, not only by the comparatively recent occurrence of my own + temporarily final separation from my best friend--but also by that + bird's-eye--so to speak--retrospect, which carries the imagination + over lovely landscapes of the days of youth--out of the golden morning + light of which emerge, in that unaccountable manner which is quite + involuntary, even the most trivial circumstances--moments of no + moment--yet somehow clothed in a more glittering light than the vast + tracts drowned in the general splendour of the dawn, some tiny + pinnacle that reflects the sun, some far off rillet that gushes out + from the wayside. + +Even when in his eighty-fourth year his sight began to fail him and the +loss drove him still more back into his inner life, the old eagerness of +mind remained, though finding a melancholy occupation in noting the +changes to which age was daily subjecting his mental and physical +constitution. The note of hope is, however, ineradicable: + + An old man of my great age is already dead--old age being the only + Death--and the faculties which I once possessed receive no impulse, as + of old, for activity--no joyous inspiration. The intellect is cold and + frozen like the mountain streams in Winter, a moonless midnight; and + were it not for the increasing illumination of the immortal spirit + which already beholds the dawn of a greater Day beyond the mountains, + I should indeed be desolate, lost! For I am 84 years of age next + June--and in looking back through my long life--it often seems to me + like a dream--many movements, intellectual and physical, seem to me + like impossibilities. When I see my little grandson Charlie skipping + and hear him shouting and singing, and the light-limbed and + light-hearted girls darting like living lightning down the staircase + (which if I were to attempt to imitate I should undoubtedly break my + neck), I say to myself, is it possible that I can ever have been like + them? Alas! for old age. What can be more mournful than a retrospect + of the days of childhood? But a truce to solemn thoughts--the Spring + is come again, the leaves are unfolding, the birds are singing, the + sun is shining, and surely, next to the human countenance, this is the + most lovely emblem, the most beautiful representative material of + inner spiritualities and the resurrection, and ought to have been so + regarded since the dawn of Christianity; for as sure as Winter + blossoms into Summer, the Winter of old age will spring into the + Eternal Life. Fear not, hope all things! What a contrast to these + consoling aspirations is presented in the touching fragment of the old + Greek poet Moschus which no doubt expresses the scepticism of the + ancient world--I give a free translation: + + Aye, aye the garden mallows, mint and thyme + When they have wither'd in the winter clime, + After a little space do reappear, + And live again and see another year: + But we, the brave, the noble, and the wise, + When once for all pale Death hath closed our eyes, + Sink into dread oblivion dark and deep, + The everlasting, never-waking sleep. + +With the approach of death he seemed to himself to undergo a kind of +physical regeneration. + + "Apropos to spiritual matters," he writes in 1890, "I have had + recently for several consecutive days some very strange experiences. + One morning I awoke and seemed to have lost my natural memory. Objects + daily presented to me for years seemed no longer familiar as of + old--but as when a man after years of travel returning to his home and + the chamber he formerly occupied takes some time and labour of thought + to bring back to his recollection the whereabouts of objects once (as + it were) instinctively known to him--I had the same difficulty in + recovering my relations to my own surroundings. And this for days was + supplemented by a strange sense of having been far away and conversant + with wonderful things--movements and tumults--which only immeasurable + distance deadened to my perception like great music borne away by the + wind. Ever and anon there flashed up within me what I can only + describe symbolically as Iridescences of feeling as when the prismatic + colours of a rainbow succeed one another, or the coloured lights in + Pyrotechnics cause objects in midnight darkness to assume their own + hues. But all this, wonderful though it may seem, is not the only + change that has come upon me--I am happy to say that simultaneously + with these phenomena a revolution in my spiritual economy of far + greater moment has, I believe, taken place. I have always prayed for + that regeneration, or second birth ('Thou must be born again,' said + the Lord to Nicodemus), to be shielded from selfhood--and as the + divine answer to such prayers continually repeated, I can declare, + without any self-delusion, that the answer has actually been a + sensible change in the nature of my affections. Never have I felt + towards those around me, such tender inclinations, such earnest desire + to do them all possible good regardless of self-interest, such a + spirit of forgiveness of any wrongs; and my earnest prayerful + thankfulness for such inestimable benefits has been invariably + acknowledged by that Voice from the Lord Himself by which He has + repeatedly ratified to my spiritual ear His promise of blessing and + the continuation thereof--and that 'Thou hast nothing to fear, for I + am with thee night and day, body and soul!' Think of this! But for + God's sake do not attribute these statements of mine, which are + comprehended in a period of many years, to self-delusion or + self-righteousness. God knows, from whom nothing is hid, that I have + never approached Him except in the spirit of profound humility and + self-condemnation, and the answer has always been, 'Thou hast nothing + to fear. I am with thee.'" + +As age settled upon him the violence of many of his views abated. His +faith in Spiritualism and Swedenborgianism lost their hold on him and gave +way to a more philosophic condition of mind. His activity, however, +continued unabated. In 1890, after a silence of thirty-six years, he +published his _Isles of Greece_, and the success of the volume encouraged +him to give to the world two others, _Daphne and other Poems_ in 1891, and +_Poems of the Day and Year_ (in which were included some of the verses +contained in the volume of 1854) in 1898. In 1896 he left Jersey to join +his eldest son, Captain Julius Tennyson, in whose house in Kensington he +died on February 26, 1898. + +It would be difficult to imagine two persons more strongly contrasted in +life and character than Frederick and Charles. Charles (who was always +Alfred's favourite brother) had nothing of the powerful, erratic, +tempestuous mind of his elder brother. One does not think of him, as +FitzGerald did of Frederick, as a being born for the warmth and glow of +the South, yet in appearance he was (like Alfred) far more Southern than +the eldest brother. So Spanish were his swarthy complexion, brown eyes, +and curly, dark hair, that Thackeray, meeting him in middle age, called +him a "Velasquez _tout craché_." Like Alfred, too, he had a magnificent +deep bass voice; and even in dress the two brothers seem to have +maintained their affinity, for Charles used to wear a soft felt hat and +flowing black cloak much like those which the Millais portrait has +identified with his brother, and these garments, with the addition of +white cuffs, which he wore turned back over his coat sleeves, intensified +the strangely foreign effect of his appearance. But the kinship of the +two brothers extended beyond purely physical resemblance. They remained +inseparable companions till Charles was ordained, and there was hardly a +taste possessed by either which the other did not share. They read, +played, and rambled together; both were extremely fond of dancing (one of +Charles's last Sonnets was "On a County Ball") and were much sought after +as partners at the balls of their countryside. The _Poems by Two +Brothers_, which were almost entirely the work of Alfred and Charles, +while displaying the differing qualities of each, were a joint production, +the fruit of common reading and common enthusiasm. Both the brothers were +regarded by their contemporaries at Cambridge as destined to achieve +poetical greatness. Both possessed the unwearying patience of the +craftsman, the same devotion to science and the same power of close and +loving observation. Charles, however, lacked the fire and energy of +temperament which made Frederick's character remarkable and was to a great +extent shared by Alfred. With all Alfred's sensitiveness and shrinking +from society, he had little of that sympathetic and passionate interest in +the hopes and achievements of their age which drove the younger brother +ever more and more into public life. + + +[Illustration: CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER.] + + +Nothing quieter and less eventful than Charles Tennyson's life can well be +imagined. He was ordained in 1835 (three years after taking his degree) +and immediately obtained a Curacy at Tealby. In the same year he became +Vicar of Grasby, a small village in the Lincolnshire wolds between Caistor +and Brigg. + +In the following year he married Louisa Sellwood, whose sister was to +become Alfred's wife, and from that time until just before his death on +April 25, 1879, his life, save for an occasional holiday and too frequent +lapses from health, knew little variation. Like all the Tennysons, Charles +was of a nervous temperament, and this condition often induced acute +suffering. So severe indeed was his struggle with this disorder and the +still more perilous condition which resulted from it that at one time, +soon after his marriage, he was compelled to leave his parish for some +months in search of strength. Throughout these trying interludes the +devotion of his wife, a woman of great humour and power of mind and +character, was of the utmost service to him. Indeed, his debt to her was +great at all times of his life. She would often act almost as a curate to +him in the straggling parish, tirelessly visiting and nursing the sick (a +duty which they both unflinchingly observed even in the epidemics of +small-pox which were then frequent), keeping all his accounts, both +personal and parochial, and even sometimes writing his sermons. The +devotion of the pair was remarkable, retaining a certain youthful ardour +to the end, and when Charles died his wife was carried to the grave within +a month. + +As early as 1830, Charles had published a small volume of sonnets, which +(as is well known) earned the hearty commendation of Coleridge and Leigh +Hunt. As in the case of Frederick, however, there followed a prolonged +silence, the next volume not making its appearance till 1864; others +followed in 1868 and 1873, and all were collected and republished, with a +sage, benevolent, and affectionate Introduction by his friend James +Spedding, in 1880. The reason for this long silence was a slightly +different one from that which was responsible for Frederick's +intermission. In both cases, no doubt, the feeling that it would be +impertinent for another person of the name of Tennyson to put his work +before the public had some influence. In Charles's case, however, there +were further considerations. The violent shock which his health sustained +by that prolonged early illness and his subsequent troubles to some extent +numbed his powers. "The edge of thought was blunted by the stress of the +hard world," and the same cause probably increased his natural modesty +till it became almost morbid. He was perpetually haunted by the fear that +his poetry was not original, and the only word of satisfaction which +Spedding ever heard him use of any of his sonnets was with regard to one +which owed its origin to a period of deep affliction, of which the poet +said that he thought it was good because he _knew_ it to be true. Whatever +the cause, however, during these thirty-four years Charles Turner +published nothing and, indeed, hardly even wrote anything. Spedding, in +his Introduction, has collected a few fragments which were gathered from +the poet's notebooks, and show that his mind still occasionally noted a +stray simile or description, doubtless intended to be subsequently worked +up into a poem. A few of these are in his happiest manner. One may quote +the following picture of goldfish in a glass bowl: + + As though King Midas did the surface touch, + Constraining the clear water to their change + With shooting motions and quick trails of light. + Now a rich girth and then a narrow gleam, + And now a shaft and now a sheet of gold. + +and the lines on the opening of the tomb of Charlemagne: + + They rove the marble where the ancient King, + Like one forspent with sacred study sate, + Robed like a King, but as a scholar pale. + +His mind, too, was always working in the same direction on his rambles +about the countryside, and he would sometimes, when walking with Agnes +Weld, "the little, ambling, stile-clearing niece," who was often his +guest, hit on some phrase which took his fancy and was imparted to his +companion, who remembers his description of the slanting light-bars on a +cloudy day as "the oars of the golden Galley of the sun," and many another +phrase as happy as any of the homely and perfect touches in his published +works. + +But though these years were barren of actual output, they were of value in +many ways, and not the least as a period of incubation, for many a phrase +or idea first formed in them was subsequently perfected and published. The +intermission, too, left him freer to study and to labour among his +parishioners. At the beginning and end of his life, poetry occupied a +great deal of his time, for each of his sonnets, in spite of their +apparent facility, was the result of much toil. He would work at the same +lines morning after morning, and read the results aloud to his wife, or +niece, or other companion after dinner, the same poem going through a +great succession of forms. A letter to Miss Weld, in answer to some +suggestion of a subject connected with the then recent excavations at +Mycenae, shows his method of work and something of the manifold interests +of his secluded life: + + "I never can undertake to work to order," he writes, "though the order + comes from the dearest of customers. If I get a good hold of that + poor, noble, nodding head I will put him on board of a respectable + sonnet and try to save his memory from drowning.... Mycenae is a very + exciting subject, but I have Kelsey Moor Chapel to write on--a + commission from Mrs. Townsend ... and a poor dead dog haunts me" (see + Sonnet 97--Collected Edition). + +During these barren years Charles Turner's devotion to his parochial work +was intense. Grasby was a somewhat barbarous village when he obtained the +living. Belief in witchcraft was still rife, and one of the popular charms +against its influence was to cut a sheep in half, put the body on a +scarlet cloth, and walk between the pieces. Such religion as there was +among the poor was of a rather harsh spirit, as may be seen from an +anecdote preserved by Miss Weld of an old cottager, who, hearing Mrs. +Turner mention the name of Hobbes, exclaimed to his wife: "Why, loovey, +that's the graate Hobbes that's in hell!" The climate, too, was as harsh +as the character of the people, for the village stands high and bleak. +Friends remember Louisa Turner going about her ministrations in clogs, and +during one particularly sharp winter she writes: "I am in a castle now of +double cotton wool petticoat and thick baize drawers and waistcoat." The +Turners soon found it necessary to leave the house at Caistor, three miles +off, where Sam Turner, Charles's uncle, the preceding vicar, had lived, +for the distance made any real intimacy with the people impossible. +Charles had inherited a small property from his uncle (the event was the +occasion of his change of name), and this made it possible for him to +build a new vicarage and to further enrich the village with new schools +and a new church. He also took the very practical step of buying the +village inn and putting it in charge of a reliable servant, a scheme +which, for a time at least, had excellent effects on the temperance of the +inhabitants. + +There were no children of the marriage, but the pair adopted the children +of the whole village, opening their house and grounds to them for +Christmas trees and summer festivities. Children and animals were always +devoted to Charles Turner, as he to them. He was, as the villagers said, +"Strangen gone upon birds and things." He never shot after that tragedy of +the swallow which he never forgot (see Sonnet 200), and birds of every +kind flocked to him daily as he fed them on his lawn. Flowers and trees, +too, he loved almost as keenly as he did children. He quarrelled seriously +with one of his curates whom he found exorcising the flowers, which were +to be used for church decoration, by means of the service contained in the +Directorium Anglicanum, maintaining stoutly that if any spirits dwelt in +flowers they must be angels and not devils. His garden was a jungle of +old-fashioned flowers, golden-rod, sweet-william, convolvulus, and rose of +Sharon; figs and apricots ripened on his walls, and the house was covered +with roses, honeysuckle, white clematis, and blue ceanothus. The grounds, +too, boasted some fine timber, which Charles never would allow to be +pruned or cut, even permitting the willow-props to outgrow and destroy the +rose trees (Sonnet 270), and once, when it was proposed to fell some large +trees within sight of his house, he threatened to throw up his living and +leave Grasby. + +In this peaceful world Charles found plenty to occupy his time. He saw +little of society except when Alfred or Frederick, or one of his old +college friends, came to visit him, and the resources of the neighbourhood +were strained to the utmost to afford them entertainment. He found, +however, a congenial companion in Mr. Townsend, a neighbouring clergyman +of wide culture much interested in science. And the care of his parish +occupied the greater part of his time. Theology, too, was a favourite +study with him. He began life as an Evangelical, but in later years tended +(partly under the influence of his wife, who would often, on the vigil of +a saint, spend half the night on her knees) more and more towards the High +Church. + + "I have been reading," he wrote to Alfred in 1865, "Pusey's _Daniel + the Prophet_, which (thank God) completely--as I think and as very + many will think with me--disposes of the rickety and crotchety + arguments of those who vainly thought they had found a [Greek: pou + stô] in him whereby to upheave all prophecy and miracle. It is a noble + book from its learning and its logic. I knew he was a holy and + noble-minded and erudite man, but for some reason I had not credited + him with such 'act offence' and powers of righteous satire.... I have + never in my old desultory reading days found such a charm and interest + as in the study of the Queen Science, as Trench calls Theology, and + those who assume that they will find there no food for the mature + reason will be surprised at its large provision for the intellect and + rich satisfaction of the highest imagination. It is reading round + about a subject and not the subject itself which damages the intellect + so much. Maurice said the study of the Prophets had saved him from the + Tyranny of books." + +He and his wife also spent much time in the study of Italian, in which +they were assisted by their occasional visits to and from the Frederick +Tennysons. Charles's Italian Grammar is annotated with numberless quaint +rhymes made to fix its rules in his memory. On one page one finds in his +wonderfully neat fluent hand (strangely like those of Frederick and +Alfred): + + From use of the following is no ban, + "The fair of the fair is Mistress Ann" + or "Smith's a learned, learned man" + In English or Italian, + Though the English use is far less common + Speaking of Doctor or fine woman. + +On another: + + Say profeta, profeti + Or else I shall bate ye. + +On another a couplet which has all the subtle romance of Edward Lear: + + Rare and changeless, firm and few, + Are the Italian nouns in U. + +The life at Grasby Vicarage was of the simplest. The hall-floor rattled +with loose tiles, the furniture was reduced to the barest necessities. +Breakfast and lunch were movable feasts, for Charles had all a poet's +carelessness of time, lingering over morning prayers while his agonized +guest saw the bacon cooling to the consistency of marble before his eyes, +and prolonging his mid-day walk to such distances in the study of flower +and bird and butterfly that it sometimes took a half-hour's tolling of the +outdoor bell to recall him. The cook (who in times of scarcity was at the +service of the whole village) must have led a life of irritation, yet +servants stayed long at the Vicarage. + +This sweet, even life knew little variety. The days of quiet service +filled the year, and were succeeded by evenings no less quiet in the +book-lined study, or, if the season were warm, in the hayfield near the +house, where husband and wife would sit reading and talking to each other +till the evening glow died away and left the haycocks and the steep side +of the wold, which backed the red-brick Vicarage, gray and cold and +silent. + +Troubles they had beyond the recurrent anxiety for Charles's health. A +rascally agent, a man of great plausibility and charm of manner, pillaged +them for some years, and they were only able to recover a portion of his +plunderings (most of which Charles subsequently devoted to the repair of +the church) after a great deal of trouble. It is characteristic that in +after years they always spoke of this gentleman as though _he_ had been +the person who had suffered most in the transaction and deserved most +pity. Charles was indeed possessed of an almost saintly patience, and no +crisis could ever wring from him any ejaculation more forcible than a +half-humorous "I wish we were all in heaven." His wife's letters +occasionally give us glimpses of days when the wish must often have been +upon his lips, as when he was reluctantly compelled to join in a +Harvest-Festival gathering in another parish. First of all we read how +"poor Cubbie" (his wife's pet name for him) "was caught and dressed in a +surplice which hung about him like a clothes bag." "Then he must join in a +procession, with much singing and chanting, and then read the lessons in +spite of a bad cold and hoarseness, and finally at the end of the day, in +the full hubbub of a garden party, at which all the neighbourhood were +present in their finery (poor Cubbie!), a cannon, which had been charged +with blank cartridge for the occasion, went off unexpectedly and knocked +down three boys who were standing in front of it. The boys, whose clothes +were torn to rags and their faces burnt black, shrieked as though in the +death agony, women fainted and men stampeded--and Cubbie 'wished we were +all in heaven.'" + +But Charles Turner's poems are, after all, the best mirror of his life. +With Frederick it is otherwise. In spite of his great lyric gift, +Frederick lacked the persistence and enthusiasm necessary for full +self-expression. The want of proportion, which gave his ardent, erratic +personality so much charm, prevented his longer poems being really +successful. In spite of much beauty of phrase and richness of feeling, +they lack architecture and have not sufficient unity to make them vital. +Had he continued to work at lyrical writing after his first volume, he +might have avoided falling into the desultory method, which marred his +later work, and left a really large body of first-class poetry. + +In the best of Charles's Sonnets, in all, that is, which spring from his +daily experience, there breathes a spirit perpetually quickened by the +beauty and holiness of common life and common things, an imagination which +saw a life and a purpose not only in the ways of men and of all wild +creatures and growing things, but in the half-human voice of the buoy-bell +ringing on the shoals, the sad imprisoned heart-beat of the water-ram in +the little wood-girt field, the welcome of the sunbeam in the copse +running through the yielding shade to meet the wanderer, in the "mystic +stair" of the steam thrashing-machine: + + Accepting our full harvests like a God + With clouds about his shoulders. + +and the "mute claim" of the old rocking-horse: + + In the dim window where disused, he stands + While o'er him breaks the flickering limewalks' shade; + No provender, no mate, no groom has he-- + His stall and pasture is your memory.[14] + +But in spite of the intimate correspondence between Charles Turner's life +and his art, an intimacy which only the seclusion of that life made +possible, one cannot help regretting that fortune did not force upon him +some calling which would have afforded a progressive stimulus to his +creative powers. These years of devotion amongst the bleak hill-sides and +flowery dingles of his remote parish did for him what a life of ease and +sunshine did for Frederick. Both had great talents, but neither the tender +felicity of Charles nor Frederick's heart of cloud and fire ever came to +full development. They represent two extremes of the Tennyson temperament, +the mean and perfection of which is found in Alfred. In the elder the +lyric fury, in the younger the craftsman's humility of the more perfect +poet were developed to excess, and both suffered for the affection and +respect in which they held him whom they knew to be their master. Yet each +has left himself a monument, some part at least of which is worthy to rank +with the more complete achievement of their younger brother. + + + + +TENNYSON ON HIS CAMBRIDGE FRIENDS + + +[Illustration: A. H. H. Obiit 1833.] + + +ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM + + I past beside the reverend walls + In which of old I wore the gown; + I roved at random thro' the town, + And saw the tumult of the halls; + + And heard once more in college fanes + The storm their high-built organs make, + And thunder-music, rolling, shake + The prophet blazon'd on the panes; + + And caught once more the distant shout, + The measured pulse of racing oars + Among the willows; paced the shores + And many a bridge, and all about + + The same gray flats again, and felt + The same, but not the same; and last + Up that long walk of limes I past + To see the rooms in which he dwelt. + + Another name was on the door: + I linger'd; all within was noise + Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys + That crash'd the glass and beat the floor; + + Where once we held debate, a band + Of youthful friends, on mind and art, + And labour, and the changing mart, + And all the framework of the land; + + When one would aim an arrow fair, + But send it slackly from the string; + And one would pierce an outer ring, + And one an inner, here and there; + + And last the master-bowman, he, + Would cleave the mark. A willing ear + We lent him. Who, but hung to hear + The rapt oration flowing free + + From point to point, with power and grace + And music in the bounds of law, + To those conclusions when we saw + The God within him light his face, + + And seem to lift the form, and glow + In azure orbits heavenly-wise; + And over those ethereal eyes + The bar of Michael Angelo. + + +TO JAMES SPEDDING + +ON THE DEATH OF HIS BROTHER + + The wind, that beats the mountain, blows + More softly round the open wold, + And gently comes the world to those + That are cast in gentle mould. + + And me this knowledge bolder made, + Or else I had not dared to flow + In these words toward you, and invade + Even with a verse your holy woe. + + 'Tis strange that those we lean on most, + Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed, + Fall into shadow, soonest lost: + Those we love first are taken first. + + God gives us love. Something to love + He lends us; but, when love is grown + To ripeness, that on which it throve + Falls off, and love is left alone. + + This is the curse of time. Alas! + In grief I am not all unlearn'd; + Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass; + One went, who never hath return'd. + + He will not smile--not speak to me + Once more. Two years his chair is seen + Empty before us. That was he + Without whose life I had not been. + + Your loss is rarer; for this star + Rose with you thro' a little arc + Of heaven, nor having wander'd far + Shot on the sudden into dark. + + I knew your brother; his mute dust + I honour and his living worth: + A man more pure and bold and just + Was never born into the earth. + + I have not look'd upon you nigh, + Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep. + Great Nature is more wise than I: + I will not tell you not to weep. + + And tho' mine own eyes fill with dew, + Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain, + I will not even preach to you, + "Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain." + + Let Grief be her own mistress still. + She loveth her own anguish deep + More than much pleasure. Let her will + Be done--to weep or not to weep. + + I will not say, "God's ordinance + Of Death is blown in every wind"; + For that is not a common chance + That takes away a noble mind. + + His memory long will live alone + In all our hearts, as mournful light + That broods above the fallen sun, + And dwells in heaven half the night. + + Vain solace! Memory standing near + Cast down her eyes, and in her throat + Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear + Dropt on the letters as I wrote. + + I wrote I know not what. In truth, + How _should_ I soothe you anyway, + Who miss the brother of your youth? + Yet something I did wish to say: + + For he too was a friend to me: + Both are my friends, and my true breast + Bleedeth for both; yet it may be + That only silence suiteth best. + + Words weaker than your grief would make + Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease + Although myself could almost take + The place of him that sleeps in peace. + + Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace: + Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, + While the stars burn, the moons increase, + And the great ages onward roll. + + Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. + Nothing comes to thee new or strange. + Sleep full of rest from head to feet; + Lie still, dry dust, secure of change. + + +TO EDWARD FITZGERALD + +(Dedication of "Tiresias," written in 1882) + + Old Fitz, who from your suburb grange, + Where once I tarried for a while, + Glance at the wheeling Orb of change, + And greet it with a kindly smile; + Whom yet I see as there you sit + Beneath your sheltering garden-tree, + And while your doves about you flit, + And plant on shoulder, hand and knee, + Or on your head their rosy feet, + As if they knew your diet spares + Whatever moved in that full sheet + Let down to Peter at his prayers; + Who live on milk and meal and grass; + And once for ten long weeks I tried + Your table of Pythagoras, + And seem'd at first "a thing enskied" + (As Shakespeare has it) airy-light + To float above the ways of men, + Then fell from that half-spiritual height + Chill'd, till I tasted flesh again + One night when earth was winter-black, + And all the heavens flash'd in frost; + And on me, half-asleep, came back + That wholesome heat the blood had lost, + And set me climbing icy capes + And glaciers, over which there roll'd + To meet me long-arm'd vines with grapes + Of Eshcol hugeness; for the cold + Without, and warmth within me, wrought + To mould the dream; but none can say + That Lenten fare makes Lenten thought, + Who reads your golden Eastern lay, + Than which I know no version done + In English more divinely well; + A planet equal to the sun + Which cast it, that large infidel + Your Omar; and your Omar drew + Full-handed plaudits from our best + In modern letters, and from two, + Old friends outvaluing all the rest, + Two voices heard on earth no more; + But we old friends are still alive, + And I am nearing seventy-four, + While you have touch'd at seventy-five, + And so I send a birthday line + Of greeting; and my son, who dipt + In some forgotten book of mine + With sallow scraps of manuscript, + And dating many a year ago, + Has hit on this, which you will take + My Fitz, and welcome, as I know + Less for its own than for the sake + Of one recalling gracious times, + When, in our younger London days, + You found some merit in my rhymes, + And I more pleasure in your praise. + + +EPILOGUE AT END OF "TIRESIAS" + + "One height and one far-shining fire" + And while I fancied that my friend + For this brief idyll would require + A less diffuse and opulent end, + And would defend his judgment well, + If I should deem it over nice-- + The tolling of his funeral bell + Broke on my Pagan Paradise, + And mixt the dream of classic times + And all the phantoms of the dream, + With present grief, and made the rhymes, + That miss'd his living welcome, seem + Like would-be guests an hour too late, + Who down the highway moving on + With easy laughter find the gate + Is bolted, and the master gone. + Gone into darkness, that full light + Of friendship! past, in sleep, away + By night, into the deeper night! + The deeper night? A clearer day + Than our poor twilight dawn on earth-- + If night, what barren toil to be! + What life, so maim'd by night, were worth + Our living out? Not mine to me + Remembering all the golden hours + Now silent, and so many dead, + And him the last; and laying flowers, + This wreath, above his honour'd head, + And praying that, when I from hence + Shall fade with him into the unknown, + My close of earth's experience + May prove as peaceful as his own. + + +TO JOHN MITCHELL KEMBLE + + My hope and heart is with thee--thou wilt be + A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest + To scare church-harpies from the master's feast; + Our dusted velvets have much need of thee: + Thou art no sabbath-drawler of old saws, + Distill'd from some worm-canker'd homily; + But spurr'd at heart with fieriest energy + To embattail and to wall about thy cause + With iron-worded proof, hating to hark + The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone + Half God's good sabbath, while the worn-out clerk + Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne + Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark + Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark. + + +TO J. W. BLAKESLEY + +AFTERWARDS DEAN OF LINCOLN + + I + + Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn, + Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain + The knots that tangle human creeds, + The wounding cords that bind and strain + The heart until it bleeds, + Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn + Roof not a glance so keen as thine: + If aught of prophecy be mine, + Thou wilt not live in vain. + + + II + + Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit; + Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow: + Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now + With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. + Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords + Can do away that ancient lie; + A gentler death shall Falsehood die, + Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words. + + + III + + Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch, + Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need, + Thy kingly intellect shall feed, + Until she be an athlete bold, + And weary with a finger's touch + Those writhed limbs of lightning speed; + Like that strange angel which of old, + Until the breaking of the light, + Wrestled with wandering Israel, + Past Yabbok brook the livelong night, + And heaven's mazed signs stood still + In the dim tract of Penuel. + + +TO R. C. TRENCH + +AFTERWARDS ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN + +(Dedication of "The Palace of Art") + + I send you here a sort of allegory, + (For you will understand it) of a soul, + A sinful soul possess'd of many gifts, + A spacious garden full of flowering weeds, + A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain, + That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen + In all varieties of mould and mind) + And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good, + Good only for its beauty, seeing not + That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters + That doat upon each other, friends to man, + Living together under the same roof, + And never can be sunder'd without tears. + And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be + Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie + Howling in outer darkness. Not for this + Was common clay ta'en from the common earth + Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears + Of angels to the perfect shape of man. + + +TO THE REV. W. H. BROOKFIELD + + Brooks, for they call'd you so that knew you best, + Old Brooks, who loved so well to mouth my rhymes, + How oft we two have heard St. Mary's chimes! + How oft the Cantab supper, host and guest, + Would echo helpless laughter to your jest! + How oft with him we paced that walk of limes, + Him, the lost light of those dawn-golden times, + Who loved you well! Now both are gone to rest. + You man of humorous-melancholy mark, + Dead of some inward agony--is it so? + Our kindlier, trustier, Jaques, past away! + I cannot laud this life, it looks so dark: + [Greek: Skias onar]--dream of a shadow, go-- + God bless you. I shall join you in a day. + + +TO EDMUND LUSHINGTON + +ON HIS MARRIAGE WITH CECILIA TENNYSON + + O true and tried, so well and long, + Demand not thou a marriage lay; + In that it is thy marriage day + Is music more than any song. + + Nor have I felt so much of bliss + Since first he told me that he loved + A daughter of our house; nor proved + Since that dark day a day like this; + + Tho' I since then have number'd o'er + Some thrice three years: they went and came, + Remade the blood and changed the frame, + And yet is love not less, but more; + + No longer caring to embalm + In dying songs a dead regret, + But like a statue solid-set, + And moulded in colossal calm. + + Regret is dead, but love is more + Than in the summers that are flown, + For I myself with these have grown + To something greater than before; + + Which makes appear the songs I made + As echoes out of weaker times, + As half but idle brawling rhymes, + The sport of random sun and shade. + + But where is she, the bridal flower, + That must be made a wife ere noon? + She enters, glowing like the moon + Of Eden on its bridal bower: + + On me she bends her blissful eyes + And then on thee; they meet thy look + And brighten like the star that shook + Betwixt the palms of paradise. + + O when her life was yet in bud, + He too foretold the perfect rose. + For thee she grew, for thee she grows + For ever, and as fair as good. + + And thou art worthy; full of power; + As gentle; liberal-minded, great, + Consistent; wearing all that weight + Of learning lightly like a flower. + + But now set out: the noon is near, + And I must give away the bride; + She fears not, or with thee beside + And me behind her, will not fear. + + For I that danced her on my knee, + And watch'd her on her nurse's arm, + That shielded all her life from harm + At last must part with her to thee; + + Now waiting to be made a wife, + Her feet, my darling, on the dead; + Their pensive tablets round her head, + And the most living words of life + + Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, + The "wilt thou" answer'd, and again + The "wilt thou" ask'd, till out of twain + Her sweet "I will" has made you one. + + Now sign your names, which shall be read, + Mute symbols of a joyful morn, + By village eyes as yet unborn; + The names are sign'd, and overhead + + Begins the clash and clang that tells + The joy to every wandering breeze; + The blind wall rocks, and on the trees + The dead leaf trembles to the bells. + + O happy hour, and happier hours + Await them. Many a merry face + Salutes them--maidens of the place, + That pelt us in the porch with flowers. + + O happy hour, behold the bride + With him to whom her hand I gave. + They leave the porch, they pass the grave + That has to-day its sunny side. + + To-day the grave is bright for me, + For them the light of life increased, + Who stay to share the morning feast, + Who rest to-night beside the sea. + + Let all my genial spirits advance + To meet and greet a whiter sun; + My drooping memory will not shun + The foaming grape of eastern France. + + It circles round, and fancy plays, + And hearts are warm'd and faces bloom, + As drinking health to bride and groom + We wish them store of happy days. + + Nor count me all to blame if I + Conjecture of a stiller guest, + Perchance, perchance, among the rest, + And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. + + But they must go, the time draws on, + And those white-favour'd horses wait; + They rise, but linger; it is late; + Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. + + A shade falls on us like the dark + From little cloudlets on the grass, + But sweeps away as out we pass + To range the woods, to roam the park, + + Discussing how their courtship grew, + And talk of others that are wed, + And how she look'd, and what he said, + And back we come at fall of dew. + + Again the feast, the speech, the glee, + The shade of passing thought, the wealth + Of words and wit, the double health, + The crowning cup, the three-times-three, + + And last the dance;--till I retire: + Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, + And high in heaven the streaming cloud, + And on the downs a rising fire: + + And rise, O moon, from yonder down, + Till over down and over dale + All night the shining vapour sail + And pass the silent-lighted town, + + The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, + And catch at every mountain head, + And o'er the friths that branch and spread + Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; + + And touch with shade the bridal doors, + With tender gloom the roof, the wall; + And breaking let the splendour fall + To spangle all the happy shores + + By which they rest, and ocean sounds, + And, star and system rolling past, + A soul shall draw from out the vast + And strike his being into bounds, + + And, moved thro' life of lower phase, + Result in man, be born and think, + And act and love, a closer link + Betwixt us and the crowning race + + Of those that, eye to eye, shall look + On knowledge; under whose command + Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand + Is Nature like an open book; + + No longer half-akin to brute, + For all we thought and loved and did, + And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed + Of what in them is flower and fruit; + + Whereof the man, that with me trod + This planet, was a noble type + Appearing ere the times were ripe, + That friend of mine who lives in God, + + That God, which ever lives and loves, + One God, one law, one element, + And one far-off divine event, + To which the whole creation moves. + + +CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER + +_Midnight, June 30, 1879_ + + I + + Midnight--in no midsummer tune + The breakers lash the shores: + The cuckoo of a joyless June + Is calling out of doors: + + And thou hast vanish'd from thine own + To that which looks like rest, + True brother, only to be known + By those who love thee best. + + + II + + Midnight--and joyless June gone by, + And from the deluged park + The cuckoo of a worse July + Is calling thro' the dark: + + But thou art silent underground, + And o'er thee streams the rain, + True poet, surely to be found + When Truth is found again. + + + III + + And, now to these unsummer'd skies + The summer bird is still, + Far off a phantom cuckoo cries + From out a phantom hill; + + And thro' this midnight breaks the sun + Of sixty years away, + The light of days when life begun, + The days that seem to-day, + + When all my griefs were shared with thee, + As all my hopes were thine-- + As all thou wert was one with me, + May all thou art be mine! + + + + +[Illustration: EDMUND LUSHINGTON (Who married Cecilia Tennyson, and was +Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow).] + + +TENNYSON AND LUSHINGTON + +By Sir HENRY CRAIK, K.C.B., M.P. + + +Amongst the group of men attached to Lord Tennyson by bonds of early and +life-long friendship, and of reverent affection, there is none in whose +case the tie is surrounded with more of peculiar interest than Edmund +Lushington. Those who in later years were privileged to know the Poet's +brother-in-law, and learned to appreciate his character, could well +understand the closeness of the sympathy between them. + +Edmund Law Lushington was the son of Edmund Henry Lushington, who at one +time held important office in Ceylon. The eldest of four[15] gifted +brothers, Edmund was born on the 10th of January 1811. The family house +was, at first, at Hanwell, from which, some years later, they moved to +Park House, near Maidstone. That continued to be the home to which Edmund +Lushington returned at every break in his work at Glasgow, and was his +permanent residence from his retirement in 1875 until his death on the +13th of July 1893. Young Lushington went to Charterhouse School, and +there--as afterwards for a time at Trinity--he had Thackeray as his +contemporary. To the friendship thus early begun Thackeray, in long after +years, paid a gracious tribute in _The Virginians_, where he cites the +Professor at Glasgow and one at Cambridge (W. H. Thompson) as scholars who +could more than hold their own against the great names of older days. + +As his junior at Trinity, Lushington had at first no acquaintance with +Tennyson, and he has himself told us how he first came to know him by +sight, when Arthur Hallam declaimed his prize essay in the College Chapel, +and Tennyson sat on the bench just below listening intently to the words +of his friend. Already Tennyson's name was well known in the University; +many of his poems were handed about in manuscript, and the rank to which +they were entitled was a topic of discussion in College societies. It was +only after two years at Cambridge that Lushington's friendship with +Tennyson began, and as joint members of the "Apostles'" Society they were +thrown into close intercourse. In 1832 Lushington was Senior Classic in a +notable list, which contained also the names of Shilleto, the famous +coach; Alford, afterwards Dean of Canterbury and Biblical commentator; and +William Hepworth Thompson, afterwards Master of Trinity. Six years later, +in 1838, he was chosen as Professor of Greek in Glasgow from a field which +comprised competitors so notable as Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord +Sherbrooke, and Archibald Campbell Tait, afterwards Archbishop of +Canterbury. As bearing on this we may quote--as a specimen of his quaint +and kindly humour--a letter which Lushington wrote to Tennyson from +Addington Park, where he was staying on a visit to the Archbishop on +October 13, 1880: + + On Monday there came on a visit Lord Sherbrooke (R. Lowe).... It was + good that yesterday morning one pony chaise held three men who, + forty-two years ago, were regarded as rival candidates for the Greek + Chair at Glasgow, whereby you will at once admit the cogency of the + argument that if I had not become Greek Professor I should probably + have been either Archbishop of Canterbury or Chancellor of the + Exchequer--possibly both, as no doubt in old times the same back has + borne both offices. + +This appointment, which banished young Lushington from all the scenes of +his early days, did not break the friendship with Tennyson, which had +quickly ripened into closest intimacy. In 1840 Tennyson came to visit at +Park House,--still Lushington's home during the long summer vacation,--and +in 1842 he was present at that festival of the Maidstone Institute which +is described in the opening verses of "The Princess." The same summer saw +the bond drawn tighter by the marriage of Lushington to the Poet's +youngest and best-loved sister, Cecilia. It is that marriage which is +acclaimed in immortal words in the Epilogue to "In Memoriam," and the +tribute there paid to the bridegroom is one which comes home to all who +knew him, as a faithful epitome of his personality: + + And thou art worthy; full of power; + As gentle, liberal-minded, great, + Consistent; wearing all that weight + Of learning lightly like a flower. + +The marriage became one link more in that enduring friendship. Those who +knew Mrs. Lushington in later years--when jet-black hair and brilliant +clearness of complexion were still marvellously preserved--can easily +picture her earlier beauty, which must have had much of that "profile like +that on a coin"--which, we are told, was characteristic of Emily, the +betrothed of Arthur Hallam. Mrs. Lushington had a fine contralto voice, +with something of the music that one felt in the Poet's rich tones.[16] +She was a charming and even a brilliant companion, and, when in good +health, enjoyed society. But Glasgow College--as it was then generally +called, amidst the murky surroundings of its old site, close to the +reeking slums of the New Vennel--was an abode little fitted for one +accustomed to warmer suns and more congenial scenes. Mrs. Lushington's +health was grievously broken, and the northern chills and fogs told +heavily on her spirits. She could rarely join her husband at Glasgow, and +it became necessary for him, during the session which lasted through the +six winter months, to take a house in Edinburgh and rejoin his wife only +for week-ends. Attached as Lushington was to his home and his family, the +burden of ill-health that lay heavily on his household was a grievous one. +It caused him much anxiety. Long pain often racked the nerves and dulled +the bright spirit of his wife; his only son died after a long and painful +illness, and took the light from his life; a daughter followed that son to +the grave; and his brother Henry,[17] whose brilliant poetic gifts had +been fully proved in the volume of poems entitled _Points of War_, which +he wrote in conjunction with his brother Franklin, died at Paris in the +fulness of his powers. He learned, as he writes in one of his letters to +Tennyson, that "the roots of love and sorrow are verily twined together +abysmally deep." But never once, in all his letters, or in any of his +views of his fellow-men, did grief or sorrow drive him into bitterness or +cynicism, or make him bate a jot of his calm and reverent fortitude or of +his deep and generous charity to his fellow-men. + +Throughout that long life, sustained by great thoughts, enriched by wide +and varied learning, and blessed by ties of closest affection, Lushington +preserved consistently the ideals of the early days, and remained to the +last the same strong yet gentle friend, at once generous in admiration and +judicial in criticism, that he had been when Tennyson drew his portrait in +those immortal lines. We know what were the interests and tastes of these +early days. Dean Bradley, in his reminiscences of visits to Park House in +1841 and 1842, tells us how the brothers, and especially the +Professor--"Uncle Edmund"--seemed as much at home in the language of the +Greek dramatists as if it was their native tongue; and the present writer +remembers how, fifty years later, he heard Lord Tennyson recall the +quotation from the _Ecclesiazousae_, by which one or other of the +brothers, on an occasion at Park House which must have been almost +contemporaneous with the Dean's reminiscences, marked the propensity of +the ladies of the party to assiduous attendance at Church. Dean Bradley +remarks how remote was their outlook on the world from that of the Oxford +of his time, dominated by the Tractarian movement. Tolerance, breadth of +view, balanced judgment, and deep reverence for all that was noblest in +human thought and achievement--these gave the keynote to their minds and +energies. Partisanship, sectarian controversy, ecclesiastical disputes, +seemed to belong to an alien world. + +To those who knew him as Professor at Glasgow the secret of Lushington's +influence was not far to seek. He came there into surroundings singularly +unlike those of his earlier days, and with little to compensate in their +grimy aspect for the beauty of his home and the hallowed associations of +Trinity. It was not long before he had attuned himself to the scene of his +new work, and gathered about him a circle of cherished friends, and had +won the respect and regard of the great body of these Scottish students +drawn from every class. For those who were touched by his enthusiastic +love of the Greek language and its literature, his influence was something +far deeper. He made no stirring appeals, and followed no startling +methods. His perfect courtesy, combined with a firmness which needed no +emphasis of manner to assert itself, sufficed to maintain absolute order +amongst those large classes whose traditions made them not always amenable +to discipline. But for those to whom his teaching was something of an +inspiration, there was much more in his personality than this. Consummate +dignity, combined with absolute simplicity of manner, a voice rich and +melodious in tone, a diction graceful and harmonious but never studied or +artificial--these, with a massive head and features of almost ideal +beauty, made him a figure in the life of the College, deepened the +impression of his calm and reverent enthusiasm for all that was noblest in +thought and language, and gave to his influence an abiding force +throughout the lifetime of his pupils. He offered no ready intimacy, and +sought to form no following. But his words, few and well chosen, made +themselves felt as pure gold, and a sentence of praise or of sympathy sank +into the heart, and brought to life and work something that stirred +reverence and enthusiasm. His work planted its root deeply, and sought for +no outward recognition. It was only after his long career at Glasgow ended +by his retirement in 1875 that what he had achieved in reviving an ideal +of Greek scholarship was felt; and it was abiding enough to make him the +choice of the students for an honour, rarely accorded to a former +Professor--that of election as Lord Rector of the University in 1884. He +pursued the even tenor of his way with no thought of self-aggrandizement; +only slowly did that absolute modesty, linked with unassailable dignity, +make itself felt as a power, radiating into the hearts of others his own +illuminating enthusiasm for the ideals of noblest literature. + +No poet could have had, bound to him by ties of closest affection, a +critic more sympathetic, more reverent, and withal, more faithful in his +appreciation. In the genius of Tennyson, he found the central joy and +pride of his life; but his judgment was the more valuable, in that it was +at all times absolutely sincere: + + "You took my criticism on 'Maud' like an angel," he writes in 1856, + "which was very good indeed of you. I wish only you could be as glad + whenever I thoroughly admire your poems, as I am sorry whenever I + cannot." + +One reference to a hint of criticism in a letter of June 1857, after the +publication of the early Idylls "Enid" and "Nimue (Vivien)" is not without +interest. Lushington writes to Tennyson: + + I am very much grieved if anything that I wrote distrest you. I said + it all in love, and only my love could have prompted me to say it. My + tenderness for your fame will not let me be silent when I fear + anything that may cast a shade upon it, and few things can be more + certain to me than that these two poems, coming out by themselves, + would not receive their due of admiration. It would be quite different + if they were, as I hope they will be, supported by others of varied + matter and interest, giving more completeness and beauty of circular + grouping and relation. Such a work I want you to produce, and believe + you can, which would surpass all you have written yet. + +The Idylls always had a peculiar interest for Lushington, and he had long +encouraged their production. "I am beyond measure delighted," he writes in +1856, "to hear of Merlin and his compeers"; and again in the same year, +and in his deepest pangs of anxiety about his boy, he does not forget the +wish, "All genial inspiration from home breezes come to 'Enid.'" "Is +anything of the Arthurian plan getting into shape?" he writes again in +1859. He was fervent in his admiration of the Dedication to Prince Albert +of the new edition of the Idylls in 1862: "Its truth and loftiness and +tenderness will be felt in a hundred years as much as now." "Anything of +our own Arthur?" he writes again in 1866, "That's the true subject." + +His letters (published and unpublished) to Tennyson convey not only the +picture of a circle knit by warmest affection, but estimates of others +always generous, and sometimes warm with enthusiastic admiration. Carlyle +he met at Edinburgh in 1866, and was "struck with the beauty and sweetness +of his face; through all its grimness ... there seems to be an infinite +freshness of spirit with infinite sadness. His laugh is exactly like a +boy's." In 1856 he writes: "Have you seen Browning's new volumes? I have +been trying to construe them, and no gold had ever to be digged out +through more stubborn rocks. But he is a poet as well as good fellow." + +Through all these long years, with their vicissitudes of joy and sorrow, +their long partings, and amid varied and widely separate occupations, the +friendship remained as fresh as in the early days, an association of +common delight in all that was noblest in literature, inspired by a bond +of deepest poetic sympathy. To those who knew and venerated Lushington, it +might seem that his deep and abiding reverence for the genius of one knit +to him, as Tennyson was, by more than a brother's love, had in it +something which inspired him in his work, and came in place of all thought +of personal ambition. His learning enriched his life, and gave to his work +as teacher its perfection and its illumination; but it never prompted him +to publication, and he gave nothing to the press under his own name except +his opening address as professor, his address to the students as Lord +Rector, and a short Life of his friend Professor Ferrier, whose posthumous +works he edited. In the one friendship he found the chief solace of his +life. In the last letter addressed to Tennyson on the anniversary of his +birthday, August 6, 1892--only three months before the Poet's +death--Lushington wrote: + + May the day be blest to you and all who are dear to you, and may the + year bring more blessing as it goes forward, must be the warm wish of + all who have felt the knowledge of you and your writings to be among + the greatest blessings of their life. Year after year my deep love and + admiration has grown, though I have not often of late had the + opportunity of expressing it, as we now so seldom meet. But I think + you know how largely indebted to you I feel for whatever is best and + truest in myself--a debt one cannot hope to repay. + +No better picture of the friendship could be given than that enshrined in +these words. Lushington survived Tennyson less than a year. + + + + +TENNYSON, FITZGERALD, CARLYLE, AND OTHER FRIENDS + +By Dr. WARREN, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and now Professor of +Poetry + + Old Fitz, who from your suburb grange, + Where once I tarried for a while, + Glance at the wheeling Orb of change, + And greet it with a kindly smile; + Whom yet I see as there you sit + Beneath your sheltering garden-tree + And watch your doves about you flit, + And plant on shoulder, hand, and knee, + Or on your head their rosy feet, + As if they knew your diet spares + Whatever moved in that full sheet + Let down to Peter at his prayers. + + * * * * * + + And so I send a birthday line + Of greeting; and my son, who dipt + In some forgotten book of mine + With sallow scraps of manuscript, + And dating many a year ago, + Has hit on this, which you will take + My Fitz, and welcome, as I know + Less for its own than for the sake + Of one recalling gracious times, + When, in our younger London days, + You found some merit in my rhymes, + And I more pleasure in your praise. + To E. FITZGERALD (_Tiresias and other Poems_, p. 1). + + +Alfred Tennyson and Edward FitzGerald; _In Memoriam_ and _The Rubáiyát of +Omar Khayyám_; "The Eternal Yea" and "The Eternal No," "the larger hope" +and "the desperate sort of thing unfortunately at the bottom of all +thinking men's minds, made Music of"--few friendships, few conjunctions, +personal or literary, could be more interesting or more piquant. + +What adds to the interest of the friendship is that it remained so long +unknown to the literary or the general world, and is even now, perhaps, +only partially appreciated. Yet it subsisted for nearly fifty years. It +was close and constant. Though, as time went on, the two friends met less +and less often, it was maintained by a steady interchange of letters and +messages. The letters were naturally more on FitzGerald's side. Like most, +though not perhaps quite all good letter-writers, FitzGerald was a great +letter-writer. He was, as he often said, an idle man, and as he also said, +he rather liked writing letters, "unlike most Englishmen (but I am +Irish)," he added. Indeed, he seemed almost to prefer communication with +his friends by letter to personal meetings, though these he enjoyed +greatly when brought to the point. + +Tennyson and FitzGerald were old friends, born in the same year, the +notable year 1809. It is true that though they were at Cambridge together +they were not then known to each other, except by sight. "I remember him +there well," said FitzGerald, speaking of Tennyson, "a sort of Hyperion." +They had many friendships, acquaintances, associations in common. Carlyle, +Thackeray, Spedding, Merivale, Trench, W. H. Thompson, J. D. Allen, W. B. +Donne, Brookfield, Cowell, Mrs. Kemble, Samuel Laurence, were known to +them both. In their formative years they fell under the same influences, +and read many of the same books. It was about 1835 that they became +acquainted. They were brought together probably by their common and +uncommon friend, James Spedding. They certainly met at his father's house, +Mirehouse, near Bassenthwaite Lake, in the spring of 1835. + +Tennyson had begun writing "In Memoriam" a little before this, _i.e._ +early in 1834, soon after his friend Hallam's sudden death and sad +home-bringing in the winter of 1833. He kept it on the stocks, as all +know, for some seventeen years. It was published, at first anonymously, in +1850. The secret of its authorship was soon revealed, the poem found +immediate acceptance and popularity. It became and has remained one of the +most widely read poems in the language. In the meantime Tennyson, though +not so famous as "In Memoriam" made him, had become well known through the +1842 volumes. + +FitzGerald, on the contrary, was at that time quite unknown, except by his +friendships, and to his friends. An Irishman, with the easygoing and +_dolce far niente_ qualities which so often temper the brilliant genius of +that race, sufficiently provided with means, he was naturally inclined for +a quiet and easy, not to say indolent life. He deliberately chose from the +first the _fallentis semita vitae_. He had some literary ambitions, and he +wrote a few early poems, one or two of rare promise and beauty. One gift +in particular was his--not, it is true, always leading him to action, yet +in its passive or dynamic form constant and abundant almost to +excess--loyalty in friendship. Once and fatally, it led him to take or +submit to a positive step. He had been the attached friend of Bernard +Barton the Quaker poet, the friend of Charles Lamb. When Barton died, from +a mistaken sense of duty, FitzGerald not only collected his poems, a task +more pious than profitable, but afterward, having meanwhile hesitated and +halted too long in offering himself to one who was his real love, married +his daughter who was not this. He left her, not indeed as is sometimes +said, on the morrow of the wedding, but after separations and repeated +attempts--in town and country--at reunion, and lived, as he had done +before, alone and somewhat drearily ever afterwards. + +Speculation has busied itself about his unfortunate marriage. The +briefest but also the best pronouncement is probably his own letter +written at the time to Mrs. Tennyson: + + 31 PORTLAND STREET, LONDON, + _March 19th, 1858_. + + DEAR MRS. TENNYSON--My married life has come to an end: I am back + again in the old quarters, living as for the last thirty years--only + so much older, sadder, uglier, and worse!--If people want to go + further for the cause of this blunder, than the fact of two people of + very determined habits and temper first trying to change them at close + on fifty--they may lay nine-tenths of the blame on me. I don't want to + talk more of the matter, but one must say something. + +The old life to which he returned was monotonous, recluse, unconventional. +He spent most of his days in East Anglia, an unromantic region, yet not +unbeautiful or wanting a charm of its own; in summer emerging into the +sunshine, sitting on a chair in his garden as Tennyson's poem paints him, +or on another chair on the deck of his boat, coasting the shores, or +sailing up and down the creeks and estuaries with which that country +abounds; in winter crouching over the fire, and in either chair smoking +and endlessly reading. + +In the earlier part of his life he moved about from one home to another, +though never very far. In 1860 he settled down at Woodbridge in Suffolk, a +pleasant, old-fashioned, provincial town, a sort of East Anglian Totnes, +where the Deben, like the more famous Dart, seems to issue from a doorway +of close-guarding hills to meet the salt tide, and begins the last stage +of its cheerful journey to the open sea. + +Just before this, in January of 1859, FitzGerald printed a small edition +of a translation of a poem by a Persian astronomer, who died about 1123 +A.D. The whole production of this famous piece seemed almost an accident. +FitzGerald had been introduced, some half-dozen years earlier, to the +study of Persian by his friend Mr. E. B. Cowell, a brother East Anglian, +then in business in Ipswich. Cowell, wishing to pursue his studies further +and take a Degree, went in 1851 as a married and somewhat mature student +to Oxford, and there, in the Bodleian Library, came on a rare MS. of the +"Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám." It is a beautiful little volume, written upon +parchment sprinkled with gold dust, in a fine black ink, with blue +headings, gold divisions, and delicate Oriental illuminations in blue, +gold, and green, at the beginning and the end, and is the earliest known +MS. of the poem, dating from 1450 A.D. Of this he made a copy for +FitzGerald, who kept it by him, and gradually produced a translation, if +not rather a paraphrase. "I also amuse myself," he wrote in December 1853, +"with poking out some Persian which E. Cowell would inaugurate me with. I +go on with it because it is a point in common with him and enables me to +study a little together." + +In 1858 he had got his version into a shape somewhat to his mind, and sent +it to _Fraser's Magazine_. It was kept for about a year, when FitzGerald +asked for it back, and had 250 copies printed early in 1859. He gave away +a few and sent the rest to Quaritch. + +What ensued is one of the curiosities of literature. FitzGerald did not +expect any success or vogue for the work. True, he had toiled at it. "Very +few People," he said, "have ever taken such Pains in Translation as I +have; though certainly not to be literal." And when he had finished he +liked "to make an end of the matter by print." But that was all. "I hardly +know," he added, "why I print any of these things which nobody buys." + +Quaritch, as FitzGerald expected, found no sale for _Omar_. He reduced the +price from five shillings to one shilling, and then to one penny. Rossetti +heard of it through Whitley Stokes, and showed it to Swinburne. They were +attracted by it and bought sixpenny-worth. Quaritch raised his price to +twopence. They carried off a few more, and the rest, a little later, were +eagerly bought up at a guinea or more apiece. Yet the poem remained long +known to very few. Quaritch published a second edition, again a small one, +nine years later in 1868, and four years later still, a third small +edition in 1872, and in 1879 a fourth edition, including Salámán and +Absál. The third edition came out just about the time I was going to +Oxford as an undergraduate, and it was then that I first heard of it +through J. A. Symonds and H. G. Dakyns, who gave me in 1874 a copy which +Symonds had presented to him, and which I still possess. Even at Oxford I +found only a few, either graduates or undergraduates, who heeded it or +knew anything about it. Professor Henry Smith was the only senior I can +remember who spoke to me about it, telling me of the previous editions, +and praising its merits one day as we turned it over together in Parker's +shop. But stealthily and underground it made its way. Edition followed +edition, with increasing rapidity. Suddenly it became ubiquitously +popular, and it is now certainly one of the best-known pieces of the kind +in the language. Messrs. Macmillan put it, in 1899, after a dozen times +reprinting it, into their Golden Treasury Series. They had to reprint +three times in that year, and this edition has been in constant demand. +But there are ever so many others. The poem has been reproduced in a +hundred forms, both in England and America, illustrated, illuminated, +decorated, annotated. A reprint of the first edition is once more sold for +a penny. It has been translated into Latin verse. There is a Concordance +to it. A whole literature has sprung up around it. An "Omar Khayyam Club" +was founded in 1892. Pious pilgrimages have been made to the translator's +tomb, and Omar's roses planted over it, and verses recited in celebration +of both poet and poem. + +Of all this immense vogue and success, as his letters show, FitzGerald +himself never dreamed. Even when in 1885 Tennyson published, as the +dedication of _Tiresias and other Poems_, the lines "To E. FitzGerald," +the translator of _Omar_ was still, for most readers, "a veiled prophet." +To-day, when the poem has become one of the utterances of the century, +lovers of paradox have even ventured to hint that instead of FitzGerald +being known as the friend of Tennyson, Tennyson might be known hereafter +as the friend of FitzGerald. + +FitzGerald is certainly known on his own account. The publication of his +letters by his loyal old friend, Dr. Aldis Wright, revealed the man +himself to the world. The publication of Tennyson's Life by his son aided +the process. Every one will remember the part which FitzGerald plays +there, beginning with the meeting at James Spedding's house in the Lakes +in 1835, his early enthusiastic admiration, when he fell in love both with +the man and his poems, and then his ever-constant friendship, tempered by +grumbling, and what appears sometimes almost grudging criticism. He became +the friend, it must be remembered, not only of Alfred, but of the whole +family, and especially of Frederick, the eldest brother. "All the +Tennysons are to be wished well," he says in a letter of 1845. Though he +affected to think little of society and hated snobbery as much as Tennyson +or his other friend Thackeray himself, he greatly admired the better +qualities of the English gentry, and had even a kindly weakness for their +foibles. When Frederick went to live in Italy he wrote: "I love that such +men as Frederick should be abroad: so strong, haughty, and passionate." + +When FitzGerald first met Alfred, the poetic family was still living on at +Somersby after their father's death. He went there and fell in love with +their mother, and with their mode of life, and with the region, where +"there were not only such good seas, but such fine Hill and Dale among the +Wolds as people in general scarce thought on." It was characteristic of +him that he used to say that Alfred should never have left Lincolnshire. + +FitzGerald kept up the friendship mainly, as he did most of his +friendships, by letter. In particular, he made a point of writing to the +Alfred Tennysons twice a year, once in the summer and again about +Christmas time. He addressed himself sometimes to the Poet himself, +sometimes to Mrs. Tennyson, and in later days to their eldest son. To +Frederick Tennyson, who went to live in Italy, as the readers of Dr. Aldis +Wright's volume will remember, he wrote a whole series of letters, many of +them very long and full. Of all these letters--to his father, his mother, +himself, and his uncle--the present Lord Tennyson has placed a collection +in my hands for the purpose of this article. The story of the friendship +which it is an attempt to sketch will best be told by pretty full +quotations from them. Many of them, and indeed most of those to his father +and mother, are now published for the first time. + +FitzGerald did not always succeed, and indeed did not expect to succeed, +in drawing a reply from Tennyson himself. In a letter written in the +summer of 1860 to Mrs. Tennyson he makes a very amusing reference to this, +and also throws some light on his own habits: + + Thank old Alfred for his letter which was an unexpected pleasure. I + like to hear of him and you once or twice in the year: but I know he + is no dab at literature at any time, poor fellow. "Paltry Poet"--Let + him believe it is anything but want of love for him that keeps me out + of the Isle of Wight: nor is it indolence neither.--But to say _what + it is_ would make me write too much about myself. Only let him believe + what I _do_ say. + +Their relations were always of this playful, intimate kind, resting on +long acquaintance. If FitzGerald was amused by "Alfred," Tennyson, on the +other hand, was well used to his old friend's humour. When we spoke about +him, he dwelt, I recollect, on this particular trait, and told me, to +illustrate it, the story which is now, I think, pretty well known, how, +when some common acquaintance had bored them with talking about his titled +friends, "Old Fitz," as at last he took up his candle to go to bed, turned +to Tennyson and said, quietly and quaintly, "I knew a Lord once, but he's +dead." + +When Tennyson spoke of _Omar_ he said, what he has said in verse, that he +admired it greatly: + + Than which I know no version done + In English more divinely well; + A planet equal to the sun + Which cast it. + +But of course he was aware that it was by no means always faithful to the +original. It is indeed a liberal, rather than a literal translation--how +liberal, all know who have been at the pains to compare FitzGerald's poem +with any of the many literal versions to which it has given rise. + +In quite the early Twickenham days, just after their marriage, he would +invite himself to dine or stay with Tennyson and his wife, nay more, would +ask to bring friends to see them, such as the Cowells and W. B. Donne. In +1854 he stayed at Farringford for a fortnight, a visit he always +remembered, and often referred to, with pleasure. Together he and Tennyson +worked at Persian. He also sketched, and botanized with the Poet. But he +could not be got to repeat the visit; and indeed, as he said himself, it +was the last of the kind he paid anywhere, except to Mrs. Kemble. When he +reached London, just after this visit, he wrote to Tennyson: + + 60 LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, + _June 15th, 1854_. + + MY DEAR ALFRED--I called at Quaritch's to look for another Persian + Dictionary. I see he has a copy of Eastwick's Gulistan for _ten + shillings_: a translation (not Eastwick's, however, but one quite + sufficient for the purpose) can be had for five shillings. Would you + like me to buy them and send them down to you by the next friend who + travels your way: or will you wait till some good day I can lend you + _my_ Eastwick (which is now at Oxford)? I could mark some of the + pieces which I think it might not offend you to read: though you will + not care greatly for anything in it. + + Oh, such an atmosphere as I am writing in!--Yours, + + E. F. G. + + I left my little Swedenborg at Farringford. Please keep it for me, as + it was a gift from my sister. + +The note of the letters is always the same--warm affection, deep +underlying admiration and regard, superficial banter and play of humour, +and humorous, half-grumbling criticism. When they met face to face, after +being parted for twenty years, they fell at once into exactly the old +vein. FitzGerald was surprised at this, but he need not have been. Both +were the sincerest and most natural of men, and nothing but distance and +absence had occurred to sever them. + +From the first he had conceived an intense and almost humble-minded +admiration for Alfred. One of his earliest utterances describes his +feelings, and strikes, with his keen critical perception, the true note. +"I will say no more of Tennyson," he wrote, "than that the more I have +seen of him, the more cause I have to think him great. His little humours +and grumpinesses were so droll that I was always laughing,--I must, +however say further, that I felt, what Charles Lamb describes, a sense of +depression at times from the over-shadowing of a so much more lofty +intellect than my own--_I could not be mistaken in the universality of his +mind_." + +His descriptions in _Euphranor_, published some sixteen years later, of +"the only living and like to live poet he had known," tell the same tale. +They speak of Tennyson's union of passion and strength. "As King Arthur +shall bear witness, no young Edwin he, though as a great Poet +comprehending all the softer stops of human Emotion in that Register where +the Intellectual, no less than what is called the Poetical, faculty +predominated. As all who knew him know, a Man at all points, +Euphranor--like your Digby, of grand proportion and feature...." + +There was no one for whose opinion he had so much regard, grumble though +he might, and criticize as he would. He had a special preference for the +poems at whose production he had assisted, which he had seen in MS., or +heard rehearsed orally. Toward the later poems his feeling was not the +same. The following extracts are all equally characteristic: + + MARKETHILL, WOODBRIDGE, + _November 20th, 1861_. + + MY DEAR OLD ALFRED--It gives me a strange glow of pleasure when I come + upon your verses, as I now do in every other book I take up, with no + name of author, as every other person knows whose they are. I love to + light on the verses for their own sake, and to remember having heard + nearly all I care for--and what a lot that is!--from your own lips. + + + MARKETHILL, WOODBRIDGE, + _December 14th, 1862_. + + MY DEAR OLD ALFRED--Christmas coming reminds me of my half-yearly call + on you. + + I have, as usual, nothing to tell of myself: boating all the summer + and reading Clarissa Harlowe since. You and I used to talk of the Book + more than twenty years ago. I believe I am better read in it than + almost any one in existence now--No wonder: for it is almost + intolerably tedious and absurd--But I can't read the "Adam Bedes," + "Daisy Chains," etc., at all. I look at my row of Sir Walter Scott and + think with comfort that I can always go to him of a winter evening, + when no other book comes to hand. + + + _To Frederick Tennyson._ + + _November 15th, 1874._ + + I wrote my yearly letter to Mrs. Alfred a fortnight ago, I think; but + as yet have had no answer. Some Newspaper people make fun of a Poem of + Alfred's, the "Voice and the Peak," I think: giving morsels of which + of course one could not judge. But I think he had better have done + singing: he has sung well--_tempus silere_, etc. + +But his love for the man and his underlying belief in his opinion and +genius never varied. "I don't think of you so little, my dear old Alfred," +he wrote one day in the middle of their friendship, "but rejoice in the +old poems and in yourself, young or old, and worship you (I may say) as I +do no other man, and am glad I can worship one man still." + +His delight when he found that Alfred had really liked _Omar_ was +unusually _naïf_ and keen. He forgot his grumbling, and wrote to Mrs. +Tennyson: + + _To Mrs. Tennyson._ + + _November 4/67._ + + To think of Alfred's approving my old Omar! I never should have + thought he even knew of it. Certainly _I_ should never have sent it to + him, always supposing that he would not approve anything but a literal + Prose translation--unless from such hands as can do original work and + therefore do _not_ translate other People's! Well: now I have got + Nicolas and sent a copy to Cowell, and when he is at liberty again we + shall beat up old Omar's Quarters once more. + + I'll tell you a very pretty Book. Alfred Tennyson's Pastoral Poems, or + rather Rural Idylls (only I must hate the latter word) bound up in a + volume, Gardener's, Miller's, Daughters; Oak; Dora; Audley Court, etc. + + Oh the dear old 1842 days and editions! Spedding thinks I've shut up + my mind since. Not to "Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud." When I ask People + what Bird says that of an evening, they say "The Thrush." + + I wish you would make one of your Boys write out the "Property" Farmer + Idyll. Do now, pray. + + E. F. G. + +When he had first "discovered" Omar, and was beginning to work upon him, +Tennyson (who was then finishing the early "Idylls of the King") had been +one of the first to whom he wrote. It is worth remembering that FitzGerald +was then in deep depression. It was the middle of the sad period of his +brief, unhappy married life. This had proved a failure in London. It was +proving a failure now in the country. He wrote: + + GORLESTONE, GREAT YARMOUTH, + _July 1857_. + + MY DEAR OLD ALFRED--Please direct the enclosed to Frederick. I wrote + him some months ago getting Parker to direct; but have had no reply. + _You_ won't write to me, at which I can't wonder. I keep hoping for + King Arthur--or part of him. I have got here to the seaside--a dirty, + Dutch-looking sea, with a dusty Country in the rear; but the place is + not amiss for one's Yellow Leaf. I keep on reading foolish Persian + too: chiefly because of it's connecting me with the Cowells, now + besieged in Calcutta. But also I have really got hold of an old + Epicurean so desperately impious in his recommendations to live only + for _To-day_ that the good Mahometans have scarce dared to multiply + MSS. of him. He writes in little quatrains, and has scarce any of the + iteration and conceits to which his people are given. One of the last + things I remember of him is that--"God gave me this turn for drink, + perhaps God was drunk when he made me"--which is not strictly pious. + But he is very tender about his roses and wine, and making the most of + this poor little life. + + All which is very poor stuff you will say. Please to remember me to + the Lady. I don't know when I shall ever see you again; and yet you + can't think how often I wish to do so, and never forget you, and never + shall, my dear old Alfred, in spite of Epicurus. But I don't grow + merrier.--Yours ever, + + E. F. G. + +In 1872 he was busy with the _third_ edition of _Omar_, and wrote to +consult Tennyson. The first edition had contained only seventy-five +quatrains. The second was a good deal longer, containing one hundred and +ten. The third was again shortened to one hundred and one: + + WOODBRIDGE, _March 25th, 1872_. + + MY DEAR ALFRED--It would be impertinent in me to trouble you with a + question about _my_ grand Works. But, as you let me know (through Mrs. + T.) that you liked Omar, I want to know whether you read the _First_ + or _Second_ Edition; and, in case you saw _both, which you thought + best_? The reason of my asking you is that Quaritch (Publisher) has + found admirers in America who have almost bought up the whole of the + last enormous Edition--amounting to 200 copies, I think--so he wishes + to embark on 200 more, I suppose: and says that he, and his Readers, + like the first Edition best: so he would reprint these. + + Of course _I_ thought the second best: and I think so still: partly (I + fear) because the greater number of verses gave more time for the day + to pass from morning till night. + + Well, what I ask you to do is, to tell me which of the two is best, if + you have seen the two. If you have _not_, I won't ask you further:--if + you have, you can answer in two words. And your words would be more + than all the rest. + + This very little business is all I have eyes for now; except to write + myself once more ever your's and Mrs. Tennyson's, + + E. F. G. + +Another letter a little later refers to the same reprinting of _Omar_: + + MY DEAR ALFRED--I must thank you, as I ought, for your second note. + The best return I can make is _not_ to listen to Mrs. Tennyson's P.S., + which bids me send another Omar:--for I have only got Omar the Second, + I am sure now _you_ would not like him so well as the first (mainly + because of "too much"). I think he might disgust you with both. + + So though two lines from you would have done more to decide on his + third appearance (if Quaritch still wishes that), I will not put you + to that trouble, but do as I can alone--cutting out some, and + retaining some; and will send you the result if it comes into type. + + You used to talk of my crotchets: but I am quite sure you have one + little crotchet about this Omar: which deserves well in its way, but + not so well as you write of it. You know that though I do not think it + worth while to compete with you in your paltry poetical capacity, I + won't surrender in the critical, not always, at least. And, at any + rate, I have been more behind the scenes in this little matter than + you. But I do not the less feel your kindness in writing about it: for + I think you would generally give £100 sooner than write a letter. And + I am--Yours ever, + + E. F. G. + +The next year, in 1873, he wrote again, touching on the same theme and +others: + + DEAR MRS. TENNYSON--I remember Franklin Lushington perfectly--at + Farringford in 1854; almost the last visit I paid anywhere: and as + pleasant as any, after, or before. I have still some sketches I made + of the place: "Maud, Maud, Maud," etc., was then read to me, and has + rung in my ears ever after. Mr. Lushington, I remember, sketched also. + If he be with you still, please tell him that I hope his remembrance + of me is as pleasant as mine of him. + + I think I told you that Frederick came here in August, having (of + course) missed you on his way. The Mistress of Trinity wrote to me + some little while ago, telling me, among other things, that she, and + others, were much pleased with your son Hallam, whom they thought to + be like the "Paltry Poet" (poor fellow). + + The Paltry one's Portrait is put in a frame and hung up at my + _château_, where I talk to it sometimes, and every one likes to see + it. It is clumsy enough, to be sure; but it still recalls the old man + to me better than the bearded portraits[18] which are now the fashion. + + But oughtn't your Hallam to have it over his mantelpiece at Trinity? + + The first volume of Forster's Dickens has been read to me of a night, + making me love him, up to 30 years of age at any rate; till then, + quite unspoilt, even by his American triumphs, and full of good + humour, generosity, and energy. I wonder if Alfred remembers dining + at his house with Thackeray and me, me taken there, quite unaffected, + and seeming to wish any one to show off rather than himself. In the + evening we had a round game at cards and mulled claret. Does A. T. + remember? + + I have had my yearly letter from Carlyle, who writes of himself as + better than last year. He sends me a Mormon Newspaper, with a very + sensible sermon in it from the life of Brigham Young, as also the + account of a visit to a gentleman of Utah with eleven wives and near + forty children, all of whom were very happy together. I am just going + to send the paper to Archdeacon Allen to show him how they manage + these things over the Atlantic. + + About Omar I must say that _all_ the changes made in the last copy are + not to be attributed to my own perverseness; the same thought being + constantly repeated with directions, whether by Omar or others, in the + 500 quatrains going under his name. I had not eyes, nor indeed any + further appetite, to refer to the Original, or even to the French + Translation; but altered about the "Dawn of Nothing" as A. T. pointed + out its likeness to his better property.[19] I really didn't, and + don't, think it matters what changes are made in that Immortal Work + which is to last about five years longer. I believe it is the + strong-minded American ladies who have chiefly taken it up; but they + will soon have something wickeder to digest, I dare say. + + I am going to write out for Alfred a few lines from a _Finnish_ Poem + which I find quoted in Lowell's "Among my Books"--which I think a good + Book. But I must let my eyes rest now. + +In September 1876 a lucky chance brought Tennyson and himself face to face +again after twenty years. The Poet was travelling with his son, and +together they visited him at Woodbridge. They found him, as Tennyson +describes, in his garden at Little Grange. He was delighted to see them, +and specially pleased with the son's relation and attitude to his father. + +Together he and Tennyson walked about the garden and talked as of old. +When Tennyson complained of the multitude of poems which were sent him, +Old Fitz recommended him to imitate Charles Lamb and throw them into his +neighbour's cucumber frames. Tennyson noticed a number of small +sunflowers, with a bee half-dying--probably from the wet season--on each, +"Like warriors dying on their shields, Fitz," he said. He reverted, of +course, to his favourite Crabbe, and told the story of how Crabbe (when he +was a chaplain in the country) felt an irresistible longing to see the +sea, mounted a horse suddenly, rode thirty miles to the coast, saw it, and +rode back comforted. + +FitzGerald did not compliment them on their looks, because, he said, he +had always noticed men said, "How well you are looking!" whenever you were +going to be very ill. Therefore he had ceased saying it to any one. He +told, too, a story of a vision, how he had one day clearly seen from +outside his sister and her children having tea round the table in his +dining-room. He then saw his sister quietly withdraw from the room, so as +not to disturb the children. At that moment she died in Norfolk.[20] + +He wrote shortly after this visit to Tennyson: + + LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE, + _October 31st, 1876_. + + MY DEAR ALFRED--I am reading delightful Boccacio through once more, + escaping to it from the Eastern Question as the company he tells of + from the Plague. I thought of you yesterday when I came to the + Theodore and Honoria story, and read of Teodoro "_un mezzo meglio per + la pineta entrato_"--"More than a Mile immersed within the wood," as + you used to quote from Glorious John. This Decameron must be read in + its Italian, as my Don in his Spanish: the language fits either so + exactly. I am thinking of trying Faust in German, with Hayward's Prose + Translation. I never could take to it in any Shape yet: and--_don't + believe_ in it: which I suppose is a piece of Impudence. + + But neither this, nor _The Question_ are you called on to answer--much + use if I did call. But I am--always yours, + + E. F. G. + + When I thought of you and Boccacio, I was sitting in the Sun on that + same Iron Seat with the pigeons about us, and the Trees still in Leaf. + +One of the poems after 1842 which he liked was the "Ode on the Duke of +Wellington," though characteristically he made a somewhat fastidious +criticism on the "vocalization" of the opening. + + "I mumble over your old verses in my memory as often as any one's," he + wrote, "and was lately wishing you had found bigger vowels for the + otherwise fine opening of the Duke's Funeral: + + 'Twas at the Royal Feast for Persia won, etc. + (Dryden.) + + Bury the great Duke, etc. + (A. T.) + + So you see I am always the same crotchetty + + FITZ." + +The paradox is that it was FitzGerald who was always urging "Alfred" to go +on, and finding fault with him for not doing more, and not singing in +grander, sterner strains,--not becoming the Tyrtaeus of his country. In +truth, Tennyson's strength and physical force and his splendid appearance +in youth, added to his mental grandeur, seem to have deeply impressed his +youthful contemporaries. He was, they felt, heroic, and made for heroic +songs and deeds. When he did go on, in his own way, FitzGerald did not +like it, or only half liked it. For Tennyson did go forward on his own +lines. He had not a little to daunt and deter him. He, too, had his +sensitiveness and capacity for feeling and passion not less exquisite than +FitzGerald's own. FitzGerald said his friendships were more like loves. He +was not alone in this attitude. "What _passions_ our friendships were," +wrote Thackeray, another of the set, the early friend of both FitzGerald +and Tennyson. But of no friendship could such language be used more truly +than of that which existed between Tennyson and Arthur Hallam. When, +however, the sundering blow fell, and the friendship which was a love lay +shattered, Tennyson braced himself and went on. For + + It becomes no man to nurse despair, + But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms + To follow up the worthiest till he die. + +His faith, even to the last, was still at times dashed with doubt, for, +with "the universality of his mind," he could not help seeing many sides +of a question. But he "followed the Gleam," as he has himself described. +FitzGerald did the opposite. He drifted, he dallied, he delayed, he +despaired. He ruined his own life in great measure by his marriage. His +early ambitions seemed to wither prematurely, and he let his career slide. +Yet he was always, as Mr. A. C. Benson has excellently brought out, +admirable in his sincerity, his friendly kindliness, his innocence, his +conscientious adherence to his literary standards. Too much has been made +of his unconventionality, his slovenliness and slackness, his love of low +or common company. He remained a gentleman and a man of business. +Thackeray, a man of the world, when he was starting for America, wanted to +leave him the legal guardian of his daughters. He was an Epicurean, not a +Pyrrhonist. He took life seriously. He showed at times an austerity of +spirit which was surprising. His _Omar_ has often, and naturally, been +compared to Lucretius and to Ecclesiastes. There is probably more of +Lucretius about the poem, but more of Ecclesiastes about the translator. + +There is another Epicurean, with whose tenets he might have been thought +to show even more sympathy--the easy-going poet-critic Horace. _Vitae +summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam_ is the constant burden of +FitzGerald's strain. His friendship, early formed, with Tennyson, the +contrast of their divergent views, might be compared with the friendship +of Horace and Virgil. For Virgil, too, began as an Epicurean. But +FitzGerald was not content with Horace. "Why is it," he wrote, "that I can +never take up with Horace, so sensible, agreeable, elegant, and sometimes +even grand?" It was, perhaps, just that masculine and worldly element that +put him off. Yet he not seldom quotes Horace, and perhaps liked him better +than he knew. "_Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret_," he wrote +in a copy of Polonius which he gave to a special friend, and Nature was +what he was always seeking in poetry. Still he preferred Virgil, just as +he really preferred Tennyson. + +Though he was destined to produce a poem which bids as fair for +immortality as any of its time, he did not think highly of his own powers +as a poet. But he did plume himself on being a critic. "I pretend to no +Genius," he said, "but to Taste, which according to my aphorism is the +feminine of Genius." This was another gift in common. Tennyson was himself +a consummate critic, as FitzGerald was the first to recognize. + +FitzGerald had his limitations and his prejudices--his "crotchets." He did +not like many even of those whom the world has agreed to admire. He did +not like Euripides or even Homer. With Goethe's poems he could not get on. +He eschewed Victor Hugo. He liked, indeed, very little of the prose and +none of the poetry of his contemporaries, except that of the Tennysons. He +could not away with Browning. Arnold, he wrote down "a pedant." He thought +very little of Rossetti and Swinburne, though the former, especially, was +a great admirer not only of _Omar_ but of _Jami_ and some of the Spanish +translations. He tried to read Morris's _Jason_, but said, "No go." He +"could not read the _Adam Bedes_ and the _Daisy Chains_." All this must +be remembered when we read his criticism of Tennyson's later work which +belonged to the period of these writers and their productions. But within +certain limits he was a very fine critic. It cannot be said of him as of +his special favourite among Greek poets, Sophocles, that + + He saw life steadily and saw it whole. + +As he was aware himself, he by no means saw it whole. But with his +detachment and his critical gift, it may, perhaps, be said: + + He saw life lazily, but saw it plain. + +To the question of Browning's merits, or want of merits, he is always +returning. A very characteristic letter is a long, discursive one, written +to Tennyson himself in 1867: + + MARKETHILL, WOODBRIDGE, + _November 3rd, 1867_. + + MY DEAR OLD ALFRED--I abuse Browning myself; and get others to abuse + him; and write to you about it; for the sake of easing my own + heart--not yours. Why is it (as I asked Mrs. Tennyson) that, while the + Magazine critics are belauding him, _not one_ of the men I know, who + are not inferior to the writers in the Athenæum, Edinburgh, etc., can + _endure_, and (for the most part) can read him at all? I mean his last + poem. Thus it has been with the Cowells, Trinity Thompsons, Donnes, + and some others whom you don't know, but in whose candour and judgment + I have equal confidence, men and women too. + + Since I wrote to your wife, Pollock, a great friend of Browning's, + writes to me. "I agree with you about Browning and A. T. I can't + understand it. _Ter conatus eram_ to get through the Ring and the + Book--and failing to perform the feat in its totality, I have stooped + to the humiliation to point out extracts for me (they having read it + _all quite through_ three times) and still could not do it. So I + pretend to have read it, and let Browning so suppose when I talk to + him about it. But don't you be afraid"? (N.B. I am _not_, only angry) + "things will come round, and A. T. will take his right place again, + and R. B. will have all the honours due to his learning, wit and + philosophy." + + Then I had the curiosity to ask Carlyle in my yearly letter to him. He + also is, or was, a friend of B.'s, and used to say that he looked on + him as a sort of light-cavalry man to follow you. Well, Carlyle + writes, "Browning's book I read--_insisted_ on reading: it is full of + talent, of energy, and effort, but totally without _backbone_, or + basis of common sense. I think among the absurdest books ever written + by a gifted man." (Italics are his.) + + Who, then, are the people that write the nonsense in the Reviews? I + believe the reason at the bottom is that R. B. is a clever London + diner-out, etc., while A. T. holds aloof from the newspaper men, etc. + "Long life to him!" But I don't understand why Venables, or some of + the men who think as I do, and wield trenchant pens in high places, + why they don't come out, and set all this right. I only wish I could + do it: but I can only see the right thing, but not prove it to others. + "I do not like you, Dr. Fell," etc. + + I found a Memorandum the other day (I can't now light on it) of a + Lincolnshire story about "Haxey Wood" or "Haxey Hood"--which--if I had + not told it to you, but left it as by chance in your way some thirty + years ago, you would have turned into a shape to outlast all R. B.'s + poems put together. There is no use in my finding and sending it now, + because it doesn't do (with Paltry Poets) to try and drag them to the + water. The two longest and worst tales (I think) in Crabbe's Tales of + the Hall, were suggested to him by Sir S. Romilly, and "a lady in + Wiltshire." I wish Murray would let me make a volume of "Selections + from Crabbe"--which I know I could, so that _common_ readers would + wish to read the whole original; which now scarce any one does; nor + can one wonder they do not. But Crabbe will flourish when R. B. is + dead and buried. Lots of lines which he cut out of his MS. would be + the beginning of a little fortune to others. I happened on this + couplet the other day: + + The shapeless purpose of a soul that feels, + And half suppresses wrath and half reveals. + + Not that Crabbe is to live by single couplets or epigrams, but by + something far better, as you know better than I. There is a long + passage in the Tales of the Hall (Old Bachelor) which always reminds + me of you, A. T., where the Old Bachelor recounts how he pleaded with + his Whig father to be allowed to marry the Tory Squire's daughter; + when, + + Coolly my father looked, and much enjoy'd + The broken eloquence his eye destroy'd, etc. + + and then pleads to the Tory mother of the girl. + + Methinks I have the tigress in my eye, etc. + + Do look at this, A. T., when you get the Book, and don't let my praise + set you against it. + + I have written you a very long letter, you see, with one very bad eye + too. I thought it had mended, by help of cold water and goggles; but + these last three days it has turned rusty again. I believe it misses + the sea air. + + [Greek: deinôn t' aêma pneumatôn ekoimise[21] + stenonta ponton.] + + Do you quite understand this [Greek: ekoimise]? But what lines, + understood or not! The two last words go alongside of my little ship + with me many a time. Well, Alfred, neither you, nor the Mistress, are + to answer this letter, which I still hope may please you, as it is + (all the main part) written very loyally, and is all true. Now, + good-bye, and remember me as your old + + E. F. G. + + _Ne cherchez point, Iris, à percer les ténèbres[22] + Dont les Dieux sagement ont voilé l'Avenir; + Et ne consultez point tant de Devins célèbres + Pour chercher le moment qui doit nous désunir. + Livrez-vous au plaisir; tout le reste est frivole; + Et songez que, trop court pour de plus longs projets, + Tandis que nous parlons le Temps jaloux s'envole, + Et que ce Temps, hélas! est perdu pour jamais._ + + But wait--before I finish I must ask why you assure Clark of Trinity + that it is the _rooks_ who call "Maud, Maud, etc." Indeed it is the + _Thrush_, as I have heard a hundred times in a summer's evening, when + scared in the evergreens of a garden. Therefore: + + Rooks in a classroom quarrel up in the tall trees caw'd; + But 'twas the thrush in the laurel, that kept crying, Maud, Maud, + Maud. + +Keats he put very high indeed. "I have been again reading Lord Houghton's +_Life of Keats_" he wrote, "whose hastiest doggrel should show Browning, +Morris & Co., that they are not what the newspapers tell them they are." +"What a fuss the cockneys make about Shelley just now, surely not worth +Keats' little finger," he wrote on another occasion. And again, "Is Mr. +Rossetti a Great Poet like Browning and Morris? So the _Athenæum_ tells +me. Dear me, how thick Great Poets _do_ grow nowadays." And yet again, "I +can't read G. Eliot as I presume you can; I really conclude that the fault +lies in me, not in her; so with Goethe (except in his letters, +Table-Talk,[23] etc.), whom I try in vain to admire." + +His real love was for Crabbe, the poet, not of "realism" but of reality. + + Life's sternest painter and its best-- + +the poet of disillusionment. This love, which has been felt in different +generations by Byron, Cardinal Newman, and Bishop Gore, he could get few +of his friends to share with him. Tennyson himself was one of the few. "I +keep reading Crabbe from time to time," he writes to Tennyson; "nobody +else does unless it be another 'paltry Poet' whom I know. The edition only +sells at a shilling a volume--second-hand. I don't wonder at young people +and women (I mean no disparagement at all) not relishing even the good +parts: and certainly there is plenty of bad for all readers." + +What he loved before all was "touches of nature," the humour, the pathos, +of ordinary life. He liked home-thrusts at human foibles and frailty, and +again the outwelling of native nobility, generosity, or love. Newman's +early Sermons, "Plain and Parochial" as they were, perhaps for this very +reason he much affected. "The best that were ever written in my judgment," +he said. He remained an admirer of Newman, and speaks enthusiastically of +the _Apologia_ and its "sincerity." But he did not like the ritualism of +the Oxford movement. His traditions were Evangelical,--one reason perhaps +why he liked Newman. John Wesley was "one of his heroes," and he had much +sympathy with, and was at one period personally drawn by, evangelical and +revivalist Mission preaching. + +He would have sympathized with Keble's lines teaching that his +fellow-creatures should not + + Strive to wind themselves too high + For sinful man beneath the sky. + +This was probably one of the reasons why he did not like "In Memoriam." He +said indeed that he thought it too artistic, too machine-made. He said +that he thought Tennyson became gradually altogether too artistic and lost +in spontaneity, vigour, and freshness. Yet he himself was a most laborious +artist, both in his verse and in his prose. _Omar_ is most carefully +elaborated, with correction on correction, and so are the best parts of +_Euphranor_. His reasons were really deeper, and went more against the +matter than the form. He did not like the early "Idylls of the King." "The +Holy Grail" he liked as he had liked the "Vision of Sin." But what moved +him to tears was the old-style "Northern Farmer," the "substantial, +rough-spun Nature he knew," and "the old brute, invested by the poet with +the solemn humour of Humanity like Shakespeare's _Shallow_." Yet even here +a "crotchet" cropped up, as appears from the following note: + + WOODBRIDGE, _May 20th, 1877_. + + The enclosed scrap from Notes and Queries reminded me (as probably the + writer has been reminded) of your Old Farmer, the only part of which + that goes against me is the "canter and canter away" of the last line. + I can scarce tell you (as usual with me) why I don't like Doctor Fell; + but you know I must be right. + + By the by, my old Crabbe in the Parish Register (Burials), says + + Bless me! I die--and not a warning giv'n-- + With much to do on earth, and _all_ for Heaven: + No preparation for my soul's affairs, + No leave petitioned for the Barn's repairs, etc. + + not very good; and (N.B.) I don't mean it suggested anything in + Shakespeare's Northern Farmer--for that may pair off with Shallow. + +Again, when it appeared in 1865, he was greatly taken with the "Captain." +It was a return to the old personal mood and simple direct depiction of +character: + + MARKETHILL, WOODBRIDGE, + _October 22nd, 1865_. + + DEAR MRS. TENNYSON--Talking of ships again, I liked much _The Captain_ + in the People's Alfred. Was the last stanza (which I like also) an + afterthought?--I think a really _sublime_ thing is the end of + Kingsley's "Westward Ho!"--(which I never could read through)--The + Chase of the Ships: the Hero's being struck blind at the moment of + revenge: then his being taken to _see_ his rival and crew at the + bottom of the sea. Kingsley is a distressing writer to me: but I must + think this (the inspiration of it) of a piece with Homer and the + Gods--which you won't at all. + +He liked, too, "Gareth and Lynette," which again he thought more natural +and direct than some of the earlier Idylls. He liked, as might have been +expected, the "Ballads and other Poems." But what is most significant, +perhaps, among his likes and dislikes, is his love for "Audley Court," +"one of my old favourites," he calls it. Why did FitzGerald like "Audley +Court"? It is not one of the poems which are generally best known and +most admired. Indeed, while it is in many ways beautiful and contains some +splendid things, such as the sonorous line + + The pillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores, + +it is just one of those poems which the severe critic of Tennyson picks +out for fault-finding and even for ridicule. It has what such critics call +the over-elaborate, the "drawing-room" manner. Like Milton's picture of +Eve's _déjeuner_, though with more humour and appropriateness, it employs +the grand and sumptuous style to describe trifles, such as the venison +pasty: + + Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, + Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks + Imbedded and injellied. + +But on a closer consideration it will be seen that it has just what "Old +Fitz" himself loved--the easy realism, the contentment with the things of +this world; above all, that flavour of + + After-dinner talk + Across the walnuts and the wine + +which he also found and loved in that other favourite, "The Miller's +Daughter," the harmless gossip about old friends + + who was dead, + Who married, who was like to be, and how + The races went, and who would rent the hall. + +This suited "Old Fitz's" temper absolutely. The humorous _pococurantism_, +for cynicism it hardly is, of the quatrains put into the mouth of the +Poet's friend, each ending "but let me live my life," breathes the very +spirit of his own indolent, kindly Epicureanism, and indeed the poem might +almost be taken as a record of a dialogue between the two friends in their +early days. + +He loved, too, the "Lord of Burleigh," "The Vision of Sin," and "The Lady +of Shalott." The delicious idealism of these youthful pieces did not +displease him. They had for him a "champagne flavour." They were part of +his own youth. For a brief hour of that fast-fleeting day, the wine of +life had sparkled in his own glass, but then too soon turned flat and +flavourless. + +For two or three things every lover of Tennyson must thank FitzGerald. He +it was who, about 1838, soon after their friendship began, got his friend, +Samuel Laurence, to paint the earliest portrait of the Poet, "the only one +of the old days and still the best of all to my thinking," as he wrote in +1871. He, too, preserved and gave to Tennyson the drawing by Thackeray of +the "Lord of Burleigh." When the Poet was rather dilatory in calling at +Spedding's house to claim this portrait, FitzGerald wrote: "Tell him I +don't think Browning would have served me so, and I mean to prefer his +poems for the future." He also rescued from the flames some of the pages +of the famous "Butcher's Book," the tall, ledger-like MS. volume, in which +many of the early poems he so much loved were written, and gave them to +the Library of Trinity College. About this he wrote: + + MARKETHILL, WOODBRIDGE, + _December 4th, 1864_. + + DEAR ALFRED--Now I should be almost ready to be "yours ever, etc." if + I didn't remember to ask you if you have any objection to my giving + two or three of the leaves of your old "Butcher's Book" (do you + remember?) to the Library at Trinity College? An admirer of your's + there told me they would be glad of some such thing--It was in 1842, + when you were printing the two good old volumes:--in Spedding's + rooms--and the "Butcher's Book," after its margins serving for + pipe-lights, went leaf by leaf into the fire: and I told you I would + keep two or three leaves of it as a remembrance. So I took a bit of my + old favourite "Audley Court": and a bit of another, I forget which: + for I can't lay my hands on them just now. But when I do, I shall give + them to Trinity College unless you are strongly opposed. I dare say, + however, you would give them the whole MS. of one of your later + poems: which probably they would value more. + +Tennyson appreciated "Old Fitz's" fine qualities as a critic, but he +recognized their limitations, and in particular his "crotchets" and +prejudices. He was himself, as is now generally recognized, a consummate +critic, and withal a most kindly and catholic one. In my first +conversation with him he said that he used to think Goethe a good critic. +"He always discovered all the good he could in a man." To his own +contemporaries, especially towards Browning, for example, his attitude was +very different, as FitzGerald acknowledged, from FitzGerald's own. I did +not like, I remember, to ask him what he thought of Browning, but his son +encouraged me to do so. "You ask him," he said. "He'll tell you at once." +At last I did so. "A true genius, but wanting in art," he said. And on +another occasion he spoke rather more in detail to the same purpose. + +A special friend of both Tennyson and FitzGerald was Thackeray. With him +FitzGerald had been intimate even earlier than with Tennyson. They were +friends at college, and had gone as young men together to Paris, Thackeray +ostensibly to study art. FitzGerald knew Paris of old. His father had a +home there when he was a child, and went there for a few months every year +for some years. + +When he was nearing seventy FitzGerald wrote the following delightful +account of some of his recollections to Thackeray's daughter: + + WOODBRIDGE, _May 18th, 1875_. + + DEAR ANNIE THACKERAY--I suppose you love Paris as your Father did--as + I used to do till it was made so other than it was, in the days of + Louis XVIII. when I first lived in it. _Then_ it was all irregular and + picturesque; with shops, hotels, _cafés_, theatres, etc. intermixed + all along the Boulevards, all of different sorts and sizes. + + Think of my remembering the _then_ Royal Family going in several + carriages to hunt in the Forest of St. Germain's--Louis XVIII. first, + with his _Gardes du Corps_, in blue and silver: then Monsieur + (afterwards Charles X.) with _his_ Guard in green and gold--French + horns blowing--"tra, tra, tra" (as Madame de Sévigné says), through + the lines of chestnut and limes--in flower. And then _Madame_ (of + Angoulême) standing up in her carriage, blear-eyed, dressed in white + with her waist at her neck--standing up in the carriage at a corner of + the wood to curtsey to the English assembled there--my mother among + them. This was in 1817. Now _you_ would have made a delightful + description of all this; you will say _I_ have done so, but that is + not so. And yet I saw, and see, it all. + + Whenever you write again--(I don't wish you to write now) tell me what + you think of Irving and Salvini; of the former of whom I have very + different reports, Macready's Memoirs seem to me very _conscientious_ + and _rather dull_; _toujours Megready_ (as one W. M. T. irreverently + called him). He seems to me to have had no humour--which I also + observed in his acting. He would have made a better scholar or divine, + I think: a very honourable, good man anywhere and anyhow. + +With Thackeray himself he always maintained the same cordial relations as +he did with Tennyson. But his literary attitude shifted and varied in the +same way. Here, again, he preferred the early work which he had seen in +process of creation. In later years, when they met him at Woodbridge, he +said to "Alfred" and his son, "I hardly dare take down Thackeray's early +books, because they are so great. It's like waking the Thunder." He wrote +of Thackeray in 1849: "He is just the same. All the world 'admires _Vanity +Fair_,' and the author is courted by Dukes and Duchesses and wits of both +sexes. I like _Pendennis much_, and Alfred said he thought it was quite +delicious: it seemed to him so _mature_ he said." But a little later he +took alarm at the Dukes and Duchesses, and wrote to Frederick Tennyson: "I +am come to London, but I do not go to Operas or Plays, and have scarce +time (and it must be said, scarce inclination) to hunt up many friends--I +get shyer and shyer even of those I knew. Thackeray is in such a great +world that I am afraid of him; he gets tired of me and we are content to +regard each other at a distance. You, Alfred, Spedding, and Allen, are the +only men I ever care to see again.... As you know, I admire your poems, +the only poems by a living writer I do admire, except Alfred's." + +He told Hallam Tennyson that he greatly admired the charming scene in +"Philip" where the young lady unexpectedly discovered her lover (Philip) +on the box of the diligence, and quieted the screaming children inside by +saying, "Hush! _he's_ there." + +In particular, he was very severe on anything he called "cockney," +speaking, that is, the language of the town, not of the country; in other +words, dealing with nature and human nature at second-hand. To this his +letters again and again return. Of "fine writing," as he called it, even +when it occurred in his own early work, he was unsparingly critical. Thus +of _Euphranor_ he wrote to Mrs. Kemble: "The Dialogue is a pretty thing in +some respects but disfigured by some confounded _smart_ writing in parts." +He thought this fault in particular, so he says in a letter to Frederick +Tennyson, "the loose screw in American literature," and deplored its +presence in Lowell, a writer whom otherwise he liked. "I honestly admire +his work in the main," he says, "and I think he is altogether the best +critic we have, something of what Ste. Beuve is in French." He thought +that Tennyson came to suffer from these defects in his later days, and +that the artist overpowered the man. + +The latest of Tennyson's poems, of course, he did not live to see. He did +not see, for instance, "Crossing the Bar." What would he have thought of +it? Another old friend of Tennyson, also a fastidious critic, the Duke of +Argyll, in an unpublished letter of February 1, 1892, writing of this and +of the lines on the "Death of the Duke of Clarence," says: "Magnificent, +is all I can say of your lines in the _Nineteenth_. The two last things of +yours that I have seen, this and the 'Bar,' are both perfect in their +several ways, and such as no other man could have written. The 'Bar' is +the type of what I define Poetry to be, great thought in true imagery and +unusual expression. All the three are needed for the type thing. Much fine +poetry is to me only eloquence, which is quite another thing." With the +last sentence FitzGerald would certainly have agreed, for it is what in +other words he was himself constantly saying. But he seemed to require +something more than great thoughts and true images and choice diction. +Poignant and revealing touches, what he called in Crabbe "shrewd hits"; +feeling, as well as, if not more than, thought--this was what he asked +for. All Browning's genius seemed to him _emphase_, cleverness, curiosity, +"cockneyism." + +"The Dramatic Idylls," he writes to Frederick Tennyson, "seemed to me +'Ingoldsby.' It seems to me as if the Beautiful being already appropriated +by former men of genius, those who are not inspired, can only try for a +Place among them by recourse to the Quaint, Grotesque, and Ugly in all the +Arts,--what I call the Gargoyle style." And again: "I always said he must +be a cockney, and now I find he is Camberwell-born-- + + It once was the Pastoral cockney, + It now is the cockney Profound." + +The establishment of the Browning Society tried him specially. "Imagine a +man abetting all this," he writes. Tennyson had, through life, a high +opinion of FitzGerald's powers of criticism. They had often in their youth +discussed the classics of all time and all times together, and also, with +the poetic freedom of young men, their seniors, Shelley, and Byron, and +Wordsworth. It was FitzGerald who invented for the last the name by which +he went in their circle, of the "Daddy." They had fought for the ownership +of the Wordsworthian line, the "weakest blank verse in the language": + + A Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman. + +It really was FitzGerald's description, given in conversation, of the +gentleman who was going to marry his sister. When he died in 1862 +FitzGerald, writing to Tennyson, reminded him of the line. + + "This letter," he writes, "ought to be on a black-edged paper in a + black-edged cover: for I have just lost a brother-in-law--one of the + best of Men. If you ask, 'Who?' I reply, in what you once called the + weakest line ever enunciated: + + A Mister Wilkinson, a Clergyman. + + You can't remember this: in Old Charlotte Street, ages ago!" + +In the valedictory verses Tennyson makes allusion to this critical habit: + + And when I fancied that my friend + For this brief idyll would require + A less diffuse and opulent end, + And would defend his judgment well, + If I should deem it over nice,---- + +He himself was more catholic and generous. It was his generosity as well +as their admiration for him which gave him the place he held among his +brother poets and especially after he himself had won recognition among +the younger men. + +His relation to Browning, Patmore, and P. J. Bailey, to Matthew Arnold and +Swinburne, to Watson and Kipling as to Dickens, Thackeray, and George +Eliot, are well known. There is one writer who ought to be added to the +list, who received some of his earliest encouragement from +Tennyson--George Meredith. A letter, hitherto unpublished, written in +January 1851, may illustrate this. He had just, in some trepidation, sent +Tennyson his first volume of poems, containing the now well-known "Love in +the Valley." As Meredith told me himself, Tennyson replied with an +exceedingly kind and "pretty" letter, saying that there was one poem in +the book he could have wished he had written, and inviting Meredith to +come to see him. The following is Meredith's answer: + + SIR--When I tell you that it would have been my chief ambition in + publishing the little volume of poems you have received, to obtain + your praise, you may imagine what pride and pleasure your letter gave + me; though, indeed, I do not deserve so much as your generous + appreciation would bestow, and of this I am very conscious. I had but + counted twenty-three years when the book was published, which may + account for, and excuse perhaps many of the immaturities. When you say + you would like to know me, I can scarcely trust myself to express with + how much delight I would wait upon you--a privilege I have long + desired. As I suppose the number of poetic visits you receive are + fully as troublesome as the books, I will not venture to call on you + until you are able to make an appointment. My residence and address is + Weybridge, but I shall not return to Town from Southend before Friday + week. If in the meantime you will fix any day following that date, I + shall gladly avail myself of the honour of your invitation. My address + here is care of Mrs. Peacock, Southend, Essex. I have the honour to + be, most faithfully yours, + + GEORGE MEREDITH. + + Alfred Tennyson, Esq. + +The complement to "Old Fitz" was Carlyle. He was the friend of both +FitzGerald and Tennyson. Gruff, grumbling, self-centred, satirical, at +times even rude and rough, as he was, both of them seemed to have got not +so much on his blind, as on his kind side from the first, and always to +have remained there. Carlyle's descriptions of Tennyson as a young man in +the early "forties" and of the pleasure he had in his company are well +known. "He seemed to take a fancy to me," Tennyson said himself one day +while we talked about him at Farringford. They foregathered a good deal +at this period, sat and smoked silently, walked and talked together, both +by day and night. FitzGerald told Hallam Tennyson, years after, during the +visit to Woodbridge, that Carlyle was much concerned at this period about +his father's poverty, and said to him, "Alfred must have a pension." The +story of the way in which he spurred on "Dicky" Milnes to secure the +pension is now classical. What his special effect, if he had any, on +Tennyson was, it might be difficult to estimate or analyse. + +The younger generation to-day does not remember the period of Carlyle's +immense influence. It lasted just into the youth of my contemporaries and +myself, or perhaps a little longer, and then began to wane and die away. +He certainly was a "radio-active" force in the days and with the men of +Tennyson's youth,--Maurice, and Sterling, and "Dicky" Milnes, as he was a +little later with Ruskin and Kingsley. FitzGerald, with his detachment and +his fearless sincerity, estimated him as fairly as any one. "Do you see +Carlyle's _Latter-Day Pamphlets_?" he wrote. "They make the world laugh, +and his friends rather sorry for him. But that is because people will +still look for practical measures from him. One must be content with him +as a great satirist who can make us feel when we are wrong, though he +cannot set us right. There is a bottom of truth in Carlyle's wildest +rhapsodies." + +He wrote to Frederick Tennyson in 1850: "When I spoke of the 'Latter-Day +Prophet' I conclude you have read or heard of Carlyle's Pamphlets. People +are tired of them and of him; he only foams, snaps, and howls and no +progress people say. This is about true, and yet there is vital good in +all he has written." Again, in 1854, he says, "Carlyle I did not go to +see, for I have really nothing to tell him, and I am tired of hearing him +growl, tho' I admire him as much as ever." "I wonder if he ever thinks how +much sound and fury he has vented," he writes on another occasion. + +But the posthumous publication of Carlyle's Letters, as he wrote about a +fortnight before his own death, "raised him in FitzGerald's esteem"; and +his last effort was to go to Chelsea to see his statue, and the old house +hard by which he had not seen for five-and-twenty years, to find it, alas, +"deserted, neglected, and 'To let!'" + +Carlyle was indeed much what "Old Fitz" describes. He was a powerful +solvent of his age. He destroyed many shams, "Hebrew rags," "old clothes," +as he called them. Both by his own example and his fiery energy he +inculcated the "Gospel of Work." He was not a modern realist, but a man +who dealt in realities, who perceived that virtue and beauty and faith are +as real as vice and ugliness and unfaith, nay, perhaps more real; but that +certainly neither are shams, neither God nor the Devil, though of shams, +of false gods and false devils, there are many. His appreciation of poetry +was, as is well known, but scant and intermittent. He used to banter +Tennyson and call him "a Life-Guardsman spoiled by making poetry," but he +became converted even to his poems, though, as he said, this was +surprising to himself. He "felt the pulse of a real man's heart" in the +1842 volumes. "Ulysses" was a special favourite. He quoted again and again +the lines: + + It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; + It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, + And see the great Achilles whom we knew. + +"These lines do not make me weep," he said, "but there is in me what would +fill whole Lachrymatories as I read." He, fortunately, also "took a fancy" +to Mrs. Tennyson when he met her as a bride at Tent Lodge, Coniston, +partly because, in answer to one of his wild grumbles, she said, "That is +not sane, Mr. Carlyle." An unpublished letter from Carlyle of the date +October 1850, describes an admirer of Tennyson's poems, an ill-starred but +brave man, a skilful physician, a friend of Dr. John Carlyle at +Leamington, who, after losing the greater part of his face by _caries_ of +the bone, had at last been cured, though awfully disfigured. "He fled to +Keswick," writes Carlyle, "and there he now resides, not idle still, nor +forsaken of friends, or hope, or domestic joy--a monument of human +courtesy, and really a worthy and rather interesting man. Such is your +admirer and mine. Heaven be good to him and us." + +FitzGerald, in a letter to Frederick Tennyson, quotes with approval a +criticism of Lowell's that Carlyle "was a poet in all but rhythm"; and it +would not be difficult to find "parallel passages" between Tennyson and +Carlyle, between _Sartor Resartus_ and "In Memoriam." The _Life of +Sterling_, too, should be read by any student anxious to "reconstitute the +atmosphere" in which that poem grew up, and which, to a certain extent, it +still breathes. But "parallel passages" are misleading. Suffice it to say +that both went through the storm and stress of a doubting age, both took +their stand on the solid rock of God and of real, healthy human +nature,--both emerged in the "Eternal Yea." + +Froude, in his history of Carlyle's Life in London, has a most interesting +autobiographic passage about Carlyle's position and influence in 1843, the +time of the publication of _Past and Present_, which brings this out with +special force. He says: + + In this condition the best and bravest of my own contemporaries + determined to have done with insincerity, to find ground under their + feet, to let the uncertain remain uncertain, but to learn how much and + what we could honestly regard as true and believe that and live by it. + Tennyson became the voice of this feeling in poetry, Carlyle in what + was called prose, though prose it was not, but something by itself + with a form and melody of its own. + + Tennyson's Poems, the group of Poems which closed with "In Memoriam," + became to many of us what the "Christian Year" was to orthodox + Churchmen. We read them, and they became part of our minds, the + expression in exquisite language of the feelings which were working in + ourselves. Carlyle stood beside him as a prophet and teacher; and to + the young, the generous, to every one who took life seriously, who + wished to make an honourable use of it and could not be content with + sitting down and making money, his words were like the morning + _reveille_. + + Others may come at last to the sad conclusion that nothing can be + known about the world, that the external powers, whatever they may be, + are indifferent to human action or human welfare. To such an opinion + some men, and those not the worst, may be driven after weary + observation of life. But the young will never believe it; or if they + do they have been young only in name. + +If the first paragraphs aptly "place" Tennyson and Carlyle, the last, +though not intentionally, exactly suits their friend, the translator of +the _Rubáiyát_. FitzGerald remained, as his friend the Master of Trinity +College (W. H. Thompson) said, in "Doubting Castle." Tennyson was the most +hopeful, as well as the most balanced and sane, and therefore the most +helpful of the three. + +Toward the end of his life, Carlyle, in the Inaugural Address given by him +as Rector of Edinburgh University, in which he summed up so many of the +convictions of a lifetime, put forward the following description of the +completely healthy human spirit. "A man all lucid and in equilibrium. His +intellect a clear mirror, geometrically plane, brilliantly sensitive to +all objects and impressions made on it, and imaging all things in their +correct proportions, not twisted up into convex or concave and distorting +everything so that he cannot see the truth of the matter without endless +groping and manipulation--healthy, clear and free, and discerning all +round about him." He put this picture before young men as the ideal to be +aimed at by the intellectual student, and in particular by the man of +letters. "But," he said, "we can never never attain that at all." Perhaps +not altogether. Perhaps even he who invented the phrase for the poet's +duty of "holding the mirror up to Nature," did not wholly attain to it. +But, according to his measure, it is no bad description of Alfred +Tennyson, with the "universality of his mind," the simplicity of his good +sense, the childlike sincerity of his spirit. This quality it was that +both Carlyle and FitzGerald found and liked in him. + +It has been said that Tennyson and FitzGerald read the same books. One of +the best instances of this is to be found in a long letter of FitzGerald's +about posthumous fame and literary immortality. It was written to Cowell +in 1847, and is given by Dr. Aldis Wright in his first collection. After +speaking of Homer and the _Iliad_, FitzGerald writes: + + Yet as I often think it is not the poetical imagination, but bare + Science that every day more and more unrolls a greater Epic than the + Iliad; the history of the world, the great infinitudes of Space and + Time! I never take up a book of Geology or Astronomy but this strikes + me. And when we think that Man must go on in the same plodding way, + one fancies that the Poet of to-day may as well fold his hands, or + turn them to dig and delve, considering how soon the march of + discovery will distance all his imaginations and dissolve the language + in which they are uttered. Martial, as you say, lives now after two + thousand years: a space that seems long to us whose lives are so + brief; but a moment, the twinkling of an eye, if compared (not to + Eternity alone), but to the ages which it is now known the world must + have existed, and (unless for some external violence) must continue to + exist. + + Lyell in his book about America, says that the Falls of Niagara, if + (as seems certain) they have worked their way back southwards for + seven miles, must have taken over 35,000 years to do so at the rate of + something over a foot a year! Sometimes they fall back on a stratum + that crumbles away from behind them more easily: but then again they + have to roll over rock that yields to them scarce more perceptibly + than the anvil to the serpent. And these very soft strata, which the + Cataract now erodes, contain evidences of a race of animals, and of + the action of seas washing over them, long before Niagara came to have + a distinct current; and the rocks were compounded ages and ages before + those strata! So that, as Lyell says, the geologist, looking at + Niagara forgets even the roar of its waters in the contemplation of + the awful processes of time that it suggests. It is not only that the + vision of Time must wither the Poet's hope of immortality, but it is + in itself more wonderful than all the conceptions of Dante and Milton. + +This train of thought was evidently often present to FitzGerald's mind. It +oppressed him. It makes itself felt in the _Rubáiyát_. It was one of the +many great ideas he imported into, or educed from, the old Persian +Astronomer. + + And fear not lest existence closing your + Account, and mine, should know the like no more; + The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has poured + Millions of Bubbles like us and will pour + + When you and I behind the Veil are past: + Oh but the long long while the world shall last, + Which of our coming and departure heeds + As the Sev'n Seas should heed a pebble-cast. + +It was even more constantly present to the mind of Tennyson. Astronomy and +Geology had been among his favourite studies from his early youth, and +remained so all his life. When I was walking with him toward the Needles +and looking at the magnificent chalk cliff below the downs, and spoke +about his felicitous epithet for it--"the milky steep," he said, "The most +wonderful thing about that cliff is to think it was all once alive." The +allusions to it in his poems are innumerable: + + There rolls the deep where grew the tree, + O earth, what changes hast thou seen! + There where the long street roars, hath been + The stillness of the central sea. + +He was always "hearing the roll of the ages." He, too, had read his Lyell, +and the contemplation of geological time suggested to him exactly the same +reflections which FitzGerald draws out. Indeed, it seems not unlikely that +he himself may have imparted them to FitzGerald. For he has embodied just +these thoughts in that noble late poem "Parnassus," with a resemblance +which is startling. But while the parallel between "Parnassus" and +FitzGerald's letter is extraordinarily close up to a certain point, the +contrast, when it is reached, is even more striking, and is the +fundamental contrast between the two men and their creeds: + + What be those two shapes high over the sacred fountain, + Taller than all the Muses, and huger than all the mountain? + On those two known peaks they stand, ever spreading and heightening; + Poet, that evergreen laurel is blasted by more than lightning! + Look, in their deep double shadow the crown'd ones all disappearing! + Sing like a bird and be happy, nor hope for a deathless hearing! + Sounding for ever and ever? pass on! the sight confuses-- + These are Astronomy and Geology, terrible Muses! + +So far Tennyson agrees with _Omar_: + + Ah make the most of what we yet may spend + Before we too into the dust descend; + Dust into dust and under dust to lie, + Sans wine, sans song, sans singer and sans end! + +But then comes the divergence, conveyed with the exquisitely sympathetic +change of rhythm: + + If the lips were touch'd with fire from off a pure Pierian altar, + Tho' their music here be mortal, need the singer greatly care? + Other songs for other worlds! the fire within him would not falter; + Let the golden Iliad vanish, Homer here is Homer there. + +The beautiful lines which form the Envoy to "Tiresias," already alluded +to, never reached their address. I remember well, when we spoke of +FitzGerald, the sadness with which Tennyson said to me, "He never saw +them. He died before they were sent him." After his death Tennyson added +the Epilogue on the same note. It is touching to see that in his closing +lines to his old friend he had hinted with tender delicacy at the same +creed to which he always clung: + + Gone into darkness, that full light + Of friendship! past, in sleep, away + By night, into the deeper night! + The deeper night? A clearer day + Than our poor twilight dawn on earth-- + If night, what barren toil to be! + What life, so maim'd by night, were worth + Our living out? Not mine to me + Remembering all the golden hours + Now silent, and so many dead + And him the last; and laying flowers, + This wreath, above his honour'd head, + And praying that, when I from hence + Shall fade with him into the unknown, + My close of earth's experience + May prove as peaceful as his own. + +Like many rough and overbearing men Carlyle liked those who stood up to +him and gave him back, in his own phrase, "shake for shake." FitzGerald +was one of these. He made his better acquaintance by contradicting and +correcting him about the battlefield and the buried warriors of Naseby +Fight. Carlyle took it all in excellent part, and they became close +friends. Carlyle went to visit him and invited the many letters which +FitzGerald wrote. In his later years he sent one of these letters to C. E. +Norton as a "slight emblem and memorial of the peaceable, affectionate, +ultra-modest man and his innocent _far niente_ life"; "and," he adds, "the +connection (were there nothing more) of Omar, the Mahometan Blackguard, +and Oliver Cromwell, the English Puritan." + +But "Old Fitz" could criticize and sum up Carlyle equally effectively. He +most happily pointed out his inconsistency in praising the "Hebrew rags" +of the old Evangelical beliefs when seen in Cromwell and his generals, and +not being willing to let them still serve for humble folk in his own day. +His tone here is singularly like that of Tennyson's well-known lines, +beginning: + + Leave thou thy sister when she prays. + +"We may be well content," FitzGerald writes, "even to suffer some +absurdities in the Form if the Spirit does well on the whole." He would +probably have agreed with much of Tennyson's "Akbar's Dream," which he did +not live to read. For the tenets of "Omar," "The Mahometan Blackguard," +must not be taken as representing the whole of FitzGerald's philosophy, +any more than his eccentricities and negligent habits must be taken as a +complete expression of his life. + +Too exclusive attention has been paid to both. Dr. Aldis Wright, one of +the few surviving friends who knew him really well, speaks justly of "the +exaggerated stories of his slovenliness and his idleness," and "of the way +in which he has been made responsible for all the oddities of his family." +"Every tale," he says, "that may be true of some of his kin, is fathered +upon him." + +And FitzGerald's own Preface to his translation of _Omar_ shows what his +real moral and religious attitude toward the _Rubáiyát_ was. He felt +bound, so far as the spirit, if not the letter, went, to present it +faithfully, if not literally; but he speaks very gravely of it. "The +quatrains here selected," he writes in the Preface, "are strung into +something of an Eclogue, with perhaps a less than equal proportion of the +'Drink and make merry' which (genuine or not), recurs over frequently in +the original. Either way, the result is sad enough, saddest perhaps when +most ostentatiously merry, more apt to move sorrow than Anger toward the +old Tentmaker, who, after vainly endeavouring to unshackle his steps from +Destiny and to catch some authentic Glimpse of TO-MORROW, fell back upon +TO-DAY (which has outlived so many To-morrows!) as the only ground he got +to stand upon, however momentarily slipping from under his Feet." + +The truth is, Old Fitz's foibles, and indeed his faults, were only too +patent to others and to himself. But if _noscitur a sociis_ holds good, +Carlyle and Tennyson and Thackeray, Spedding, Thompson, the Cowells, and +Mrs. Kemble, the friends of his whole lifetime, Lowell and C. E. Norton, +those of his later years, may be permitted to outweigh his at times too +tolerant cultivation and indulgence of his burly Vikings. Tennyson's +relation to him was summed up in his letter to Sir Frederick Pollock which +Dr. Aldis Wright quotes, but which may fitly here be quoted again: "I had +no truer friend; he was one of the kindliest of men, and I have never +known one of so fine and delicate a wit." + +These words, with Tennyson's poetic picture already quoted, with Carlyle's +epithets, "innocent, _far niente_, ultra-modest," with his own writings +taken as a whole and not _Omar_ alone, especially his Letters, may be left +to speak for him in life and in death,--these and the epitaph which he +asked to have placed upon his gravestone: + + "It is He that hath made us and not we ourselves." + + + + +SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF TENNYSON'S TALK FROM 1835 TO 1853 + +[Many more were in a Notebook, which I have now lost.--E. F. G.] + +By EDWARD FITZGERALD + +(Given to Hallam Lord Tennyson[24]) + + +1835 + +(Resting on our oars one calm day on Windermere, whither we had gone for a +week from dear Spedding's Mirehouse at the end of May 1835,--resting on +our oars, and looking into the lake quite unruffled and clear, he quoted +from the lines he had lately read us from the MS. of "Morte d'Arthur" +about the lonely lady of the Lake and Excalibur.) + + Nine days she wrought it, sitting all alone + Upon the hidden bases of the Hills. + +"Not bad that, Fitz, is it?" + +(One summer day looking from Richmond Star and Garter.) + +"I love those woods that go triumphing down to the river." + +"Somehow water is the element which I love best of all the four." (He was +passionately fond of the sea and of babbling brooks.--ED.) + +"Some one says that nothing strikes one more on returning from the +Continent than the look of our English country towns. Houses not so big, +nor such rows of them as abroad; but each house, little or big, distinct +from one another, each man's castle, built according to his own means and +fancy, and so indicating the Englishman's individual humour. + +"I have been two days abroad--no further than Boulogne this time, but I am +struck as always on returning from France with the look of good sense in +the London people." + +(Standing before a Madonna, by Murillo, at the Dulwich Gallery--her eyes +fixed on you.) + +"Yes--but they seem to look at something beyond--beyond the Actual into +Abstraction. I have seen that in a human face." (I, E. F. G., have seen it +in _his_. Some American spoke of the same in Wordsworth. I suppose it may +be so with all _Poets_.) + + +1850 + +"When I was sitting by the banks of Doon--I don't know why--I wasn't in +the least spoony--not thinking of Burns (but of the lapsing of the +Ages)--when all of a sudden I gave way to a passion of tears." + +"I one day hurled a great iron bar over a haystack. Two bumpkins who stood +by said there was no one in the two parishes who could do it. I was then +about twenty-five." (He could carry his mother's pony round the +dinner-table.--E. F. G.) + +"The Sea at Mablethorpe is the grandest I know, except perhaps at Land's +End." (That is as he afterwards explained to me in a letter.) + +"Thackeray is the better artist, Dickens the [more affluent] Genius. He, +like Hogarth, has the moral sublime sometimes: but not the ideal sublime. +Perhaps I seem talking nonsense; I mean Hogarth could not conceive an +Apollo or a Jupiter." (Or Sigismunda.--E. F. G.)--"I think Hogarth greater +than Dickens." + +(Looking at an engraving of the Sistine Madonna in which only She and the +Child, I think, were represented.) + +"Perhaps finer than the whole composition in so far as one's eyes are more +concentrated on the subject. The Child seems to me the furthest result of +human art. His attitude is that of a man--his countenance a +Jupiter's--perhaps rather too much so." + +(He afterwards said (1852) that his own little boy, Hallam, explained the +expression of Raffaelle's. He said he thought he had known Raffaelle +before he went to Italy--but not Michael Angelo--not only Statues and +Frescoes, but some picture (I think) of a Madonna "dragging a ton of a +Child over her Shoulder.") + + +Seaford: December 27th-28th, 1852 + +"Babies delight in being moved to and from anything: that is amusement to +them. What a Life of Wonder--every object new. This morning he (his own +little boy) worshipp'd the Bed-post when a gleam of sunshine lighted on +it." + +"I am afraid of him. It is a Man. Babes have an expression of grandeur +that children lose. I used to think that the old Painters overdid the +Expression and Dignity of their infant Christs: but I see they did not." + +"I was struck at the Duke's (Wellington's) Funeral with the look of sober +Manhood and Humanity in the British Soldiers." + +(Of Laurence's chalk drawing of ----'s head--"rather diplomatic than +inhuman"--he said in fun.--E. F. G.) + + +Brighton, 1852-1853 + +"The finest Sea I have seen is at Valentia (Ireland), without any wind and +seemingly without a Wave, but with the momentum of the Atlantic behind it, +it dashes up into foam--blue diamond it looked like--all along the +rocks--like ghosts playing at Hide and Seek." + +(At some other time on the same subject.) + +"When I was in Cornwall it had blown a storm of wind and rain for +days--all of a sudden fell into perfect calm; I was a little inland of the +cliffs, when, after a space of perfect silence, a long roll of +Thunder--from some wave rushing into a cavern, I suppose--came up from the +Distance and died away. I never _felt_ Silence like that." + +"_This_" (looking from Brighton Pier) "is not a grand sea: only an angry +curt sea. It seems to _shriek_ as it recoils with its pebbles along the +beach." + +"The Earth has light of her own--so has Venus--perhaps all the other +Planets--electrical light, or what we call Aurora. The light edge of the +dark hemisphere of the moon--the 'old Moon in the new Moon's arms.'" + +"Nay, they say she has no atmosphere at all." + +(I do not remember when this was said, nor whether I have exactly set it +down; therefore must not make A. T. answerable for what he did not say, or +for what after-discovery may have caused him to unsay. He had a powerful +brain for Physics as for the Ideal. I remember his noticing that the +forward-bending horns of some built-up mammal in the British Museum would +never force its way through jungle, etc., and I observed on an after-visit +that they had been altered accordingly.) + +"Sometimes I think Shakespeare's Sonnets finer than his Plays--which is of +course absurd. For it is the knowledge of the Plays that makes the Sonnets +so fine." + +"Do you think the Artist ever feels satisfied with his Song? Not with the +Whole, I think; but perhaps the expression of parts." + +(Standing one day with him looking at two busts--one of Dante, the other +of Goethe, in a London shop, I asked, "What is wanting to make Goethe's +as fine as the other's?") + +"The Divine." ("Edel sei der Mensch" was a poem in which he thought he +found "The Divine."--ED.) + +(Taking up and reading some number of _Pendennis_ at my lodging.) "It's +delicious--it's so mature." + +(Of Richardson's _Clarissa_, etc.) "I love those great, still Books." + +"What is it in Dryden? I always feel that he is greater than his works." +(Though he thought much of "Theodore and Honoria," and quoted +emphatically: + + More than a mile _immerst_ within the wood.) + +"Two of the finest similes in poetry are Milton's--that of the Fleet +hanging in the air (_Paradise Lost_), and the gunpowder-like 'So started +up in his foul shape the Fiend.' (Which latter A. T. used to enact with +grim humour, from the crouching of the Toad to the Explosion.) Say what +you please, I feel certain that Milton after Death shot up into some grim +Archangel." _N.B._--He used in earlier days to do the sun coming out from +a cloud, and returning into one again, with a gradual opening and shutting +of eyes and lips, etc. And, with a great fluffing up of his hair into full +wig, and elevation of cravat and collar, George the Fourth in as comical +and wonderful a way. + +"I could not read through _Palmerin of England_, nor _Amadis of Gaul_, or +any of those old romances--not even 'Morte d'Arthur,' though with so many +fine things in it--But all strung together without Art." + +Old Hallam had been speaking of Shakespeare as the greatest of men, etc. +A. T. "Well, he was the Man one would have wished to introduce to another +Planet as a sample of our kind." + +_Àpropos_ of physical stature, A. T. had been noticing how small Guizot +looked beside old Hallam (when he went with Guizot, Hallam, and Macaulay +over the Houses of Parliament.--ED.). + +"I was skating one day at full swing and came clash against a man of my +own stature who was going at the same. We both fell asunder--got up--and +_laughed_. Had we been short men we might have resented." + +(I blamed some one for swearing at the servant girl in a lodging.) "I +don't know if women don't like it from men: they think it shows Vigour." +(Not that he ever did so himself.) + +"There is a want of central dignity about him--he excuses himself, etc." + +"Most great men write terse hands." + +"I like those old Variorum Classics--all the Notes make the Text look +precious." + +(Of some dogmatic summary.) "That is the quick decision of a mind that +sees half the truth." + + + + +TENNYSON AND THACKERAY + +By LADY RITCHIE + + +... You ask me what I can remember of your Father and of mine in early +days. I seem to _know_ more than I actually remember.... + +In looking over old letters and papers, I have found very few mentions of +the many actual meetings between them, though again and again the Poet's +name is quoted and recorded, nor can I recall the time when I did not hear +it spoken of with trust and admiring regard. To this day we possess "The +Day Dream," copied out from beginning to end in my Father's writing. + +He was about twenty years of age when one day, in May 1832, he wrote down +in his diary: + + Kemble and Hallam sat here for an hour. Read an article in _Blackwood_ + about A. Tennyson, abusing Hallam for his essay in _The Englishman_. + +Then again ... + + Kemble read me some very beautiful verses of Tennyson's. + +And again: + + Found that B. and I did not at all agree about Tennyson. B. is a + clever fellow nevertheless, and makes money by magazine writing, in + which I should much desire to follow his example. + +After my Father's marriage, when he was living in Coram Street, Tennyson +and FitzGerald both came to see him there. In an old letter of my mother's +she describes Mr. Tennyson coming and my sitting at the table beside her +in a tall chair and with a new pinafore for the occasion. FitzGerald, I +think, also spoke of one of these meetings, and of my Father exclaiming +suddenly, "My dear Alfred, you do talk d---- well." + +As we grew up, the Tennyson books were a part of our household life. I can +especially remember one volume, which came out when I was a little girl +and which my Father lent to a friend, and I also remember his laughing +vexation and annoyance when she returned the book all scored and defaced +with absurd notes and marks of exclamation everywhere. + +I once published an article in an American magazine from which I venture +to quote a passage which tells of one of the early meetings: + + I can remember vaguely, on one occasion through a cloud of smoke, + looking across a darkening room at the noble, grave head of the Poet + Laureate. He was sitting with my Father in the twilight after some + family meal in the old house in Kensington; it was Tennyson himself + who afterwards reminded me how upon this occasion, while my Father was + speaking, my little sister looked up suddenly from the book over which + she had been absorbed, saying, in her sweet childish voice, "Papa, why + do you not write books like _Nicholas Nickleby_?" Then again, I seem + to hear across that same familiar table, voices, without shape or + name, talking and telling each other that Mr. Tennyson was married, + that he and his wife had been met walking on the terrace at Clevedon + Court, and then the clouds descend again, except, indeed, that I can + still see my Father riding off on his brown cob to Mr. and Mrs. + Tennyson's house at Twickenham to attend the christening of Hallam + their eldest son. + + * * * * * + +Being _themselves_, when men, such as these two men, appreciate each +other's work, they know, with their great instinct for truth and +directness, what to admire--smaller people are apt to admire the men +rather than the work. When Tennyson and my Father met, it was as when +knights meet in the field. + +How my Father appreciated the _Idylls_ will be seen from the following +letter, which came as an answer to his own:[25] + + FARRINGFORD, I.W. + + MY DEAR THACKERAY--Should I not have answered you ere this 6th of + November! surely; what excuse--none that I know of; except indeed that + perhaps your very generosity--boundlessness of approval--made me in a + measure shamefaced. I could scarcely accept it, being, I fancy, a + modest man and always more or less doubtful of my own efforts in any + line; but I may tell you that your little note gave me more pleasure + than all the journals and monthlies and quarterlies which have come + across me, not so much from being the Great Novelist, I hope, as from + your being my good old friend--or perhaps of your being both of these + in one. Well--let it be. I have been ransacking all sorts of old + albums and scrap-books, but cannot find anything worthy sending you. + Unfortunately, before your letter arrived, I had agreed to give + Macmillan the only available poem I had by me. I don't think he would + have got it (for I dislike publishing in magazines), except that he + had come to visit me in my island, and was sitting and blowing his + weed _vis-à-vis_.... + + Whenever you feel your brains as "the remainder biscuit," or indeed + whenever you will, come over to me and take a blow on these downs + where the air, as Keats said, "is worth sixpence a pint," and bring + your girls too.--Yours always, + + A. TENNYSON. + + * * * * * + +I can remember all my Father's pleasure when Alfred Tennyson gave him +"Tithonus" for one of the early numbers of the _Cornhill Magazine_. + +He was once at Farringford, but this was before the time of the +_Cornhill_. + +From America, where people store their kindly records and from whence so +many echoes of the past are apt to reach us again,--some in worthy, and +some, I fear, in less worthy voices,--I have received from time to time, +the gift of an hour from the past, vivid and unalloyed. One day in the +_Century_ magazine, I came upon a page which retold for me the whole story +of a happy hour and of my Father's affectionate regard for that chivalrous +American, Bayard Taylor, who came to see him, and for whom he had wished +to do his best, by sending him to Farringford. All this came back to me +when Alfred Tennyson's letter was reproduced in the _Century_, his +charming answer to my Father, and my Father's own note in the margin.... +Bayard Taylor himself has put the date to it all--June 1857. + +My Father writes to Bayard Taylor: + + MY DEAR B. T.--I was so busy yesterday that I could not keep my + agreeable appointment with Thompson, and am glad I didn't fetch you to + Greenwich. Here's a note which concerns you and I am ever yours, + + W. M. T. + + * * * * * + +The letter from Lord Tennyson runs as follows: + + FARRINGFORD, I.W. + + MY DEAR THACKERAY--Your American friend and poet-traveller has never + arrived; he has, I suppose, changed his mind. I am sure I should have + been very glad to see him, for my castle was never yet barricaded and + entrenched against good fellows. I write now, this time to say that + after the 30th I shall not be here. + + My best remembrances to your daughters, whom I have twice seen, once + as little girls, and again a year or so back.--Yours ever, + + A. TENNYSON. + + * * * * * + +Afterwards Bayard Taylor found his way to Farringford, and he has written +a happy account of the visit.[26] + + * * * * * + +I hardly know whether or not to give the record of a meeting which I +myself remember. Once after a long visit to Freshwater I returned home to +Palace Green, and hearing that Alfred Tennyson had come up soon after to +stay for a few days at Little Holland House close by, I told my Father, +and together we planned a visit, to which I eagerly looked forward, with +much pride and youthful excitement. It was not far to walk, the high road +leads straight to Holland House, in the grounds of which Little Holland +House then stood among the trees. Mr. and Mrs. Prinsep were living there +and Mr. Watts. When we reached the House and were let in, we saw Mr. Watts +in his studio; he seemed to hesitate to admit us; then came the ladies. +Mr. Tennyson was upstairs, we were told, not well. He had hurt his shin. +"He did not wish for visitors, nevertheless certainly we were to go up," +they said, and we mounted into a side wing by some narrow staircase and +came to a door, by which cans of water were standing in a row. As we +entered, a man-servant came out of the little room. + +Tennyson was sitting in a chair with his leg up, evidently ill and out of +spirits. + +"I am sorry to find you laid up," said my Father. + +"They insisted upon my seeing the doctor for my leg," said Alfred, "and he +prescribed cold water dressing." + +"Yes," said my Father, "there's nothing like it, I have tried it myself." + +And then no more! No high conversation--no quotations--no recollections. +After a minute or two of silence we came away. My tall Father tramped down +the little wooden staircase followed by a bitterly disappointed audience. + + * * * * * + +When I was writing that same magazine article from which I have already +given an extract, I asked Edward FitzGerald if he could help me, and if I +might quote anything from his letters and from _Euphranor_: + + "MY DEAR ANNE RITCHIE"--Mr. FitzGerald wrote--"Your letter found me at + Aldburgh on our coast where I come to hear my old sea talk to me, as + more than sixty years ago, and to get a blow out on his back. Pray + quote anything you please, provided with Alfred's permission and no + compliments to the author. + + "I do not think my _fanfaron_ about him would be of any such service + as you suppose; strangers usually take all that as the flourish of a + friendly adviser, and would rather have some facts, such as that + perhaps of his words about the Raphael and the little Hallam's worship + of the bed-post.[27] I suppose it was in 1852 at Seaford near + Brighton. I can swear absolutely and can now hear and see him as he + said it; so don't let him pretend to gainsay or modify that, whether + he may choose to have it quoted or not. + + "Ah, I have often thought that I might have done some good service if + I had kept to him and followed him and noted the fine true things + which fell from his lips on every subject, practical or aesthetic, as + they call it. + + "Bayard Taylor, in some essays lately published, quotes your Father + saying that Tennyson was the wisest man he knew--which, by the way, + would tell more in America than all I could write or say. + + "Your finding it hard to make an article about A. T. will excuse my + inability to help you, as you asked. I did not know (as in the case of + your Father also) where to begin or how to go on without a + beginning.--Ever yours, + + E. F. G." + +In 1863, just after our Father's death, my sister and I came to +Freshwater. It seemed to us that perhaps there more than anywhere else we +might find some gleam of the light of our home, with the friend who had +known him and belonged to his life and whom he trusted. + +We arrived late in the afternoon. It was bitter weather, the snow lying +upon the ground. Mrs. Cameron had lent us a cottage, and the fires were +already burning, and as we rested aimlessly in the twilight, we seemed +aware of a tall figure standing in the window, wrapped in a heavy cloak, +with a broad-brimmed hat. This was Tennyson, who had walked down to see us +in silent sympathy. + + + + +TENNYSON ON HIS FRIENDS OF LATER LIFE + + +TO W. C. MACREADY + +1851 + + Farewell, Macready, since to-night we part; + Full-handed thunders often have confessed + Thy power, well-used to move the public breast. + We thank thee with our voice, and from the heart. + Farewell, Macready, since this night we part, + Go, take thine honours home; rank with the best, + Garrick and statelier Kemble, and the rest + Who made a nation purer through their art. + Thine is it that our drama did not die, + Nor flicker down to brainless pantomime, + And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see. + Farewell, Macready; moral, grave, sublime; + Our Shakespeare's bland and universal eye + Dwells pleased, through twice a hundred years, on thee. + + +TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE + + Come, when no graver cares employ, + Godfather, come and see your boy: + Your presence will be sun in winter, + Making the little one leap for joy. + + For, being of that honest few, + Who give the Fiend himself his due, + Should eighty-thousand college-councils + Thunder "Anathema," friend, at you; + + Should all our churchmen foam in spite + At you, so careful of the right, + Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome + (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; + + Where, far from noise and smoke of town, + I watch the twilight falling brown + All round a careless-order'd garden + Close to the ridge of a noble down. + + You'll have no scandal while you dine, + But honest talk and wholesome wine, + And only hear the magpie gossip + Garrulous under a roof of pine: + + For groves of pine on either hand, + To break the blast of winter, stand; + And further on, the hoary Channel + Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand; + + Where, if below the milky steep + Some ship of battle slowly creep, + And on thro' zones of light and shadow + Glimmer away to the lonely deep, + + We might discuss the Northern sin + Which made a selfish war begin; + Dispute the claims, arrange the chances; + Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win: + + Or whether war's avenging rod + Shall lash all Europe into blood; + Till you should turn to dearer matters, + Dear to the man that is dear to God; + + How best to help the slender store, + How mend the dwellings, of the poor; + How gain in life, as life advances, + Valour and charity more and more. + + Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet + Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet; + But when the wreath of March has blossom'd, + Crocus, anemone, violet, + + Or later, pay one visit here, + For those are few we hold as dear; + Nor pay but one, but come for many, + Many and many a happy year. + + _January, 1854._ + + +TO SIR JOHN SIMEON + +IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON + + Nightingales warbled without, + Within was weeping for thee: + Shadows of three dead men + Walk'd in the walks with me, + Shadows of three dead men[28] and thou wast one of the three. + + Nightingales sang in his woods: + The Master was far away: + Nightingales warbled and sang + Of a passion that lasts but a day; + Still in the house in his coffin the Prince of courtesy lay. + + Two dead men have I known + In courtesy like to thee: + Two dead men have I loved + With a love that ever will be: + Three dead men have I loved and thou art last of the three. + + +TO EDWARD LEAR, ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE + + Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls + Of water, sheets of summer glass, + The long divine Peneïan pass, + The vast Akrokeraunian walls, + + Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair, + With such a pencil, such a pen, + You shadow forth to distant men, + I read and felt that I was there: + + And trust me while I turn'd the page, + And track'd you still on classic ground, + I grew in gladness till I found + My spirits in the golden age. + + For me the torrent ever pour'd + And glisten'd--here and there alone + The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown + By fountain-urns;--and Naiads oar'd + + A glimmering shoulder under gloom + Of cavern pillars; on the swell + The silver lily heaved and fell; + And many a slope was rich in bloom + + From him that on the mountain lea + By dancing rivulets fed his flocks + To him who sat upon the rocks, + And fluted to the morning sea. + + +TO THE MASTER OF BALLIOL + +(PROFESSOR JOWETT) + + I + + Dear Master in our classic town, + You, loved by all the younger gown + There at Balliol, + Lay your Plato for one minute down, + + + II + + And read a Grecian tale re-told,[29] + Which, cast in later Grecian mould, + Quintus Calaber + Somewhat lazily handled of old; + + + III + + And on this white midwinter day-- + For have the far-off hymns of May, + All her melodies, + All her harmonies echo'd away?-- + + + IV + + To-day, before you turn again + To thoughts that lift the soul of men, + Hear my cataract's + Downward thunder in hollow and glen, + + + V + + Till, led by dream and vague desire, + The woman, gliding toward the pyre, + Find her warrior + Stark and dark in his funeral fire. + + +TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLL + + O Patriot Statesman, be thou wise to know + The limits of resistance, and the bounds + Determining concession; still be bold + Not only to slight praise but suffer scorn; + And be thy heart a fortress to maintain + The day against the moment, and the year + Against the day; thy voice, a music heard + Thro' all the yells and counter-yells of feud + And faction, and thy will, a power to make + This ever-changing world of circumstance, + In changing, chime with never-changing Law. + + +[Illustration: THE DRIVE AT FARRINGFORD, SHOWING ON THE LEFT THE +"WELLINGTONIA" PLANTED BY GARIBALDI. From a drawing by W. Biscombe +Gardner.] + + +TO GIFFORD PALGRAVE[30] + + I + + Ulysses, much-experienced man, + Whose eyes have known this globe of ours, + Her tribes of men, and trees, and flowers, + From Corrientes to Japan, + + + II + + To you that bask below the Line, + I soaking here in winter wet-- + The century's three strong eights[31] have met + To drag me down to seventy-nine + + + III + + In summer if I reach my day-- + To you, yet young, who breathe the balm + Of summer-winters by the palm + And orange grove of Paraguay, + + + IV + + I tolerant of the colder time, + Who love the winter woods, to trace + On paler heavens the branching grace + Of leafless elm, or naked lime, + + + V + + And see my cedar green, and there + My giant ilex keeping leaf + When frost is keen and days are brief-- + Or marvel how in English air + + + VI + + My yucca, which no winter quells, + Altho' the months have scarce begun, + Has push'd toward our faintest sun + A spike of half-accomplish'd bells-- + + + VII + + Or watch the waving pine which here + The warrior of Caprera set,[32] + A name that earth will not forget + Till earth has roll'd her latest year-- + + + VIII + + I, once half-crazed for larger light + On broader zones beyond the foam, + But chaining fancy now at home + Among the quarried downs of Wight, + + + IX + + Not less would yield full thanks to you + For your rich gift, your tale of lands + I know not,[33] your Arabian sands; + Your cane, your palm, tree-fern, bamboo, + + + X + + The wealth of tropic bower and brake; + Your Oriental Eden-isles,[34] + Where man, nor only Nature smiles; + Your wonder of the boiling lake;[35] + + + XI + + Phra-Chai, the Shadow of the Best,[36] + Phra-bat[37] the step; your Pontic coast; + Crag-cloister;[38] Anatolian Ghost;[39] + Hong-Kong,[40] Karnac,[41] and all the rest. + + + XII + + Thro' which I follow'd line by line + Your leading hand, and came, my friend, + To prize your various book, and send + A gift of slenderer value, mine. + + +TO THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA + + I + + At times our Britain cannot rest, + At times her steps are swift and rash; + She moving, at her girdle clash + The golden keys of East and West. + + + II + + Not swift or rash, when late she lent + The sceptres of her West, her East, + To one, that ruling has increased + Her greatness and her self-content. + + + III + + Your rule has made the people love + Their ruler. Your viceregal days + Have added fulness to the phrase + Of "Gauntlet in the velvet glove." + + + IV + + But since your name will grow with Time, + Not all, as honouring your fair fame + Of Statesman, have I made the name + A golden portal to my rhyme: + + + V + + But more, that you and yours may know + From me and mine, how dear a debt + We owed you, and are owing yet + To you and yours, and still would owe. + + + VI + + For he[42]--your India was his Fate, + And drew him over sea to you-- + He fain had ranged her thro' and thro', + To serve her myriads and the State,-- + + + VII + + A soul that, watch'd from earliest youth, + And on thro' many a brightening year, + Had never swerved for craft or fear, + By one side-path, from simple truth; + + + VIII + + Who might have chased and claspt Renown + And caught her chaplet here--and there + In haunts of jungle-poison'd air + The flame of life went wavering down; + + + IX + + But ere he left your fatal shore, + And lay on that funereal boat, + Dying, "Unspeakable" he wrote + "Their kindness," and he wrote no more; + + + X + + And sacred is the latest word; + And now the Was, the Might-have-been, + And those lone rites I have not seen, + And one drear sound I have not heard, + + + XI + + Are dreams that scarce will let me be, + Not there to bid my boy farewell, + When That within the coffin fell, + Fell--and flash'd into the Red Sea, + + + XII + + Beneath a hard Arabian moon + And alien stars. To question, why + The sons before the fathers die, + Not mine! and I may meet him soon; + + + XIII + + But while my life's late eve endures, + Nor settles into hueless gray, + My memories of his briefer day + Will mix with love for you and yours. + + +TO W. E. GLADSTONE + + We move, the wheel must always move, + Nor always on the plain, + And if we move to such a goal + As Wisdom hopes to gain, + Then you that drive, and know your Craft, + Will firmly hold the rein, + Nor lend an ear to random cries, + Or you may drive in vain, + For some cry "Quick" and some cry "Slow," + But, while the hills remain, + Up hill "Too-slow" will need the whip, + Down hill "Too-quick," the chain. + + +TO MARY BOYLE + +(Dedicating "The Progress of Spring.") + + I + + "Spring-flowers"! While you still delay to take + Your leave of Town, + Our elmtree's ruddy-hearted blossom-flake + Is fluttering down. + + + II + + Be truer to your promise. There! I heard + Our cuckoo call. + Be needle to the magnet of your word, + Nor wait, till all + + + III + + Our vernal bloom from every vale and plain + And garden pass, + And all the gold from each laburnum chain + Drop to the grass. + + + IV + + Is memory with your Marian gone to rest, + Dead with the dead? + For ere she left us, when we met, you prest + My hand, and said + + + V + + "I come with your spring-flowers." You came not, friend; + My birds would sing, + You heard not. Take then this spring-flower I send, + This song of spring, + + + VI + + Found yesterday--forgotten mine own rhyme + By mine old self, + As I shall be forgotten by old Time, + Laid on the shelf-- + + + VII + + A rhyme that flower'd betwixt the whitening sloe + And kingcup blaze, + And more than half a hundred years ago, + In rick-fire days, + + + VIII + + When Dives loathed the times, and paced his land + In fear of worse, + And sanguine Lazarus felt a vacant hand + Fill with _his_ purse. + + + IX + + For lowly minds were madden'd to the height + By tonguester tricks, + And once--I well remember that red night + When thirty ricks, + + + X + + All flaming, made an English homestead Hell-- + These hands of mine + Have helpt to pass a bucket from the well + Along the line, + + + XI + + When this bare dome had not begun to gleam + Thro' youthful curls, + And you were then a lover's fairy dream, + His girl of girls; + + + XII + + And you, that now are lonely, and with Grief + Sit face to face, + Might find a flickering glimmer of relief + In change of place. + + + XIII + + What use to brood? this life of mingled pains + And joys to me, + Despite of every Faith and Creed, remains + The Mystery. + + + XIV + + Let golden youth bewail the friend, the wife, + For ever gone. + He dreams of that long walk thro' desert life + Without the one. + + + XV + + The silver year should cease to mourn and sigh-- + Not long to wait-- + So close are we, dear Mary, you and I + To that dim gate. + + + XVI + + Take, read! and be the faults your Poet makes + Or many or few, + He rests content, if his young music wakes + A wish in you + + + XVII + + To change our dark Queen-city, all her realm + Of sound and smoke, + For his clear heaven, and these few lanes of elm + And whispering oak. + + +TO W. G. WARD + +IN MEMORIAM + + Farewell, whose living like I shall not find, + Whose Faith and Work were bells of full accord, + My friend, the most unworldly of mankind, + Most generous of all Ultramontanes, Ward, + How subtle at tierce and quart of mind with mind, + How loyal in the following of thy Lord! + + +TO SIR RICHARD JEBB + + Fair things are slow to fade away, + Bear witness you, that yesterday[43] + From out the Ghost of Pindar in you + Roll'd an Olympian; and they say[44] + + That here the torpid mummy wheat + Of Egypt bore a grain as sweet + As that which gilds the glebe of England, + Sunn'd with a summer of milder heat. + + So may this legend[45] for awhile, + If greeted by your classic smile, + Tho' dead in its Trinacrian Enna, + Blossom again on a colder isle. + + +TO GENERAL HAMLEY + +(Prologue of "The Charge of the Heavy Brigade.") + + Our birches yellowing and from each + The light leaf falling fast, + While squirrels from our fiery beech + Were bearing off the mast, + You came, and look'd and loved the view + Long-known and loved by me, + Green Sussex fading into blue + With one gray glimpse of sea; + And, gazing from this height alone, + We spoke of what had been + Most marvellous in the wars your own + Crimean eyes had seen; + And now--like old-world inns that take + Some warrior for a sign + That therewithin a guest may make + True cheer with honest wine-- + Because you heard the lines I read + Nor utter'd word of blame, + I dare without your leave to head + These rhymings with your name, + Who know you but as one of those + I fain would meet again, + Yet know you, as your England knows + That you and all your men + Were soldiers to her heart's desire, + When, in the vanish'd year, + You saw the league-long rampart-fire + Flare from Tel-el-Kebir + Thro' darkness, and the foe was driven, + And Wolseley overthrew + Arâbi, and the stars in heaven + Paled, and the glory grew. + + +EPITAPH ON LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE + +IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY + + Thou third great Canning, stand among our best + And noblest, now thy long day's work hath ceased, + Here silent in our Minster of the West + Who wert the voice of England in the East. + + +EPITAPH ON GENERAL GORDON + +IN THE GORDON BOYS' NATIONAL MEMORIAL HOME NEAR WOKING[46] + + Warrior of God, man's friend, and tyrant's foe, + Now somewhere dead far in the waste Soudan, + Thou livest in all hearts, for all men know + This earth has never borne a nobler man. + + +G. F. WATTS, R.A. + + As when a painter, poring on a face, + Divinely, thro' all hindrance, finds the man + Behind it, and so paints him that his face, + The shape and colour of a mind and life, + Lives for his children, ever at its best. + + + + +TENNYSON AND BRADLEY (DEAN OF WESTMINSTER) + +By MARGARET L. WOODS + + +Alum Bay, near Farringford, is now greatly changed. A big hotel stands up +dwarfing its cliffs, from which the famous layers of various-coloured sand +are being continually scooped into bottles, and on many a cottage +mantelpiece in the island there is a glass bottle showing a picture of a +lighthouse, or something else curiously wrought in Alum Bay sand. The +jagged white Needles still tip the westward point of its crescent, still +seeming to salute with greeting or farewell the majestic procession of +great ocean-going ships, and to smile on the frolic wings of yachts, that +all the summer long flirt and dance over the blue waters of the Solent, +like a flight of white butterflies. Formerly the rough track to the Bay +led over a lonely bit of common called the Warren, where furze grew, and +short brown-tasselled rushes marked the course of a hardly visible stream. +The Warren Farm lies on the landward edge of the Warren, and there on a +sunny 6th of August 1855, a third birthday was being solemnized with tea +and a tent. It was a blue tent on the top of a haystack, and under it +between her baby boy and girl, sat a blue-eyed mother, with the bloom of +youth and the freshness of the sea on her beauty. The mother and the two +children, lovely, too, with more than the usual loveliness of childhood, +were keeping their tiny festival with a gay simplicity, and I do not +doubt that on that as on other birthdays, Edith, the birthday queen, was +wearing on her golden curls a garland of rosebuds and mignonette. The +wheels of a carriage were heard driving up to the farm gate, and in a +minute a tall dark man, like a Spanish señor in his long cloak and +sombrero, appeared under the haystack. The young woman noted the tall +figure, the hat and cloak, the long, dark, clear-cut face, with the +beardless and finely modelled mouth and chin, the splendid eyes under the +high forehead, and the deep furrows running from nose to chin. She +perceived at once it was Alfred Tennyson, whose poems she knew and loved +so well. Meantime the Poet, sensitive as all artists must be to human +loveliness, looked surely with delight on the pretty picture, the haystack +and the blue tent, the young mother and her babes: a picture which was to +form as it were a gracious frontispiece to a whole volume of friendship. +He bade her "throw the little maid into his arms," caught the child and +asked her how old she was. "Three to-day," answered little Edith proudly. +"Then you and I," said he, "have the same birthday." + +The friendship thus preluded was to last until death closed it. The record +of it lies here in old diaries and in sheaves of letters, faithfully +treasured; a chronicle of some forty years with all the little troubles, +the joys and sorrows of the two households, intimately shared. It was a +four-cornered friendship, one of husband and wife with husband and wife, +but the correspondence passed almost entirely between the wives. Men had +already for the most part abandoned the practice of letter-writing outside +their business and families, but at the little rosewood drawing-room +escritoires at which we of the many documents are tempted to smile, +Victorian women fed the flame of friendship with--here the metaphor +becomes a little mixed--a constant flow of ink. Not that the two women +who kept up this correspondence were idle. All that Emily Tennyson on her +invalid sofa did for her Poet, is it not written in the book of his +Biography? Her friend, Marian Bradley, was yet busier than she, having the +cares and duties of a mother of a large family, besides those incident to +the wife of a man who was successively Head Master of a great school, Head +of an Oxford College, and Dean of Westminster. + +Granville Bradley was twelve years younger than Alfred Tennyson; an +interval in age which permits at once of veneration and of intimacy. It +was at the Lushingtons' house that my father, as an undergraduate of +one-and-twenty, first met the young Poet, and became his admirer; but it +was not until twelve years later that the admirer became also the friend. + +My mother tells in her diary how in that summer of the birthday meeting, +the two men roamed the country together, poetizing, botanizing, +geologizing. The enthusiasm of science had begun to seize on all thinking +humanity, and if botany was considered the only suitable science for +ladies, geology had something like a boom among the privileged males. I +can see my father now, a slight, active little figure, armed with a hammer +and girt with a capacious knapsack, setting forth joyous as a +chamois-hunter, for a day's sport among the fossils of the Isle of Wight +cliffs. But above all it was the communion of spirit, the play of ideas +which interested the two and drew them together. "They talked from 12 noon +to 10 P.M., almost incessantly, this day," writes my mother, "Tennyson +walking back with him (some three miles) to the Warren farm, still +talking." + +One pictures the tall, long-cloaked Bard and the vivacious little scholar +pacing side by side, inconscient of time and distance, down the shingly +drive of Farringford, through the warm and dusky night of the deep-hedged +lanes, overhung with the heavy darkness of August trees, until they came +out on the clear pale spaces of the open seaward land, and the whisper and +scent of the sea. And one would guess this to be a picture of two very +young men, absorbed in the first joy of one of the romantic friendships of +youth, did one not know that the Poet was a man of middle age and the +scholar in the maturing thirties. But the artists know their way to the +Fountain of youth and meet there. Tennyson, the great creative artist, +retained all his life the simplicity of a child. My father was no creator, +but he, too, was in his way an artist; he was the artist as scholar and +teacher. Language and Style were to him things almost as splendid and +sacred as they were wont to be to a Renaissance scholar, and sins against +them roused the only bad passions of an otherwise sweet nature. History to +him was not history, it was real life; the rhythm and harmony of poetry +were what music is to the ardent music-lover. From childhood to old age he +was for ever crooning some favourite fragment of verse. With what delight, +then, he found himself crossing the threshold of a great poet's mind; the +mind of one who did not, so to speak, keep his friends waiting in the +vestibule, but opened to them freely the palace chambers, rich with the +treasures of his knowledge, thought, and imagination. + +Those passages in my mother's diary in which she speaks of the happiness +it gave my father and herself to make acquaintance with the Poet, and to +find him just what they would have wished him to be, have already appeared +in the Biography. Also her description of those evenings in the +Farringford drawing-room, so often recurring and through so many years, +when he would "talk of what was in his heart," or read aloud some poem, +often yet unpublished, while they listened, looking out on the lovely +landscape and the glimpse of sea which, "framed in the dark-arched +bow-window," seemed, like some beautiful picture, almost to form part of +the room. + +My father now bought a small estate between Yarmouth and Freshwater, and +built a house--Heathfield--upon it, in which to spend his holidays. The +Freshwater side of the Isle of Wight was not at that time a fashionable +neighbourhood. The lovely, lonely bays on the blue Solent, innocent of +lodging-house or bathing-machine, succeeded each other from Yarmouth to +the Needles. They were approached over open land, or by little stony +chines, deep in gorse and bracken, down which tiny streams trickled, to +spread themselves out shiningly on the sands and melt into the sea. I +remember my young mother killing a red adder in our chine with a +well-aimed stone, as we came up from our morning dip in the waves. There +was room for wild creatures and open country and for poetry then on the +little island. The islanders, smugglers from generation to generation, had +in them more of the wild creature than of poetry. Droll stories used to be +told of their inability to appreciate the honour done to Freshwater by the +Poet's residence there. But perhaps the days when his "greatness" was +measured by the man-servant test[47] were more comfortable days for the +Bard than those when his movements were marked and followed through +telescopes. + +There was a constant coming and going between Heathfield and Farringford, +the children of each house being equally at home in the other. I see now +the long Farringford drawing-room, full of the green shade of a cedar tree +which grew near the great window, and the slight figure of Lady Tennyson +rising from the red sofa--it was a red room--and gliding towards my mother +with a smile upon her lips. She always wore a soft gray cashmere gown, and +it was always made in the same simple fashion; much as dresses were worn +in the days of Cruikshank, only that the gathered skirt was longer and +less full than the skirts of Cruikshank's ladies. Her silky auburn-brown +hair, partly hidden by lace lappets, was untouched with gray, and her +complexion kept its rose-leaf delicacy, just as her strong and cultivated +intellect kept its alertness, to the last days of her life. No sooner were +the greetings over than ten to one the door would open, and the Poet would +come slowly, softly, silently, into the room, dressed in an old-fashioned +black tail-coat, and fixing my mother with his distant short-sighted gaze. +One day, she being seated with her back to the cedar-green window, he +approached her with such extreme deference, and so solemn a courtesy, as +made her all amazed; until in a minute, with a flash of amusement, both +discovered that he had mistaken her for--the Queen. Still more surely one +or both of the long-haired, gray-tunicked boys would appear, less +silently; and away the children scampered to their endless play about the +rambling house and grounds. But even the children's play was informed with +the vital interest of the two houses: the story of King Arthur and his +knights. The first "Idylls of the King" had appeared, and others were +appearing. It was a red-letter evening indeed when Poet and new poem were +ready for a reading, either in the little upstairs study, or in the +drawing-room, where dessert was always laid after dinner, and he sat at +the head of the round table in a high carved chair. Country life was in +those days very simple and dinners early, so that even young children +appeared with the dessert, and my mother's description of those evenings +recalls very clearly some of the earliest of the pictures in memory's +picture-book, as well as some later ones. I remember now a story of +Tennyson's which tickled my childish sense of humour exceedingly, the +point of it lying in a bit of bad French, the badness of which I could +appreciate. My father had a vein of dry humour, which being akin to that +of the Poet, doubtless assisted to knit the bonds of friendship, since to +find the same thing humorous is almost essential to real intimacy. There +was between the two the natural give-and-take of friendship, and to the +warm appreciation given as well as received, Emily Tennyson's letters bear +constant witness. "Mr. Bradley's intellectual activity, so warmed by the +heart, is very good for my Ally," she writes; and again: "I know you would +be pleased if you could hear Ally recur to his talks with Mr. Bradley, and +one particular talk about the Resurrection and [illegible]. It is +difficult to express admiration, so I won't say any more, except God bless +you both." + +My father was now in the full stress of his great work at Marlborough, and +spent his summer holidays for the most part in Switzerland, but Christmas +and Easter still often found us at Freshwater. In 1866 Tennyson's eldest +son, Hallam, was sent to school at Marlborough. "I am not sending my son +to Marlborough--I am sending him to Bradley," he said in reply to the +Queen's question. On another occasion he said: "I am sending him to +Marlborough because Bradley is a friend of mine, and Stanley tells me that +Marlborough is the best school in England." There followed three visits to +Marlborough during the four years longer that my father remained there. +The second one, when Lady Tennyson came with her husband, was brought +about by the severe illness of the cherished son, and lasted seven weeks. +At first the anxiety about the boy was too great to admit of pleasure +either to them or to my parents, to whom--especially to my mother--Hallam +was almost as a son of their own. But later, and during the Poet's other +visits, there were walks and drives in Savernake forest, beautiful at all +seasons of the year, and over the windy spaces of the gray silent +downland, where "the chronicles of wasted Time" are written in worn and +mysterious hieroglyphs of stone, and fosse, and hillock. During the first +visit "The Victim" was written by him in the room called the green +dressing-room, looking out on the clipped yews and tall lime-circle of +Lady Hertford's old garden. In summer-time he had great pleasure in the +peaceful beauty of Marlborough and its landscape, and also in the wealth +of flowers with which my mother surrounded herself in her house and +garden; for she was a great gardener before it became fashionable to be +so. In the drawing-room at the Lodge, masters and their wives--then all +young--and Sixth Form boys gathered around the Poet. At that time he had +for years been living a life apart from the crowd, and it must have been +an effort to him to project himself into this young and wholly strange +school society. But he did it gallantly and seemed happy among the young +people. There were science evenings and poetry evenings. That is, there +were evenings when masters interested in science exhibited the wonders of +the microscope, and evenings when Tennyson read aloud his own poetry or +Hood's comic verses. I remember well being allowed to stay up to hear him +read "Guinevere" to the Upper Sixth Form. He had a great deep voice like +the booming of waves in a sea-cave, and although the situation in the poem +was not one to appeal to a child, yet his reading of the farewell of +Arthur to Guinevere affected me so much that I crawled into a corner and +wept two pocket-handkerchiefs full of tears. + +During this visit Tennyson, who suffered sometimes from nervous +depression, said more than once that he envied my father's life of active +and incessant goodness. In the man who at the height of his fame could +experience and express such a feeling, there was still something of the +heart of a good child--its simplicity, its humility, its "wanting to be +good." + +In June 1867, Aldworth--called at first Greenhill--appears in the letters. +Emily Tennyson writes to my mother: "We have agreed to buy thirty-five[48] +acres of beautifully situated land. It is a ledge on a hill nearly 1000 +feet high, all copse and foxgloves almost, and a steep descent of wood and +field below; the ledge looking over an immense plain, and backed by a hill +slightly higher than itself." I quote what follows because it shows how +simple had been the Freshwater life. "The order is gone for a small +sociable landau. This seems so luxurious that I am afraid I am perversely +more ready to cry than to laugh over it." + +Aldworth was meant to be a small house, but somehow it grew to be a large +one. The Tennysons' own design for it was followed in the main by Mr. +(afterwards Sir James) Knowles. The winds and rains of the great height +have weathered stone and slate until the house and the balustrade of its +wide terrace seem to have stood there two centuries, rather than not yet +half of one. The planting of the Italian cypresses along the edge of the +terrace was the Poet's own particular fancy. It is strange that they +should have grown so grandly on this exposed English hill-side. The +darkness of their foliage, the severity of their lines, put an accent on +the visionary beauty of the immense view which lies spread below and +beyond them. There is the Sussex Weald, so far down that its hills and +dales appear one plain, the range of the South Downs, rising yonder to +Chanctonbury Ring, dropping nearer to a chalky gap which lets in the +distant glitter of the sea. Hindhead, the Surrey ranges, Windsor +Forest--the list grows too long of all that may be seen from Aldworth +terrace, and from the heathy height above, whence seven counties are said +to be visible. For my part, when looking from such heights, over the great +everlasting marriage festivals of Earth and Sky, it is with difficulty, +almost with reluctance, that I bring myself to connect them with the map. + +All things grow with a peculiar luxuriance on Black Down, and the +immediate surroundings of the house were beautiful from the first, though +the garden with its flowers and trees has added a beauty to those natural +ones. The Sussex country was lonely forty years ago, and the Poet could +pace his heathery ridge, brooding upon his verse, untroubled by any risk +of human intrusion. + +My parents and their family came to know and love this new home as well as +the old one at Freshwater, and although it represents a later stage of +Tennyson's life, the interest of the house is almost as great. The fine +Laurence portrait is there, besides the admirable Watts portrait of the +Poet's wife, and that of his sons as boys. And many other pictures and +things of interest and value have accumulated within its walls. + +In his old age a change, easily understood, came over the old Bard. He +lost his shyness of "the crowd," and seemed thoroughly to enjoy his +glimpses of London society. He never visited us at Oxford, but when my +father succeeded Dean Stanley at Westminster, my parents once more enjoyed +some delightful visits from him. He was there in company with his eldest +son and his daughter-in-law, on the occasion of his taking his seat in the +House of Peers. Then and at other times there were memorable meetings of +great men--Gladstone and others--with the Poet, in the fitting frame of +the ancient Deanery. + +My mother writes of Tennyson in 1888, after thirty-three years of +friendship, "he grows more and more unselfish and thoughtful for others." +She noted how the self-absorption and melancholy of his earlier years +passed away in the calm sunshine of his old age. + +The passing years had brought changes to others. The brilliant little +scholar with the tongue which had once held in check the boldest offender +against the laws of God or the Latin Grammar--although it never smote to +defend or advance himself--had ripened into the constant peacemaker; one +of the gentlest and humblest of that little band, who really walk in the +footsteps of their Master Christ, and make those footsteps clearer for +ever to all whose privilege it has been to live in their intimacy. + +At length the day came when, full of years and honours, the famous singer, +the Great Voice of Victorian England, lay silenced in the solemn shade of +Westminster Abbey, with the clamour of London about him instead of the +roar of his sea. It was his old friend, he who had walked and talked with +him those long hours of the summer day and night thirty-seven years +before, who pronounced the last blessing above his grave. And now that +friend also sleeps, as it were, in the next room. + + + + +NOTES ON CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON + +By the late MASTER OF BALLIOL (PROFESSOR JOWETT) + + +Absolute truthfulness, absolutely himself, never played tricks. + +Never got himself puffed in the newspapers. + +A friend of liberty and truth. + +Extraordinary vitality. + +Great common sense and a strong will. + +The instinct of common sense at the bottom of all he did. + +Not a man of the world (in the ordinary sense) but a man who had the +greatest insight into the world, and often in a word or a sentence would +flash a light. + +Intensely needed sympathy. + +A great and deep strength. + +He mastered circumstances, but he was also partly mastered by them, _e.g._ +the old calamity of the disinheritance of his father and his treatment by +rogues in the days of his youth. + +Very fair towards other poets, including those who were not popular, such +as Crabbe. + +He had the high-bred manners not only of a gentleman but of a great man. + +He would have wished that, like Shakespeare, his life might be unknown to +posterity. + + +_Conversation._ + +In the commonest conversation he showed himself a man of genius. He had +abundance of fire, never talked poorly, never for effect. As Socrates +described Plato, "Like no one whom I ever knew before." + +The three subjects of which he most often spoke were "God," "Free-Will," +and "Immortality," yet always seeming to find an (apparent) contradiction +between the "imperfect world," and "the perfect attributes of God." + +Great charm of his ordinary conversation, sitting by a very ordinary +person and telling stories with the most high-bred courtesy, endless +stories, not too high or too low for ordinary conversation. + +The persons and incidents of his childhood very vivid to him, and the +Lincolnshire dialect and the ways of life. + +Loved telling a good story, which he did admirably, and also hearing one. + +He told very accurately, almost in the same words, his old stories, +though, having a powerful memory, he was impatient of a friend who told +him a twice-repeated tale. + +His jests were very amusing. + +At good things he would sit laughing away--laughter often interrupted by +fits of sadness. + +His absolute sincerity, or habit of saying all things to all kinds of +persons. + +He ought always to have lived among gentlemen only. + +Of his early friends (after Arthur Hallam) FitzGerald, Spedding, Sir John +Simeon, Lushington--A. T. was enthusiastic about them. + +Spedding very gifted and single-minded. He spent his life in defending the +character of Bacon. + + + + +TENNYSON, CLOUGH, AND THE CLASSICS + +By HENRY GRAHAM DAKYNS + + +You ask me to write a little paper for you on my reminiscences of +Farringford, the Pyrenees, and, later, Aldworth; and, although I am still +beset by something of the old horror of biography which so obsessed me +when I had the chance that I religiously abstained from taking notes at +the time, I cannot refuse the opportunity you offer me of having my say +also about your father and mother, and certain others whose friendship was +and is so precious to me in its affection, and their image ineffaceable. +To your cairn of memories I wish to add my pebble. I might seem lacking in +affection otherwise, and that would be to do myself an injustice, and +yourselves, your father and mother, an injury, that of seeming insensible +to their true worth. _Semper ego auditor tantum? Nunquamne reponam?_ + +This then is, if somewhat meagre, a faithful record of what I recollect. +To avoid repetition and for reverence' sake, I shall speak of Lord and +Lady Tennyson as Him and Her, and of yourselves, my two pupils, by your +names. If I have occasion to mention myself (your old tutor), I will use +the symbol [Greek: D], the first letter of [Greek: Dakunidion], which, +being interpreted, is "Little Dakyns," by which name your father spoke of +me, at least on one occasion. + + +[Illustration: TENNYSON AND HIS TWO SONS. By Julia Margaret Cameron.] + + +_My first Introduction to her and the two Boys, and presently to him, at +Farringford, March (?) 1861_ + +I shall never forget the beauty of the scene--I wish I could actualize +it--and it was accompanied by what appealed not only to the eye, but to +the heart, a mysterious sense of at-homeness. Your mother, as I think I +have often told you, was seated half-reclining on the sofa which stood +with its back to the window, with that wonderful view of capes and sea +beyond. And you two stood leaning against her, one on either side. She +was, and always remained, supremely beautiful, not only in feature and the +bodily frame, but still more from the look in her eyes, the motion of her +lips, and the deep clear music of her voice. Such a combination of grace +and dignity with simplicity and frankness and friendliness of accost as +never was. Such gentle trustfulness and sincerity of welcome as must have +won a less susceptible heart than that of the diffidently intrusive +[Greek: paidagôgos D]. I thought she must be a queen who had stept down +from mediæval days into these more prosaic times which she ennobled. And +the two Boys. If I cannot speak about them to you, you will guess the +reason. But for the benefit of a younger generation, I appeal to the +portraits of her by Watts (now at Aldworth), and of Hallam and +Lionel--surely among the best he ever painted--which are given in your +father's _Memoir_ (vol. i. facing p. 330 and p. 370). + +And then he came in, a truly awful[49] moment, but in an instant of time +he too had not only banished the nervousness of [Greek: D], but won his +heart. His welcome resembled hers in its sincerity. And even if I had been +ten times more nervous than I was, and awe-stricken I was, no doubt, +something set me at my ease at once. Of his look and manner I find it not +only hard, but absurd to attempt to speak. He must have been at that date +somewhat over fifty. I was twenty-three, not quite thirty years +younger.[50] His figure, so well known in the photographs of the time, was +imposing, and it was awe-inspiring to be in the presence of the great Poet +we had hero-worshipped in our youth (though he, I think, was not the only +divinity in our Pantheon, there was Clough also--Browning at that date had +not appeared). But even so formidable as he was on these grounds, the +humanity of the man, and what I came to regard as the most abiding, +perhaps the deepest-seated, characteristic, his eternal youthfulness, +acted as a spell, and timidity melted into affection. I can still feel his +hand-grip, soft at once and large and strong, as he stood there peering +down on the relatively small mortal before him--so sane, and warm, and +trustful. + +As to his so-called gruffness of manner, I will speak about that later on, +but I want at once to make clear a certain quality of mind which I believe +helped things, so that he was not troubled by the presence of a stranger, +either then or when [Greek: D] was no longer a stranger, ever afterwards. +I suppose if there had been any occasion for comparing notes he might have +discovered much to object to in my attitude to the universe, especially +during my turbulent youth, but we had much in common, he in his great +grand way illimitably, and I in my tentative fashion diminutively. The +quality I refer to as a bond was a heartfelt detestation on [Greek: D]'s +part of what I venture to call the pseudo-biographic mania. The notion of +collecting tiny pinhead facts, or words actually spoken but separated +from their context: the idea of collecting these and calling the result +biography I loathed. So when I found, as I did at once, that the great +man, the poet, and the equally great woman his wife, held similar views, I +applauded myself and became more and more rigidly unbiographic. Of course, +I see now that [Greek: D] was possibly over-scrupulous. Instead of +depending on mere recollection, how much more sensible, and not a whit the +less reverential, it would have been to have taken down at many a +conversation some catchword of what he said, and his remarks were apt to +be as incisive as they were laconic. And the Poet's fore-ordained +biographer would have blessed the inspiration. Would Tennyson himself have +been equally pleased? I am not so sure. But what he really deprecated was +after all only the vulgar tales of the spurious biographer. "In life the +owls--at death the ghouls." + +With this apology I come to some among the dicta current in my time. I +think it was the first night I happened to use the word "knowledge," +pronouncing it as I had been brought up to do with the ō long, whereupon +he complimented me.[51] "You say 'knōwledge,'" and explained that +"knŏwledge" to rhyme with "college" was the only permissible exception. +I felt pleased with my domestic training. Then he went on to denounce a +solecism, the use of "like" with a verb, "like he did," instead of "as he +did," and humorously he begged me to correct any one guilty of such +barbarism, a pledge I undertook, and acted up to, correcting speakers +right and left till it came to the superior clergy, bishops, and so forth, +in the pulpit; then I desisted.... + +But to proceed. Apropos of Voltaire saying that to listen to English +people talking was to overhear the hissing of serpents, he commented, "and +to listen to German was to overhear _k's_ like the scrunching of +egg-shells." He had two or three pithy sayings, which came straight home +to me and became part of my mental furniture, so much so that I have at +times given myself the credit of innovating them. One of these was that +the defect of most people--not critics only, but others, _la foule_ in +general--is "to impute themselves." I felt this to be at the root of the +matter, a profound if humorous extension of the wise man's saw, [Greek: +pantôn metron anthrôpos]. He said it often and most seriously. The other I +might call the "_elogium vatis_" _par excellence_. It took the form of a +caution against "mixing up things that differ," and to this also among his +_sententiae_ I assented _quod latius patet_. I think I once used it +incidentally to him, and he at once pulled me up. "That's mine." He +certainly did so when I asked him his own riddle: "My first's a kind of +butter, my second's a kind of liquor, and my whole's a kind of charger." +Answer: "Ramrod." And he exclaimed, "That's my riddle."[52] Then there is +the old story how the Englishman, wishing to direct the _garçon_ not to +let the fire go out, gently growled, "Ne permettez pas sortir le fou," +whereupon the _garçon_ locks up the other Englishman. I think it was +brought up by Frank Lushington as now told against the Poet, and Tennyson +gave us the correct version; originally he had invented it himself of +Edmund Lushington when they were in Paris, chaffing his friend's French. +But it was a case of biter bit. In the vulgar version I find the Poet with +his long hair is made to play the part of the _fou_. Thus far these +trifles. I come to _memorabilia_ more precious to me and of larger import. +I will head the section + + +_Tennyson and the Classics, English and Other_, + +and it is what you asked for. And let me make two preliminary remarks. In +reference to the defect of self-imputation above mentioned, I wish to +point out to any, consciously or unconsciously, critically minded person, +that the striking thing to me was the wide sympathy, the catholicity of +the Poet's mind, his width of view. Thus he--I will not use the word +"displayed," as if it were an external habit of any sort--but simply and +naturally he had ingrained in him the greatest generosity in his feeling +for, in his criticism of, contemporary authors. And this applies to his +appreciation of the great classical authors of the past. I do not say, of +course, that he had not his favourites, as we all have, especially, +perhaps, the smaller we are. For instance--and here other of his +contemporaries, Clough, Jowett, etc., would have borne him out--his +appreciation of [Greek: D]'s favourite poet Shelley was not so spontaneous +nor, I venture to think, so profound as, let us say, his appreciation of +Wordsworth (whom he also "criticized"[53]) or Victor Hugo, or, to take an +opposite instance, his ready appreciation of Walt Whitman, or of Browning, +or possibly of Clough. But all this is admirably discussed in your +_Memoir_.[54] I only wish to add my testimony, and I take as my text a +saying of his about Goethe, which I seem to recollect if I recollect +rightly: "In his smaller poems, _e.g._ those in _Wilhelm Meister_, Goethe +shows himself to be one of the great artists of the world. He is also a +great critic, yet he always said the best he could of an author. Good +critics are rarer than good authors" (cp. his own "And the critic's rarer +still").[55] + +And I must further premise that the samples given of quotations from the +Classics are from the particular ones he chanced upon--the artist in him, +perhaps, instinctively selecting--for the particular youth, and what he +needed, or because they fitted on to things on which his mind was working +at that date. Here, at all events, they are, or some of them. I omit +continual references to Shakespeare, to Dante, to Virgil, to Homer. He was +perpetually quoting Homer and Virgil, and to my mind there was nothing for +grandeur of sound like his pronunciation of Latin and Greek as he recited +whole passages or single lines in illustration of some point, of metre, +perhaps, or thought, or feeling; for instance, the line from Homer: + + [Greek: bê d' akeôn para thina polyphloisboio thalassês], + +commenting on the possibility of pronouncing [Greek: oi] not in our +English fashion like _oy_ in _boy_, but like the German _ö_--_o_ of +"wood"--_phlösböo_--imitating the lisping whisper of the tideless +Mediterranean on a soft summer day. Then how he rolled out his Virgil, +giving first the thunder, then the wash of the sea in these lines: + + Fluctus ut in medio coepit quum albescere ponto + Longius, ex altoque sinum trahit; utque volutus + Ad terras immane sonat per saxa, neque ipso + Monte minor procumbit; at ima exaestuat unda + Verticibus, nigramque alte subiectat arenam. + +He used to say, "The Horatian alcaic is, perhaps, the stateliest metre +except the Virgilian hexameter at its best." + +I take my samples in chance order. I suppose I knew my Catullus fairly +well before, but I am sure that, in a deeper sense, I learnt to know "the +tenderest of Roman poets" for the first time that day when he read to me +in that voice of his, with half-sad _Heiterkeit_, and with that refinement +of pronunciation which seemed--I am sure was--the right thing absolutely, +those well-known poems about his lady-love's pet sparrow (translated +roughly here in case a reader should chance not to know Latin): + + Passer, deliciae meae puellae, + Quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere, + Cui primum digitum dare appetenti + Et acris solet incitare morsus, + Cum desiderio meo nitenti + Carum nescio quid libet iocari. + Credo ut, cum gravis acquiescet ardor, + Tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem + Et tristis animi levare curas! + + Sparrow, pet of my lady-love, with you she will play; she will hold + you in her bosom and give you her finger-tips to peck at, and tease to + quicken your sharp bite, when my shining heart's desire is in the + humour for some darling jest. Doubtless, when the fever of passion + dies away she seeks to find some little solace[56] for her pain. Oh, + if I could only play with you as she does, and so relieve the gloomy + sorrow of my soul! + +And then the tear-moving sequel in the minor: + + Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque, + Et quantum est hominum venustiorum. + Passer mortuus est meae puellae, + Passer, deliciae meae puellae, + Quem plus illa oculis suis amabat; + Nam mellitus erat suamque norat + Ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem, + Nec sese a gremio illius movebat, + Sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc + Ad solam dominam usque pipillabat. + Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum + Illuc, unde negant redire quemquam. + At vobis male sit, malae tenebrae + Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis: + Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis. + Vae factum male! Vae miselle passer! + Tua nunc opera meae puellae + Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli. + + Mourn, all ye Goddesses of Love, and all ye Cupids mourn: mourn, all + ye sons of men that know what love is. My lady's sparrow is dead, + dead; her sparrow, my lady's pet, whom she loved more than her own + eyes, for he was honey-sweet, and knew his own mistress as well as any + girl her mother; nor would he stir from his lady's bosom, but hopping + about, now here, now there, he piped his little treble to her and her + alone. But now he goes along the darksome road, to that place whence + they say no one returns. Ah, my curse upon you! Cursed shades of + Orcus, that devour all things beautiful! So beautiful a sparrow have + ye taken from me! Alas for the ill deed done! Alas, poor little[57] + sparrow! Now, because of you my lady's dear eyes are swollen, they are + red with weeping. + +The tenderness of his voice when he came to the eleventh and twelfth +lines, and the measured outburst of passionate imprecation, come back +almost audibly. I wish I could reproduce the pathos. But in the poem he +next read to me, the tenderness of Catullus and his perfection of form +reach, I think, a climax. So I think he felt, he who so revived his manner +in "Frater Ave atque Vale," and his reading gave me that impression. I +refer to the passionate poem: + + Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, + Rumoresque senium severiorum + Omnes unius aestimemus assis. + Soles occidere et redire possunt: + Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, + Nox est perpetua una dormienda.[58] + Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, + Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, + Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum. + Dein, quum millia multa fecerimus, + Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, + Aut nequis malus invidere possit, + Cum tantum sciat esse basiorum. + + Let us live, my Lesbia, live and love; and, as for the slanderous + tongues of greybeards, value them all at a farthing's worth. Suns may + set and suns may rise again, but for us, when our short day has ended, + one long night comes, a night of sleep that knows no ending. Give me a + thousand kisses, then a hundred, and then another thousand and a + second hundred, and then once more a thousand and again a hundred, on + and on. And then, when we have made up many thousands, we will + overturn the reckoning that we may not know the number, nor any + villain cast an evil eye on us, though he discover all that huge + amount of kisses. + +Can't you overhear his voice? _Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus_, deep-toned +and fast, like a pent-up stream in spate, bursting its barriers, till the +tale is told. + +Two other poems of Catullus I must mention. The first of these he had much +on his mind, for he was just then in the mood for experiments on metre, +and the famous poem "Boädicea" was, I think, the first of these,[59] +echoing the galliambics of Catullus in the "Attis": + + Super alta vectus Attis celeri rate maria. + +How far his own metre corresponds to Catullus' is a question for experts +like Bridges, Mayor, R. C. Trevelyan, etc., to determine, but I heard him +more than once read first the Attis poem and then his "Boädicea," and I +thought at the time there was an extraordinary resemblance in rhythm. He +wished that the "Boädicea" were musically annotated, so that it might be +read with proper quantity and pace. + +The last of the Catullus poems I want to refer to he never read to me as a +whole. It is the lovely Epithalamium in honour of Junia and Manlius, +calling on Hymenaeus to attend and bless the marriage: + + Collis o Heliconii + Cultor, Uraniae genus, + Qui rapis teneram ad virum + Virginem, o Hymenaee Hymen, + O Hymen Hymenaee! + + Dweller on the mount of Helicon, + Seed of the Heavenly One, + Thou that bearest off the tender maiden to her bridegroom, + O Hymenaean Hymen, + O Hymen Hymenaean! + +I do not know if he ever read it as a whole to any one. It would have been +splendid to hear, but towards the end of the long poem, where the poet, +like Spenser, prays, "Send us the timely fruit of this same marriage +night," comes a verse he was very fond of quoting, and in particular the +third line: + + Torquatus volo parvulus + Matris a gremio suae + Porrigens teneras manus + Dulce rideat ad patrem + Semhiante labello. + + I want a baby-boy Torquatus to stretch out his little hands from his + mother's lap, and sweetly to smile upon his father with half-opened + lips. + +These, I think, were the most remarkable of the Catullus poems he showed +me, though of course there were others. I come now to the kindred Greek +genius, who had a special fascination for him, the poetess Sappho. He +loved her Sapphics, and greatly disliked the Sapphics of Horace, "with +their little tightly curled pigtails." I believe I owe it to him that I am +a worshipper of that most marvellous muse of Sappho.... + + [EDITORIAL NOTE.--Unhappily Mr. Dakyns never completed his paper. For, + while still engaged on it, he died suddenly, June 21, 1911. A friend, + Miss F. M. Stawell, has added the following notes from recollections + of what Mr. Dakyns said or wrote to her on the subject.] + +Mr. Dakyns's manuscript breaks off abruptly, but he left some headings for +what he intended to write: Sappho, Goethe, Béranger, Walt Whitman, Victor +Hugo, Life at Farringford, The French Tour and Clough, Clough and the +Pyrenees. I think he would have quoted first from Sappho the lines +beginning: + + [Greek: hoion to glykymalon ereuthetai akrô ep' ysdô] + + Like the sweet apple that reddens upon the topmost bough, + +for he loved the passage, and the book was left open at this page. + +No doubt he would have gone on to quote others that were favourites both +with the Poet and with himself. Such as the heart-sick cry of love: + + [Greek: dedyke men ha selanna + kai Plêiades, mesai de + nyktes, para d' erchet' hôra, + egô de mona katheudô.] + + The moon has set, the Pleiades have gone; + Midnight! The hour has past, and I + Sleep here alone. + +Or again: + + [Greek: glukeia mater, outoi dunamai krekên ton histon, + pothô dameisa paidos bradinan di' Aphroditan.] + + Dear mother mine, I cannot weave my web-- + My heart is sick with longing for my dear, + Through Aphrodite fair. + +And he would probably have included that longer poem of passion which has +been the wonder of the world, that invocation to + + Starry-throned, immortal Aphrodite. + + [Greek: poikilothron, athanat Aphrodita.] + +Mr. Dakyns did not tell me himself what he had learnt of Simonides from +Tennyson, but Tennyson quoted the following poems to his eldest son, +Hallam. The sad, comforting, beautiful chant of Danaë to her baby, afloat +on the waters, was quoted in one of Mr. Dakyns's last letters to me, when +his mind was full of his unfinished article. He wrote: "Isn't that lovely +and tear-drawing? true and tender and sempiternal?" And then he copied out +the whole song, in case I should chance not to have the text at hand, with +J. A. Symonds's translation beside it: + + [Greek: hote larnaki en daidalea + anemos te min pneôn kinêtheisa te limna + deimati êripen, out' adiantoisi pareiais, + amphi te Persei balle philên cheira, + eipe t'; ô tekos, oion echô ponon. + su d' aôteis, galathênô t' êtori knôsseis en aterpei + dourati chalkeogomphô, + nukti alampei kuaneô te dnophô staleis; + halman d' huperthe tean koman batheian + pariontos kumatos ouk alegeis, + oud' anemou phthongon, + porphurea keimenos en chlanidi, kalon prosôpon. + + ei de toi deinon to ge deinon ên, + kai ken emôn rhêmatôn lepton hupeiches ouas. + kelomai d', heude brephos, heudetô de pontos, + heudetô d' ametron kakon; + metaibolia de tis phaneiê, Zeu pater, ek seo; + hoti de tharsaleon epos + euchomai nosphin dikas, syngnôthi moi.] + + When in the carven chest + The winds that blew and waves in wild unrest + Smote her with fear, she not with cheeks unwet + Her arms of love round Perseus set, + And said: "O child, what grief is mine! + But thou dost slumber, and thy baby breast + Is sunk in rest. + Here in the cheerless, brass-bound bark, + Tossed amid starless night and pitchy dark, + Nor dost thou heed the scudding brine + Of waves that wash above thy curls so deep, + Nor the shrill winds that sweep-- + Lapped in thy purple robe's embrace + Fair little face! + + But if this dread were dreadful, too, to thee, + Then would'st thou lend thy listening ear to me; + Therefore I cry, Sleep, babe, and sea be still, + And slumber our unmeasured ill! + Oh, may some change of fate, sire Zeus, from Thee + Descend our woes to end! + But if this prayer, too overbold, offends + Thy justice,--yet be merciful to me. + +It was natural also that the heroic poems of Simonides should have +appealed to both men, and of special interest to know the delight that +Tennyson took in one of these, and perhaps because of the similarity shown +by his own splendid lines in the "Duke of Wellington" Ode: + + He, that ever following her commands, + On with toil of heart and knees and hands, + Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won + His path upward, and prevail'd, + Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled + Are close upon the shining table-lands + To which our God Himself is moon and sun. + + [Greek: esti tis logos + tan aretan naiein dysambatois epi petrais; + hagnan de min thean chôron hagnon amphepein. + oude pantôn blepharois thnatôn esoptos, + ô mê dakethymos hidrôs + endothen molê, hikê t' es akron + andreias.] + + There is a tale + That Valour dwells above the craggy peaks + Hard, hard to scale, + A goddess pure in a pure land, and none + May see her face, + Save those who by keen Toil and sweat have won + That highest place, + That goal of manhood. + +And with these heroic lines go the others on the men who fell at +Thermopylae: + + [Greek: tôn en Thermopylais thanontôn + eukleês men ha tycha, kalos d' ho potmos, + bômos d' ho taphos, pro goôn de mnastis, ho d' oiktos epainos: + entaphion de toiouton out' eurôs + outh' ho pandamatôr amaurôsei chronos. + andrôn agathôn hode sakos oiketan eudoxian + Hellados heileto: martyrei de Leônidas, + ho Spartas basileus, aretas megan leloipôs + kosmon aenaon te kleos.] + + Of those who fell at far Thermopylae, + Fair is the fate and high the destiny: + Their tomb an altar, memory for tears + And praise for lamentation through the years. + On such a monument comes no decay, + And Time that conquers all takes not away + Their greatness: for this holy Sepulchre + Of valiant men has called to dwell with her + The glory of all Greece. Bear witness, Sparta's king, + Leonidas! thy ever-flowing spring + Of fame and the high beauty of thy deed! + +There is a kindred note echoing through the popular catch in praise of the +tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, one of the first bits of Greek +that Tennyson made his sons learn: + + [Greek: en myrtou kladi to xiphos phorêsô, + hôsper Harmodios kai Aristogeitôn, + hote ton tyrannon ktanetên + isonomous t' Athênas epoiêsatên.] + + In myrtle I wreathe my sword + As they wreathed it, the brave, + Brave Harmodius, Aristogeiton, + When they slew the oppressor, the lord, + And to Athens her freedom gave. + +Mr. Dakyns must have rejoiced in a spirit that could feed boys on such +gallant stuff as this. + +From Goethe he would have selected the noble proem to Faust: + + Ihr naht Euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten, + +for there was a note among his papers to that effect. + +And there is one note about Béranger (written in a letter): + + It was he too who introduced me to Béranger, _e.g._ "Le Roi d'Yvetot," + and the refrain: + + Toute l'aristocratie à la lanterne![60] + + And how _he_ read it! Like the _Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus_ of + Catullus quoted above--with fire and fury, _tauriformis + Aufidus_-like--a refrain which, like the "Marseillaise," stirred my + republican spirit [Greek: nosphin dikas], inordinately, I mean, and in + a monstrous cruel sort of way: but what _he_ liked was the form and + force of the language, the pure art and horror of it, I imagine. + +Mr. Dakyns, in the short time I knew him, often spoke to me about +Tennyson, and always with stress on "the width of his humanity," and how +he could appreciate works at which a smaller man might have been shocked; +how, for example, he sympathized with the inmost spirit of Hugo's cry to +the awful vastness of God: + + Je sais que vous avez bien autre chose à faire + Que de nous plaindre tous; + +saw nothing irreverent in it, as lesser critics have done; found in it +rather a fortifying quality against "the grief that saps the mind." "I +wish you could have heard him read it," he wrote afterwards, "in his +organ-voice." Once he said to me how much he had wanted Tennyson to write +the Ode on the Stars which was always floating before his mind: "He could +have done it, for he had the sense of vastness. And it would have been a +far finer work than the 'Idylls of the King.'" + +Tennyson also, he told me, was the first man to tell him about Walt +Whitman, and the first passage he showed him was one of the most daring +Whitman ever wrote. On his side Whitman had a deep feeling for Tennyson +and used to write of him affectionately as "the Boss," a touch that +pleased Mr. Dakyns greatly, for he admired and loved Walt. He gave me a +vivid impression of Tennyson's large-heartedness in all kinds of ways: for +instance, his own opinions were always intensely democratic, and the +Tennysons sympathized rather with the old Whig and Unionist policy, but he +said it never made any difference or any jar between them. "I remember his +coming into my little study at the top of the house and finding me +absorbed in Shelley, and asking me what I was reading, and I was struck at +the time by the quiet satisfied way in which he took my answer, no cavil +or criticism, though I knew he did not feel about Shelley as I did.... I +don't know how to give in writing the true impression of his dear genial +nature. It often came out in what might seem like roughnesses when they +were written down. He was very fond of Clough: and Clough at that time was +very taciturn--he was ill really, near his death--and I remember once at a +discussion on metre Clough would not say one word, and at last Tennyson +turned to him with affectionate impatience, quoting Shakespeare in his +deep, kindly voice, 'Well, goodman Dull, what do _you_ say?' How can I put +that down? I can't give the sweet humorous tone that made the charm of it. +And then people called him 'gruff.' His 'gruffness' only gripped one +closer." + +Another time he told me with keen enjoyment of Tennyson's discovering a +likeness to him in some drawing on the cover of the old _Cornhill_--I +think it was the figure of a lad ploughing--pointing to it like a child +and saying, "Little Dakyns." He would speak with delight of Tennyson's +humour, far deeper and wilder, he said, than most people would have +guessed, Rabelaisian even in the noble sense of the word, and always fresh +and pure. + +"I remember an instance of my own audacity," he said, "at which I almost +shudder now. We were riding into a French town, it was the evening of a +fête, and the whole population seemed to be capering about with the most +preposterous antics. It struck a jarring note, and the Poet said to me, 'I +can't understand them, it's enough to make one weep.' Somehow I couldn't +help answering--but can you imagine the audacity? I assure you I trembled +myself as I did so--'Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean.' And he +took it, he took it! He did indeed!" + +The memories of Clough also were very dear to Mr. Dakyns, and he said he +could never help regretting that he had not heard him read his last long +work, "In Mari Magno," to the Poet. "Tennyson said to me afterwards, +'Clough's Muse has lost none of her power,' and I couldn't help feeling a +little hurt that I had not been asked to hear the reading: perhaps it was +vanity on my part." + +Clough always came down to see them bathe. He was very fond of bathing +himself, but could not take part in it then on account of his health. "I +never feel the water go down my back now," Mr. Dakyns said, "without +thinking of Clough." + +But the sweetest of all the memories was, I think, the memory of the +valley at Cauteretz, sacred to Tennyson because of Arthur Hallam. I heard +Mr. Dakyns speak of that the first time he was at our house. My mother +chanced to ask him what he did after taking his degree, and he said, "I +was with the Tennysons as tutor to their boys, and we went to the +Pyrenees." The name and something in his tone made me start. "Oh," I said, +"were you with them at Cauteretz?" He turned to me with his smile, "Yes, I +was, and if I had not already a family motto of which I am very proud, I +should take for my legend 'Dakyns isn't a fool'" (the last phrase in a +gruffly tender voice). And then he told us: "There was a fairly large +party of us, the Tennysons, Clough, and myself, some walking and some +driving. Tennyson walked, and I being the young man of the company, was +the great man's walking-stick. When we came to the valley--I knew it was a +sacred place--I dropped behind to let him go through it alone. Clough told +me afterwards I had done well. He had noticed it, and the Poet said--and +it was quite enough--'Dakyns isn't a fool!'" + +It was that evening that Tennyson wrote "All along the Valley." + + + + +RECOLLECTIONS OF TENNYSON + +By the Rev. H. MONTAGU BUTLER, D.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. + + +You have asked me to put on paper some recollections of the many happy +visits which it was my good fortune to pay to Farringford and Aldworth +between 1860 and 1890. I wish that I could respond to this kind request +more worthily; but the truth is, that, though I have always counted those +visits among the happiest events of my life, and though my memory of the +general impression left upon me on each occasion is perfectly clear, it is +not clear, but on the contrary most confused and hazy, as to any +particular incidents. + +Speaking first generally in the way of preface, I may say that it would be +difficult to exaggerate the hero-worship with which I regarded the great +Poet, ever since I was a boy. Before I went up to Trinity in 1851, he had +been the delight of my friends and myself at Harrow. And further, through +members of the Rawnsley family, I had heard much of his early days when +the Tennysons lived at Somersby. + +During my life at Trinity, from 1851 to 1855, and then, with long +intervals of absence, till the end of 1859, Coleridge and Wordsworth and +Tennyson, but especially Tennyson, were the three poets of the nineteenth +century who mainly commanded the reverence and stirred the enthusiasm of +the College friends with whom I lived. Robert Browning became a power +among them almost immediately after, but by that time I had gone back to +Harrow. Matthew Arnold and Clough and Kingsley also attracted us greatly +in their several ways, and of course Shelley and Keats, but Tennyson was +beyond a doubt our chief luminary. "In Memoriam" in particular, followed +by "Maud" and the first four "Idylls of the King," was constantly on our +lips, and, I may truly say, in our hearts, in those happy hours. + +It was with these feelings, then, and these prepossessions that I was +prepared to make the acquaintance of the great Poet, should such an honour +ever be granted me. It came first, to the best of my recollection, when my +late brother-in-law, Francis Galton, and I were taking one of our +delightful walking trips or tramps in the Easter holidays. Galton used to +plan everything--district, hours, stopping-places, length of each day's +march. One Easter--I forget which, but it must have been about 1859--was +devoted to the New Forest. From there we crossed over to the Isle of +Wight; and after visiting Shanklin and Bonchurch, we walked round to +Freshwater. To leave Freshwater without paying our homage to the Poet at +Farringford was impossible. Whether we had any definite introduction to +him, I cannot now remember, but we had reason to think that we should be +kindly received. My brother Arthur had lately been paying more than one +visit to that part of the Island, and had keenly enjoyed several long +walks with him. His report of these was not lost upon me. + +Galton had known intimately some of Tennyson's friends, such as Sumner +Maine, W. G. Clark, Franklin Lushington, and specially "Harry" Hallam, +younger brother of Arthur. He was, I think, as full of hero-worship for +the Poet as I was myself. The fame which he has since won in connexion +with Science may make it difficult, even for his later friends, to +understand the passion--I can use no weaker word--which he then cherished +for some branches of imaginative literature, in particular for Chaucer, +Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, and for at least three of Kingsley's novels, +_Alton Locke_, _Yeast_, and _Westward Ho!_ These we used in the course of +our Easter rambles to read out in the open air after an _al-fresco_ lunch. + +Tennyson's works were all very familiar to Galton. He had known them at +Cambridge as each came out, and had discussed them eagerly with admiring +friends, some of them first-rate critics. He delighted not only in the +subtlety and elevation and freedom of the thoughts, but also in the beauty +and perfection and melody of the expression. + +We went, as I have said, to call on the Poet. We went together with rather +beating hearts. He received us cordially as Trinity men, but unfortunately +I can remember no detail of any kind. I am not sure whether we were even +introduced to Mrs. Tennyson. All I remember is that we left the house +happy and exhilarated. + +But my real acquaintance with the Tennyson family dates from the end of +1861 and the early days of 1862. My first marriage had been on December +19, 1861, and a few days afterwards we came to Freshwater, and stayed at +the hotel close to the sea, where Dr. and Mrs. Vaughan had sometimes +stayed during his Harrow Mastership. It was then that we first met the +Granville Bradleys, destined to be our dear friends for life, and it was +in their company that we soon found ourselves most kindly welcomed guests +at Farringford. + +The two first incidents that I remember were the Poet showing us the proof +of his "Dedication of the Idylls," and, at our request, reading out to us +"Enoch Arden." The "Dedication" must have been composed almost immediately +after the death of the Prince Consort on December 14. He seemed himself +pleased with it. I thought at the time, and I have felt ever since, that +these lines rank high, not only among his other tributes of the same kind, +but in the literature of epitaphs generally. We felt it a proud privilege +to be allowed to stand at his side as he looked over the proof just +arrived by the post, and it led us of course to talk sympathetically of +the late Prince and the poor widowed Queen. + +Very soon after, the Bradleys and we dined at Farringford. The dinner hour +was, I think, as early as six, and then, after he had retreated to his +_sanctum_ for a smoke, he would come down to the drawing-room, and read +aloud to his guests. On this occasion he read to us "Enoch Arden," then +only in manuscript. I had before heard much of his peculiar manner of +reading, with its deep and often monotonous tones, varied with a sudden +lift of the voice as if into the air, at the end of a sentence or a +clause. It was, as always, a reading open to criticism on the score of +lack of variety, but my dear bride and I were in no mood to criticize. The +spell was upon us. Every note of his magnificent voice spoke of majesty or +tenderness or awe. It was, in plain words, a prodigious treat to have +heard him. We walked back through the winter darkness to our hotel, +conscious of having enjoyed a unique privilege. + +During this vacation I had, as often in after years, not a few walks with +him on the downs, leaving the Beacon on the left and going on to the +Needles. It was a walk of about two hours. It is here that my memory so +sadly fails me as to his talk. In tone it was friendly, manly, and +perfectly simple, without a touch of condescension. He seemed quite +unconscious that he was a great man, one of the first Englishmen of his +time, talking to one young and utterly obscure. Almost any subject +interested him, grave or gay. He would often talk of metres, Greek and +Latin; of attempts to translate Homer; of the weak points in the English +hexameter; or again of more serious topics, on which he had thought much +and felt strongly, such as the life after death, the so-called "Eternity +of Future Punishment," the unreality of the world as known to the senses, +the grander Human Race, the "crowning race," still to be born. + +Occasionally, not very often in these days, he would speak of his own +poems. Once, I remember, a few days after an examination of the sixth form +at Harrow, I told him that we had set for Greek Iambics the fine passage +in "Elaine," where Lancelot says to Lavaine: + + ... in me there dwells + No greatness, save it be some far-off touch + Of greatness to know well I am not great. + _There_ is the man, + +pointing to King Arthur. "Yes," he said in substance, "when I wrote that, +I was thinking of Wordsworth and myself." + +I noticed that he never spoke of Wordsworth without marked reverence. +Obviously, with his exquisite ear for choice words and rhythm, he must +have been more sensitive than most men to the prosaic, bathetic side of +Wordsworth; but I never heard him say a word implying that he felt this, +whereas I _have_ heard him qualify his admiration for Robert Browning's +genius and his affection for his person by some allusion to the roughness +of his style. This, he thought, must lead to his being less read than he +deserved in years to come, and he evidently regretted it. + +It was in the period, roughly speaking, between 1862 and 1880 that I saw +most of him, for it was then our habit to make frequent visits to +Freshwater or Alum Bay, generally at Christmas, and we were always +received with the same cordial kindness. It was then that the long walks +and the readings of his poetry after dinner continued as a kind of +institution, and never palled. Among the poems that he read out to us were +"Aylmer's Field," the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," parts +of "Maud," "Guinevere," "The Holy Grail," "The Charge of the Light +Brigade," "The Revenge," "The Defence of Lucknow," "In the Valley of +Cauteretz." With regard to this beautiful poem I cannot help recalling an +amusing and most unexpected laugh. He had read the third and fourth lines +in his most sonorous tones: + + All along the valley, where thy waters flow, + I walked with one I loved two and thirty years ago; + +and then suddenly, changing his voice, he said gruffly, "A brute of a +----has discovered that it was thirty-one years and not thirty-two. +Two-and-thirty is better than one-and-thirty years ago, isn't it? But +perhaps I ought to alter it." + +It was at this time that we used often to meet Mr. Jowett and also the +Poet's great friend and admirer, the gifted Mrs. Cameron and her dignified +and gray-bearded husband, who looked like a grand Oriental Chief. + +One trifling incident occurs to me as I write, the Poet's remarkable skill +at battledore. One duel with him in particular comes back to my mind, in +which I found it hard to hold my own. He was a very hard hitter. He did +not care merely to "keep up" long scores. He liked each bout to be a trial +of strength, and to aim the shuttlecock where it would be difficult for +his opponent to deal with it. In spite of his being short-sighted he +played a first-rate game. With the exception of my brother Arthur, I never +came upon so formidable an antagonist. + +But I must leave these earlier years, of which I cannot find any written +record, and pass on to the end of 1886, when, nearly four years after the +death of my dear wife and a year and a half after my leaving Harrow, I +was, to my great surprise, appointed Master of Trinity. + +On December 3 I was installed, and on December 13 I was invited to +Farringford, with the prospect of returning on the 16th to Davos Platz, +where I had left my invalid daughter. Of this short visit I find I have +made a few notes. The Poet was as cordial as ever. After dinner he took me +to his _sanctum_, and read me his new Jubilee Ode in Catullian metre, and +then "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." Next morning there came a letter +from Dr. W. H. Thompson's executor containing an early poem of Tennyson's +of 1826, and a Sonnet, once famous, complaining of defects in the College +system of his day: + + Therefore your Halls, your ancient Colleges, + Your portals statued with old kings and queens, + Your gardens, myriad-volumed libraries, + Wax-lighted chapels, and rich carven screens, + Your doctors, and your proctors, and your deans, + Shall not avail you, when the Day-beam sports + New-risen o'er awaken'd Albion. No! + Nor yet your solemn organ-pipes that blow + Melodious thunders thro' your vacant courts + At noon and eve, because your manner sorts + Not with this age wherefrom ye stand apart, + Because the lips of little children preach + Against you, you that do profess to teach + And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart. + +About eleven o'clock the Poet took me out alone. We went first to +Freshwater Gate, where he said the "maddened scream of the sea" in "Maud" +had been first suggested to him. He talked of our late friend, Philip +Stanhope Worsley, the translator of the _Odyssey_ and half of the _Iliad_, +who was living there a good many years ago, and whom I had met at his +table. He admired him much. He talked also, but I forget to what effect, +of "The Holy Grail" and the old Arthur myth, but before this we talked of +the Cambridge Sonnet just mentioned. "There was no _love_," he said, "in +the system." I understood him to mean that the dons, as a rule, were out +of sympathy with the young men. He spoke also of the bullying he had +undergone at his first school; how, when he was a new boy of only seven +and a half, he was sitting on the school steps crying and homesick. Up +came a big fellow, between seventeen and eighteen, and asked him roughly +who he was and what he was crying for, and then gave him a kick in the +wind! This experience had evidently rankled in his mind for more than +seventy years. Again, in April 1890, he told me the same story. + +But to return to our morning walk of December 14, 1886. Something led me +to speak of my favourite lines: + + The old order changeth, yielding place to new, + And God fulfils Himself in many ways, + Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. + +Spedding, it seems, and others had wanted him to alter the "one _good_ +custom." "I was thinking" he said, "of knighthood." He went on to speak of +his "Experiments in Quantity," and in particular of the Alcaic Ode to +Milton, beginning: + + O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies. + +"I thought _that_," he said, "a bit of a _tour de force_," and surely he +was right there. He tilted a little at C. S. Calverley for demurring to + + God-gifted organ-voice of England. + +"I didn't mean it to be like your + + 'September, October, November'; + +I was imitating, not Horace, but the original Greek Alcaic, though +Horace's is perhaps the finest metre." The two Latin metres which I have +more than once heard him admire were the Hexameter and the Alcaic. + +I find that in my Journal I wrote as regards this walk: "I wish I could +remember more. He was wholly _facilis_, and I never felt less afraid of +him or more reverent." Perhaps I should add that during the walk he told +me an extraordinary number of ghost stories--a man appearing to several +people, and then vanishing before their eyes. + +After dinner that evening we went to his _sanctum_ to hear him read the +last Act of the "Promise of May." "Well, isn't that tragic?" he naïvely +asked at one point, I think where Eva falls down dead. + +Next morning, I had to leave quite early for London. He just appeared at +the top of the stairs, and offered to come down to say good-bye, but I +would not let him. "I can remember little more of this delightful visit," +so I wrote at the time. "He was full, as usual, of the public lies, and +the necessity of England being strong at sea." + +I did not see him again till after my second marriage, which took place on +August 9, 1888. We paid a flying visit to Lambert's Hotel, Freshwater, in +April 1889. Of this I have made only the scantiest record. Something led +us to speak of the famous line in the chorus of the _Agamemnon_: + + [Greek: ommatôn en achêniais.] + +"So modern," he remarked. He also spoke of the pathos of Euripides, and of +the grandeur of the "Passing of Oedipus" in the _Oedipus Coloneus_, and +_Theseus_ + + [Greek: cheir' antechonta kratos.] + +He referred again to lack of sympathy in his time between dons and +undergraduates. This seemed to be a memory often present to his mind. + +Our next visit was in March 1890, when, with my wife's sister, we stayed +at Lambert's Hotel. On Friday, March 28, we went to tea at Farringford, +and found him in his little sun-trap of a summer-house, the evening sun +playing full upon us, and bringing into perfect beauty the green lawn, +the spreading trees, and the clumps of daffodils. He began by speaking of +himself as depressed, but soon smiled away all such symptoms, and made us +laugh with a story of the Duke of Wellington, when some prosy personage +addressed him with a flattering compliment. He always seemed to enjoy +anecdotes of the Great Duke. He was wearing a red cap which, in the +sunlight, became him well; but he said playfully that Lady Tennyson +disliked it as too suggestive of a "bonnet rouge." Something, I forget +what, led to a reference to the well-known verse: + + Birds in the high Hall-garden + When twilight was falling, + Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud, + They were crying and calling. + +He once asked a rather gushing lady what sort of birds she supposed these +to be. "Nightingales," was the rather sentimental answer. "Who ever heard +a nightingale say 'Maud'?" was the somewhat stern reply. "They were rooks +of course." + +My wife mentioned that she and her sister had been reading the "Idylls" of +late. "Do you mean _my_ Īdylls," he said; "I am glad you don't call +them Ĭdylls." We soon got talking of his recently published "Crossing +the Bar." When asked what was the precise grammatical reference in the +third line of the verse: + + But such a tide as moving seems asleep, + Too full for sound and foam, + _When that which drew from out the boundless deep_ + Turns again home, + +he answered rather emphatically, "I meant _both_ human life[61] _and_ the +water." He went on, "They say I write so slowly. Well, that poem came to +me in five minutes. Anyhow, under ten minutes." Afterwards, when I had +some quiet talk with Lady Tennyson, she confirmed what he had implied as +to the rapidity with which he usually composed. + +At this point I shall do well to insert extracts from my dear wife's +journal, describing a few incidents in what proved our last visit to +Farringford. It was at the end of January 1892, when the Poet, born on +August 6,[62] 1809, was well on in his eighty-third year. She writes as +follows: + + VISIT TO FARRINGFORD, JANUARY 1892 + + By Mrs. MONTAGU BUTLER + + On January 26 Montagu and I left our two small boys at Eton Villa, + Shanklin, to spend the night at Lambert's Hotel, Freshwater. After + leaving our traps at the hotel we walked up to Farringford in time for + two o'clock lunch. I sat next the Poet at table, and had some talk + with him. He spoke of the metres of Horace, and said that he always + thought his Sapphics uninteresting and monotonous. "What a relief it + is," he said, "when he _does_ allow himself some irregularity, for + instance: + + Laurea donandus Apollinari." + + On the other hand, he admired his Alcaics immensely. The discovery for + which he always hoped the most was of some further writings of Sappho + herself. He considered the metre beautiful under her treatment. + + Then we spoke of Schliemann, of whom I had just been reading in + Schuchardt's book, and he said he had no faith in him. "How could a + great city have been built on a little ridge like that (meaning + Hissarlik)? Where would have been the room for Priam's fifty sons and + fifty daughters?" + + He also thought the supposed identifications of topography absurd, and + preferred to believe that Homer's descriptions were entirely + imaginary. When I said that I thought that a disappointing view, he + called me "a wretched localizer." "They try to localize me too," he + said. "There is one man wants to make out that I describe nothing I + have not seen." Also, with some irritation, of other accounts of + himself: "Full of lies, and ---- made me tell a big one at the end." + + Next day we walked up at about 12.20 to accompany him in his morning + walk. Montagu and he were in front, Hallam Tennyson and I behind. + Montagu tells me how he was indignant with Z. for charging him with + general plagiarism, in particular about Lactantius and other classics, + "of whom," he said, "I haven't read a word." Also, of taking from + Sophocles, "whom I never read since I was a young man"; and of owing + his "moanings of the sea" to Horace's _gementis litora Bospori_. Some + one charged him with having stolen the "In Memoriam" metre from some + very old poet of whom he had never heard. He said, in answer to + Montagu's question, that the metres of both "Maurice" and "The Daisy" + were original. He had never written in the metre of Gray's _Elegy_, + except epitaphs in Westminster Abbey. He admired the metre much, and + thought the poem immortal[63]. + + Hartley Coleridge, he said, spoke of Pindar as the "Newmarket Poet." + He thought the loss of his Dithyrambs most serious, judging from the + remaining fragment. He had from early boyhood been familiar with the + fact that Wolsey and Cromwell in _Henry VIII._ were by Fletcher, but + he felt absolutely certain that the description of the Field of the + Cloth of Gold was by Shakespeare's own hand. He quoted it, as well as + several lines from Wolsey. When I said how glad I was he had written + about the Duke of Clarence, he said, "Yes, but I wouldn't write an + Installation Ode for the Chancellor." + + So far Montagu reported. After this we others came up, and the old + Poet and I walked home together. + + We spoke a little of our projected tour to Greece. He had never been + there, but would have greatly liked to go--in a private yacht--"but + they tell me an old man is safest at home, and I dare say it is true; + and I couldn't stand the vermin!" I told him I was hoping to study + classical architecture a little before going out, and he said that he + thought, after all, Gothic architecture was finer than classic. "It is + like blank verse," he said; "it will suit the humblest cottage and the + grandest cathedral. It has more mystery than the classic." He thought + many of our cathedrals spoiled by their vile glass. He had been + disappointed, in his late visit to Cambridge, to notice that the + windows in King's seemed to be losing their brilliancy and to look + dark. + + After we had been walking a few minutes in silence, he said to me, "Do + you see what the beauty is in the line, + + That all the Thrones are clouded by your loss?"-- + + quoting from his still unpublished poem on the young Prince. I said I + thought it very beautiful; but he asked if I saw why he had used the + word _clouded_ instead of _darkened_ or another. "It makes you think + of a great mountain," he explained. Then he spoke of the great + richness of the English language due to its double origin, the Norman + and Saxon words. How hard it would be for a foreigner to feel the + difference in the line + + An _infant_ crying for the light, + + had the word _baby_ been substituted, which would at once have made it + ridiculous. He told me that his lines "came to" him; he did not make + them up, but that, when they had come, he wrote them down, and looked + into them to see what they were like. This was very interesting, + especially as he had told Montagu, at Easter, 1890, that he had + composed "Crossing the Bar" in less than ten minutes. + + Then he said again, what I have heard him say before, that though a + poet is _born_, he will not be much of a poet if he is not _made_ too. + Then he asked me if I was fond of Pindar. I am very glad that he + admires him greatly. He could not believe Paley's theory that Pindar + is earlier than Homer. I vented my dislike of Paley's horribly prosaic + translations in his notes on Aeschylus, and he said _he_ had always + used Blomfield, he found his Glossary such a help. + + We were now indoors, and in a few minutes went in to luncheon. I was + again seated next him, and we had some more talk. He got upon the + subject of College life, and told me anecdotes of himself and his + friends, one very amusing one about Tom Taylor. During some vacation + Tom Taylor's rooms were lent by the College authorities to a farmer, a + member of an Agricultural Society which they were entertaining. Taylor + knew this perfectly well; but in the middle of the night suddenly + entered the room, in a long traveller's cloak and with a lantern in + his hand, "Pray, what are you doing in my room, sir, and in my bed?" + feigning great surprise and indignation. The poor old farmer tried to + explain that he was honoured by being the guest of the College, but + Taylor refused to be pacified; when suddenly, in the midst of their + altercation, enter Charles Spring Rice, brother of Stephen, + personating the Senior Dean, who forthwith laid forcible hands on Tom + Taylor. Thereupon ensued a regular scuffle, in which they both tumbled + on to the bed, and Tom Taylor got so much the worst of it that the + kindly agriculturist began to intercede, "Oh, please, Mr. Dean, don't + be too hard on the young man!" + + Tennyson himself had been proctorized once or twice. Once, during the + first few days of his College life, he came out to receive a parcel by + a midnight mail. "Pray, sir, what are you doing at this time of + night?" said the Proctor. "And pray, sir, what business of yours is it + to ask me?" replied the Freshman, who in his innocence knew nothing + about the Proctor. He was told to call upon him next day, but then + explained his ignorance, and was let off. + + On one occasion a throng of University men outside the Senate House + had been yelling against Whewell. Tennyson was standing by the door of + Macmillan's shop, and raised a counter-cry _for_ Whewell. He was, + however, seen standing, and was sent for to Whewell. "I was surprised, + sir, to see _you_ among that shouting mob the other day." "I was + shouting _for_ you," was the reply. Whewell was greatly pleased, and + grunted his approbation. + + Another funny story. A wine-party was going on in Arthur Hallam's + rooms in the New Court, when enter angrily the Senior Dean, "Tommy + Thorp." "What is the meaning, Mr. Hallam, of all this noise?" "I am + very sorry, sir," said Hallam, "we had no idea we were making a + noise." "Well, gentlemen, if you'll all come down into the Court, + you'll _hear_ what a noise you're making." "Perhaps," admits Tennyson, + "I may have put in the _all_." + +So ends my wife's short journal, and it only remains for me to sum up very +briefly the impressions left upon me, after a lapse of fifty, forty, +thirty, twenty years, by these visits to Farringford which once made so +large a part of my interest and my happiness. + +Little as I am able to put these impressions into words, I can say with +truth that no personality with which I have ever come in close touch, +either seemed to me at the time, or has seemed in later recollection, to +cover so large, so rich, and so diverse a field for veneration, wonder, +and regard. + +Tennyson was, and is, to me the most remarkable man that I have ever met. +Often when I was with him, whether in long walks or in his study, and when +I came to think of him silently afterwards, I used to recall his own lines +on Wellington: + + Our greatest yet with least pretence..., + Rich in saving common-sense, + _And, as the greatest only are, + In his simplicity sublime_. + +Simple, natural, shrewd, humorous; feeling strongly on a vast variety of +subjects, and saying freely just what he felt; passing rapidly and easily +from the gravest matters of speculation or conduct to some trifling or +amusing incident of the moment, or some recollection of the years of his +youth; he seemed to me unconscious of being a great man, though he must +have known himself to be one of the foremost thinkers, and quite the +foremost poet of his day. He was wholly free from affectation. He was +never an actor of a part. There was about him always an atmosphere of +truth. + + Truth-teller was our Alfred named, + +was a line that again and again recurred to the memory as one heard him +speak out his mind either on men, or on politics, or on the deepest +mysteries of philosophy or religion. He was pre-eminently one of the +Children of Light. Of light, whether from science, or from literary +criticism, or from the progress of the human conscience, he hailed +thankfully and expectantly every fresh disclosure. There was a deep +reverence in him for the Unseen, the Undiscovered, the as yet Unrevealed. +This on the intellectual side; and on the moral side there was a manly, a +devout, and a tender veneration for purity and innocence and trustfulness, +and, to borrow his own stately words, written early in his life: + + Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. + +I regret that I cannot convey more worthily what I have felt in the +presence of this great and truly noble man. To go to either of his +beautiful homes, to see him as the husband of his wife and the father of +his sons, was to me and mine for many years a true pilgrimage, both of the +mind and of the heart. That I was once able to feel this, and that I am +able to feel it gratefully even now, I count among the richer blessings of +a long and happy life. + + + + +TENNYSON AND W. G. WARD AND OTHER FARRINGFORD FRIENDS + +By WILFRID WARD + + +Among Tennyson's friends in his later years was my father--William George +Ward--who was his neighbour at Freshwater from 1870 to 1882. I have been +asked to contribute to the picture of "Tennyson and his Friends" some +account of their intercourse, and at the same time to set down some of the +extremely interesting comments on his own poems which I myself was +privileged yet later to hear from the Poet. I need not say that such an +act of piety in regard of two men for whom I have so deep a reverence is a +work of love, and I only regret that my recollections of what so well +deserves recording should be so imperfect and fragmentary. + +Tennyson's friendship with my father began at a date considerably +subsequent to their first acquaintance. My father came rather unexpectedly +into the family property in the Isle of Wight in 1849 when his uncle died +without a son; but he did not desire to leave the house Pugin had built +for him in Hertfordshire, where he had settled immediately after he joined +the Catholic Church in 1845. He and the late Cardinal Vaughan were, in the +'fifties, doing a work for ecclesiastical education at St. Edmund's +College, Ware--a work which came to my father naturally as the sequel to +his share in the Oxford Movement. Therefore, when Tennyson in 1853 came to +live in the Isle of Wight my father was an absentee. He tried in 1858 +for two years to live at his grandfather's old home near Cowes, Northwood +Park, but his health broke down, and he returned to Hertfordshire. In the +'sixties, however, he used to pay long visits to Freshwater, in the +scenery of which he delighted; and, on one of these occasions, Tennyson +was introduced to him by their common friend, Dean Bradley. The meeting +was not, I think, a great success on either side. Later on, however, in +1870, when my father, despairing of the Cowes climate, built a house at +Freshwater, he was Tennyson's near neighbour, and they soon became great +friends. + + +[Illustration: ARTHUR TENNYSON.] + + +Tennyson's friendship with my father grew up from close neighbourhood, and +from the fact that they had so much more in common with each other than +with most of their other Isle of Wight neighbours. It was cemented by my +father's devotion to Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Tennyson, who, in her +conversation, he always said, reminded him of the John Henry Newman of +Oxford days. Also they had many friends in common--such as Dean Stanley, +Lord Selborne, and Jowett--who often visited Freshwater. They were both +members of the Metaphysical Society, and loved to discuss in private +problems of religious faith which formed the subject of the Society's +debates. They were also both great Shakespearians. But most of all they +were drawn together by a simplicity and directness of mind, in which, I +think, they had few rivals--if I may say of my own father what every one +else said. Nevertheless, their intimacy was almost as remarkable for +diversity of interests as for similarity. It might seem at first sight to +be a point of similarity between them that each revelled in his way in the +scenery of the beautiful island which was their home. Yet the love of +external nature was very different in the two men. It had that marked +contrast which Ruskin has described in his _Modern Painters_. Ruskin +contrasts three typical ways of being affected by what is beautiful. There +is first "the man who perceives rightly because he does not feel, and to +whom the primrose is very accurately the primrose because he does not love +it. Then, secondly, the man who perceives wrongly because he feels, and to +whom the primrose is anything else than a primrose--a star, or a sun, or a +fairy's shield, or a forsaken maiden. And then lastly, there is the man +who perceives rightly in spite of his feelings, and to whom the primrose +is for ever nothing else than itself--a little flower apprehended in the +very plain and leafy fact of it, whatever and how many soever the +associations and passions may be that crowd around it." + +My father's imagination was of the second order, Tennyson's of the third. +My father often perceived wrongly, or not at all, because he felt so +strongly. Consequently, while the bold outlines of mountain scenery and +the large vistas of sea and down in the Isle of Wight moved him greatly, +he did not look at them with the accurate eye of an artist; and the minute +beauty of flowers and trees was non-existent for him. Tennyson, on the +contrary, had the most delicate and true perception of the minute as well +as the great. Each man chose for his home a site which suited his taste. +Weston was on a high hill with a wide view. Farringford was lower down and +buried in trees. The two men used sometimes to walk together on the great +Down which stretches from the Needles rocks to Freshwater Bay, on which +the boundary between Tennyson's property and my father's is marked by the +dyke beyond the Tennyson memorial cross. At other times they walked in the +Freshwater lanes. And there was a suggestion in these different +surroundings of their sympathy and of their difference. The immense +expanse of scenery visible from the Beacon Down was equally inspiring to +both, but the lanes and fields which were full of inspiration to Tennyson +had nothing in them which appealed to W. G. Ward. If he heard a bird +singing, the only suggestion it conveyed to him was of a tiresome being +who kept him awake at night. Trees were only the unpleasant screens which +stood in the way of the view of the Solent from his house, and which he +cut down as fast as they grew up. To Tennyson, on the contrary--as we see +constantly in his poetry--there was a whole world of interest in Nature +created by his knowledge of botany and natural history, as well as by his +exceptionally accurate and observant eye. + +Let me quote the words of a great critic--the late Mr. Hutton--on this +characteristic of the Poet: + + No poet has so many and such accurate references to the vegetable + world, and yet at the same time references so thoroughly poetic. He + calls dark hair + + More black than ash-buds in the front of March; + + auburn hair, + + In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell + Divides three-fold to show the fruit within. + + He is never tired of reflecting in his poetry the physiology of + flowers and trees and buds. The "living smoke" of the yew is twice + commemorated in his poems. He tells us how the sunflower, "shining + fair," + + Rays round with flames her disk of seed; + + observes on the blasts "that blow the poplars white"; and, to make a + long story short--for the list of instances might be multiplied to + hundreds--in his latest published "Idylls of the King," he thus dates + an early hour in the night: + + Nigh upon that hour + When the lone hern forgets his melancholy, + _Lets down his other leg_, and, stretching, dreams + Of goodly supper in the distant pool. + +When Tennyson and W. G. Ward walked together there was then a most +curious contrast in their attitude towards the Nature that surrounded +them,--Tennyson noting every bird, every flower, every tree, as he passed +it, Ward buried in the conversation, and alive only to the great, broad +effects in the surrounding country. + +W. G. Ward was himself not only no poet, but almost barbarously +indifferent to poetry, with some few exceptions. He was exceedingly frank +with Tennyson, and plainly intimated to him that there was very little in +his poetry that he understood or cared for. But this fact never impaired +their friendship. Indeed, I think Tennyson enjoyed his almost eccentric +candour in this and in other matters, and he used, in later years, to tell +me stories which illustrated it. Once when the question of persecution had +been debated at the Metaphysical Society he remarked to my father, "You +know you would try to get me put into prison if the Pope told you to." +"Your father would not say 'No,'" Tennyson said to me. "He only replied, +'The Pope would never tell me to do anything so foolish.'" + +I think his intercourse with my father did a good deal to diminish a +certain prejudice against Roman Catholicism; and his intimacy with my +father's chaplain--Father Haythornthwaite, a man as opposed to the popular +conception of a Jesuit as could well be imagined--told in the same +direction. "When Haythornthwaite dies," Tennyson once said, "I shall write +as his epitaph: 'Here lies Peter Haythornthwaite, Human by nature, Roman +by fate!'" + +W. G. Ward's own extreme frankness led Tennyson to remark to a friend: +"The popular idea of Roman Catholics as Jesuitical and untruthful is +contrary to my own experience. The most truthful man I ever met was an +Ultramontane. He was grotesquely truthful." + +Tennyson would sometimes retort in kind to my father's frank criticisms, +and once, after vainly trying to decipher one of his letters, observed +that the handwriting was "like walking-sticks gone mad," a curiously true +description of my father's very peculiar characters.[64] + +As with scenery, so with poetry; my father only took in broad effects and +simple pathos, and would single out for special admiration such a poem as +the "Children's Hospital," over which he shed many tears. + +Tennyson soon accustomed himself to my father's indifference to his poetry +in general. But he hoped that, at all events, his metaphysical poems would +interest his neighbour, and sent him the MS. of "De Profundis" when he +wrote it; but the reply was only an entreaty that he would put explanatory +notes to it when it should be published. One exception, however, must be +made in favour of "Becket," which Tennyson read aloud to Ward, who, +greatly to his own surprise, admired it enthusiastically. "How do you like +it?" Tennyson asked, and the reply was, "Very much, though I did not +expect to like it at all. It is quite splendid. The development of +character in Chancellor and Archbishop is wonderfully drawn. Where did you +learn it all?" + +I used to think there was a good deal that was alike between the +intercourse of Tennyson with my father and his intercourse with my +father's old friend, Dr. Jowett of Balliol. In both cases there was the +same complete frankness--an unanswerable reply to those who gave it out +that Tennyson best enjoyed the society of flatterers. Jowett, however, +understood Tennyson's poetry far better than my father did. It was +sometimes strange to see that impassive figure, so little given to +emotion, so ready to snub in others any display of feeling, under the +spell of the Poet's lines. I recollect once at Farringford listening with +Jowett after dinner to Tennyson's reading of his "Ode on the Death of the +Duke of Wellington." It was a poem which his peculiar chant made most +moving, and he read the concluding lines with special pathos: + + Speak no more of his renown, + Lay your earthly fancies down, + And in the vast cathedral leave him; + God accept him, Christ receive him. + +Tennyson then turned to address some observation to Jowett, but no reply +came, and we soon saw that the Master was unable to speak. The tears were +streaming down his cheeks. I ventured to allude to this some time later in +talking to Jowett, and he said, "What would you have? The two Englishmen +for whom I have the deepest feeling of reverence are Tennyson and the +great Duke of Wellington. And one of them was reading what he had himself +written in admiration of the other!" + +When my father died Tennyson visited his grave in company with Father +Haythornthwaite, who spoke to me of the visit directly afterwards. A cross +of fresh flowers had been placed on the grave until the monument should be +erected. Tennyson quoted Shirley's couplet: + + Only the actions of the just + Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust. + +And then, standing over the grave, he recited the whole of the beautiful +poem from which these lines are taken. Tennyson's eldest son wrote to me +at the same time: + + His wonderful simplicity in faith and nature, together with his subtle + and far-reaching grasp of intellect, make up a man never to be + forgotten. My father and mother and myself will miss him more than I + can say; I loved him somehow like an intimate college friend. + +A few years later Tennyson published the memorial lines in the volume +called _Demeter and other Poems_, which show how closely his observant +mind had taken in the character of his friend: + + Farewell, whose living like I shall not find, + Whose Faith and Work were bells of full accord, + My friend, the most unworldly of mankind, + Most generous of all Ultramontanes, Ward, + How subtle at tierce and quart of mind with mind, + How loyal in the following of thy Lord! + + +[Illustration: HORATIO TENNYSON.] + + +Freshwater was in those days seething with intellectual life. The Poet +was, of course, its centre, and that remarkable woman, Mrs. Cameron, was +stage-manager of what was for us young people a great drama. For Tennyson +was still writing the "Idylls of the King," which had so greatly moved the +whole country, and we felt that we were in the making of history. There +were many in Freshwater who were keenly alive to their privilege. Even +among the permanent residents in the neighbourhood there were not a few +who were worthy of remark, and Farringford was very hospitable and often +added to their number some of the most interesting people in England. Mrs. +Cameron herself was one of the well-known Miss Pattles, a sister of the +late Lady Somers and Lady Dalrymple. She was a great wit and a most +original and unconventional woman, with an enthusiasm for genius and for +art. Her large artistic photographs are a permanent record of the +remarkable people who congregated from time to time round the Poet's home +in the island. They include Carlyle, Ruskin, Tyndall, Darwin, Lord +Dufferin, Palgrave, D. G. Rossetti, Holman Hunt, Lecky, Aubrey de Vere, +Sir Henry Taylor, Herschell, Longfellow, Auberon, Herbert, Pollock, +Allingham, and many another. Among other residents I would name the Rev. +Christopher Bowen, a man of very unusual ability, though he never had +enough ambition to become famous. His sons--Lord Justice Bowen and Mr. +Edward Bowen of Harrow--are better known. Then there were the Poet's two +remarkable brothers, Horatio and Arthur Tennyson, and two fine old +admirals, Sir Graham Hamond and Admiral Crozier. Then again from 1874 +onwards we had at the Briary G. F. Watts, and Mrs. Cameron's sister, Mrs. +Prinsep and her husband, with Mr. Val Prinsep as an occasional guest. A +little earlier Sir John Simeon was still living at Swainston, and was one +of Tennyson's most intimate friends. Again, Mrs. Grosvenor Hood and Mrs. +Brotherton were both people for whom literature and art counted for much. + +The large group of people who came to Freshwater in the summer for the +sole reason that Tennyson's writings and himself were among the greatest +things in their lives, sometimes formed an almost unique society. Several +figures are especially prominent in my memory. One great friend of the +Tennysons' was Sir Richard Jebb--intensely shy and intensely refined--with +whom, I may add, by the way, my first meeting at Haslemere was +unpromising. I got into the Tennysons' large old-fashioned brougham to +drive to Aldworth on a dark night, and laid rough hands on what I took to +be a heap of rugs in the corner. I received in return a mild remonstrance +from the fellow-guest, of whose coat-collar I found myself possessed! +Jowett and Sir Alfred Lyall I often met at the Tennysons' and elsewhere. +Each was in his way memorable, and congenial to the Poet's taste, which +was fastidious owing to his very simplicity, to his love of reality and +dislike of affectation. The singular charm--both in person and in +conversation--of Samuel Henry Butcher, another great friend, stands out +vividly from the past. In addition to his brilliant gifts and acquirements +he was endowed in a remarkable degree with that justice of mind which +Tennyson so greatly prized. One used to feel for how much this counted in +the Poet's mind when he talked of the "wisdom" of his old friend, James +Spedding. Henry Irving I once saw at Aldworth, though never at +Farringford, and it was curious to meet at close quarters one with whom I +had had for years the stranger's intimacy which one has with a favourite +actor. But Irving was never an intimate friend of Tennyson's, nor among +the typical figures of his circle. To my mind the friend of Tennyson's +whose saintliness most completely had his sympathy was Aubrey de Vere, of +whom Sarah Coleridge said that he had more entirely a poet's nature even +than her own father, or any other of the great poets she had known. Aubrey +de Vere's simplicity and deep piety were as remarkable as his keen +perception and close knowledge on the subject which most interested +Tennyson himself. I wish I had seen more of the intercourse of two men +whose friendship was almost lifelong, and showed Tennyson at his very best +in conversation. + +Speaking generally, it was a society in which good breeding, literary +taste, general information, and personal distinction counted for much more +than worldly or official _status_. I think that we young people looked +upon a government official of average endowment as rather an outsider. +Genius was all in all for us--officialdom and conventionality in general +were unpopular in Freshwater. + +Indeed, how could conventionality obtain a footing in a society in which +Mrs. Cameron and Tennyson were the central figures? I recall Mrs. Cameron +pressing my father's hand to her heart, and addressing him as "Squire +Ward." I recall her, during her celebrated private theatricals at Dimbola, +when a distinguished audience tittered at some stage misadventure which +occurred during a tragic scene, mounting a chair and insisting loudly and +with angry gesticulation, "You must not laugh; you must cry." I recall her +bringing Tennyson to my father's house while she was photographing +representatives for the characters in the "Idylls of the King," and +calling out directly she saw Cardinal Vaughan (to whom she was a perfect +stranger), "Alfred, I have found Sir Lancelot." Tennyson's reply was, "I +want a face well worn with evil passion." + +My own intercourse with the Poet was chiefly after my father's death in +1882. Tennyson was then an old man who had passed his threescore years and +ten. His deeply serious mind brooded constantly on the prospect for the +future, and the meaning of human life, which was, for him, nearly over. + +There is much of autobiography in some of the poems of those years which +he discussed with me. I have elsewhere[65] described his impressive +analysis of the "De Profundis." I will here set down the substance of his +comments on two other poems dealing with his deep problems of human life, +the "Ancient Sage" and "Vastness." "The Ancient Sage" is in form dramatic, +and the personality of the two interlocutors is a very important element +in it viewed as a work of art. An aged seer of high, ascetic life, a +thousand years before the birth of Christ, holds intercourse with a +younger man: + + that loved and honour'd him, and yet + Was no disciple, richly garb'd, but worn + From wasteful living... + +The younger man has set down his reflections on the philosophy of life in +a set of verses which the Ancient Sage reads, making his comments as the +reading proceeds. There seems to be a deep connection between the personal +characteristics of the two men--their habits and modes of living--and +their respective views. The younger man is wearied with satiety, impatient +for immediate pleasure: + + Yet wine and laughter, friends! and set + The lamps alight, and call + For golden music, and forget + The darkness of the pall. + +He is dismayed by the first appearance of difficulty and pain in the +world, as he had been satisfied for a time with the immediate pleasures +within his reach. He is unable to steady the nerve of his brain (so to +speak), and trace the riddle of pain and trouble in the universe to its +ultimate solution. In thought, as in conduct, he is filled and swayed by +the immediate inclination and the first impression, without self-restraint +and without the habits of concentrated reflection which go hand in hand +with self-restraint. Failing, in consequence, to have any steady view of +his own soul or of the spiritual life within, he is impressed, probably by +experience, with this one truth, that uncontrolled self-indulgence leads +to regret and pain; and he is consequently pessimistic in his ultimate +view of things. The absence of spiritual light makes him see only the +immediate pain and failure in the universe. He has no patience to look +beyond or to reflect if there be not an underlying and greater purpose +which temporary failure in small things may further, as the death of one +cell in the human organism is but the preparation for its replacement by +another, and a part of the body's natural development. It is a dissipated +character and a dissipated mind. The intangible beauty of moral virtue +finds nothing in the character capable of assimilating it; the spiritual +truth of Gods existence and the spiritual purpose of the universe elude +the mind. + +In marked contrast stands forth the "Ancient Sage." He has no taste for +the dissipations of the town: + + I am wearied of our city, son, and go + To spend my one last year among the hills. + +His gospel is a gospel of _self-restraint_ and long-suffering, of action +for high ends. + + Let be thy wail and help thy fellow-men, + And make thy gold thy vassal, not thy king, + And fling free alms into the beggar's bowl, + And send the day into the darken'd heart; + Nor list for guerdon in the voice of men, + A dying echo from a falling wall: + + * * * * * + + Nor roll thy viands on a luscious tongue, + Nor drown thyself with flies in honied wine. + + * * * * * + + And more--think well! Do-well will follow thought. + +And the patience and self-control which enable him to work for great +purposes and spiritual aims, characterize also his thought. "Things are +not what they seem," he holds. The first view is ever incomplete, though +he who has not patience of thought will not get beyond the first view. +That concentration and that purity of manners which keep the spiritual +soul and self undimmed, and preserve the moral voice within articulate, +are indispensable if we are to understand anything beyond the most +superficial phenomena about us. The keynote is struck in the very first +words which the Seer speaks: + + This wealth of waters might but seem to draw + From yon dark cave, but, son, the source is higher, + Yon summit half-a-league in air--and higher, + The cloud that hides it--higher still, the heavens + Whereby the cloud was moulded, and whereout + The cloud descended. Force is from the heights. + +"_Force is from the heights_" is the thought which underlies the Sage's +interpretation of all that perplexes the younger man. We cannot fully +understand what is beyond and above us, but if we are wise we shall +steadily look upwards, and enough light will eventually be gained for our +guidance. "Lucerna pedibus meis verbum tuum." As God's law is enough to +guide our footsteps, though we cannot hope to understand His full counsel, +so the light by which the spiritual world is disclosed is sufficient for +those who look for it, though its disclosure is only gradual and partial. +If we are said not to know what we cannot submit in its entirety to +scientific tests, we can never know anything worth knowing. If, again, we +are to disbelieve in the spiritual world because it is filled with +mystery, what are we to say of the mysteries which face us in this +earth--inexplicable yet undeniable? The conception of God is not more +mysterious than the thought that a grain of sand may be divided a million +times, and yet be no nearer its ultimate division than it is now. Time and +space are full of mystery. A man under chloroform has been known to pass +many hours of sensation in a few minutes. Time is made an objective +measure of things, and yet its phenomena are so subjective that Kant +conceived it to have no real existence. When the younger man complains +that "the Nameless Power or Powers that rule were never heard nor seen," +the Sage thus replies: + + If thou would'st hear the Nameless, and wilt dive + Into the Temple-cave of thine own self, + There, brooding by the central altar, thou + May'st haply learn the Nameless hath a voice, + By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise, + As if thou knewest, tho' thou canst not know; + For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake + That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there + But never yet hath dipt into the abysm, + The Abysm of all Abysms, beneath, within + The blue of sky and sea, the green of earth, + And in the million-millionth of a grain, + Which cleft and cleft again for evermore, + And ever vanishing, never vanishes, + To me, my son, more mystic than myself, + Or even than the Nameless is to me. + +And so, too, when the youth calls for further proof of the "Nameless," the +Sage reminds him that there are universally acknowledged truths incapable +of formal proof. The thought which the poet here dwells upon is similar to +Cardinal Newman's teaching in the _Grammar of Assent_, though Tennyson's +use of words does not here, as elsewhere, harmonize with Catholic +doctrine. There are truths, the knowledge of which is so intimately +connected with our own personality, that the material for complete formal +proof eludes verbal statement. We reject, for example, with a clear and +unerring instinct, the notion that when we converse with our friends, the +words and thoughts which come to us proceed possibly from some principle +within us and not from an external cause, and yet it is not a matter on +which we can offer logical proof. The same sensations could conceivably be +produced from within, as they are in a dream. Logical proof, then, has (so +the Ancient Sage maintains) to be dispensed with in much that is of +highest moment: + + Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone, + Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone, + Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one: + Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no + Nor yet that thou art mortal--nay, my son, + Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee, + Am not thyself in converse with thyself, + For nothing worthy proving can be proven, + Nor yet disproven. + +And close upon this follows the beautiful passage in which the hopeful and +wistful upward gaze of faith is described. While melancholy and perplexity +constantly attend on the exercises of the speculative intellect, we are to +"cling to faith": + + She reels not in the storm of warring words, + She brightens at the clash of "Yes" and "No," + She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst, + She feels the Sun is hid but for a night. + She spies the summer thro' the winter bud, + She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, + She hears the lark within the songless egg, + She finds the fountain where they wailed "Mirage"! + +These lines present to the reader the hopefulness of the spiritual mind, +hopefulness not akin to the merely sanguine temperament, but based on a +deep conviction of the reality of the spiritual world, and on unfailing +certainty that there is in it a key to the perplexities of this universe +of which we men understand so little. We know from experience that +material Nature is working out her ends, however little we understand the +process, and however unpromising portions of her work might appear without +this knowledge. That an acorn should have within it forces which compel +earth, air, and water to come to its assistance and become the oak tree, +would seem incredible were it not so habitually known as a fact; and the +certainty which such experiences give in the material order, the eye of +faith gives in the spiritual order. However perplexing the universe now +seems to us we have this deep trust that there _is_ an explanation, and +that when we are in a position to judge the _whole_, instead of looking on +from this corner of time and space, the truth of the spiritual +interpretation of its phenomena will be clear--"ut iustificeris in +sermonibus tuis et vincas cum iudicaris." This view runs not only through +the passages I have just quoted, but through all the poem. The poet pleads +for steadfast trust and hope in the face of difficulty, as we would trust +a known and intimate friend in the face of ominous suspicions. + +It is, of course, just that keen realization of the plausibleness of the +sceptical view of life, to which some of our modern critics object as a +sign of weakness, which gives this poem its strength. Such assistance as +Tennyson gives us in seeing and realizing the spiritual view is needed +only or mainly by those to whom agnosticism in its various forms is a +plausible, and, at first sight, a reasonable attitude. The old-fashioned +"irrefragable arguments" are of little use by themselves to persons in +such a condition. However evident spiritual truths may be to an absolutely +purified reason, they are not evident to intellects which are impregnated +with a view of things opposed to the religious view. Moreover, we do not +consult a doctor with much confidence if he does not believe in the +reality of our illness; and one who finds the sceptical view persuasive +will have little trust in those who tell him that it has no plausibility +at all. With Tennyson, as with Cardinal Newman, half the secret of his +influence in this respect is that the sceptically minded reader finds +those very disturbing thoughts which had troubled his own mind anticipated +and stated. And yet a truer and deeper view is likewise depicted, which +sees beyond these thoughts, which detects through the clouds the light in +the heavens beyond. + +In the "Ancient Sage" there is a striking instance of this characteristic. +The young philosopher, filled with the failure of fair promise and the +collapse of apparent purpose in Nature and in man, pours forth his +sceptical lament. Here is a selection from it, typical of the rest: + + The years that made the stripling wise + Undo their work again, + And leave him, blind of heart and eyes, + The last and least of men; + + * * * * * + + His winter chills him to the root, + He withers marrow and mind; + The kernel of the shrivell'd fruit + Is jutting thro' the rind; + The tiger spasms tear his chest, + The palsy wags his head; + The wife, the sons, who love him best + Would fain that he were dead; + + * * * * * + + The statesman's brain that sway'd the past + Is feebler than his knees; + The passive sailor wrecks at last + In ever-silent seas; + The warrior hath forgot his arms, + The Learned all his lore; + The changing market frets or charms + The merchant's hope no more; + The prophet's beacon burn'd in vain, + And now is lost in cloud; + The plowman passes, bent with pain, + To mix with what he plow'd; + + The poet whom his Age would quote + As heir of endless fame-- + He knows not ev'n the book he wrote, + Not even his own name. + For man has overlived his day, + And, darkening in the light, + Scarce feels the senses break away + To mix with ancient Night. + +The Sage--far from denying the force of what he says--contends for a +deeper and wider view. The "_darkness is in man_." It is the result of the +incompleteness of his knowledge. That is to say, what is black to his +imperfect view, and taken by itself, may be a necessary part of a great +scheme. Not that the things are not really sad, but that the whole is not +sad. As there may be pain in tears of joy, and yet it is lost in exquisite +pleasure, so the dark elements of life, when our ultimate destiny is +attained and we can view age and suffering as part of the whole, may be so +entirely eclipsed, that we may say with truth that the "world is wholly +fair": + + My son, the world is dark with griefs and graves, + So dark that men cry out against the Heavens. + Who knows but that the darkness is in man? + The doors of Night may be the gates of Light; + For wert thou born or blind or deaf, and then + Suddenly heal'd, how would'st thou glory in all + The splendours and the voices of the world! + And we, the poor earth's dying race, and yet + No phantoms, watching from a phantom shore + Await the last and largest sense to make + The phantom walls of this illusion fade, + And show us that the world is wholly fair. + +"The doors of night may be the gates of light," says the Sage; and in +unison with this note are his replies to some of the details of the +younger man's wail, while his very argument presupposes that _all_ cannot +now be answered until we have the "last and largest sense." Thus, when the +dreary, hopeless vision of bodily decay, which seems to point to total +dissolution of a noble nature, is referred to, he says: + + The shell must break before the bird can fly. + +The breaking of the shell might seem, at first sight, total destruction, +but the forthcoming of the bird transforms the conception of decay into a +conception of new birth. And so, too, in answer to the complaint that "the +shaft of scorn that once had stung, but wakes the dotard smile," he +suggests that a more complete view may show it to be "the placid gleam of +sunset after storm." The transition may be not from intense life to +apathy, but from blinding passion to a calmer, a serener vision. + +Another of the later poems--"Vastness"--brings into especial relief a +parallel I have often noted between Lord Tennyson and Cardinal Newman in +their keen sense of the mysteries of the universe, which religion helps us +to bear with but does not solve. So far as this planet goes, and our own +human race, Cardinal Newman has expressed this sense in the _Apologia_, +and the parallel between his view and Tennyson's is sufficiently +instructive to make it worth while to quote the passage in full: + + To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, + the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual + alienation, their conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments, + forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their + random achievements and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of + long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a + superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn out to be + great powers and truths, the progress of things as if from unreasoning + elements, not towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of + man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over + his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the + success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and + intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the + dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race so + fearfully yet exactly described by the Apostle, "having no hope and + without God in the world," all this is a vision to dizzy and appal; + and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery which is + absolutely beyond human solution. + +Lord Tennyson takes in a wider range of considerations than the Cardinal. +He paints graphically, not only the mystery of the lot of mankind, but the +further sense of bewilderment which arises when we contemplate the +aimlessness of this vast universe of which our earth is such an +inappreciable fragment. Logically the poem asks only the question: "Great +or small, grand or ignoble, what does anything matter if we are but +creatures of the day with no eternal destiny?" But its grandeur consists +in the manner in which it sweeps from end to end of human experience and +knowledge, from thoughts overwhelming in their vastness, from ideas +carrying the mind over the length and breadth of space and over visions of +all eternity, to pictures of this planet, with its microscopic details, +the hopes, anxieties, plans, pleasures, griefs which make up the immediate +life of man. The imagination vacillates between a keen sense of the +importance of all, even the smallest, and the worthlessness of all, even +the greatest. At one moment comes the thought that one life out of the +myriads of lives passed on this tiny planet, if it be lived and given up +for righteousness, is of infinite and eternal value, and the next moment +comes the sense that the whole universe is worthless and meaningless, if, +indeed, the only percipient beings who are affected by it are but +creatures who feel for a day and then pass to nothingness. Each picture of +the various aspects of human life rouses an instinctive sympathy, and a +feeling in the background, "it can't be worthless and meaningless," and +yet the poet relentlessly forces us to confess that it is only some far +wider view of human nature and destiny than this world alone can justify, +which can make the scenes he depicts of any value. What Mill called "the +disastrous feeling of 'not worth while'" threatens the reader at every +turn; though the pictures of life in its innumerable aspects of happiness, +misery, sensuality, purity, selfishness, self-devotion, ambition, +aspiration, craft, cruelty, are so intensely real and rivet the +imagination so strongly, that he refuses to yield to the feeling. I +subjoin some of the couplets where good and bad, great and small, +alternate: + + Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanish'd face, + Many a planet by many a sun may roll with the dust of a vanish'd race. + + Raving politics, never at rest--as this poor earth's pale history runs,-- + What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of + suns? + + * * * * * + + Faith at her zenith, or all but lost in the gloom of doubts that darken + the schools; + Craft with a bunch of all-heal in her hand, follow'd up by her vassal + legion of fools. + + * * * * * + + Wealth with his wines and his wedded harlots; honest Poverty, bare to the + bone; + Opulent Avarice, lean as Poverty: Flattery gilding the rift in a throne. + + * * * * * + + Love for the maiden, crown'd with marriage, no regrets for aught that has + been, + Household happiness, gracious children, debtless competence, golden mean; + + National hatreds of whole generations, and pigmy spites of the village + spire; + Vows that will last to the last death-ruckle, and vows that are snapt in + a moment of fire; + + He that has lived for the lust of the minute, and died in the doing it, + flesh without mind; + He that has nail'd all flesh to the Cross, till Self died out in the love + of his kind; + + Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, and all these old revolutions of + earth; + All new-old revolutions of Empire--change of the tide--what is all of it + worth? + + What the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, varying voices of prayer? + All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with all that + is fair? + + What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse-coffins + at last, + Swallowed in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown'd in the deeps of a + meaningless Past? + + What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, or a moment's anger of bees in + their hive? + +The thought which seems to oppress the seer is the insignificance of +everything when compared to a standard--ever conceivable and ever +actual--above it. The ruts of a ploughed field may seem to the diminutive +insect as vast and overcoming as the Alps seem to us. Then contrast the +thought of Mont Blanc with that of the whole globe; proceed from the globe +to the solar system, and from that to the myriads of systems lost in +space. All that is great to us is relatively great, and becomes small at +once when the mind rises higher. So, too, in the moral order, all those +aspects of human life which sway our deepest emotions are but "a murmur of +gnats in the gloom," if regard be had to our comparative insignificance. +The ground yields at every step, and the mind looks for some _terra +firma_, some absolute basis of trust, and this is only to be found in the +conception of man as possessing an eternal destiny. The infinite value of +all that concerns an immortal being stands proof against the thoughts that +bewildered our vision. "He that has nailed all flesh to the cross till +self died out in the love of his kind" may be but a speck in the universe, +but faith measures him by a standard other than that of spacial vastness. +The idea of the _eternal worth of morality_ steps in to calm the +imagination, and this idea in its measure justifies the conception of the +value and importance of all the phases of human existence which make up +the drama of life. Human Love is the side of man's nature which the poet +looks to as conveying the sense of his immortal destiny. The undying union +of spirit with spirit is a union which the grave cannot end. The +bewildering nightmare of the nothingness and vanity of all things is +abruptly cut short, as the sense of what is deepest in the human heart +promptly gives the lie to what it cannot solve in detail: + + Peace, let it be! for I loved him and love him for ever. + The dead are not dead but alive. + + + + +[Illustration: THE SOUTH SIDE OF ENTRANCE FROM BELOW THE TERRACE, +ALDWORTH. Drawn by W. Biscombe Gardner.] + + +TENNYSON AND ALDWORTH + +By SIR JAMES KNOWLES, K.C.V.O. + + Farringford he never forsook, though he added another home to it; and + assuredly no poet has ever before called two such residences his own. + Both of them were sweetened by the presence there, so graciously + prolonged, of her to whom the lovers of song owe so deep a debt of + gratitude. The second home was as well chosen as the first. It lifted + England's great poet to a height from which he could gaze on a large + portion of that English land which he loved so well, see it basking in + its most affluent summer beauty, and only bounded by "the inviolate + sea." Year after year he trod its two stately terraces with men the + most noted of their time; statesmen, warriors, men of letters, + science, and art, some of royal race, some famous in far lands, but + none more welcome to him than the friends of his youth. Nearly all of + those were taken from him by degrees; but many of them stand + successively recorded in his verse. The days which I passed there + yearly with him and his were the happiest days of each year. They will + retain a happy place in my memory during whatever short period my life + may last; and the sea-murmurs of Freshwater will blend with the + sighing of the woods around Aldworth, for me, as for many more worthy, + a music, if mournful, yet full of consolation. + + _MS. Note, Aubrey de Vere._ + + +When I was "little more than a boy" I made, accidentally, my first +acquaintance with Tennyson as a poet, long before I knew him as a man. I +came by chance upon a copy of "In Memoriam," then just published +anonymously. I was quite entirely ignorant and indifferent in those days +about all poetry, and did not in the least know or guess who had written +it, but, opening it haphazard at the Geological Stanzas, was so impressed +and riveted by them,--for I was a student of Geology at the time,--that I +could not put the book down until I had read it all through and from end +to end. I was caught up and enthralled by its spirit, and my eyes seemed +suddenly opened on a whole new world. It made an epoch in my life and an +ineffaceable impression. I soon came to know my Tennyson almost by heart, +and was taunted by my friends for my worship of the "divine Alfred," as I +reverently called him. In this frame of mind it was that I made the bold +venture of asking his leave to dedicate to him my little book on King +Arthur and his Knights, his kind acceptance of which homage I have already +mentioned in my former article.[66] + +My first personal acquaintance with him was in the autumn of 1866, when I +was staying at Freshwater. I felt that I must call upon him and offer him +my respects and thanks before I left, but put it off through shyness until +the day before my holiday was to end. Then I took my courage in both hands +and went to Farringford. "Mr. Tennyson was out walking, but Mrs. Tennyson +was at home and would be happy to see me." It was a disappointment, but +Mrs. Tennyson received me most kindly and graciously, and begged me to +return later in the evening if I could, and see her husband who would like +to meet me. When I did return I was shown upstairs to the top of the house +and into an attic which was the Poet's own study, and presently, with my +heart in my mouth, I heard his great steps as he climbed up the little +wooden stairs. His bodily presence seemed as kingly as I felt it ought to +be, though a little grim and awful at first; but he made me very welcome, +and then groped about for and lighted a pipe, and sat down and began to +speak of King Arthur as being a subject of common interest and sympathy. + +This soon thawed the chill of my spirits and I began to feel more at home, +until I felt I could make the request I was longing to do--would he read +to me one of his Poems, as I desired earnestly to hear from his own lips +what I already knew and loved? Then came a great surprise and delight, for +it was not reading as usually understood, but intoning on a note, almost +chanting, which I heard, and which brought the instant conviction that +this was the proper vehicle for poetry as distinguished from prose. I was +so enchanted that I begged for more and more; and then I suppose may have +begun a personal sympathy which grew and lasted always afterwards till his +death. For when I made to go he took me all about the house, showing me +the pictures and drawings with which his walls were lined, peering into +them so closely with a lighted candle that I thought he would set them or +himself on fire. This was, perhaps, another common ground,--I having been +all my life interested in art and in a small way a collector of drawings +and pictures. + +Before I left he told me to come and claim acquaintance if ever we met +before I came to Farringford again, for if not his short sight would +prevent his knowing me. On this friendly request I acted in the spring of +the following year, 1867, when my wife and I were going to pay a visit at +Haslemere. At Haslemere station, to my surprise, I saw him standing on the +platform, and went up and spoke to him, reminding him of his desire that I +should do so. I then introduced my wife to him, and he explained how he +came to be there--namely, because he was in search of a site where he +might build a cottage to take refuge in from the tourists who made his +life a burden to him in the Isle of Wight. He added, "You are an +architect, why should you not make the plans of it for me?" I said, "With +the greatest possible pleasure, upon one condition that I may act +professionally without making any professional charge; for I cannot be +paid twice over, and you, Mr. Tennyson, have over-paid me already long +ago--in the pleasure and delight your works have given me--for any little +work I could do for you." He protested, but in the end accepted my terms. + +The cottage, as he first proposed it, was to be a small square, +four-roomed house, with a door in the middle, like one in which he was +then staying near Haslemere. I went there to see him and to describe plans +and the question of a site. After inspecting several with him, he took me +secretly to one which a friend had found out as being possibly procurable, +and on which Aldworth was finally built. It was a natural terrace, formed +just below the summit of Black Down, and was known as Green Hill. There +was a potato-patch where the house now stands,--a little flat clearance in +the midst of sloping coppices that covered all the southern side of the +hill; and it was a spot of ideal seclusion, just wide enough and no more +for a moderately sized house, quite perfect for his objects,--almost too +perfect in the way of inaccessibility, for it took years of negotiation +and trouble to obtain a practicable road to it. The view from it was +simply perfect, extending over the whole of woody Sussex to the South +Downs and the sea. "It wants nothing," he said as he gazed at it, "but a +great river looping along through the midst of it." "Gloriously crimson +flowers set along the edge of the terrace would burn like lamps against +the purple distance"--as presently was realized. + +The plans for a four-roomed cottage gave way somewhat as I talked the +matter over with Mr. and Mrs. Tennyson, the latter giving me certain rough +ideas which she could not quite express by drawing, but which I understood +enough to put into shape; and presently I went to Farringford with designs +for a less unimportant dwelling. It grew and grew as it was talked over +and considered, the details being all discussed with Mrs. Tennyson, while +he contented himself by pretending to protest against any addition and +improvement. + +At last, one day, when I brought sketches for an arcaded porch to +complete the design, he put his foot down and said he would have nothing +to do with it--that he would have no more additions--that it would ruin +him and could not be entertained for a moment. He walked to and fro, +coming back from time to time to the table where the drawing lay and +looking at it. He admitted that he liked it more and more the more he +looked at it, but presently cried out with simulated fury, "Get thee +behind me, Satan," and ran out of the room. Then I knew that the porch was +won. When it was built he got to be very fond of it, and used to call +attention to the way in which the landscape was framed by the arches of +it. He even had a picture of it made by a friend to show this effect. + +He laid the foundation-stone of it on Shakespeare's birthday, April 23, +1868, few being there besides his great friend, Sir John Simeon, myself, +and my wife, whom he dragged up the steep hillside in the blazing +sunshine. He interfered very little about the progress of the work, except +as to various little accidental things which moved his fancy. For +instance, a stone shield in the gable of one of the dormer windows had +remained blank when all the rest were carved--simply because of a +hesitation how best to fill it up. But when the time came at which it must +be finished, if done at all, he stood spying up at it through his eyeglass +for a long while, and then decided to leave it blank,--so that the last +touch to the work might be decided hereafter by Fate, accident having kept +it open so long. + +He was reminded by it of the blank shield in his own Idylls, of which +Merlin asks, "Who shall blazon it?--when and how?" and adds, "Perchance +when all our wars are done the brand Excalibur will be cast away." In a +similar way he would not let the figure of a stone Falcon be removed which +had been set up as a model for approval at one corner of the parapet, but +was never intended to stay there. He looked at it long and curiously, and +laughed and said it seemed to grow queerer, that it was a pity to take it +down; and there it remained ever after in its original solitariness, to +his great content and amusement, which had a touch of seriousness in it. + +He made a great point of his favourite motto, _Gwyr yn erbyn y byd_ +("Truth against the world"), being prominently emblazoned in tile mosaic +at the threshold of the front door and in the pavement of the Hall. The +text, "Gloria Deo in Excelsis," in the carved band which surrounds the +house was the selection of Mrs. Tennyson. The formation of the terrace +lawn in front of the house, with its boundary balustrade, interested him +extremely; and when the vases were filled with splendid blossoms, standing +out against the blue landscape, the vision he had foreseen from the +potato-patch was realized to his full satisfaction. The invariable and +tormenting delays in finishing the house, however, annoyed him greatly; +for he longed to get into it away from the tourists, and used to say he +should never live to enjoy it long enough. When he did move in, he said he +wanted to have each room for his own, and at first adopted for sleeping +in, the central top attic on the south front, which opened on to the lead +flat of the large bay window on the first floor. He called it his +balcony-room, and loved to stand out on the flat and watch the changes in +the great prospect spread out before him. He ultimately gave this up for a +guest's room, and took to the finer room below, which was always flooded +with light, and was filled with bright moonshine when he died in it. On +one occasion, when I was sleeping in the balcony-room, I was suddenly +waked up by a thundering at the door and his great voice calling out, "Get +up and look out of the window." I jumped out of bed accordingly, and saw +the whole wide aspect turned into a flat white billowy ocean, with no +trace of land at all, but with waves beginning to move and roll in it. The +sun was just rising, and I stood to watch the gradual creation of a world +as it were. From moment to moment the vast ocean broke up and rose away +into clouds, uncovering the landscape bit by bit--the hills first and the +valleys last, until the whole great prospect came together again into its +normal picture. It was delightful to see his enjoyment of everything in +the new house, from the hot-water bathroom downwards, for at first the hot +bath seemed to attract him out of measure. He would take it four or five +times a day, and told me he thought it the height of luxury "to sit in a +hot bath and read about little birds." + +The following notes of a visit paid to him at Aldworth show the usual +manner of his daily life there. + +He usually dined rather early, at 7 or 7.30 o'clock, and Mrs. Tennyson +would generally carve (or in later times Hallam), according to the +old-fashioned custom. He talked freely, with an abundance of anecdote and +story, and full of humour, and "chaff" (no touch of pedantry or priggism +could live in his presence); and always when at home made a move for +dessert to another room--the morning room at Aldworth--where he would +begin his bottle (pint) of port, and with the exception of a glass or so, +would finish it, talking all the time with entire geniality and abandon, +and full of reminiscences of men and things. Sometimes he would recur to +his grievances at the hands of his publishers, and pour out his complaints +about them, until finally landed, to his entire satisfaction, with +Macmillan. + +After dessert he would retire to his study and his after-dinner pipe, +which he took quite by himself; and would then come into the drawing-room, +whither the others had repaired some time, and join in general talk again +and perhaps read, at some one's request, some of his own poems, till the +ladies left for bed.[67] Then he would invite some favoured guest or +guests to his study, and begin the confidential discussions and +soliloquies which it was a priceless privilege--the most valued and +treasured of privileges--to share and to listen to. At such times all his +inmost thoughts and feelings, recollections and speculations of his life +came out with the open simplicity of a child and the keen insight and far +sight of a prophet; and one had glimpses into the mystery of things beyond +one's own power of seeing, and as if seen through a telescope. + + * * * * * + +I have before stated how he more than once summed up his personal religion +in the words: "There's a Something That watches over us, and our +Individuality endures." On one occasion he added, "I do not say endures +for ever, but I say endures after this life at any rate.[68]" When in +answer to the question, What was his deepest desire of all? he said, "A +clearer vision of God," it exactly expressed the continued strivings of +his spirit for more light upon every possible question, which so +constantly appear in his poems, which led him to join in founding the +Metaphysical Society, and induced him to write the introductory sonnet in +the _Nineteenth Century_. Out of all such talks, at many times and places +repeated, I came to know his actual personal position, in those years at +any rate of the growth of old age, concerning the most vital problems of +this world and this life. Many scores of such times have fallen to my +happy lot, and my life has been all the richer for them. + + + + +THE FUNERAL OF DICKENS + + +I remember, when he went with me to Westminster Abbey to hear Dean Stanley +preach Dickens's funeral sermon, we sat within the rails of the Sacrarium +so as to be near the pulpit, and when we came away he told me the story of +the Oriental traveller who mistook the organ for the Church's God. He was +very fond of the story, and often repeated it. As he told it, the +traveller was made to say: "We went into one of their temples to see their +worship. The temple is only opened sometimes, and they keep their God shut +up in a great gold box at one end of it. When we passed inside the doors +we heard him grumbling and growling as if out of humour at being disturbed +in his solitude; and as the worshippers came in they knelt down and seemed +to supplicate him and try to propitiate him. He became quieter for a +while, only now and then grumbling for a few moments, but then he got +louder again and the whole body of the people stood up and cried to him +together, and after a while persuaded him to be still. Presently he began +once more and then, after praying all together several times, they deputed +one of their number to stand up alone and address him earnestly on their +behalf, deprecating his anger. He spoke so long without an interruption +that it seemed the God had either fallen asleep or been finally persuaded +into a better temper; but suddenly at last he broke out into a greater +passion than ever, and with such tremendous noise and roarings that all +the worshippers rose from their seats in fright and ran out of the +temple." + +There was an immense congregation that day in the Abbey--and when the +service was over--we stood up waiting a long time to pass out through the +rails. But instead of dispersing by the outer door the people all turned +eastward and flocked towards the altar, pressing closer and closer up to +the Sacrarium. The chances of getting out became less and less, and I +turned to Tennyson and said, "I don't know what all this means, but we +seem so hemmed in that it is useless to move as yet." Then a man, standing +close by me whispered, "I don't think they will go, sir, so long as your +friend stands there." Of course I saw at once what was happening--it had +got to be known that Tennyson was present, and the solid throng was bent +on seeing him. Such a popularity had never occurred to me or to him, and +justified his nervous unwillingness to be seen in crowded places. I was +obliged to tell him what was going on, upon which he urgently insisted on +being let out some quiet way and putting an end to the dilemma. + + + + +FRAGMENTARY NOTES OF TENNYSON'S TALK + +By ARTHUR COLERIDGE + + +But for the suggestion of the present Lord Tennyson, I should shrink from +the presumption of posing as a friend of his illustrious father, who for +three Easters made of me a companion, sometimes for two, more often three +hours daily, for three weeks at a time together. I should be safe in +saying that the most gifted men I have ever known, Tennyson, Browning, and +Cory, were in the realms of thought, philosophy, and imagination foremost +in an age which in two instances acknowledged their supremacy whilst they +lived, and in the third has ungrudgingly admitted him as one taking high +rank amongst the English poets of the second order. I link his name with +that of the two great men, for I have abundant materials for forming my +opinion of him in the shape of three volumes of correspondence, begun in +my boyhood and continued for years during my friend's lifetime. + +Mr. Fitzherbert was a welcome friend of Dr. Johnson's. "Ursa Major" warmed +to him, though perfectly conscious that Fitz was anything but a star of +the first magnitude. He says: "There was no sparkle, no brilliancy in +Fitzherbert, but I never knew a man who was so generally acceptable. He +made everybody quite easy, overpowered nobody by the superiority of his +talents, made no man think worse of himself by being his rival, seemed +always to listen, did not oblige you to hear much from him, and did not +oppose what you said." "Such characters," says Mr. Raleigh, "are the oil +of society, yet a society made wholly of such characters would have no +taste." + +Tennyson's fidelity and patience with me were very much of a mystery; +possibly I may have fitted his hand as a pet walking-stick; anyhow, I was +"Man Friday to his Crusoe" as the play-actors say, and "constitutionals" +with the Poet Laureate and his dogs, a wolf-hound or a deer-hound, +Karénina or Lufra, were matters of daily occurrence in my Freshwater days. +After 5 o'clock tea I left the Poet to "his sacred half-hour," and his +pipe of tobacco. By the way, he smoked straight-stemmed Dublin clay-pipes, +and hated new pipes, which he would soak in coffee. + +I believe that in the early days of our acquaintance the Poet, seeing me +with what appeared to be a notebook under my arm, suspected me of +Boswellizing, but I was duly warned and reassured him of my innocence. I +simply recorded very briefly in my diary a few of his "dicta" which I +wished to have for the benefit of my children, one of whom was a frequent +and delighted listener to the Laureate's reading of his own poems. Mary +Coleridge, at that time a shy, timid girl, was more than once asked to +dictate the particular poems she wanted him to recite. I can hear him +saying, "Give me my seven-and-sixpenny" (meaning the single volume +edition), and then we listened to the "high Orphic chant," rather than the +conventional reading of many of our favourite poems. I often asked for the +"Ode on the Duke of Wellington," and on one occasion, in the presence of +Sir Charles Stanford--then organist of Trinity College, Cambridge--the +Poet, lowering his voice at the words, "God accept him, Christ receive +him," added: "It's a mighty anthem, that's what it is." Stanford's music +to "The Voyage of Mældune" was written at Freshwater, and four of us +visitors sang a lovely quartet in that work for the first time in the +Poet's presence. It was rather nervous work, for the composer and +ourselves were anxious to satisfy the Poet in a work intended as a novelty +for the Leeds Festival. The verdict was rather enigmatical: "I like the +ripple of your music." It met with a good reception at Leeds, and Madame +Albani expressed a confident hope in my hearing that the work would become +popular. I wish the prophecy had been adequately fulfilled, but English +audiences, though, like the Athenians of old, clamouring for a new thing, +are very cautious in giving more than one or two trials to musical +novelties. It is lamentable to see works which have cost long years, +perhaps a lifetime, of skilled experience, shelved in musical libraries or +relegated to foreign audiences for adjudication of their real value. + +It was my daily habit during the Easter holidays for three years to call +at Farringford at 10.30, and present myself in the Poet's sanctum, where I +found him at his desk in the very act of hatching a poem or amending an +old one. He would greet me with "Here comes my daily bread." Then I read +the newspaper or a book until we started for our morning walk. The +dialogue would begin abruptly, starting from some impressions left by our +musical rehearsals on the previous day. "Why is Stanford unable to set to +music the word 'cosmopolite'?" (See Appendix B.) The reasons seemed to me +quite intelligible, but not so to a poet as fastidious as Wordsworth when +discussing the Installation Ode with Professor Walmisley. I expect Purcell +had more than one bad half-hour with Dryden, for the laws and regulations +of musical accent may often conflict with the cadences and scansion +adopted by the poet. Sir Charles Stanford and Sir Hubert Parry (_lucida +sidera_) are rare instances of musical composers with an instinctive +appreciation of the fitness and adaptability of poetry offered for musical +treatment. + +Tennyson was loyal to the core on the subject of his old university, and +amongst his constant visitors were some of my old contemporaries, +Bradshaw, Lightfoot, and Montagu Butler. These, the _fleurs fines_ of my +day, were constant topics, and I eagerly listened to his recollections of +the Cambridge men of his own generation. "Thompson" (afterwards Master of +Trinity), he said, "was the last man I saw at Cambridge. I saw him +standing at the door of the Bull Inn--his handsome face under a street +lamp. We have been friends ever since." He enjoyed the master's +witticisms, and especially "even the youngest among us is not infallible." + +The Professorship of Greek carried with it a Canonry of Ely, and +Thompson's times of residence were rather dreaded by the new holders of +the office. His health, never of the best, was tried by the atmosphere, +and finding the loneliness of his bachelor life insupportable, he begged +an old College contemporary to pay him a visit. The friend came and was +duly installed, but the sleeping accommodation was found wanting, and in +answer to his petition for another bedroom with a good fire in it his host +observed, "So sorry, my dear fellow, but I put five of my sermons into +that bedroom, and if they have failed to dry it, nothing else will." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "My tailor at Cambridge was a man of the name of Law. When he made +his way into our rooms, and worried us about paying our bills, we used to +say, 'This is Law's Serious Call.' I capped this story with a similar +Oxford tradition. The name of the Oxford tailor was Joy, and the +undergraduates, soaked with port wine, used to say, 'Heaviness may endure +for a night, but Joy cometh in the morning.'" + +_T._ "You cannot wonder at my horror of all the libels and slanders; +people began to slander me in early days. For example, after my marriage +we spent the honeymoon on Coniston Lake in a cottage lent to me by James +Marshall. Shortly after this, a paragraph appeared in an American +newspaper to the following effect: 'We hope, now that Mr. Tennyson is +married and has returned to his native lakes, that he will give up opium.' +The penny-a-liners evidently confounded your uncle, S. T. Coleridge, with +myself--anyhow, if he wasn't quite certain, he gave your relative the +benefit of the doubt." + +"Again, I was once persuaded by an adventuress (who wrought upon me by her +tale of hopeless poverty) to hear her read in my own drawing-room. She was +in my house for exactly half an hour, and profited by her experience in +telling her audiences that she had seen me thrashing my wife, and carried +away drunk by two men-servants to my bedroom." + + * * * * * + +One day we visited the grave of Lord Tennyson's shepherd; he died at the +age of ninety-one. On his death-bed Hallam asked him if he would remember +in his will his two sons in Australia who had entirely ignored and +neglected him. "No," he said firmly; and he left his 17s. 6d. a year to +the poorest man in the parish of Freshwater. On his tombstone are engraved +the Laureate's own words from "In Memoriam": + + God's finger touched him and he slept. + +I showed Lord Tennyson some manuscript verses by my friend Bernard Drake, +who died at Madeira in 1853. He read them twice through, slowly and aloud. +I had told him of Drake's history, and then showed him the verses; their +sadness impressed him greatly: + + ON ILLNESS + + I + + Thou roaring, roaming Sea! + When first I came into this happy isle, + I loved to listen evermore to thee, + And meditate the while. + + + II + + But now that I have grown + Homesick, and weary of my loneliness, + It makes me sad to hear thy plaintive moan + And fills me with distress. + + + III + + It speaks of many a friend, + Whom I shall meet no more on Life's dark road, + It warns that _here_ I must await the end + And cast no look abroad. + + + IV + + Thou ever roaring Sea! + I love thee, for that o'er thy waters come + The stately ships, breasting them gloriously, + That bring me news of home. + + + V + + I cannot pray for grace-- + My soul is heavy, and my sickness sore-- + Wilt Thou, O God, for ever hide Thy face? + O! turn to me once more. + + MADEIRA, _November 30, 1853_. + +Drake's career at Eton and Cambridge really interested him, for my old +friend was an ardent worshipper of the Poet in days before Tennyson's fame +had become a national asset. I showed with some pride "Of old sat Freedom +on the heights," translated into Latin Alcaics, a version very popular +with Etonians and King's men. Scholarship has made gigantic strides since +it appeared; "those who know" can read and see if we overvalued it. + + OF OLD SAT FREEDOM + + Of old sat Freedom on the heights, + The thunders breaking at her feet: + Above her shook the starry lights: + She heard the torrents meet. + + There in her place she did rejoice, + Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind, + And fragments of her mighty voice + Came rolling on the wind. + + Then stept she down thro' town and field + To mingle with the human race, + And part by part to men reveal'd + The fulness of her face-- + + Grave mother of majestic works, + From her isle-altar gazing down, + Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks, + And, King-like, wears the crown: + + Her open eyes desire the truth. + The wisdom of a thousand years + Is in them. May perpetual youth + Keep dry their light from tears; + + That her fair form may stand and shine, + Make bright our days and light our dreams, + Turning to scorn with lips divine + The falsehood of extremes! + + + _Idem--Latine redditum_ + + Olim insedebat montibus arduis + Disiecta cernens sub pede fulmina + Divina Libertas; superque + Astra faces agitare vidit; + + Et confluentes audiit undique + Amnes, opertis in penetralibus + Exultat, et ritu Sibyllae + Mente sua latet involuta, + + Sed vocis altae fragmina praepetes + Venti ferebant.--Inde novalia + Per culta discendens, per urbes + Diva homines aditura venit, + + Ut vultus aegros ante oculos virûm + Sensim pateret--mox parit integram + Virtutem et altari marino + Suppositum speculatur orbem-- + + Quae seu deorum more acies gerit + Dextra trifurcas, seu caput induit + Regina regali corona. + Expetit, insequiturque verum. + + Quae mille victrix experientiam + Collegit annos: o Dea, sic tibi + Aeterna si duret iuventus + Neu lacrymis oculi madescant; + + Sic enitebis, sic dabis aureos + Dies alumnis, aurea somnia; + Sic ore divino refelles + Quae properat malesuadus error. + + * * * * * + +When distinguished visitors came to the Island, who were on terms of +friendship with the Poet, I gave him warning that I should not appear on +the scene and spoil their pleasure; but to this condition he would not +assent, and I can recall frequent occasions when I must have been a fly in +the ointment, and the Jowetts, Bradleys, and distinguished Americans would +have wished me at Jericho. Once I felt entirely at my ease, for I +determined to start the subject of Dr. Johnson, worshipped by me from my +boyhood. I knew my Birkbeck Hill pretty well by heart, having quite +recently read the six volumes of his edition of Boswell, notes and all, to +a blind friend who rejoiced in hearing them. Further than that, I had made +a pilgrimage to Lichfield, and by the kindness of a Mr. Lomax, who owned +the relics, had examined and handled a varied assortment of goods and +chattels, once undoubtedly the property of the great Samuel. The pedigree +was thus accounted for by my courteous showman. After Dr. Johnson's death, +Barber, his black servant, migrated from London to Lichfield, "bringing +his sheaves with him"; amongst the _spolia opima_ were a huge teapot and a +manuscript copy of Devotions. Fortified with the recollections of this +pilgrimage, and some out-of-the-way facts told to me by the residentiary +Canon, my dear old friend Bishop Abraham, I started on a two hours' walk +with the Poet and Professor Jowett. It was easy to lead up to the theme of +conversation--there was no difficulty whatever. I thought of Johnson's own +plan of extinguishing subjects which he intended at all costs to avoid. +When Mrs. Neale asked his opinion of the conversational powers of Charles +James Fox, "he talked to me one day at the Club," said he, "concerning +Catiline's conspiracy, so I withdrew my attention and thought about Tom +Thumb." Every moment of that afternoon walk, Dr. Johnson was our theme, +and we capped one another with long quotations from Boswell. Jowett +chirped, the Poet gave wonderful emphasis and point to the oracles, often +pausing suddenly in his walk, and cross-examining me on my remembered +version of the actual words. I noted the upshot of our talk. Lord Tennyson +agreed with the Master of Balliol "that Boswell was a man of real genius, +and resembled Goldsmith in many points of character." + +Miss L----, Doctor Johnson's godchild, used to tell a disagreeable story +about him. Tennyson said about this: + +_T._ "One should not lay stress on these oddities and angularities of +great men. They should never be hawked about." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "'Break, break' was made one early summer morning, in a Lincolnshire +lane. 'Crossing the Bar' cost me five minutes one day last November." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "At ten years of age I wrote an epic poem of great length--it was in +the 'Marmion' style. I used to rush about the fields, with a stick for a +sword, and fancied myself a conqueror advancing upon an enemy's country." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "My prize poem 'Timbuctoo' was an altered version of a work I had +written at home and called 'The Battle of Armageddon.' I fell out with my +father, for I had no wish to compete for the prize and he insisted on my +writing. To my amazement, the prize was awarded to me. I couldn't face the +public recitation in the Senate House, feeling very much as Cowper felt; +Merivale declaimed my poem for me in the Senate House." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "Arthur Hallam said to me in 1832: 'To-day I have seen the last +English King going in State to the last English Parliament.'" + + * * * * * + +I believe that one of Tennyson's first idylls was addressed to Miss K. +Bradshaw, sister of my beloved friend Henry Bradshaw (fellow and librarian +of King's College, Cambridge), whose relationship to the Judge who +condemned Charles I. was rather a tender point with H. B., both at Eton +and King's. + + Because she bore the iron name + Of him who doomed his king to die, + I deemed her one of stately frame + And looks to awe her stander by. + But find a maiden, tender, shy, + With fair blue eyes and winning sweet, + And longed to kiss her hand, and lie + A thousand summers at her feet. + + * * * * * + +I pressed the Poet more than once to put on record his own interpretation +of passages in "In Memoriam" and others which needed the authority of his +own explanation. "Surely you took 'four square to all the winds that blow' +from Dante's + + Ben tetragono ai colpi della Ventura?" + +"No, it was not in my mind." Again, I quoted his expression, "hollow +shapes enclosing hearts of flame," thinking it had arisen from Beckford's +_Vathek_. The answer was "No, merely spectral visions." + +_T._ "Some of my poems depend on single sayings, single lines which have +served me for a theme. My poem of 'The Brigand' is founded on a story told +in the Autobiography of that great and gallant gentleman, Walter Scott." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "Edward FitzGerald and I used to weary of the hopelessly prosaic +lines in some books of 'The Excursion,' and we had a contest, the prize +for which was to be for the weakest line by mutual consent that we could +either of us invent. FitzGerald declared the line was his--it really was +mine--'A Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman.'" I wish I could have told him of Jem +Stephen's commentary on "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," "That is no +reason why we should lie about Heaven in our old age." Among other +passages he quotes with admiration Wordsworth's lines on the "Simplon +Pass." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "I am sorry that I am turned into a school-book at Harrow; the boys +will say of me, 'That horrible Tennyson.' The cheapness of English +classics makes the plan acceptable to schoolmasters and parents." + +He quoted with approval Byron's line-- + + Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so. + +"He was quite right. I, too, was so overdosed with Horace as a boy, that I +don't do him justice now I am old. I suppose Horace was the most popular +poet that ever lived?" + + * * * * * + +Rough dissonant words in great poets were a trial to him; he declared that +those horrid words, _Eingeweide_ and _Beschützer_, are the ruin of +Goethe's otherwise perfect lyrics. + +_T._ "At Weimar the Grand Duchess sent an apology for not receiving me in +person. After visiting Goethe's study, bedroom and sitting-room, I was +shocked by the meanness of the streets, and the horrid smells in the town +itself. I felt as tetchy and vexed as Macbeth with his 'out, out, brief +candle,' a passage so utterly misunderstood by Macready, who dropped his +voice and gave the words a pathos that I _am quite sure_ was never +intended." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "_The Tempest_ has been dreadfully damaged by scenes intercalated by +some common stage-adapter. At one time of my life I thought the Sonnets +greater than the Plays. Some of the noblest things are in _Troilus and +Cressida_." + + Perseverance, dear my Lord, keeps honour bright, etc. + + * * * * * + +_T._ "Have you observed a solecism in Milton's _Penseroso_? + + But let my due feet never fail + To walk the studious cloisters pale, + And _love_ the high embowed roof + With antique pillars massy proof, etc." + +_T._ "I do not remember getting from your cousin Hartley Coleridge the +Sonnet you speak of, still less can I account for its being in the Library +in the South Kensington Museum." + +This Sonnet is headed + + SONNET TO ALFRED TENNYSON + + _After meeting him for the first time_ + + Long have I known thee as thou art in song, + And long enjoyed the perfume that exhales + From thy pure soul, and odour sweet entails, + And permanence on thoughts that float along + The stream of life to join the passive throng + Of shades and echoes that are memory's being, + Hearing we hear not, and we see not seeing + If Passion, Fancy, Faith, move not among + The never frequent moments of reflection. + Long have I view'd thee in the chrystal sphere + Of verse, that like the Beryl makes appear + Visions of hope, begot of recollection. + Knowing thee now, a real earth-treading man + Not less I love thee, and no more I can. + HARTLEY COLERIDGE. + +_T._ "I liked Hartley Coleridge, 'Massa' Hartley' as the rustics called +him. He was a lovable little fellow. Once he said to me, 'Had I been +Colonel Burns (the Poet's eldest son) I would have kicked Wordsworth for +delivering that preachment.' On one occasion Hartley, who was very +eccentric, was asked to dine with the family of a stiff Presbyterian +clergyman residing in the Lake district. The guests, Trappist fashion, sat +a long time in the drawing-room waiting for the announcement of dinner. +Not a word was uttered, and Hartley was bored to extinction. At last he +suddenly jumped up from the sofa, kissed the clergyman's wife, and rushed +out of the house. He was wonderfully eloquent, and, I fancy, resembled his +father in that respect." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "I doubt that fine poem 'Kubla Khan' having been written in sleep; I +have often imagined new poems in my sleep, but I couldn't remember them in +the morning. Your uncle's words: 'Tennyson has no sense of rhythm and +scansion,' have been constantly quoted against me. The truth is that in my +youth I used no hyphens in writing composite words, and a reader might +fancy that from this omission I had no knowledge of the length and measure +of words and expressions." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "Burns was a great genius, but dreadfully coarse sometimes. When he +attempts to write in pure English, he breaks down utterly." He quoted many +things of Burns's: "O my Luv's like a red, red rose," and "Gae fetch to me +a pint o' wine," etc., with the greatest admiration, and "Mary Morison" +and "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon," etc. "They have utterly ruined +the lilt of the last," he said, "when they added words for the musical +setting." + + * * * * * + +He was fond of talking about great pictures and fine sculpture. Birket +Foster joined us one day, and Tennyson asked him to define the word +"picturesque," and to say why tumble-down cottages in the Isle of Wight +were such favourite subjects with painters. B. F. answered that it was the +breaking of the straight line. We talked of Frederick Walker, and B. F. +told us many stories of his wit and conscientiousness. "I mean to paint a +picture," said he, "the key-note of which is to be onion-seed." + + * * * * * + +Primrose Day.--_T._ "All the floral displays for which we Isle of Wighters +suffer are based on a mistaken version of the Queen's meaning, when she +sent a wreath of primroses for Lord Beaconsfield's grave, inscribed with +'His favourite flower.' She meant Prince Albert's, not Lord +Beaconsfield's partiality for the flower in question." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "I could imitate the hoot of an owl, and once practised successfully +enough to attract one which flew in through my window. The bird soon made +friends with me, would sit on my shoulder and kiss my face. My pet monkey +became jealous, and one day pushed the owl off a board that I had had +raised some feet from the ground. The owl was not hurt, but he died +afterwards a Narcissus death from vanity. He fell into a tub of water +contemplating his own beauty, and was drowned." + + * * * * * + +The Poet admired Carlyle's _French Revolution_, but he seemed surprised at +my having read Carlyle's _Frederick the Great_; the length of it had been +too much for him. I was vexed by the author's omission of an account of +Sebastian Bach's famous interview with the king at Potsdam, and pressed on +my old friend Sir George Grove to inquire the reasons of so strange an +omission. He ascertained that Carlyle not only knew the fact, but the +actual day and date of the occurrence. The omission, therefore, was really +of malice aforethought. Quantz, the flute-player, has his appropriate +niche in the monumental work, but the great Sebastian is out of it +altogether; the tootler takes the cake and be hanged to him. + + * * * * * + +Great sailors and soldiers were very favourite subjects. The Poet had +personally known well one naval officer who had served with Nelson. + +_T._ "Among many odd letters I have received,[69] an American curate wrote +to me that he made a sudden resolution one Sunday that he would read 'The +Charge of the Light Brigade' instead of his ordinary sermon. An old +Dorsetshire soldier who had fought at Balaclava, happened to be in the +congregation, though the preacher was unaware of the fact. The verses had +the happy result of the soldier giving up a bad, reckless life, and +completely reforming. My poem was never meant to convey any spiritual +lesson, but the very curious fact of the chance soldier and the parson's +sudden resolution has often set me thinking." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "Twice, I am glad to say, I have been taken into battle; once by Sir +Fenwick Williams of Kars; another officer wrote after a fight: 'I escaped +with my life and my Tennyson.' I admire General Hamley, a good writer and +accomplished soldier." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "When the Prince Regent explored the field of Waterloo with the Duke +himself as guide, the Duke's horse plunged and threw his rider. The Prince +remarked, 'I can now say what nobody else in the world can, that I saw the +Duke of Wellington overthrown on the Field of Waterloo.' His Grace was not +over pleased with the observation." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "Keats would have become one of the very greatest of all poets, had +he lived. At the time of his death there was apparently no sign of +exhaustion or having written himself out; his keen poetical instinct was +in full process of development at the time. Each new effort was a steady +advance on that which had gone before. With all Shelley's splendid imagery +and colour, I find a sort of _tenuity_ in his poetry." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "'Locksley Hall' is thought by many to be an autobiographical sketch; +it's nothing of the sort--not a word of my history in it. Read +FitzGerald's _Euphranor_ and let me know what you think of it." + + * * * * * + +One day we talked of Winchester and the rather meagre list of great men +educated there. I rejoiced in the college boasting of an _alumnus_ in Lord +Seaton, the famous leader of the 52nd Regiment at Waterloo. "I remember," +_T._ said, "addressing a coachman by whose side I was sitting as we drove +in a coach through that place, and I asked him, 'What sort of a place is +Winchester?' Answer: 'Debauched, sir, debauched, like all other Cathedral +cities.'" + + * * * * * + +_T._ "I am inclined to agree with Swinburne's view of Mary Queen of Scots; +she was brought up in a Court that studied the works of Brantôme." + + * * * * * + +We often talked of Farrar's book and Maurice's opinions on Eternal +Punishment. The Poet was fond of quoting Dante's line: + + Fecemi somma Sapienza ed il sommo Amore, + +insisting on Dante's intense belief in a God of Love. He more than once +repeated the famous lines of Moschus,[70] adding, "I think those the +finest lines in all Greek antiquity." + + * * * * * + +_T._ "My friend, Sir Henry Taylor, on being called a Christian Jupiter, +remarked, 'I wish I was much more of a jovial Christian.'" + +_T._ "I once asked Rogers, 'Did you ever write a sonnet?' He answered, +'No, I never dance in fetters.'" + + * * * * * + +_T._ "I am told that the best prose version of the _Odyssey_ is by +Professor Palmer of Cambridge University, America. Since Matthew Arnold's +lectures on Homer, a new translation has appeared annually in that +country. It would take me ten years to translate the _Iliad_ into Bible +English." He liked Worsley's translation of the _Odyssey_. + + * * * * * + +"The purest English is talked in South Lincolnshire. The dialect begins at +Spilsby in Mid-Lincolnshire, and that is the dialect of my Lincolnshire +poems." + +He was fond of telling Lincolnshire stories. _T._ "An old farmer, at the +time when railways were beginning, receiving a visit from the parson, +moved uneasily in his bed, crying out, 'What with faäth, and what with +real bad harvests, and what with them graät, horrid steäm-kettles, and +what with the soön goin' raound the earth, and the earth goin' raound the +soön, as soom saäy she do, I am cleän maäzed an' the sooner I gits out of +this 'ere world, the better;' and he turned his face to the wall and +died." + + * * * * * + +I close my chapter of fragments and echoes still abiding with me; men +privileged as I was can hear the voice and hate a gramophone. My aim has +been to show the everyday life, the plain unvarnished words which were the +daily change with the first man of his age and a rank-and-file +acquaintance just able, and no more, to appreciate such kindness. + + _Haec olim meminisse iuvabit._ + + + + +MUSIC, TENNYSON, AND JOACHIM + +By SIR CHARLES STANFORD + + +My acquaintance, or rather my friendship, with Alfred Tennyson (for he had +an all-compelling power of making real friends of, and being a true friend +to, those far junior to himself) dated only from 1879, when he was in +years seventy, but in mental vigour the contemporary of the youngest man +he happened to be with. Previously, however, in 1875, I had had experience +of his thoughtful kindness. He had chosen me, an unknown and untried +composer, to write the incidental music to his tragedy of "Queen Mary" for +its production at the Lyceum Theatre, then under the management of Mrs. +Bateman. Many difficulties were put in the way of the performance of the +music, into the causes of which I had neither the wish nor the means to +penetrate. Finally, however, the management gave as an explanation that +the music could not be performed, as the number of orchestral players +required for its proper presentment would necessitate the sacrifice of two +rows of stalls. To my young and disappointed soul came the news of a +generous action which would have been a source of pride to many a composer +of assured position and fame. The Poet had offered, unknown to me, to bear +the expense of the sacrificed seats for many nights, in order to allow my +small share of the work to be heard. The offer was refused, but the +generous action remains--one amongst the thousands of such quiet and +stealthy kindnesses which came as second nature to him, and were probably +as speedily forgotten by himself as they were lastingly remembered by +their recipients.[71] + +He little knew that, when I was in my early 'teens and had the most +absurdly exaggerated notions of my song-writing powers, I had had the +presumption to ask my cousin, Mr. Stephen Spring Rice, if he would induce +his old friend to send me a MS. poem to set. Happily, I only got a kindly +but necessary rap over the knuckles for my impertinence; the request was +consigned to the waste-paper basket and mercifully never reached +Farringford. I tremble now to recall the incident, although I verily +believe that if Mr. Spring Rice had been cruel enough to send my letter +on, the smile which it must have provoked would in no wise have been a +contemptuous one. I can imagine his saying then, what I have often heard +him say in later days, "Maxima debetur pueris reverentia." I had seen so +much of Aubrey de Vere all through my boyhood that I almost felt as if I +knew Tennyson too, so vivid were his accounts of him, and his descriptions +of his ways and surroundings. + +Joachim also, who all through the British part of his international career +was in close touch with the Tennyson circle, used often to speak of him +with the deep reverence and whole-hearted enthusiasm which he reserved for +a very few. On the staircase at Farringford hangs Mrs. Cameron's early +(and still unsurpassed) photograph of the great violinist. My host pointed +at it one day as he passed upstairs: "That's Joachim. He's a fine fellow. +Why did he cover up that fine jowl with a beard?"--quite forgetful of the +possible retort that he had committed the same wickedness himself. On the +comparatively rare occasions when he came up to London, and was surrounded +by all the stars in the literary and political firmament, Joachim and his +Stradivarius were as brilliant a centre of attraction as any of his +guests. Joachim's setting of Merlin's song in "The Coming of Arthur" was +an especial favourite of his, as both in atmosphere and in declamation it +exactly fulfilled the intention of his verse. Joachim once told me that he +always had great hankerings after setting "The Revenge," but that he +repressed them because he felt that it could only be tackled in the true +English spirit by a Britisher. + +The clue to Tennyson's great critical power in declamation was obvious to +any one who heard him recite his own work. His manner of reading poetry +has often been described. It was a chant rather than a declamation. A +voice of deep and penetrating power, varied only by alteration of note and +by intensity of quality. The notes were few, and he rarely read on more +than two, except at the cadence of a passage, when the voice would +slightly fall. He often accompanied his reading by gentle rippling +gestures with his fingers. As a rule he adhered more to the quantity of a +line than the ordinary reciter, for he had the rare gift of making the +accent felt, without perceptibly altering the prosody. Without being a +musician, he had a great appreciation of the fitness of music to its +subjects, and was an unfailing judge of musical declamation. As he +expressed it himself, he disliked music which went up when it ought to go +down, and went down when it ought to go up. I never knew him wrong in his +suggestions on this point. The most vivid instance I can recall was about +a line in "The Revenge": + + Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew. + +When I played him my setting, the word "devil" was set to a higher note in +the question than it was in the answer, and the penultimate word "they" +was unaccented. He at once corrected me, saying that the second word +"devil" must be higher and stronger than the first, and the "they" must be +marked. He was perfectly right, and I altered it accordingly. It was +apparently a small point, but it was this insisting on perfection of +detail which made him the most valuable teacher of accurate declamation +that it was possible for a composer to learn from. Of all his poems which +I heard him read, those he made most impressive were "The Revenge" and the +"Ode on the Duke of Wellington." It may be interesting to record a point +in the latter which, he said, was often misread. The line + + Let the bell be toll'd, + +he read with strong emphasis upon the first as well as the third and fifth +words: + + - u - u - + +not + + u u - u - + +He said it wanted three strokes of the bell, not two. "Maud" he also read +with a most extraordinary warmth and charm, particularly the climax of +"Come into the garden," and still more the stanza about the shell (Part +II.), which he gave in a peculiarly thin and ghostly tone of voice, a +quality he also used with great mastery in the Choric Song of the "Lotus +Eaters." Nor was he less impressive when reciting Greek or German. Greek +he vastly preferred as pronounced in the English fashion. He said it lost +all its sonority and grandeur if modernized; and, indeed, to hear his +illustration was in itself sufficient to convince. German he pronounced +with a strong English accent, and yet I feel sure that Goethe himself +would have acknowledged his reading of "Kennst du das Land" to be a +masterpiece. He was a great admirer of Goethe, and especially of this +poem. He only disliked one line-- + + O mein Beschützer, ziehn, + +of which he said, "How could Goethe break one's teeth with those z's, +while the rest is so musical?" Curiously enough, it is now known that +Goethe erased "Beschützer" and substituted "Geliebter." He once read to me +from his works for nearly half an hour. + +He was extremely particular about clear diction in singing, the lack of +which in the majority of singers of his day was far more marked than it is +nowadays. He intuitively grasped the true basis of that most difficult of +tasks, the composing of a good song which is at once practical and +grateful to sing. He knew that the poem should be the key to the work, and +should be so clearly enunciated that every word can reach the listener; +and that the composer must never over-balance the voice with the +illustrative detail of the accompaniment. When I was setting "The Voyage +of the Mældune" I happened to be at Freshwater; and after finishing the +solo quartet, "The Under-sea Isle," four amateurs sang it through for him. +His only (and I fear very just) comment on the performance was, "I did not +hear a word you said from beginning to end." But he thought afterwards +that we might feel somewhat crushed, and as I was going away some little +time later, and was passing his door, he put his head out and said with a +humorous smile, "I'm afraid I was rather rude just now, but I liked the +way your music rippled away when they fall into the water." This was a +most curious instance of his faculty for recognizing a subtle piece of +musical characterization as rapidly as, and often more rapidly than, a +listener who was fully equipped with musical technique. + +His ear was capable of such fine distinctions of vowel quality, that it +has always been a mystery to me why this gift, so highly developed in him, +did not bring a mastery of music in its train. By one of the odd +dispensations of nature, Robert Browning, who had none of this fineness +of ear, knew enough of music to be able even to read it from a score with +his eyes. Such words as "true" and "too," which in most people's mouths +have an identical vowel sound, were differentiated by him, the "oo" full +and round, the "ue" inclining imperceptibly to "u." His "a" also had far +more varied colours than is usual even with singers. One modification in +especial, the quality of which can best be described as approaching that +of "_Eh_, mon," in broad Scotch, gave a breadth and a dignity to such +words as "Nation," "Lamentation," "Pāgeant" (he never used the horrible +pronunciation "Padgent"), which added vastly to the musical values of his +verse. It is this perfection of vowel balance which makes his poetry so +difficult to set to music satisfactorily. So musical is it in itself that +very little is left for actual music to supply. It is often the very +incompleteness of some poetry which makes it suggestive to a composer, the +qualities lacking in the one calling out for the assistance of the other +to supply them, a condition of combination which Wagner deliberately +carried to a fine art in his double capacity of poet and composer. With +Tennyson there is no gap to fill, and all that music can do is to +illustrate the surrounding atmosphere, and to leave the poetry to tell its +own story with its declamation and inflections accurately preserved. + +The best reproduction of the peculiar quality of Tennyson's reading which +I have heard was Irving's rendering of the lines about the bird in the +last act of "Becket": + + We came upon + A wild-fowl sitting on her nest, so still, + I reach'd my hand and touch'd; she did not stir; + The snow had frozen round her, and she sat + Stone-dead upon a heap of ice-cold eggs. + +The mastery of sound-painting in this line, the chilly "o's" and "e's" +which the Poet knew so well how to place, Irving declaimed with a quiet +reverence which made the sentence so pathetic that it will always live in +the memory of those who heard it. It is interesting to record that all the +actors I have met who witnessed the play invariably hit on those lines as +the high-water mark of Irving's powers. + +The rehearsals of "Becket," many of which I was privileged to witness, +soon made it clear that Irving's Becket was going to be, as it eventually +proved to be, the finest both in conception and in accomplishment of all +his creations. The part fitted him like a glove. So completely did he live +in it, that a friend of his (who related his experience to me), who went +round to see him after a performance, was dismissed by him on leaving with +a fervent benediction delivered with up-raised hand, so sincerely and +impressively delivered that he positively seemed to be an actual Prince of +the Church. + +With Irving's arrangement of the play I never wholly agreed. He made of it +as a whole a workable piece, but in doing so he sacrificed one scene +which, beyond all question, is one of the most vivid and most +characteristic in the play, the scene of the beggars' feast. He lost sight +of the fact that its omission spoilt the balance of the middle section. +There was no foil to the brilliancy of the Council at Northampton. +Tennyson (like Shakespeare) knew better the value of contrast, and put in +at this point that touch of divine humour which only heightens pathos. The +drama needed it. He balanced the traitorous splendour of the nobles with +the homely loyalty of the halt, maimed, and blind. Irving also omitted the +poem which gave the true lyrical touch to the first Bower scene; a little +dialogue which, if it had been sung as was intended after the curtain rose +on an empty stage, would have given the same atmosphere to the act, which +the Rainbow song at its close drives home. These were, however, almost the +only blots upon an otherwise admirably reverent adaptation. Irving told +me that he always came down to listen behind the curtain to the last +_entr'acte_ (the Martyrdom), in order to get into the right mood for the +final scene. Coming from an actor, who knew nothing of musical technique +beyond an extraordinarily acute sense of what was fitting or not fitting +for stage purposes, this was a great gratification and a still greater +encouragement to one of the many composers whom he so loyally befriended. +The production of "Becket" was a memorable red-letter day for the modern +English stage; the more so as the tragedy came and conquered a public +which was little prepared for the finest specimen of its type which had +been seen since the days of Shakespeare. It was fitting that the reign of +the greatest Queen since Elizabeth should have such a play inscribed in +its annals, an appropriate and worthy counterpart to those of her great +predecessor's days. + + + + +THE ATTITUDE OF TENNYSON TOWARDS SCIENCE + +By SIR OLIVER LODGE, F.R.S. + + +Henry Sidgwick wrote in 1860 concerning Tennyson that he "regarded him as +pre-eminently the Poet of Science"; and to explain his meaning he +contrasts the attitude of Wordsworth to Nature with that of Tennyson: + + The Nature for which Wordsworth stirred our feelings was Nature as + known by simple observation and interpreted by religious and + sympathetic intuition. + +--an attitude which left Science unregarded. But, for Tennyson, + + the physical world is always the world as known to us through physical + science; the scientific view of it dominates his thought about it, and + his general acceptance of this view is real and sincere, even when he + utters the intensest feeling of its inadequacy to satisfy our deepest + needs. + +It is probable that what was then written is now a commonplace of letters, +and requires no emphasizing, but as a professed Student of Science, whose +life has extended over the greater part of the time which has elapsed +since "In Memoriam" was published, I welcome the opportunity of adding my +testimony in continued support of the estimate made by Professor Sidgwick +half a century ago. + +It is generally admitted, and has been recently emphasized, that wherever +reference is made to facts of nature in the poems or the fringe of +Science touched on,--as it so often is,--the reference is satisfying and +the touch precise. Observers of Nature have often called attention to the +beautiful accuracy with which natural phenomena are described, with every +mark of first-hand personal experience, as distinct from merely remembered +conventional modes of expression; and the same sort of feeling is aroused +in the mind of a Student of Science as he comes across one after another +of the subjects which have kindled discussion during the Victorian +epoch,--he is inevitably struck with the clear comprehension of the +fundamental aspects of the themes treated which the poems display, he sees +that the Poet is never led into misrepresentation or sacrifice of +precision in the quest for beauty of form. The two are wedded together +"like noble music unto perfect words." + +To quote examples might only be tedious, and would assuredly be +misleading. It is not that the bare facts of Science are recorded,--such +record could not constitute poetry--certainly not high poetry,--it is not +merely his acquaintance with contemporary scientific discovery, natural to +a man who numbered leading men of Science among his friends;--it is not +any of this that arouses our feeling of admiring fellowship, but it is +that with all his lordship of language and power of expression so +immensely superior to our own, he yet moves in the atmosphere of Science +not as an alien, but as an understanding and sympathetic friend. + +Look back upon the epoch in which he lived--what a materialistic welter it +seems! The mind of man was going through a period of storm; antiquated +beliefs were being jettisoned and everything spiritual seemed to be going +by the board; the point of view of man was rapidly changing and the whole +of existence appeared capable of reducing itself to refined and intricate +mechanism. + +Poets generally must have felt it as a terrible time. What refuge existed +for a poet save to isolate himself from the turmoil, shut himself into his +cabin, and think of other times and other surroundings, away from the +uproar and the gale. Those who did not thus shelter themselves were liable +to bewail the time because the days were evil; as Arnold did, and Clough. +But thus did not Tennyson. Out through the tempest he strode, open-eyed +and bare-headed, with figure erect, glorying in the conflict of the +elements, and summoning the men of his generation to reverence and +worship. + +Doubt, yes doubt he justified--doubt, so it were straightforward and +honest. Forms and accessories--these he was willing to let go--though +always with respect and care for the weaker brothers and sisters to whom +they stood for things of value; but Faith beyond those forms he clung to, +faith fearless and triumphant, uprising out of temporary moods of +despondency into ever securer conviction of righteous guidance throughout +creation and far-seeing divine Purpose at the heart of things. + +Other men retained their faith too, but many only attained security by +resolutely closing their eyes and bolting the doors of their water-tight +compartments. But the glory of Tennyson's faith was that it never led him +to be unfaithful to the kinds of truth that were being revealed to his +age. That, too, was an age of revelation, and he knew it; the science of +his epoch was true knowledge, as far as it went; it was over-emphatic and +explosive, and to weaker or less inspired minds was full of danger, but it +was genuine cargo, nevertheless, which must be taken on board; there was a +real overload of superstition which had to be discarded; and it was his +mission, and that of a few other noble souls, to help us to accomplish +with calmness and something like wisdom the task of that revolutionary +age. + +In the conflict between Science and Faith our business was to accept the +one without rejecting the other: and that he achieved. Never did his +acceptance of the animal ancestry of man, for instance, upset his belief +in the essential divinity of the human soul, its immortality, its +supremacy, its eternal destiny. Never did his recognition of the +materialistic aspect of nature cloud his perception of its spiritual +aspect as supplementing and completing and dominating the mechanism. His +was a voice from other centuries, as it were, sounding through the +nineteenth; and by his strong majestic attitude he saved the faith of +thousands who else would have been overwhelmed; and his writings convey to +our own age a magnificent expression of that which we too have still not +fully accepted, but which we are on the way to believe. + +If asked to quote in support of this statement I will not quote more than +the titles of some of the chief poems to which I appeal. Not always the +greatest poems perhaps do I here refer to, but those which most clearly +uphold the contention of the Poet's special service to humanity during the +period of revolution in thought through which mankind has been passing. + +Let me instance, therefore, first and most obviously, "In Memoriam"; and +thereafter poems such as "De Profundis," "The Two Voices," "The Ancient +Sage," "Ulysses," "Vastness," "By an Evolutionist," "Demeter and +Persephone," "Akbar's Dream," "God and the Universe," "Flower in the +Crannied Wall," "The Higher Pantheism," "The Voice and the Peak," "Wages," +and "Morte d'Arthur." + +If I do not add to this list the great poem "To Virgil," who in his day +likewise assimilated knowledge of diverse kinds and in the light of +spiritual vision glorified all he touched, it is only because the +atmosphere of the Ancient poet is so like that of the Modern one that it +is not by any single poem that their sympathy and kinship has to be +displayed, but rather by the similarity of their whole attitude to the +Universe. + +By the term "Poet of Science" I understand one who assimilates the known +truths of Science and Philosophy, through the pores, so to speak, without +effort and with intuitive accuracy, one who bears them lightly and raises +them above the region of bare fact into the realm of poetry. Such a poet +is one who transfuses fact with beauty, he is ready to accept the +discoveries of his age, no matter how prosaic and lamentable they seem, +and is able to perceive and display the essential beauty and divinity +which runs through them all and threads them all together. That is the +service which a great poet can perform for Science in his day and +generation. The qualities beyond this--exhibited for the most part perhaps +in other poems--which enable him to live for all time, are qualities above +any that I have the right or the power to estimate. + +To be overwhelmed and mastered by the material and the mechanical, even to +the extent of being blind to the existence of every other aspect, is +common and human enough. But to recognize to the full the reign of law in +Nature, the sequence of cause and effect, the strength of the chain-armour +of necessity which men of science weave, and yet to discern in it the +living garment of God--that is poetic and divine. + + + + +TENNYSON AS A STUDENT AND POET OF NATURE[72] + +By SIR NORMAN LOCKYER, F.R.S. + + +When Tennyson passed from life, not only did England lose one of her +noblest sons, but the world a poet who, beyond all others who have ever +lived, combined the gift of expression with an unceasing interest in the +causes of things and in the working out of Nature's laws. + +When from this point of view we compare him with his forerunners, Dante is +the only one it is needful to name; but although Dante's knowledge was +well abreast of his time, he lacked the fullness of Tennyson, for the +reason that in his day science was restricted within narrow limits. In +Dante's time, indeed--he was born some 300 years before Galileo and Tycho +Brahe--science apart from cosmogony had chiefly to do with the various +constellations and measurements of the passing of time and the daily and +yearly motions of the sun, for the observation of which long before his +epoch our ancient monuments were erected; the physical and biological +sciences were still unborn. Dante's great work is full of references to +the science of his day; his science and song went hand in hand as +Tennyson's did in later, fuller times. This in strong contrast with such +writers as Goethe who, although both poet and student of science, rarely +commingled the two strands of thought. + +It is right and fitting that the highest poetry should be associated with +the highest knowledge. Tennyson's great achievement has been to show us +that in the study of science we have one of the bases of the fullest +poetry, a poetry which appeals at the same time to the deepest emotions +and the highest and broadest intellects of mankind. Tennyson, in short, +has shown that science and poetry, so far from being antagonistic, must +for ever advance side by side. + +So far as my memory serves me I was introduced to the late Lord Tennyson +by Woolner about the year 1864. I was then living in Fairfax Road, West +Hampstead, and I had erected my 6-inch Cooke Equatorial in the garden. I +soon found that he was an enthusiastic astronomer, and that few points in +the descriptive part of the subject had escaped him. He was therefore +often in the observatory. Some of his remarks still linger fresh in my +memory. One night when the moon's terminator swept across the broken +ground round Tycho he said, "What a splendid Hell that would make." Again, +after showing him the clusters in Hercules and Perseus he remarked +musingly, "I cannot think much of the county families after that." In 1866 +my wife was translating Guillemin's _Le Ciel_ and I was editing and +considerably expanding it; he read many of the proof sheets and indeed +suggested the title of the English edition, _The Heavens_. + +In the 'seventies, less so in the 'eighties, he rarely came to London +without discussing some points with me, and in these discussions he showed +himself to be full of knowledge of the discoveries then being made. + +Once I met him accidentally in Paris; he was most anxious to see Leverrier +and the Observatory. Leverrier had the reputation of being _difficile_; I +never found him so, but I certainly never saw him so happy as when we +three were together, and he told me afterwards how delighted he had been +that Tennyson should have wished to pay him a visit. I visited Tennyson at +Aldworth in 1890 when he was in his 82nd year. I was then writing the +_Meteoritic Hypothesis_, and he had asked for proof sheets. When I arrived +there I was touched to find that he had had them bound together for +convenience in reading, and from the conversation we had I formed the +impression that he had read every line. It was a subject after his own +heart, as will be shown farther on. One of the nights during my stay was +very fine, and he said to me, "Now, Lockyer, let us look at the double +stars again," and we did. There was a 2-inch telescope at Aldworth. His +interest in Astronomy was persistent until his death. + +The last time I met him (July 1892), he would talk of nothing but the +possible ages of the sun and earth, and was eager to know to which +estimates scientific opinion was then veering. + +So far I have referred, and in very condensed fashion, to Tennyson's +knowledge of and interest in Astronomy as they came out in our +conversations. I have done this because I was naturally most struck with +it, but only a short acquaintance was necessary to show me that this +interest in my own special subject was only a part of a general interest +in and knowledge of scientific questions. + +This was borne home to me very forcibly in about the year 1866 or 1867. +The evenings of Mondays were then given up to friends who came in, _sans +cérémonie_, to talk and smoke. Clays from Broseley, including +"churchwardens" and some of larger size (Frank Buckland's held an ounce of +tobacco), were provided, and the confirmed smokers (Tennyson, an +occasional visitor, being one of them) kept their pipes, on which the +name was written, in a rack for future symposia. One night it chanced that +many travellers--Bates, Baines, and Winwoode Reade among them--were +present, and the question of a certain kind of dust-storms came on the +_tapis_. Tennyson, who had not started the subject, listened for some time +and then remarked how difficult it was for a student to gain certain +knowledge on such subjects, and he then astonished the company by giving +the names of eight authors, four of whom had declared they had seen such +dust-storms as had been described, the other four insisting that they +could not be produced under any known meteorological conditions and that +with the best opportunities they had never seen them. + +In many of our talks I came across similar evidences of minute knowledge +in various fields; nothing in the natural world was trivial to him or to +be neglected. This great grasp was associated with a minute accuracy, and +it was this double habit of mind which made Tennyson such a splendid +observer, and _therefore_ such a poet, for the whole field of nature from +which to cull the most appropriate epithets was always present in his +mind. + +Hence those exquisite presentations of facts, in which true poetry differs +from prose, and which in Tennyson's poetry appeal at once both to the +brain and heart. + +But even this is not all that must be said on this point. Much of +Tennyson's finest is so fine that it wants a knowledge on a level with his +own to appreciate its truth and beauty; many of the most exquisite and +profound touches I am convinced are missed by thousands of his readers on +this account. The deep thought and knowledge are very frequently condensed +into a simple adjective instead of being expanded into something of a +longer breath to make them apparent enough to compel admiration. This it +strikes me he consistently avoided. + + All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word. + +Although many of the poems seem to me to be clothed with references to +natural phenomena as with a garment, it can on the whole, I think, be +gathered from them, as I gathered from our conversations, that the subject +deepest in his thoughts was the origin of things in its widest sense, a +_Systema Mundi_, which should explain the becoming of the visible universe +and _define its different parts_ at different periods in its history. In +this respect we have: + + Three poets in three ages born. + +Dante, Milton, and Tennyson, with their minds saturated with the same +theme, and I can fancy nothing in the history of human thought more +interesting or encouraging than the studies of this theme as presented to +us in their works published we may say, speaking very roughly, three +centuries apart. + +This of course is another story, but a brief reference to it is essential +for my present purpose. + +All the old religions of the world were based upon Astronomy, that and +Medicine being the only sciences in existence. Sun, Moon, and Stars were +all worshipped as Gods, and thus it was that even down to Dante's time +Astronomy and religion were inseparably intertwined in the prevalent +Cosmogonies. The Cosmogony we find in Dante, the peg on which he hangs his +_Divina Commedia_, with the seven heavens surrounding the earth and seven +hells inside it, had come down certainly from Arab and possibly prior +sources; the Empyrean, the _primum mobile_, the seven Purgatories, and the +Earthly Paradise (the antipodes of Jerusalem) were later additions, the +latter being added so soon as it was generally recognized that the earth +was round, though the time of the navigator was not yet. + +Dante constructed none of this machinery, he used it merely; it +represented the knowledge, that is, the belief, of his time. + +Between Dante and Milton there was a gap; but what a gap! It was filled by +Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Columbus, Magellan, and Vasco da Gama, +to mention no more, and the astronomers and geographers between them +smashed the earth-centred heavens, the interior hells, and the earthly +paradise into fragments. + +It was while this smashing was working its way into men's minds that +Milton wrote his poem, and he, like Dante, centred it on a cosmogony. Well +might Huxley call it "the Miltonic Hypothesis"! but how different from the +former one, from which it was practically a retreat, carefully concealed +in an important particular, but still a retreat from the old position. + +Milton in his poem uses, so far as heaven is concerned, the cosmogony of +Dante, but he carefully puts words into Raphael's mouth to indicate that +after all the earth-centred scheme of the seven heavens must give way. But +the most remarkable part of "Paradise Lost" is the treatment of hell. + +Milton's greatness as a poet, as a _maker_, to my mind is justly based +upon the new and vast conceptions which he there gave to the world and to +which the world still clings. + +To provide a new hell which had been "dismissed with costs" from the +earth's centre, he boldly halves heaven and creates chaos and an external +hell out of the space he filches from it. "Hellgate" is now the orifice in +the _primum mobile_ towards the empyrean. + +In Tennyson we find the complete separation of Science from Dogmatic +Theology, thus foreshadowed by Milton, finally achieved. In him we find, +as in Dante and Milton, one fully abreast with the science and thought of +the time, and after another gap, this one filled up by Newton, Kant, +Herschel, Laplace, and Darwin, we are brought face to face with the modern +Cosmogony based upon science and Evolution. The ideas of heaven and hell +in the mediaeval sense no longer form a necessary part of it, in Tennyson +they have absolutely disappeared. In those parts of his poems in which he +introduces cosmogonic ideas we have to deal with the facts presented by +the heavens and the earth which can throw light upon the ancient history +of our planet and its inhabitants. + +The modern _Systema Mundi_ which Tennyson dwells on over and over again is +dominated by + + Astronomy and Geology, terrible Muses. + +To come back from this parenthesis I must finally point out that although +some of the most pregnant and beautiful passages in Tennyson's poems have +reference to the modern views of the origin of things, almost all natural +phenomena are referred to, in one place or another, in language in which +both the truest poetry and most accurate science are blended. + +The breadth of the outlook upon Nature shown by the references in the +Poet's works is only equalled by the minute accuracy of observation +displayed. Astronomy, geology, meteorology, biology, and, indeed, all +branches of science except chemistry, are thus made to bring their +tribute, so that finally we have a perfect poetic garland, which displays +for us the truths of Nature and Human Nature intertwined. + + + + +MEMORIES + +By E. V. B. + + +How kind to ask for some of my few small memories of your +father--treasured memories which no length of years can ever rub out. And +how much I like to recall them, though, alas! there is so little; it was +so seldom that we met in those unforgotten times. Once, I remember, I sent +him a rose from my garden, a black beauty, rather rare in those old +days--"L'Empereur de Maroque," now quite cut out by "Prince Camille de +Rohan." I keep the little word of thanks that came afterwards in return: + + MY DEAR E. V. B.--Many thanks for your more amiable than beautiful + Black Rose. I don't mean to be personal, but am, yours always, + + TENNYSON. + +Another of his notes is the one wherein he gave me leave to illustrate +"The May Queen." His words in the note were: "I would rather you than any +one else should do it." His poems were a joy to me, even in +childhood--from the days when, dull lesson hours, etc., being done, I +could steal away and no one know, and, sitting on the carpet by the home +book-shelves, read over and over on the sly from a bound volume (one of +_Blackwood's Magazines_), where were long extracts from Tennyson's poems, +especially the earlier ones, and amongst them one called "Adeline." There +was certainly a magic in the poetry, scarce found elsewhere--magic even +for a child of ten. + + +[Illustration: SUMMER-HOUSE AT FARRINGFORD, WHERE "ENOCH ARDEN" WAS +WRITTEN. Carved and painted by Alfred Lord Tennyson.] + + +Do you remember how you used to tell me that your father had a great +love for the red rose? He sent me, for my _Ros Rosarum_, lines on a +Rosebud by himself: + + THE ROSEBUD + + The night with sudden odour reel'd, + The southern stars a music peal'd, + Warm beams across the meadow stole, + For Love flew over grove and field, + Said, "Open, Rosebud, open, yield + Thy fragrant soul." + +I know he loved the poet's colour--lilac. A long-past scene in the garden +at Farringford still remains in the mind's eye fresh and vivid--painted in +with memory's fast colours among the pictures of remembrance. + +The sunshine of a morning at Farringford in early summer when we came up +the long middle walk, bordered on either side with lilac-flowered +aubretia, led up to the open summer-house where Tennyson, with two or +three friends, sat in the sun, enjoying the warmth and the lovely lines of +lilac. We turned towards the house after a time, going under the budding +trees of the grove. There he pointed out some young bushes of Alexandrian +laurel--the same, he told us, whose small narrow leaves were used to make +the crown for victors in the Olympian games.... + +Then--can I ever forget?--that delightful evening at Aldworth, when, after +dinner, he invited me to his room upstairs. There he smoked his pipe in +his high-backed, cane arm-chair, while I sat near. On a little table by +the fire were arranged several more of these well-smoked Dublin pipes. +Such a large, comfortable "smoke-room"!--with books about everywhere, on +tables and chairs. Then he read to me aloud from "Locksley Hall." I think +he read all the poem from the beginning to the end; and as Tennyson read +on--one seemed almost to feel the pungent, salt sea-breeze blowing from +over desolate seas--almost saw visions of the dreary sands lengthening +far away. I remember I ventured to ask why the stanza which follows after +that line, "And all the wonder that should be," was afterwards omitted: + + In the hall there hangs a picture--Amy's arms about my neck, + Happy children in a sunbeam, sitting on the ribs of wreck. + In my life there was a picture--she that clasp'd my neck is flown, + I was left within the shadow, sitting on the wreck alone. + +I began saying the lines, but he knew them quite well and repeated them. I +can't think how it is, the answer he returned about this is now, alas! +forgot.... Such troublous years have come and gone since that happy +Long-Ago. (The omitted stanza would have gone, too, had it not been +written down for me by a long-lost friend, Sir Robert Morier.) + +So the reading aloud went on, with talk between (and clouds of smoke!), +until, I think, past eleven o'clock, when you opened the door, and +that--for me--rare dream of poetry and charm abruptly broke. + +I saw Tennyson, for the last time, as I followed down the wooded path at +Aldworth, on his way to the garden door opening on the heath, his fine, +big, Russian hound pacing closely after. + +No--once more I saw him, his likeness with all the distinctness sometimes +known in the slow-moving white clouds of some glorious autumn day. It was +after the end had come, and not long before the grave in Westminster Abbey +had received him. I was travelling home on the Great-Western from +Somerset. Gazing up idly at the assembled multitude of sun-steeped silver +clouds above, suddenly, clear and distinct, my eyes beheld the image of +his noble profile as if lying back asleep; the eyes were closed, the head +at rest upon the pillow--a sculptured cloud in a snowy cloudland, outlined +upon an azure sky.... Not until after several minutes did the vision pass, +slowly fading into the infinite blue. + + + + +TENNYSON AND HIS TALK ON SOME RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS + +By the Right Rev. the BISHOP OF RIPON + + +Among the happy memories of my life, and they are many, the memory of the +kindly welcome accorded to me at Aldworth and at Farringford must always +possess a special charm. This will readily be understood by those of my +own age; for Tennyson was a name to conjure with in the days of my youth. +Slowly but surely his influence crept into our lives: we read in +text-books at school that the + + Poet in a golden age was born, with golden stars above, + Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love. + +The thought and the words appealed to me from the first. Then, how I know +not, we became familiar with part, at least, of "In Memoriam." Its phrases +caught our fancy, and some of our early attempts at versification were +cast in the same metre. Then came the "Idylls of the King," and I remember +how, when the rest of the party went out one holiday afternoon, I stayed +indoors and read the "Idylls" at one sitting. Thus in our youth Tennyson +became poet and hero to us. Any one who had seen him or known him became +for us invested with a kind of sacred and awful interest; my uncle who +lived at Cheltenham grew greater in our eyes when we learned that he had +corresponded with him. + +Thus our hero-worship grew. We knew indeed that there were those who did +not welcome the coming Poet with ardour; we lived, in fact, through the +age of his disparagement to the time of his unchallenged supremacy. It +will be interesting, I think, to many to read the following letter written +by Rev. Frederick W. Robertson when he was experiencing the freer and +fresher intellectual atmosphere of Oxford after the stifling +oppressiveness of Cheltenham: + + I had nearly forgotten to tell you that Tennyson is deeply admired + here by all the brilliant men. Stanley, our first genius, rates him + highly; Hannah, who has guided nearly all the first and double-first + class men for the last three years to honours, told me he considers + his poetical and psychological powers more varied than any poet he + knows. And the "Dread," a choice selection of the most brilliant among + the rising men, have pronounced him to be the first poet of the day. + So you see I have some to keep me company in my judgment. And at all + events he is above ridicule. + + Pray inform Miss D---- of all this. One of our first professors raves + about him. + +When I went up to Cambridge in 1860, Tennyson was the oracle poet among +the younger men; but the feeling of doubt still remained among the older +men. I recall a friendly dispute between the Senior and a Junior Fellow of +my own College. The elder man charged Tennyson with being "misty"; the +younger man defended: the elder man cited a passage from "In Memoriam," +and challenged the younger to say what it meant. The elder man was so far +successful that he drove the younger man to declare that though he could +not explain it then, he hoped to enter into its meaning later on. It was a +typical conflict; the older generation could not understand; the younger +was under the spell of the Poet, and though unable to interpret +everything, believed in Tennyson's message to his own age. + +There were charges levelled against Tennyson more serious and more absurd +than that of obscurity. The words Scepticism, Pantheism, and even Atheism +were heard. One newspaper in a review of "In Memoriam" exclaimed: "Here +the poet barely escapes Atheism and plunges into the abyss of Pantheism." +Another foolish writer, commenting on the lines: + + But what am I? + An infant crying in the night, + An infant crying for the light, + And with no language but a cry, + +remarked, with superb _naïveté_, "May we remind Mr. Tennyson that the +darkness is past and that the true light now shineth?" I remember, as late +as 1867 or 1868, an evening party at Blackheath when the question was +started--"Who is the greatest living poet?" To my amazement and amusement +a self-satisfied, but very good man, instantly and oracularly replied, +"Bonar--without doubt--Bonar." He meant that excellent and devout-minded +man, the Rev. Horatius Bonar, the hymn-writer. These were, no doubt, +extreme cases, but stupidity is always extreme. I recall these incidents +because they are parts of the story which tells of the difficulties +through which Tennyson fought the way to his throne. They serve to recall +the prejudices which provoked the resentment and stimulated the attachment +of those who, like myself, were brought early under the spell of his +enchantment. His story repeated familiar features; he had at first a +select circle of studious admirers; by degrees the general public became +aware of the existence in their midst of a true poet. Then timid partisans +awoke and demanded credentials of orthodoxy. Persons of this type did not +like to be told that-- + + There lives more faith in honest doubt, + Believe me, than in half the creeds. + +But meanwhile he had drawn the younger generation to his side: they +believed in him, and they were right. In spite of misunderstanding and +misinterpretation, Tennyson followed the gleam: he would not stoop to +make his judgment blind or prevaricate for popularity's sake. He beat his +music out, and those who knew him, as I was privileged to do, during the +later years of his life, could realize how truly he had made a larger +faith his own. + +It fell out naturally when I met him that conversation turned on religion +or theological subjects. His mind, courageous, inquiring, honest, sought +truth beyond the forms of truth. On the occasion of my first visit to +Aldworth, in the smoking-room we talked of the problem of pain, of +determinism, of apparent contradictions of faith. That night, indeed, we +seemed to talk-- + + Of faith, free will, foreknowledge absolute. + +But the impression left upon my mind was that we were engaged in no mere +scholastic discussion; it was no mere intellectually satisfactory creed +which was sought: it was something deeper and more abiding than anything +which may be modified in form from age to age; the soul needs an +anchorage, and to find it there must be no ignoring of facts and no +juggling with them once they are found. In illustration of this I may +relate how once, when walking with him among the heather-clad heights +round Aldworth, he spoke of the apparent dualism in Nature: the forces of +darkness and light seemed to meet in conflict. "If I were not a +Christian," he said, "I should be perhaps a Parsee."[73] He felt, +however, that if once we accepted the view that this life was a time of +education, then the dark things might be found to have a meaning and a +value. In the retrospect hereafter the pain and suffering would seem +trivial. I think that this idea must have taken hold of his thought as we +were conversing; for he suddenly stopped in his walk, and, standing amid +the purple landscape, he declaimed the lines, then unpublished: + + The Lord spake out of the skies + To a man good and a wise: + "The world and all within it + Will be nothing in a minute." + Then a beggar began to cry: + "Give me food or else I die." + Is it worth his while to eat, + Or mine to give him meat, + If the world and all within it + Were nothing the next minute? + +He once quoted to me Hinton's view that we were not in a position to judge +the full meaning of life; that we were in fact looking at the wrong side +of things. We saw the work from the underside, and we could not judge of +the pattern which was perhaps clear enough on the upper side. + +Next day I was able to remind him that he had approved this view of life. +He was not well, and I think that the darker aspects loomed larger in his +mind; at any rate, he was speaking more gloomily than usual. When I +remarked that God did not take away men till their work was done, he said, +"He does; look at the promising young fellows cut off." Then I brought up +Hinton's theory and illustration, and asked whether we could judge when a +man had finished his appointed work. Immediately he acquiesced; the view +evidently satisfied him. + +He took a deep interest in those borderland questions which sometimes seem +so near an answer and yet never are answered. At the hour of death what +are the sights which rush upon the vision? Of these he would sometimes +speak; he told me how William Allingham, when dying, said to his wife, "I +see things beyond your imagination to conceive." Some vision seemed to +come to such at death. One lady in the Isle of Wight exclaimed, as though +she saw "Cherubim and Seraphim." But these incidents did not disturb the +steady thought and trust which found its strength far deeper down than in +any surface phenomena. He never shirked the hard and dismaying facts of +life. Once he made me take to my room Winwoode Reade's _Martyrdom of Man_. +There never was such a passionate philippic against Nature as this book +contained. The universe was one vast scene of murder; the deep aspirations +and noble visions of men were the follies of flies buzzing for a brief +moment in the presence of inexorable destruction. Life was bottled +sunshine; death the silent-footed butler who withdrew the cork. The book, +with its fierce invective, had a strange rhapsodical charm. It put with +irate and verbose extravagance the fact that sometimes + + Nature, red in tooth and claw, + With ravin shrieked against his creed; + +but it failed to see any but one side of the question. The writer saw +clearly enough what Tennyson saw, but Tennyson saw much more. He could not +make his judgment blind against faith any more than he would make it blind +against facts. He saw more clearly because he saw more largely. He +distrusted narrow views from whatever side they were advanced. The same +spirit which led him to see the danger of the dogmatic temper in so-called +orthodox circles led him to distrust it when it came from other quarters. +There was a wholesome balance about his mind. Nothing is farther from the +truth than to suppose that men of great genius lack mental balance. Among +the lesser lights there may be a brilliant but unbalanced energy, but +among the greater men it is not so; there is a large and wholesome sanity +among these. There is sufficient breadth of grasp to avoid extremes in +Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare; it was the same with Tennyson. We may be +right, for instance, in classing Tennyson among those + + Whose faith has centre everywhere + Nor cares to fix itself to form; + +but we should be wholly wrong if we supposed that he did not realize the +value of form. He knew that faith did not lie in the form, but he knew +also the protective value of form to faith; the shell was not the kernel, +but the kernel ripened all the better in the shelter of the shell. He +realized how sacred was the flesh and blood to which truth divine might be +linked, and he uttered the wise caution: + + Hold thou the good: defend it well + For fear divine philosophy + Should push beyond her mark and be + Procuress to the lords of Hell. + +In his view, as it seemed to me, there were two attitudes of mind towards +dogmatic forms--the one impatient of form because form was never adequate +to express the whole truth, the other impatient of form[74] because +impatient of the truth itself. These two attitudes of mind were poles +asunder; they must never be confused together. + +I may be allowed to illustrate this discriminating spirit by one or two +reminiscences. I once asked him whether they were right who interpreted +the three ladies who accompanied King Arthur on his last voyage as Faith, +Hope, and Charity. He replied with a touch of (shall I call it?) +intellectual impatience: "They do and they do not. They are those graces, +but they are much more than those. I hate to be tied down to say, 'This +means that,' because the thought in the image is much more than the +definition suggested or any specific interpretation advanced." The truth +was wider than the form, yet the form was a shelter for the truth. It +meant this, but not this only; truth must be able to transcend any form in +which it may be presented. + +Hence he could see piety under varying forms: for example, he described +those who were "pious variers from the Church." This phrase, it may here +be related, had a remarkable influence on one man's life, as the following +letter, written by a clergyman who had formerly been a Nonconformist, will +show. The writer died some few years ago; two of his sons are now good and +promising clergymen of the Church of England: + + OXFORD VILLAS, GUISELEY, LEEDS, + _January 16, 1901_. + + MY LORD BISHOP--In reference to your volume on the Poets, may I + intrude upon your attention one moment to say that it was Tennyson's + phrase in reference to dissenters: + + Pious variers from the Church, + + in his "Sea Dreams" that first kindled me to earnest thought (some + twenty years since) as to my own position in relationship to the + Church of the land. The force that moved me lay in the word "pious." + Were dissenters more pious than Church people? I regret to say I + thought them much less so; and as this conviction deepened I was + compelled to make the change for which I am every day more + thankful.--I am, my Lord Bishop, your Lordship's devoted servant, + + W. HAYWARD ELLIOTT. + +I have already spoken of his recognition of the apparent dualism in +Nature. His outlook on the universe could not ignore the dark and +dismaying facts of existence, and his faith, which rose above the shriek +of Nature, was not based upon arguments derived from any survey of +external, physical Nature. When he confined his outlook to this, he could +see power and mechanism, but he could not from these derive faith. His +vision must go beyond the mere physical universe; he must see life and see +it whole; he must include that which is highest in Nature, even man, and +only then could he find the resting-place of faith. He thus summed up the +matter once when we had been walking up and down the "Ball-room" at +Farringford: "It is hard," he said, "it is hard to believe in God; but it +is harder not to believe. I believe in God, not from what I see in Nature, +but from what I find in man." I took him to mean that the witness of +Nature was only complete when it included all that was in Nature, and that +the effort to draw conclusions from Nature when man, the highest-known +factor in Nature, was excluded, could only lead to mistake. I do not think +he meant, however, that external Nature gave no hints of a superintending +wisdom or even love, for his own writings show, I think, that such hints +had been whispered to him by flower and star; I think he meant that faith +did not find her platform finally secure beneath her feet till she had +taken count of man. In short, he seemed to me to be near to the position +of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, who said that truth as soon as learned was +felt to be held on a much deeper and more unshakable ground than any +authority which appealed to mere intellect, namely, on its own discerned +truthfulness. The response to all that is highest in Nature is found in +the heart of man, and man cannot deny this highest, because it is latent +in himself already. But I must continue Tennyson's own words: "It is hard +to believe in God, but it is harder not to believe in Him. I don't +believe in His goodness from what I see in Nature. In Nature I see the +mechanician; I believe in His goodness from what I find in my own breast." +I said, "Then you believe that Man is the highest witness of God?" +"Certainly," he replied. I said, "Is not that what Christ said and was? He +was in man the highest witness of God to Man," and I quoted the recorded +words, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." He assented, but said +that there were, of course, difficulties in the idea of a Trinity--the +Three. "But mind," he said, "Son of God is quite right--that He was."[75] +He said that, of course, we must have doctrine, and then he added, "After +all, the greatest thing is Faith." Having said this, he paused, and then +recited with earnest emphasis the lines which sang of faith in the reality +of the Unseen and Spiritual, of a faith, therefore, which can wait the +great disclosure: + + Doubt no longer, that the Highest is the wisest and the best, + Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope, or break thy rest, + Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or the rolling + Thunder, or the rending earthquake, or the famine, or the pest. + + Neither mourn if human creeds be lower than the heart's desire; + Thro' the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher. + Wait till death has flung them open, when the man will make the Maker + Dark no more with human hatred in the glare of deathless fire. + +He was alive to the movements of modern thought. He saw in evolution, if +not a fully proved law, yet a magnificent working hypothesis; he could not +regard it as a theory hostile to ultimate faith; but far beyond the +natural wish to reconcile faith and thought, which he shared with all +right-thinking men, was the conviction of the changeless personal +relationship between God and man. He might find difficulties about faith +and about certain dogmas of faith, such as the Trinity. No doubt, however, +the Poet's conception brought the divine into all human life; it showed +God in touch with us at all epochs of our existence--in our origin, in our +history, in our final self-realization, for He is + + Our Father and our Brother and our God.[76] + +Religion largely lies in the consciousness of our true relation to Him who +made us; and the yearning for the realization of this consciousness found +constant expression in Tennyson's works and conversation.[77] Perhaps its +clearest expression is to be found in his instructions to his son: +"Remember, I want 'Crossing the Bar' to be always at the end of all my +works." + + I hope to see my Pilot face to face + When I have crossed the Bar. + + + + +TENNYSON AND SIR JOHN SIMEON, AND TENNYSON'S LAST YEARS + +By LOUISA E. WARD[78] + + +From the misty dawn of early childhood rises the first image of one who +was to fill so large a place in my life and that of those dear to me. As +I, not yet four years old, lay in my father's arms and he said to me the +"Morte d'Arthur," there blended with the picture of the wild winter mere +and the mighty King carried, dying, to its shore, a vision of the man who, +my father told me, lived somewhere amongst us and who could write words +which seemed to me more beautiful than anything I had ever heard. + +It was several years before I again came upon the "Morte d'Arthur," when I +was a girl of ten or eleven, and I remember how eagerly I seized upon it, +and how the fairy glamour of my infancy came back to me as I read it. + +It was in the autumn of 1852 that Lord and Lady (then Mr. and Mrs.) +Tennyson came to Farringford. They had been looking for a house, and they +found themselves one summer evening on the terrace walk, with the rosy +sunset lighting up the long line of coast to St. Catherine's Point, and +the gold-blue sea with its faint surf line mingling with the rosiness: and +they said, "We will go no further, this must be our home." An ideal +home it was, ideal in its loveliness, its repose, in its wild but +beautiful gardens, and more than all ideal in its calm serenity, the +hospitable simplicity, the high thought and utter nobleness of aim and +life which that pair brought with them, and which through the long years +of change, of sickness, and of sorrow, of which every home must be the +scene, made the atmosphere of Farringford impossible to be forgotten by +those who had the happiness of breathing it. + + +[Illustration: THE CORNER OF THE STUDY AT FARRINGFORD WHERE TENNYSON +WROTE, WITH HIS DEERHOUND "LUFRA" AND THE TERRIER "WINKS" IN THE +FOREGROUND. From a drawing by W. Biscombe Gardner.] + + +Hallam was at that time a baby, and very soon after their arrival at +Farringford beautiful Lionel came to gladden the hearts of his parents. It +was on the day of Lionel's christening that my father paid his first visit +to Farringford, and found the family party just returning from church. My +father had already been introduced to Tennyson at Lady Ashburton's house +in London, on which occasion he had walked away with Carlyle and had +expressed to him his pleasure at meeting so great a man as Tennyson. +"Great man," said Carlyle, "yes, he is nearly a great man, but not quite; +he stands on a dunghill with yelping dogs about him, and if he were quite +a great man, he would call down fire from Heaven, and burn them +up"--"but," he went on, speaking of his poetry, "he has the grip on it." + +My father had entertained the greatest admiration for Tennyson's poetry +since the day when, both being undergraduates at Christchurch, his friend +Charles Wynne brought him the first published volume, saying to him, +"There is something new for you who love poetry." And his delight may be +imagined in now having the Poet for a neighbour. The intimacy between +Farringford and Swainston grew apace. My mother and Lady Tennyson, though +poor health and numerous occupations interfered with their frequent +meetings, conceived a very real affection for each other, which was only +cut short by my mother's early death, which left Lady Tennyson with a deep +feeling and pity for her children. + +During the early years of Farringford, it was one of my father's great and +frequent pleasures to ride or drive over in the summer afternoons; he, in +turn with her husband, would draw Lady Tennyson in her garden chair, and +with the two boys skipping on before them, they would go long expeditions +through the lanes, and even up the downs; then back through the soft +evening air to dinner, and the long evening of talk and reading which +knitted that "fair companionship" and made of it "such a friendship as had +mastered time," and which we may well believe has re-formed itself still +more perfectly now that both those beloved souls have "crossed the bar." +The Tennysons sometimes came over to Swainston for a few days, and I +remember his being there on the wonderful July night in 1858 when the tail +of the great comet passed over Arcturus. His admiration and excitement +knew no bounds; he could not sit at the dinner-table, but rushed out +perpetually to look at the glorious sight, repeating: "It is a besom of +destruction sweeping the sky." + +Little Lionel was that same night taken from his bed to the window, and, +opening his sleepy eyes on the unaccustomed splendour, he said, "Am I in +Heaven?" + +The writing and publication of "Maud" in 1855 was largely due to my +father. + +Looking through some papers one day at Farringford with his friend, he +came upon the exquisite lyric "O that 'twere possible," and said, "Why do +you keep these beautiful lines unpublished?" Tennyson told him that the +poem had appeared years before in the _Tribute_, an ephemeral publication, +but that it was really intended to belong to a dramatic poem which he had +never been able to carry out. My father gave him no peace till he had +persuaded him to set about the poem, and not very long after, he put +"Maud" into his hand. + +It was about this time, but I do not remember what year, that Tennyson +gave my father the manuscript of "In Memoriam."[79] He had often asked him +to give him a manuscript poem, and he had put him off, but one day at +Swainston he asked my father to reach him a particular book from a shelf +in the library, and as he did so, down fell the MS. which Tennyson had put +there as a surprise. Never was gift more valued and appreciated by its +recipient. I have always felt grateful to him for the continual pleasure +which it gave my father during the whole of his life. + +Tennyson's visits were eagerly looked forward to by us children. He would +talk to us a good deal, and was fond of puzzling and mystifying us in a +way that was very fascinating. He would take the younger ones on his knee, +and give them sips of his port after dinner, and I remember my father +saying to one of my sisters: "Never forget that the greatest of poets has +kissed you and made you drink from his glass." + +As I got older I was sometimes allowed to drive over to Farringford with +my father, and, need I say, I looked forward to these as the red-letter +days of my life. Not only were the talk and intellectual atmosphere +intoxicating to me, but I became passionately attached to Lady Tennyson. +Praise of her would be unseemly; but I may quote what my father was fond +of saying of her, that she was "a piece of the finest china, the mould of +which had been broken as soon as she was made." It was not, however, till +after my mother's death in 1860 that my real grown-up intimacy with them +began, and that Farringford became the almost second home which for some +years it was to me. During my father's absences in London or elsewhere, I +was free to go and stay there as often and for as long as I liked, and was +almost on the footing of a daughter of the house. I used to go for long +walks, sometimes alone with Tennyson, sometimes in the company of other +guests, of whom Mr. Jowett was one of the most frequent. I wish I had +written down the talks with which he made the hours pass like minutes +during our walks. Forgetful of the youth and ignorance of his companion, +he would rise to the highest themes, thread his way through the deepest +speculations, till I caught the infection of his mind, and the questions +of matter and spirit, of space and the infinite, of time and of eternity, +and such kindred subjects, became to me the burning questions, the supreme +interests of life! But however absorbed he might be in earnest talk, his +eye and ear were always alive to the natural objects around him: I have +known him stop short in a sentence to listen to a blackbird's song, to +watch the sunlight glint on a butterfly's wing, or to examine a field +flower at his feet. The lines on "The Flower" were the result of an +investigation of the "love-in-idleness" growing on a wall in the +Farringford garden. He made them nearly on the spot, and said them to me +next day. Trees and plants had a special attraction for him, and he longed +to see the vegetation of the Tropics. Years ago he scolded my husband more +than half in earnest for not having told him in time that he was going to +winter in Madeira, that he might have gone with him. + +But to return to my girlish days at Farringford! The afternoon walks were +followed by the long talks in the firelight by the side of Lady Tennyson's +sofa, talks less eager, less thrilling than those I have recalled; but so +helpful, so tender, full of the wisdom of one who had learnt to look upon +life and all it embraces from one standpoint only, and that the very +highest! Then dinner with the two boys (their long fair hair hanging over +their shoulders and their picturesque dresses as they are seen in Mr. +Watts's picture in the drawing-room at Aldworth) waiting as little pages +on the guests at table, followed by the delightful dessert, for which, +according to the old College fashion, we adjourned to the drawing-room. +The meal was seasoned with merry genial talk, unexpected guests arriving, +and always finding the same warm welcome, for none came who were not tried +and trusted friends. After dessert Tennyson went up to his study[80] (the +little room at the top of the house, from the leads outside which such sky +pageants have been seen, shooting stars, eclipses, and Northern Lights) +with any men friends who were in the house. They smoked there for an hour +or two, and then came down to tea, unless, as sometimes happened, we all +joined them upstairs; and then there was more talk or reading aloud of +published or, still better, unpublished poems. He would sometimes read +from other poets; Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and some lyrics of Campbell +being what he often chose; and he taught me to know and appreciate Crabbe, +whom he placed very high in the rank of English poets. + +One day Tennyson came behind me as I sat at breakfast, and dropped on my +plate the MS. of the "Higher Pantheism" which he had composed, or at any +rate perfected, during the night. Another day he took me into the garden +to see a smoking yew, and said the lines on it which he had just made and +afterwards interpolated in "In Memoriam." My father was with him when they +came upon a bed of forget-me-not in the garden and he exclaimed "the +heavens upbreaking through the earth," the lines which he afterwards +applied to the bluebells in the description of the spring ride of +Guinevere and Lancelot to Arthur's court. Once he pleased and touched me +inexpressibly: he was talking of the different way in which friends speak +before your face and behind your back, and he said, "Now I should not mind +being behind the curtain while L. S. was talking of me, and there are very +few of whom I could say that." + +Years went on, and changes came; my father's re-election to Parliament in +1865 made our seasons in London longer and more regular than they had +been, and though there was still constant and delightful intercourse with +Farringford during the autumn and winter, there was necessarily less +during the Session. Some glorious days there were, however, when at Easter +or at Whitsuntide my father went down to Swainston, and I sometimes +accompanied him. We always went over to Farringford either to spend a +night or two, or to drive back through the spring night with its scented +breath and its mad revelry of cuckoos and nightingales vying with each +other as to which could outshout the other, and my father, fresh from +communion with his friend, would open himself out as he rarely did at any +other time or place. + +It was about this time that Tennyson and his wife, worried beyond bearing +by the rudeness and vulgarity of the tourists, who considered that they +could best show admiration for the Poet by entirely refusing to respect +his privacy, determined to find another house for themselves during the +summer months, and turned their thoughts to Blackdown and its +neighbourhood. One summer they rented a farm on Blackdown called, I think, +Greyshott, and on a fine morning, April 23, 1868, we stood, a party of +some fifteen friends, to see the foundation-stone laid of Aldworth, the +new home which, to more recent, though not to the older friends, has +become almost as much associated with its owner as Farringford, and +received the sorrowful consecration of having been the scene of his +passing away. + +About this time Tennyson took to coming oftener to London. On one occasion +he took me with him to the British Museum, and we did not get beyond the +Elgin Marbles, such was their fascination for him. Another day he came to +our house at luncheon time; most of the family happened to be out, and he +proposed that we should go to the Zoological Gardens. London was at its +fullest, and I feared, though I did not say it, that he would not escape +recognition, which was of all things what he most hated. However, all went +well for some time until we went into the Aquarium, and he became greatly +absorbed in the sea monsters, when I heard a whisper in the crowd, "That's +Tennyson," and knew that in another minute he would be surrounded; so I +suddenly discovered that the heat of the Aquarium was unbearable and +carried him off unwillingly to a quieter part of the gardens--he never +found out my ruse. + +My mind lingers willingly on the last years of the sixties. As I look back +the two-and-twenty years seem, as did another "two and thirty years," a +"mist that rolls away." Of the circle of dear friends who were so much to +one another some still remain to gladden us with their presence, but how +many have gone where "beyond these voices there is peace"--Mr. George +Venables, Mr. John Ball, Mr. Browning, Sir F. Pollock, Mr. Brookfield, Mr. +Henry Cowper, Mr. Laurence Oliphant. The circle was complete as the Table +of Arthur before the fatal quest had made its gaps; here death was the +quest, and each one who sought, alas, has found it! + +The first to pass away was my father, and as his best friend walked in the +garden at Swainston on the day, May 31, 1870, on which he came to see him +laid to rest, he made those verses,[81] than which few lovelier tributes +were ever paid from friend to friend, and which will keep the name of the +"Prince of Courtesy" green even in the long years to come. + +The autumn and winter '71-'72 my eldest brother and I spent together at +Freshwater. We rented Mrs. Cameron's little house which opens by a door of +communication into the large hall of Dimbola, the house in which she +lived. The evening we arrived, she suddenly appeared in our drawing-room +saying, "When strangers take this house I keep the door between us locked, +with friends never"; and locked it never was. We lived almost as part of +the family, and it was a real enjoyment to be in such close intimacy with +one of the most original, and at the same time most tender-hearted and +generous women I have ever known. She was on very intimate terms at +Farringford, and would speak her mind to the Poet in a very amusing way. +On one occasion a party of Americans came to Freshwater, and Mrs. Cameron +sent them up to Farringford with a note of introduction. Tennyson was +tired or busy, and they were not admitted. They returned to Mrs. Cameron +full of their disappointment, and she put on her bonnet (I can see her now +as she walked through the lanes, her red or blue Chuddah shawl always +trailing behind her, and apparently not much the worse for the dust that +fringed it), and insisted upon their going back with her to Farringford. +Having made her way to Tennyson, she said to him solemnly, "Alfred, these +good people have come 3000 miles to see a lion and they have found a +bear." He laughed, relented, and received the strangers most courteously. + +Mrs. Cameron's beautiful white-haired old husband in his royal purple +dressing-gown was a most interesting personality. In addition to the large +experience of men and things which his many years of official life in +India had given him, and which made his society delightful, he was a very +fine classical scholar of the old school, and in his old age, when +blindness and infirmity debarred him in great measure from his books, it +was his solace to repeat by heart odes of Horace, pages of Virgil, and +long passages from the Greek poets. + +Easter 1872 brought a bright and merry gathering to Freshwater. One of +Mrs. Cameron's charming relations (they had lived with her for years as +adopted daughters) was about to marry, and go out with her husband to +India, and the "Primrose wedding" brought a large influx of young people, +friends and relations of Mrs. Cameron and the bride, in addition to the +visitors who always made Easter a pleasant time. The weather was perfect, +the "April airs that fan the Isle of Wight" especially soft and balmy. +Parties of twenty or thirty met every evening in Mrs. Cameron's hall or in +the Farringford drawing-room. Nearly every one there knew or got to know +Lord and Lady Tennyson. He was in particularly genial health and spirits; +he joined the young people in their midnight walks to the sea, in their +flower-seeking expeditions, in one of which some one was fortunate enough +to find a grape hyacinth in one of the Farringford fields. He read aloud +nearly as much as he was asked to, and danced as vigorously as the +youngest present at two dances that were given. It was during the first of +these dances that a young neighbour became engaged to the lady whom he +shortly afterwards married. Very soon after the decisive moment had +passed, and when the event was naturally supposed to be a profound secret, +Tennyson put the girl's mother, with whom he happened to be sitting, +completely out of countenance by saying, without a suspicion of malice, +and without for the moment recognizing the young couple who passed him, "I +wot they be two lovyers dear." When he was shortly afterwards told of the +engagement, he twinkled very much over his rather premature but very +apposite announcement. + +My marriage took place in the autumn of 1872, and my husband, who already +knew the Tennysons, was at once received into their intimacy, and their +friendship was henceforth one of the greatest privileges of our joint +life. Tennyson and Hallam were present at our wedding, and the former held +our eldest boy in his arms when he was but a day or two old. + +The Easter of 1873 saw us again at Freshwater with another pleasant +meeting of friends. On that occasion Tennyson said to me, "Why do you not +ask me to dinner?" It need not be said that we at once gave the +invitation, though not a little nervous at the thought of the +lodging-house fare and arrangements to which we were bidding him; but our +dear old landlady did her very best. We asked a small party (Lady Florence +Herbert and Leslie Stephen were our guests) to meet him and Hallam; he was +himself in the best of spirits, and our little dinner-party proved a great +success. + +A few years later the Tennysons took a house in London three or four years +running (one spring they had my stepmother's house in Eaton Place). +Tennyson appeared to have in great measure lost his dislike to mixing in +general society, and they collected about them a very interesting and +varied circle of friends. I cannot help recalling an incident which +occurred one evening at their house, which, though painful at the moment, +is pleasant to look back upon on account of the affectionate and generous +apology it elicited. A large party was at their house one evening, and +Tennyson was persuaded to read aloud, and chose the "Revenge." Something +or other, I suppose the "Inquisition Dogs" and the "Devildoms of Spain," +excited him as he read, and by the time he had finished he had worked +himself into a state, which I have occasionally, but seldom, seen at +other times, of fury against the Catholic Church, as exemplified by the +Inquisition, persecution of heretics, etc.; in fact, all the artillery of +prejudice at which Catholics can afford to laugh. It happened, however, +that my husband, one of my sisters, and myself were the only Catholics +there, and were sitting together in the same part of the room. As he +talked he turned towards us and addressed us personally in a violent +tirade which loyalty to our convictions made it impossible for us not to +answer, though our attempts at explanation and contradiction were drowned +in his fierce and eloquent denunciations. Every one in the room looked +very uncomfortable. I myself hardly knew whether to laugh or cry, and was +never more relieved than, when his flow of words had exhausted itself, he +began to read another poem. Before the end of the evening, however, he +felt that his outbreak had not been kind or courteous, and before we left +he took us all three into his study, and made so sweet and gracious an +_amende_ that we loved him, if possible, more than ever. + +Any one who has read carefully the "Idylls of the King," "Sir Galahad," +"St. Agnes," among many of his poems, still more any one who has spoken +with him intimately, cannot fail to realize the strong attraction which +many Catholic doctrines and practices had for Tennyson, and the reverence +with which he regarded the Catholic Church as standing alone among jarring +sects and creeds, majestic, venerable, and invulnerable. His mind was also +an essentially and intensely religious one, and I know that one of my +father's attractions for him lay in the religious tone of _his_ mind. On +these points, however, I will say no more. In jotting down these few +remembrances of a friendship which is amongst my most precious +possessions, I settled with myself to refrain entirely from any +presentation of what I believed to be Tennyson's views on theology, +metaphysics, or politics, no less than from any discussion of his poetic +greatness. I want nothing but to sketch the _man_ as he always seemed to +me, one of the noblest, truest, and most lovable of God's creatures, and +one who, even without the genius that has crowned his brow with +never-fading laurel, must, by weight of character and beauty of soul +alone, stand a giant amid his fellow-men! + +We spent the Christmas holidays of 1890-91 at Freshwater with our five +children; not one of them will forget the delightful intercourse with +Farringford during those weeks, and the Christmas Tree arranged by Mrs. +Hallam Tennyson for her little Lionel in the large room known as the +ball-room.[82] Kind words and presents were showered on every one, and I +think the beloved grandparents enjoyed it as much as their +fourteen-months-old grandson, as they sat in the midst of their servants +and cottagers (some of whom were amongst the oldest of their friends), and +the guests, little and great, whom they had asked to share their Christmas +festival. Our two eldest children have a more precious remembrance of that +time and the following Easter, which we also spent at Freshwater, for +Tennyson read aloud to them for the first and only time. To our girl he +read "Old Roä" and the "Bugle Song," and to our boy the "Ode on the Death +of the Duke of Wellington." He read this in April 1891; it was the last +time I heard him read, and I look upon it as a special act of kindness; he +said he did not like to read to children--they did not understand, were +bored--and he only yielded to my strong entreaties. If, however, he saw, +as I think he did, the flushed cheeks and big tearful eyes of our +fourteen-year-old schoolboy, he must have felt that he had a listener who +_did_ understand and appreciate! + +Through the early part of the winter of 1890 Tennyson was remarkably +well, walking in the morning with my husband and other friends, and taking +long walks in the afternoon up and down the ball-room, when he liked to +have one or two companions who would amuse him, and whom he would amuse +with witty stories and _bons mots_. He had always a great pleasure in racy +anecdotes, and the humorous side of life, and during the last years this +increased, so that his friends treasured up every good story they heard to +repeat to him at their next meeting. + +Towards the end of the Christmas holidays Tennyson caught cold, and fears +of a return of gout and bronchitis confined him to his room. My husband +had already returned to London, and I was remaining only a few days longer +and thinking sadly enough that I should not be able to see Tennyson again +before I left, when on one of the last evenings I was spending at +Farringford, he sent for me to his room and then, to my delighted +surprise, proposed to read to me. I demurred, fearing it might be bad for +him, but he insisted, and for half an hour read me one unpublished poem +after another,[83] his voice nearly as strong as I had ever known it, and +it seemed to me even more pathetic and beautiful. + +That Easter of 1891, among many pleasant recollections of Farringford and +of the group of friends who paid their daily visit there, has one which I +like to set against the stories of Tennyson's unapproachableness and +gruffness to those who went to see him, which are so often circulated, and +which, in nine cases out of ten, meant that those who presented themselves +to him had chosen an unfortunate time, or were in some respect deficient +in tact or politeness. An American friend, professor of literature at +Harvard, was staying with us. His admiration and veneration for the great +master of verse were unbounded, and he would, I feel sure, have crossed +the Atlantic merely to see and speak with him. The morning after his +arrival, my husband took him to Farringford, where they found Tennyson +somewhat annoyed by a communication from an unknown American admirer, +enclosing a photograph of the Poet, upon which he requested him to sign +his name; the coolness of the request being heightened by the fact that +the sender had posted his letter unstamped. My husband said to his friend, +"Now, M., here's your opportunity; put down sixpence and pay the national +debt, and Tennyson will sign you the receipt on this photograph." He +immediately took the joke, laughed, bade the professor take back his +sixpence, and signed the photograph for him. + +On one of the last days we were at Freshwater that Easter, Tennyson met +our youngest child of five in the road, and addressed her, to her great +amusement: "Madam! you've a damask rose on either cheek, and another on +your forehead; rosy lips, golden hair, and a straw bonnet." + +I never again saw the household at Farringford after April 1891. Once more +we were at Aldworth in October of that year, when Tennyson signed for us a +photograph from Mr. Watts's last picture. He was tired before we left and +had gone to rest in his room, but I begged Hallam to let me go in to wish +him good-bye. Had I known that it _was_ good-bye, and that for the last +time I looked on his face and kissed his dear hands, what could I have +said? Never could I express the sorrowing love, the immense gratitude, +which overflow my heart as I think of my father's friend and mine! + + * * * * * + +The following letter was written by Tennyson to Catherine Lady Simeon +after the death of his friend: + + ALDWORTH, _June 27th, 1870_. + + MY DEAR LADY SIMEON--Of course nothing could be more grateful to me + than some memorial of my much-loved and ever-honoured friend, the + only man on earth, I verily believe, to whom I could, and have more + than once opened my whole heart; and he also has given me in many a + conversation at Farringford in my little attic his utter confidence. I + knew none like him for tenderness and generosity, not to mention his + other noble qualities, and he was the very Prince of Courtesy; but I + need not tell you this; anything, little book, or whatever you will + choose, send me or bring when you come; and do pray come on the 4th + July, and we will be all alone; and Louie can come, when she will, and + you can spare her.--Believe me, always affectionately yours, + + A. TENNYSON. + + + + +SIR JOHN SIMEON + +By AUBREY DE VERE + + + The world external knew thee but in part: + It saw and honoured what was least in thee; + The loyal trust, the inborn courtesy; + The ways so winning, yet so pure from art; + The cordial reverence, keen to all desert, + All save thine own; the accost so frank and free; + The public zeal that toiled, but not for fee, + And shunned alike base praise, and hireling's mart. + These things men saw; but deeper far than these + The under-current of thy soul worked on + Unvexed by surface-ripple, beam, or breeze, + And unbeheld its way to ocean won: + Life of thy life was still that Christian Faith + The sophist scorns. It failed thee not in death. + + + + +TENNYSON + +By ARTHUR SIDGWICK, Fellow of Corpus Christi, Oxford, and sometime Fellow +of Trinity College, Cambridge. + +(Read in the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, October 30, 1909.[84]) + + +We are met here to-day to do honour to the memory and the life's work of +one of the greatest of Trinity's sons, who has also won for himself--few +lovers of poetry here or anywhere can feel a doubt--a high and secure +place in the glorious roll of English Poets, that roll which records the +poetic achievements of over 500 years. + +In accepting (with whatever misgivings) the request of the College +authorities to speak some preliminary words in appreciation of the Poet, I +do not propose to deal in any detail with the history of his life and +work, on which the biography has thrown such interesting and welcome +light. The most that can here be attempted is to select a few aspects and +illustrations of Tennyson's life-long devotion to his art, such as may +serve to bring out something of those gifts and qualities which, wherever +English poetry is read, are felt to give to his work its special charm and +value. + +Though I must pass the early years almost in silence, I cannot refrain +from quoting the delightful tale, first made known (I believe) by Miss +Thackeray,[85] how at the age of five the Poet was seen with outspread +arms in a high wind, sailing gaily along and shouting his first line of +poetry + + I hear a voice that's speaking in the wind + +--he did indeed all his life hear that voice and all other Nature-voices; +and also the other tale of ten years later, how on the news of Byron's +death (in 1824) the boy went out, desolate, and carved the sad tidings on +the sandstone, and (to use his own words) "thought everything over and +finished for every one, and that nothing else mattered." + +Such despairing grief has seemed to some readers extravagant, to be +excused on the plea of youth--he was only fifteen: but it must not be +forgotten that Byron's death was the final blow of a triple fatality such +as finds no parallel in the history of literature. Three men of striking +genius and rich poetic gifts--Byron, Shelley, and Keats--were all +prematurely lost to the world within four years (1821-4). The fervid +sorrow of the impulsive and gifted boy of fifteen, so far from being +extravagant, must have been shared by countless readers of all ages who +cared for poetry, not in England only. + +It is true that as the years went on the youthful sympathy of Tennyson +with what has been called the Revolutionary poetry was materially +modified--perhaps especially in the case of Shelley. Yet there is a +striking letter of the date 1834--when Shelley had been dead twelve years, +and Tennyson was twenty-five--which should not be forgotten. Henry Taylor +had attacked the Byron-Shelley school of poetry; and Tennyson, while not +disputing much of his general judgment, adds this penetrating comment: "It +may be that he (Taylor) does not sufficiently take into consideration the +peculiar strength evolved by such writers as Byron and Shelley, who, +however mistaken they may be, did yet give the world _another heart and +new pulses_, and so we are kept going." + +Matthew Arnold was a fine critic and a poet of high distinction, but I +have always felt, if we compare his somewhat severe attitude towards the +earlier school with that of Tennyson, that it was the latter who showed +the truer insight, the wider sympathy, and the juster appreciation. + +Of his Cambridge life, 1828-30, two main points stand out: the grievous +want he felt of any real stimulus or inspiration in the instruction +provided by the authorities; and, secondly, the remarkable group of +distinguished men of his own age with whom his college life was passed. As +to the first, the scathing lines written at the time, and published with +his express consent in the biography, are more eloquent than any +description could be. After naming all the glories of the Colleges--their +portals, gardens, libraries, chapels, "doctors, proctors and deans"--"all +these," he cries, "shall not avail you when the Daybeam sports, new-risen +over Albion ..." and the poem ends with the reason: + + Because your manner sorts + Not with this age wherefrom ye stand apart, + Because the lips of little children preach + Against you,--_you that do profess to teach + And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart_. + +On the other hand, this lack (of official wisdom) was more than supplied +by the friends with whom he lived--James Spedding, Monckton Milnes +(afterwards Lord Houghton), Trench, Alford, Brookfield, Blakesley, +Thompson (afterwards Master), Merivale, Stephen Spring-Rice, J. Kemble, +Heath, C. Buller, Monteith, Tennant, and above all Arthur Hallam. +Thirty-five years later Lord Houghton justly said of this group of friends +that "for the wealth of their promise they were a body of men such as this +University has seldom contained." To this should be added the special +influence of the "Apostles," to which Society most of these friends +belonged, who had organized from the first regular weekly meetings for +essays and discussions, where no topic was barred, and speech was +absolutely free. The immense stimulus of such discussion to thought, to +study, to readiness and power of argument, to widening the range of +intellectual interests and literary judgment and appreciation, must be +obvious to all. And we must not forget that the years covered by young +Tennyson's residence at Cambridge were precisely the period of the keenest +intellectual stir and the stormiest political warfare that preceded the +great Reform Bill. + +To return to the poetry. Passing over the purely juvenile _Poems by two +Brothers_ printed in his eighteenth year, we have, in 1830, the first book +of poems which have partially survived the mature and fastidious taste +which suppressed so much of the early work. Even here, half the pieces +have been withdrawn, and much of the rest re-written: what remains is +rather slight--the Isabels and Claribels and Adelines and Lilians and +Eleanores, poems which in some critics' views border on the trivial. +Really they should be regarded as experiments in lyric measures: and the +careful student will note the signs of the poet's fine ear and keen eye +for nature: but the depths were not sounded. + +Two years later came the second volume (1832). Again much has been +withdrawn, much re-written: but when in this collection we find +"Œnone," "The Palace of Art," "A Dream of Fair Women," and "The +Lotos-eaters," we see that we have the real poet at last. + +"The Palace of Art" is an attempt to trace the Nemesis of selfish culture, +secluding itself from social human life and duty. After three years of +these exclusive delights, the man's outraged nature--or conscience if you +will--reasserts itself in a kind of incipient madness: the soul of him +sees visions. Then a weird passage: + + But in dark corners of her palace stood + Uncertain shapes; and unawares + On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, + And horrible nightmares, + + And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, + And, with dim fretted foreheads all, + On corpses three-months-old at noon she came, + That stood against the wall. + +The horrors, like Gorgons and Furies of ancient poets, are perhaps a +trifle too material; but in the description of the Nemesis there are +touches of real power, which at least are impressive and arresting. + +"Œnone" is perhaps the most absolutely beautiful of these early poems, +and for the triumph of melodious sound, and finished picturesqueness of +description, the opening lines are unsurpassed. We should also note that +it took more than one edition to bring it to its present perfection of +form. It is very well known, but no one will object to hear it again: + + There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier + Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. + The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, + Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine, + And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand + The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down + Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars + The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine + In cataract after cataract to the sea. + Behind the valley topmost Gargarus + Stands up and takes the morning: but in front + The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal + Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel, + The crown of Troas. + +Before I pass on from "Œnone," I may perhaps add a word or two on +Tennyson's classical poetry generally, and his debt to the great ancient +masterpieces. + +He was, perhaps, not exactly a scholar in what I may call the narrow +professional sense; but in the broadest and deepest and truest sense he +was a _great_ scholar. Direct imitations of classical form, even when they +show such power and poetry as Swinburne's "Atalanta" and "Erechtheus," +have always something artificial about them. But in all Tennyson's classic +pieces--"Œnone," "Ulysses," "Demeter," "Tithonus," the legendary +subjects--and in the two historic subjects, "Lucretius" and "Boädicea," +the classical tradition is there with full detail, but by the poet's art +it is transmuted. "Œnone" is epic in form, the rest are brief +monodramas; the material is all ancient, and in many subtle ways the +spirit; the handling is modern and original. In translations--too +few--Tennyson can only be called consummate: his version of one passage of +the _Iliad_ (viii. 552) makes all other translations seem second-rate. Let +me quote a few lines: + + And these all night upon the bridge of war + Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed: + As when in heaven the stars about the moon + Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, + And every height comes out, and jutting peak + And valley, and _the immeasurable heavens + Break open to their highest_,[86] and all the stars + Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart: + So many a fire between the ships and stream + Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, + A thousand on the plain; and close by each + Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire; + And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds, + Fixt by their cars, waited the golden dawn. + +The passage, let me add, is a crucial test of the power of a translator, +for this reason: it is a plain, simple description of the Trojan +camp-fires in the darkness, with a simile or comparison of the sight to a +clearance of the sky at night and the sudden shining of the multitude of +stars. With the infallible instinct of Greek Poetry there is a rapid lift +in the style, a sudden glorious phrase [Greek: huperragê aspetos aithêr], +to suggest adequately the magnificent sight of the sudden clearance. It is +this effect that is difficult to give in the translation; and it is +exactly this splendid climax that Tennyson's incomparable rendering, "And +the immeasurable heavens break open to their highest," so perfectly +conveys. + +Again, in the metrical imitations--which are deliberately somewhat in the +vein of sport and artifice--Tennyson alone, it seems to me, has exactly +done what he intended, and shown what English effects can be produced by a +master's hand, even in these unfamiliar measures. + +Of the serious classic pieces one of the most beautiful and moving is +"Tithonus." The tale is familiar: the beautiful youth Tithonus was beloved +by the goddess of the Dawn, and her love bestowed immortality on him; _but +they both forgot to ask for immortal youth_. So he grew old: and the +pathos of the boon, granted by love at love's request, thus turning out a +curse, is the motive of the tale. He speaks: + + Yet hold me not for ever in thine East: + How can my nature longer mix with thine? + Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold + Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet + Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam + Floats up from those dim fields about the homes + Of happy men that have the power to die, + And grassy barrows of the happier dead. + Release me, and restore me to the ground; + Thou seëst all things, thou wilt see my grave: + Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn; + I earth in earth forget these empty courts, + And thee returning on thy silver wheels. + +A great scholar has said that it is one of the most incomparable powers of +poetry _to make sad things beautiful_, and so to go some way towards +healing the sorrow in the reader's heart. He was speaking of Greek +Tragedy; but there is, I think, a deep truth in the saying, and it is not +confined to that particular form of poetry. And I know no better instance +of the truth than the singularly beautiful poem quoted above. + +But the classic influences are, of course, not limited to the avowed +borrowings from ancient legend. There are constantly lines in Tennyson +where the student of ancient poetry recognizes a phrase--a turn--an +echo--beautiful in themselves, and giving a special pleasure to the +instructed reader; such a line as "When the first matin-song hath wakened +loud," which occurs in the "Address to Memory"--the striking early poem +containing the description of his Somersby home--and is itself an +exquisitely turned translation from Sophocles' _Electra_. So again we have +an echo from Homer through Virgil, in the half-playful line, "This way and +that dividing the swift mind"; or, again, the vivid simile from Theocritus +in the bold description: + + And arms on which the standing muscles sloped, + As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, + Running too vehemently to break upon it.[87] + +--where the reader with an ear will note the bold metrical variation +adding so much to the effect. So again the Poet himself has told us how +the famous phrase for the kingfisher, "The sea-blue bird of March," arose +one day when he was haunted by the lovely stanza of Alcman (Greek lyric +poet) about the "halcyon" whom he calls "the sea-blue bird of spring." The +fact is that Tennyson had an inborn instinct for the subtle power of +language, and for musical sound--in a word, for that insight, finish, +feeling for beauty in phrase and thought and _thing_, and that perfection +of form, which, taken all together, we call poetry, and he is, like Virgil +and Milton, a true son of the Greeks: and if his open imitations are few, +the influence of the springs from which he drank is none the less powerful +and pervading. + +In 1842 came a carefully revised selection of the earlier books--he was +always revising and improving--along with a large number of new poems. + +I will pass over the English Idylls, which, in spite of beautiful touches, +have never as a whole appealed to me. But, setting these aside, there are +a few pieces which I cannot pass by without a word. They are "Love and +Duty," the political poems, and songs. "Morte d'Arthur" I leave over till +we reach the Idylls. + +"Love and Duty" is a passionate tragedy, the parting of two lovers at the +call of duty. Perhaps the high-wrought pathos is a sign of youth; but +youth may be a strength as well as a weakness; and the lines are surely of +extraordinary beauty and force. I will quote the last passage, for a +reason which will appear: + + Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts + Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou + For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold, + If not to be forgotten--not at once-- + Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams, + O might it come like one that looks content, + With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth, + And point thee forward to a distant light, + Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart + And leave thee freër, till thou wake refresh'd + Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown + Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of pearl + Far furrowing into light the mounded rack, + Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea. + +Certain critics have found fault with the splendid description of Dawn, as +being untrue to nature; a lover in such a crisis, they think, would not be +concerned with such images. I regard this suggestion as wholly at fault. +The tragedy, the parting, has come to pass: the vision of dawn is a _hope_ +for _her_, now that the new life, apart from each other, has to begin for +both of them. If the broken love was all, if they could not look beyond, +the parting would have been different--like Lancelot and +Guinevere--"Stammering and staring; a madness of farewells." But here the +note is higher. The passion barred from its issue rushes into new +channels, and the exalted mood finds its only adequate vent in the +rapturous vision of a future dawn, the symbol of his hopes for her, those +hopes into which his sacrificed love is translated. + +In the political poems we have a new departure. It is easy to idealize +freedom, revolution, or war: and the ancients found it easy to compose +lyrics on kings, athletes, warriors, or other powerful persons. From the +days of Tyrtaeus and Pindar, to Byron, Shelley, and Swinburne, one or +other of these themes has been the seed of song. But the praise of ordered +liberty, of settled government, of political moderation, is far harder to +idealize in poetry. It has been the peculiar aim of Tennyson to be the +constitutional, and in this sense the national, poet: and it is his +peculiar merit and good fortune to have succeeded in giving eloquent and +forcible expression to the ideas suggested by these aims. + +I will not quote the poems about "the Falsehood of extremes," or "the land +of just and old renown where freedom slowly broadens down from precedent +to precedent," because these poems, terse and forcible summaries as they +are, have suffered, like other epigrammatic maxims in verse, from +vulgarizing quotation. It is not the Poet's fault in the least; in fact it +is due to his very merits--to the memorable brevity, truth, and point of +the phrasing. I will quote another--perhaps the most remarkable--of these +political poems, "Love thou thy land." It is close packed with thought, +and must have been especially hard to write, since the Poet's problem was +to express in terse and picturesque and imaginative language what at +bottom is philosophic and even prosaic detail. Nevertheless, where the +material lends itself at all to imaginative handling we get effects that +are impressive and even superb. Take a few lines--I cannot quote at +length: + + Oh yet, if Nature's evil star + Drive men in manhood, as in youth, + To follow flying steps of Truth + Across the brazen bridge of war-- + + If New and Old, disastrous feud, + Must ever shock, like armed foes, + And this be true, till Time shall close, + That Principles are rain'd in blood; + + Not yet the wise of heart would cease + To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt, + But with his hand against the hilt, + Would pace the troubled land, like Peace; + + Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay, + Would serve his kind in deed and word, + Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, + That knowledge takes the sword away. + +The last couplet seems to me--where all is powerful and imaginative--to be +a master-stroke of terse and pointed expression. It would be hardly an +exaggeration to say that it sums up human history in regard to one +point--namely, the disturbing and even desolating effect of the new +Political Idea, until its triumph comes, bringing a higher and more stable +adjustment, and a peace more righteous and secure. + +Far more widely known than these didactic poems, rich as they are in +poetry and thought, are the patriotic odes--the three greatest being the +poems on the Duke of Wellington, the "Revenge," and Lucknow. + +The ode on the Duke is a noble commemoration-poem, grave and stately and +solemn--a worthy expression of "the mourning of a mighty nation" with a +musical and dignified sorrow--a terse and vivid reference to the Duke's +exploits--a fine imaginative passage where he pictures the dead Nelson +asking who the newcomer is, and the stately answer--a striking tribute to +the simple and noble character of the dead hero--and then this: + + A people's voice! we are a people yet. + Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget, + Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers; + Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set + His Briton in blown seas and storming showers... + O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul, + Of Europe, keep our noble England whole, + And save the one true seed of freedom sown + Betwixt a people and their ancient throne... + For, saving that, ye help to save mankind + Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, + And drill the raw world for the march of mind, + Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just. + +Again, for the judgment of the poem, the _date_ is important. It was +written only four years after the European earthquake of 1848, and only +one year after the Coup d'État. The allusions are not mere commonplaces: +they deal with live issues. It is not too much to say that in the great +ode Tennyson had a subject after his own heart, and that he has done it +magnificent justice. + +Of the "Revenge" I will quote one passage, because it contains what always +strikes me as _the_ most wonderful effect of _sound_ in poetry to be found +anywhere. The whole poem, I may observe, is full of novel and effective +handling of metre: but this is the most remarkable. It occurs in the +description of the rising storm in which the gallant little ship went +down: + + And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew, + And away she sail'd with her loss, and long'd for her own; + When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from sleep, + And the water began to heave, and the weather to moan, + And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew, + And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew, + Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their + flags, + And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd navy of Spain, + And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags + To be lost evermore in the main. + +Lastly, in the 1842 volume, there was a little song without a title, which +will certainly live as long as the English language. + +In 1833, nine years before the volume appeared, had died abroad suddenly +the rarely-gifted youth who was bound to Tennyson by the double tie of +being his best-loved friend and the betrothed of his sister. The body had +been brought home for burial by the sea at a little place called Clevedon. + +This is the song: + + Break, break, break, + On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! + And I would that my tongue could utter + The thoughts that arise in me. + + O well for the fisherman's boy, + That he shouts with his sister at play! + O well for the sailor lad, + That he sings in his boat on the bay! + + And the stately ships go on + To their haven under the hill; + But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, + And the sound of a voice that is still! + + Break, break, break, + At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! + But the tender grace of a day that is dead + Will never come back to me. + +There is something in the magical expression of deep love and sorrow in +these lines--with the swift and vivid touches of scenery, sympathetic and +suggestive--which we can only compare to the few greatest outbursts of +passionate regret in poetry. + +Five years later came "The Princess" (1847). The idea--a bold design--was +to treat, by poetic and half-playful narrative, the comparative +intellectual and moral natures of men and women, and the right method of +education. The Poet's views may perhaps to-day seem somewhat +old-fashioned, the truths that he suggests or enunciates, in very finished +and beautiful language, are controversial, and suffer from the inevitable +failing of such writing, viz., that the issues of the strife have changed: +experience has shown the forecasts, the fears, and the prophetic satire to +be misplaced: and what seemed important truths have turned out to be +prejudices or irrelevant platitudes.[88] + +The one thing that is consummate in "The Princess" is the handful of +little songs that come as interludes between the acts. They are so well +known that they need no quotation: their titles will suffice: "As through +the land at eve we went," "Sweet and low," "The splendour falls," "Tears, +idle tears," "Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums," "Home they brought +her warrior dead," "Ask me no more." + +The extraordinary effect of these songs is not due only to their +marvellous poetic force and finish and variety, but perhaps even more to +the illuminating and pointed contrast between the true and deep and +permanent realities of human experience--life, death, love, joy, and +sorrow--each of which is touched in turn in these exquisite little +pictures, and on the other hand the fantastic unreality (in the Poet's +view) of the Princess's ideals and experiment. + +If I must quote one passage, let it be abridged from the shepherd's song +which the Princess reads: + + Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: + + * * * * * + + For Love is of the valley, come thou down + And find him; by the happy threshold, he, + Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, + Or red with _spirted purple of the vats_,[89] + Or _foxlike[90] in the vine_; nor cares to walk + With Death and Morning on the silver horns... + But follow; let the torrent dance thee down + To find him in the valley; let the wild + Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave + The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill + Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, + That like a broken purpose waste in air: + So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales + Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth + Arise to thee; the children call, and I + Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, + Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; + Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, + The moan of doves in immemorial elms, + And murmuring of innumerable bees. + +This is the real idyll, with its central note of _love_, and wonderful +beauty of sound, and vivid vision of every detail of Nature's sights and +life. It suggests a world where all is fresh and sweet, and beautiful and +interesting, and simple and wholesome and harmonious. + +The year 1850 was marked by three great events in the personal history of +Tennyson: his marriage, the publication of his greatest work, "In +Memoriam," and his acceptance of the laureate crown of poetry in +succession to Wordsworth, who died in the spring. + +When I say that "In Memoriam" is Tennyson's greatest work, I am of course +aware that it is only a personal opinion on a disputable point. But I +incline to think that most lovers of poetry would agree that "In +Memoriam" is _the one_ of all the Poet's works the loss of which would be +the greatest and most irreparable to poetry. + +In the grave and solemn stanzas with which the poem opens, he calls the +songs that follow _wild and wandering cries, confusions of a wasted +youth_. But in truth they are the expression of the deepest and most +heartfelt sorrow: the most musical and imaginative outpouring of every +mood, and every trouble, of a noble love and regret: the cries of a soul +stricken with doubt born of anguish, and darkened with shadows of +disbelief and despair: the deeper brooding over the eternal problems of +life, thought, knowledge, religion: the gradual groping toward a faith +rather divined than proved, and slowly passing through storm into peace. + +The poem took seventeen years to write, and when it appeared the Poet was +at the summit of his great powers. His instinct chose a metre at once +strong, simple, fresh, flexible, and grave, and noble--equally adapted to +every mood, every form of thought or feeling--the passionate, the +meditative, the solemn, the imaginative--for description, argument, +aspiration, even for prayer. The tone varies: there are lighter and deeper +touches: but it is hardly too much to say, there is not an insignificant +stanza, nor a jarring note, from beginning to end. + +In a poem where all is so familiar--which has meant and means so much to +all who care for poetry--it is difficult to quote. I will take a few +stanzas, so chosen, if possible, as to show somewhat of the variety, the +range, the subtlety, the charm, and the power of this great work. + +He goes to the house in London where the dead friend lived: the gloom +without typifies and harmonizes with the darkness of his sorrowful +thoughts. + + Dark house, by which once more I stand + Here in the long unlovely street: + Doors, where my heart was wont to beat + So quickly, waiting for a hand,-- + + A hand that can be clasped no more-- + Behold me--for I cannot sleep-- + And like a guilty thing I creep + At earliest morning to the door. + + He is not here; but far away + The noise of life begins again, + And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain + On the bald street breaks the blank day. + +One of the most important motives concerns the doubts raised by the new +truths which science was beginning to teach, almost seeming to make in a +sense a new heaven and a new earth. The old simple beliefs seemed to the +Poet threatened--these misgivings are evil dreams: _Nature_ seems to say: + + ... A thousand types are gone: + I care for nothing, all shall go. + + Thou makest thine appeal to me; + I bring to life, I bring to death; + The spirit does but mean the breath: + I know no more... + +Then the Poet breaks out: + + And he, shall he, + Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, + Such splendid purpose in his eyes, + Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, + Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer-- + + Who trusted God was love indeed, + And love Creation's final law-- + Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw + With ravine, shriek'd against his creed-- + + Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, + Who battled for the True, the Just, + Be blown about the desert dust, + Or seal'd within the iron hills?... + + O life as futile, then, as frail! + O for thy voice to soothe and bless! + What hope of answer, or redress? + Behind the veil, behind the veil. + +He will not accept the suggestions which seem to empty human life of its +deepest meanings. There must be some other solution. + +One more quotation of a different kind--the common sad thought, never so +beautifully expressed, of the places we have loved when bereft of our +daily loving care--then passing into other hands and forgetting us, and +becoming at last to others what they have been to us. + +It is in these common universal _human_ themes that Tennyson with his +exquisite musical touch, and sympathy, and unerring choice of significant +detail, reaches the heart of every reader. + + Unwatch'd, the garden bough shall sway, + The tender blossom flutter down, + Unloved, that beech will gather brown, + This maple burn itself away: + + Unloved, the sunflower, shining fair, + Ray round with flames her disk of seed, + And many a rose-carnation feed + With summer spice the humming air: + + Unloved, by many a sandy bar, + The brook shall babble down the plain, + At noon or when the lesser wain + Is twisting round the polar star. + +(Omitting a stanza.) + + Till from the garden and the wild + A fresh association blow, + And year by year the landscape grow + Familiar to the stranger's child. + + As year by year the labourer tills + His wonted glebe, or lops the glades, + And year by year our memory fades + From all the circle of the hills. + +I can quote no more. + +The poem seems gradually to rise from the depths of sorrow and doubt to a +new hope and faith--in short, to a new life. The marks of what it has +passed through are seen in the deeper thought, the larger nature, and +insight, and scope. The _soul_ has grown and strengthened, we may almost +say. + +In short, the poem is the inner history of a soul: our deepest feelings, +our hopes, our fears, our longings, our weaknesses, our difficulties, all +find penetrating, sympathetic, enlightening expression--terse, melodious, +inspiring, deeply suggestive--in a word, we feel the magic of poetry. + +I have no time left to deal with the large work, which occupied many +years, "The Idylls of the King." It is a series--in blank verse, always +melodious and often exquisite, giving the main incidents of the old +Arthurian legend, which as a boy he had read with delight in old Malory's +prose epic. + +I must content myself with two brief references. + +The first idyll, "Gareth and Lynette," is not in itself one of the most +interesting[91]--dealing chiefly as it does with the picture of the eager +boy, anxious to be one of Arthur's knights, who serves a year in menial +place as a test of his obedience: but there is one passage which ought +never to be omitted in speaking of Tennyson, viz. the answer of the seer +when the boys ask him if the castle is enchanted. + +The seer answers ironically, yet with a deep meaning, that it _is_ +enchanted: + + For there is nothing in it as it seems + Saving the King; tho' some there be that hold + The King a shadow, and the city real. + +Then he tells them about the _vows_: which if they fear to take, he warns +them + + Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide + Without, among the cattle of the field, + For an ye hear a music, like enow + They are building still, seeing the city is built + To music, _therefore never built at all, + And therefore built for ever_. + +Beneath the strangely beautiful surface meaning of these lines there lies +the deep allegoric meaning that often what seems visionary is in truth a +spiritual and eternal reality. It brings to mind the wonderful lines of +Browning (in "Abt Vogler"): + + The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, + The passion that left the earth to lose itself in the sky, + Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; + Enough that he heard it once, we shall hear it by and by. + +The other point concerns the end of the poem. The last section is the +Passing of Arthur; the old fragment "Morte d'Arthur" enlarged. One notable +addition occurs at the very end. + +In the earlier version of the fragment, after Arthur had passed away on +the dark lake, with him the last hope also disappears. + +We are only told: + + Long stood Sir Bedivere, + Revolving many memories, till the hull + Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, + And on the mere the wailing died away. + +In the fragment the end was tragic: the noble attempt failed; the hero and +inspirer passed away, his aim defeated, his comrades slain or scattered, +his life and efforts vain. + +But in the final shape comes a new and very significant end: + + Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint, + As from beyond the limit of the world, + Like the last echo born of a great cry, + Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice, + Around a king returning from his wars. + + Thereat once more he[92] moved about, and clomb + Ev'n to the highest he could climb--and saw, + Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King + Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go + From less to less, and vanish _into light_. + And the new sun rose, bringing the new year. + +We feel, as we are meant to feel, that though the death of a noble soul, +after unequal war with ill, is deeply sad--fitly pictured with sorrowful +sounds and darkness of night--yet the great spirit cannot wholly die: the +night breaks into a new day; and the day will be brighter for those who +are left, because of the efforts and memories of the leader who is no +more. + +Tennyson is without doubt, from first to last, one of the great poetic +artists. He is not often an inspired singer like Shelley, but he has other +gifts which Shelley lacked--a self-restraint, an artistic finish, a fine +and mature taste, a deep reverence for the past, a pervading sympathy with +the broad currents of the best thought and feeling of the time. Sometimes +this is (as we have seen) a weakness, but it is also the source of his +greatest strength. He has not, like Wordsworth, given us a new insight, +what I may almost call a new religion: but he has a wider range than +Wordsworth, and a surer poetic touch. Wordsworth may be the greater +teacher; for many of us he has opened a new world: he has touched the +deepest springs of our nature. But Tennyson has left us gifts hardly less +rare and precious. He has refined, enriched, beautified, in some sense +almost remade our poetic language; he has shown that the classic +eighteenth-century finish is not incompatible with the nineteenth-century +deeper and wider thought: and, in a word, he has inwoven the golden thread +of poetry with the main texture of the life, knowledge, feeling, +experience, and ideals of the years whereof we are all alike inheritors. + + + + +TENNYSON: HIS LIFE AND WORK[93] + +By the Right Hon. SIR ALFRED LYALL, G.C.B. + + +The biography of a great poet has seldom been so written as to enhance his +reputation with the world at large. It is almost always the highest artist +whose individuality, so to speak, is least discernible in his work, and +who, like some divinity, is at his best when his mind and moods, his lofty +purpose and his attitude toward the problems of life, are revealed only +through the medium which he has chosen for revealing them to mankind. To +lay bare the human side of a poet, to retail his domestic history, and to +dwell upon his private relations with friends or family, will always +interest the public enormously; but for himself it is often a perilous +ordeal. The man of restless erratic genius, cut off in his prime like +Byron or Shelley, leaves behind him a confession of faults and follies, +while one who has lived long takes the risk of intellectual decline; or +else, like Coleridge, Landor, and even Scott, he may in other ways suffer +loss of dignity by the posthumous record of failings or mistakes. It is a +rare coincidence that in this nineteenth century two poets of the first +rank--Wordsworth and Tennyson--should each have passed the natural limit +of fourscore years, steadily extending their reputation without material +loss of their power, and completely fulfilling the ideal of a life devoted +to their beautiful art, free alike from adventures and eccentricities, +tranquil, blameless, and nobly dignified. + +Such is the life which has been described to us in the _Memoir_ of Alfred, +Lord Tennyson, by his son. In preparing it he had the singular advantage +of very close and uninterrupted association for many years with his +father, and of thorough acquaintance with his wishes and feelings in +regard to the inevitable biography. In a brief preface, he touches, not +without emotion, upon the aims and limitations of the task which it had +become his duty to undertake. + + "For my part," he says, "I feel strongly that no biographer could so + truly give him as he gives himself in his own works; but this may be + because, having lived my life with him, I see him in every word which + he has written; and it is difficult for me so far to detach myself + from the home circle as to pourtray him for others. He himself + disliked the notion of a long, formal biography.... However, he wished + that, if I deemed it better, the incidents of his life should be given + as shortly as might be without comment; but that my notes should be + final and full enough to preclude the chance of further and + unauthentic biographies." + +Lord Tennyson has given us a remarkable chronicle of his father's life +from youth to age, illustrated by correspondence that is always +interesting and occasionally of supreme value, by anecdotes and +reminiscences, by characteristic thoughts and pithy observations--the +outcome of the Poet's reflection, consummate literary judgment, and +constant intercourse with the best contemporary intellects. He has, +moreover, so arranged the narrative as to show the rapid expansion of +Tennyson's strong, inborn poetic instinct, with the impressions and +influences which moulded its development, maturing and perfecting his +marvellous powers of artistic execution. + +Alfred Tennyson was born in the pastoral village of Somersby, amid the +Lincolnshire wolds; and he spent many holidays on the coast at +Mablethorpe, where he acquired that passion for the sea which has +possessed so many poets. The atmosphere of a public school favours active +emulation and discipline for the outer world; but to a boy of sensitive +and imaginative temperament it is apt to be uncongenial, so we need not be +sorry that Tennyson was spared the experience. At first, like most men of +his temperament who go straight from private tuition to a University, he +felt solitary and depressed--"the country is so disgustingly level, the +revelry of the place so monotonous, the studies of the University so +uninteresting, so matter-of-fact." But there was about him a distinction +in mind and body that soon marked him out among his fellows ("a kind of +Hyperion," writes FitzGerald), uniting strength with refinement, showing +much insight into character, with the faculty of brief and pointed +sallies: "We were looking one day at the portrait of an elderly politician +in bland family aspect. A. T. (with his eyeglass): It looks rather like a +retired panther. So true."[94] + +He was an early member of the Society yclept the Apostles, which included +many eager and brilliant spirits, whose debates were upon political +reform, the bettering of the people's condition, upon morals, religion, +and those wider and more liberal views of social needs that were foremost +at a period when the new forces were just mustering for attack upon the +old entrenchment of Church and State. Edward FitzGerald's notes and +Tennyson's own later recollections are drawn upon in this book for lively +illustrations of the sayings and doings of this notable group of friends, +and for glimpses of their manner of life at Cambridge. Here he lived in +the choice society of that day, and formed, among other friendships, an +affectionate attachment to Arthur Hallam, who afterwards became engaged to +his sister, and in whose memory the famous poem was written. Hallam seems +to have been one of those men whose extraordinary promise and early death +invest their brief and brilliant career with a kind of romance, explaining +and almost justifying the pagan notions of Fate and divine envy. + +In June 1829 Tennyson scored his first triumph by the prize poem on +Timbuctoo, which, as he said many years afterwards, won the medal to his +utter astonishment, for it was an old poem on Armageddon, adapted to +Central Africa "by a little alteration of the beginning and the end." +Arthur Hallam wrote of it on September 2, 1829: "The splendid imaginative +power which pervades it will be seen through all hindrances. I consider +Tennyson as promising fair to be the greatest poet of our generation, +perhaps of our century"--a remarkably far-reaching prophecy to have been +built upon so slender a foundation. Out of his "horror of publicity," as +he said, he committed it to Merivale for declamation in the Senate House. +In 1830 appeared Tennyson's first volume of poems, upon which Arthur +Hallam again wrote, in a review, that "the features of original genius are +strongly and clearly marked"; while on the other hand, Coleridge passed +upon it the well-known criticism that "he has begun to write verses +without very well knowing what metre is"; and Christopher North handled it +with a touch of good-natured ridicule. Then followed, in 1832, a fresh +issue, including that magnificent allegory, the "Palace of Art"; with +other poems whose very blemishes signified exuberant strength. James +Montgomery's observation of him at this stage is in the main true as a +standing test of latent potency in beginners. "He has very wealthy and +luxurious thought and great beauty of expression, and is _a poet_. But +there is plenty of room for improvement, and I would have it so. Your +trim, correct _young_ writers rarely turn out well; a young poet should +have a great deal which he can afford to throw away as he gets older." +The judgment was sound, for after a silent interval of ten years, during +which the Poet was sedulously husbanding and cultivating his powers, the +full-orbed splendour of his genius shone out in the two volumes of 1842. + +"This decade," writes his biographer, "wrought a marvellous abatement of +my father's real fault," which was undoubtedly "the tendency, arising from +the fulness of mind which had not yet learned to master its resources +freely, to overcrowd his composition with imagery, to which may be added +over-indulgence in the luxuries of the senses." By this and by other +extracts from contemporary criticism given in the _Memoir_ its readers may +survey and measure the Poet's rapid development of mind and methods, the +expansion of his range of thoughts, his increasing command over the +musical instrument, and the admirable vigour and beauty which his +composition was now disclosing. He had the singular advantage, rarely +enjoyed so early in a poetic career, of being surrounded by enthusiastic +friends who were also very competent art-critics, and whose unanimous +verdict must have given him heart and confidence; so that the few spurts +of cold water from professional reviewers troubled him very little. The +darts thrown by such enemies might hardly reach or wound him--[Greek: prin +gar peribêsan aristoi]--the two Hallams, James Spedding, Edward +FitzGerald, the two Lushingtons, Blakesley, and Julius Hare rallied round +him enthusiastically. Hartley Coleridge met Tennyson in 1835, and, "after +the fourth bottom of gin," deliberately thanked Heaven for having brought +them acquainted. Wordsworth, who had at first been slow to appreciate, +having afterwards listened to two poems recited by Aubrey de Vere, did +"acknowledge that they were very noble in thought, with a diction +singularly stately." Even Carlyle, who had implored the Poet to stick to +prose, was vanquished, and wrote (1842) a letter so vividly characteristic +as to justify a long quotation: + + DEAR TENNYSON--Wherever this find you, may it find you well, may it + come as a friendly greeting to you. I have just been reading your + Poems; I have read certain of them over again, and mean to read them + over and over till they become my poems; this fact, with the + inferences that lie in it, is of such emphasis in me, I cannot keep it + to myself, but must needs acquaint you too with it. If you knew what + my relation has been to the thing call'd English "Poetry" for many + years back, you would think such a fact almost surprising! Truly it is + long since in any English Book, Poetry or Prose, I have felt the pulse + of a real man's heart as I do in this same. + + * * * * * + + I know you cannot read German: the more interesting is it to trace in + your "Summer Oak" a beautiful kindred to something that is best in + Goethe; I mean his "Müllerin" (Miller's daughter) chiefly, with whom + the very Mill-dam gets in love; though she proves a flirt after all, + and the thing ends in satirical lines! Very strangely, too, in the + "Vision of Sin" I am reminded of my friend Jean Paul. This is not + babble, this is speech; true deposition of a volunteer witness. And so + I say let us all rejoice somewhat. And so let us all smite + rhythmically, all in concert, "the sounding furrows," and sail forward + with new cheer "beyond the sunset" whither we are bound. + +The _Memoir_ contains some valuable reminiscences of this period, +contributed after Tennyson's death by his personal friends, which +incidentally throw backward a light upon the literary society of that day. +Mr. Aubrey de Vere describes a meeting between Tennyson and Wordsworth; +and relates also, subsequently and separately, a conversation with +Tennyson, who was enthusiastic over the songs of Burns: "You forget, for +their sake, those stupid things, his serious pieces." The same day Mr. de +Vere met Wordsworth, who "praised Burns even more vehemently than +Tennyson had done ..." but ended, "of course I refer to his serious +efforts, those foolish little amatory songs of his one has to forget." + +But in addition to contemporary criticism, written or spoken, and to the +reminiscences, the biography gives us also several unpublished poems and +fragmentary verses belonging to this period, with the original readings of +other pieces that were altered before publication. It is in these +materials, beyond others, that we can observe the forming and maturing of +his style, the fastidious taste which dictated his rejection of work that +either did not satisfy the highest standard as a whole, or else marred a +poem's symmetrical proportion by superfluity, over-weight, or the undue +predominance of some note in the general harmony. One may regret that some +fine stanzas or exquisite lines should have been thus expunged, as, for +example, those beginning: + + Thou may'st remember what I said. + +Yet we believe the impartial critic will confirm in every instance the +decision. "Anacaona," written at Cambridge, was never published, because +"the natural history and the rhymes did not satisfy" Tennyson; it is full +of tropical warmth and ardour, with a fine rhythmic beat, but it is +certainly below high-water mark. And the same must be said of the "Song of +the Three Sisters," published and afterwards suppressed, though the blank +verse of its prelude has undoubted quality. He acted, as we can see, +inexorably upon his own rule that "the artist is known by his +self-limitation"; feeling certain, as he once said, that "if I meant to +make any mark in the world it must be by shortness, for the men before me +had been so diffuse." Only the concise and perfect work, he thought, would +last; and "hundreds of lines were blown up the chimney with his pipe +smoke, or were written down and thrown into the fire as not being perfect +enough." Yet all his austere resolution must have been needed for +condemning some of the fine verses that were struck out of the "Palace of +Art," merely to give the poem even balance, and trim it like a boat. Very +few poems could have spared or borne the excisions from the "Dream of Fair +Women"; though here and there the didactic or scientific note is slightly +prominent, as in the following stanza: + + All nature widens upward. Evermore + The simpler essence lower lies, + More complex is more perfect, owning more + Discourse, more widely wise. + +At any rate the preservation of these unpublished verses adds much to the +value of the biography; and we may rank Tennyson among the very few poets +whose reputation has rather gained than suffered by the posthumous +appearance of pieces that the writer had deliberately withdrawn or +withheld. + +Of Tennyson's own literary opinions one or two specimens, belonging to +this time, may be given. + +"Byron and Shelley, however mistaken they were, did yet give the world +another heart and new pulses; and so we are kept going"--a just tribute to +their fiery lyrical energy, which did much to clear insular prejudice from +the souls of a masculine generation. "Lycidas" he held to be the test of +any reader's poetic instinct; and "Keats, with his high spiritual vision, +would have been, if he had lived, the greatest of us all, though his blank +verse lacked originality of movement." It is true that Keats, whose full +metrical skill was never developed, may have imitated the Miltonic +construction; yet after Milton he was the finest composer up to Tennyson's +day. And the first hundred lines of "Hyperion" have no slight affinity, in +colouring and cadence, to the Tennysonian blank verse. For indeed it was +Keats who, as Tennyson's forerunner, passed on to him the gift of intense +romantic susceptibility to the influences of Nature, the "dim mystic +sympathies with tree and hill reaching back into childhood." But +Tennyson's art inclined more toward the picturesque, toward using words, +as a painter uses his brush, for producing the impression of a scene's +true outline and colour; his work shows the realistic feeling of a later +day, which delights in precision of details. In one of his letters he +mentions that there was a time when he was in the habit of chronicling, in +four or five words or more, whatever might strike him as a picture, just +as an artist would take rough sketches. The subjoined fragment, written on +revisiting Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast, contains the +quintessence of his descriptive style; the last three lines are sheer +landscape painting. + + MABLETHORPE + + Here often when a child I lay reclined, + I took delight in this fair land and free; + Here stood the infant Ilion of the mind, + And here the Grecian ships all seemed to be. + And here again I come, and only find + _The drain-cut level of the marshy lea, + Gray sand-banks, and pale sunsets, dreary winds, + Dim shores, dense rains, and heavy-clouded sea_. + +More frequently, however, he employed his wonderful image-making power to +illustrate symbolically some mental state or emotion, availing himself of +the mysterious relation between man and his environment, whereby the outer +inanimate world is felt to be the resemblance and reflection of human +moods. So in the "Palace of Art" the desolate soul is likened to + + A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand, + Left on the shore; that hears all night + The plunging seas draw backward from the land + Their moon-led waters white. + +And there are passages in the extracts given from his letters written to +Miss Emily Sellwood, during the long engagement that preceded their +marriage, which indicate the bent of his mind toward philosophic quietism, +with frequent signs of that half-veiled fellow-feeling with natural +things, that sense of life in all sound and motion, whereby poetry is +drawn upward, by degrees and almost unconsciously, into the region of the +"Higher Pantheism." Nor has any English poet availed himself more +skilfully of a language that is peculiarly rich in metaphors, consisting +of words which still so far retain their original meaning as to suggest a +picture while they convey a thought. + +It is partly due to these qualities of mind and style that no chapter in +this book, which mingles grave with gay very attractively, contains matter +of higher biographical interest than that which is headed "In Memoriam." +For it is in this noble poem, on the whole Tennyson's masterpiece, that he +is stirred by his own passionate grief to dwell on the contrast between +irremediable human suffering and the calm aspect of Nature, between the +short and sorrowful days of man and the long procession of ages. From the +doubts and perplexities, the tendency to lose heart, engendered by a sense +of forces that are unceasing and relentless, he finds his ultimate escape +in the spirit of trust in the Powers invisible, and in the persuasion that +God and Nature cannot be at strife. In a letter contributed to this +_Memoir_ Professor Henry Sidgwick has described the impression produced on +him and others of his time by this poem, showing how it struck in, so to +speak, upon their religious debates at a moment of conflicting tendencies +and great uncertainty of direction, giving intensity of expression to the +dominant feeling, and wider range to the prevailing thought: + + The most important influence of "In Memoriam" on my thought, apart + from its poetic charm as an expression of personal emotion, opened in + a region, if I may so say, deeper down than the difference between + Theism and Christianity: it lay in the unparalleled combination of + intensity of feeling with comprehensiveness of view and balance of + judgment, shown in presenting the deepest needs and perplexities of + humanity. And this influence, I find, has increased rather than + diminished as years have gone on, and as the great issues between + Agnostic Science and Faith have become continually more prominent. In + the sixties I should say that these deeper issues were somewhat + obscured by the discussions on Christian dogma and Inspiration of + Scripture, etc. ... During these years we were absorbed in struggling + for freedom of thought in the trammels of a historical religion; and + perhaps what we sympathized with most in "In Memoriam" at this time, + apart from the personal feeling, was the defence of "honest doubt," + the reconciliation of knowledge and faith in the introductory poem, + and the hopeful trumpet-ring of the lines on the New Year.... Well, + the years pass, the struggle with what Carlyle used to call "Hebrew + old clothes" is over, Freedom is won, and what does Freedom bring us + to? It brings us face to face with atheistic science; the faith in God + and Immortality, which we had been struggling to clear from + superstition, suddenly seems to be in the air; and in seeking for a + firm basis for this faith we find ourselves in the midst of the "fight + with death" which "In Memoriam" so powerfully presents. + +To many readers the whole letter will seem to render fitly their feeling +of the pathetic intensity with which the everlasting problems of love and +death, of human doubts and destinies, are set forth in "In Memoriam." It +will also remind them of the limitations, the inevitable inconclusiveness, +of a poem which deals emotionally with questions that foil the deepest +philosophers. The profound impression that was immediately produced by +these exquisitely musical meditations may be ascribed, we think, to their +sympathetic association with the peculiar spiritual needs and intellectual +dilemmas of the time. It may be affirmed, as a general proposition, that +up to about 1840, and for some years later, the majority among Englishmen +of thought and culture were content to take morality as the chief test of +religious truth, were disposed to hold that the essential principles of +religion were best stated in the language of ethics. With this rational +theology the pretensions of Science, which undertook to preserve and even +to strengthen the moral basis, were not incompatible. But about this time +came a spiritual awakening; and just then Tennyson came forward to insist, +with poetic force and fervour, that the triumphant advance of Science was +placing in jeopardy not merely the formal outworks but the central dogma +of Christianity, which is the belief in a future life, in the soul's +conscious immortality.[95] Is man subject to the general law of unending +mutability? and is he after all but the highest and latest type, to be +made and broken like a thousand others, mere clay under the moulding hands +that are darkly visible in the processes of Nature? The Poet transfigured +these obstinate questionings into the vision of an ever-breaking shore + + That tumbled in a godless sea. + +He turned our ears to hear the sound of streams that, swift or slow, + + Draw down Æonian hills, and sow + The dust of continents to be-- + +and he was haunted by the misgiving that man also might be a mere atom in +an ever-changing universe. Yet after long striving with doubts and fears, +after having "fought with death," he resolves that we cannot be "wholly +brain, magnetic mockeries," not only cunning casts in clays: + + Let Science prove we are, and then + What matters Science unto men, + At least to me? I would not stay. + +We think that such passages as these gave emphasis to the gathering alarm, +and that many a startled inquirer, daunted by dim uncertainties, recoiled +from the abyss that seemed to open at his feet, and made his peace, on +such terms as consoled him, with Theology. Not that Tennyson himself +retreated, or took refuge behind dogmatic entrenchments. On the contrary, +he stood his ground and trod under foot the terrors of Acheron; relying on +"the God who ever lives and loves." But since not every one can be +satisfied with subjective faith or lofty intuitions, we believe that the +note of distress and warning sounded by "In Memoriam" startled more minds +than were soothed by its comforting conclusions. If this be so, this +utterance of the poet, standing prophet-like at the parting of the ways, +moved men diversely. It strengthened the impulse to go onward trustfully; +but it may also be counted among the indirect influences which combined to +promote that notable reaction toward the sacramental and mysterious side +of religion, toward positive faith as the safeguard of morals, which has +been the outcome of the great Anglican revival set on foot by the Oxford +Movement seventy years ago. + +In June 1850, the month which saw "In Memoriam" published, Tennyson +married Miss Sellwood. "The wedding was of the quietest, even the cake and +the dresses arriving too late." From this union came unbroken happiness +during forty-two years; for his wife brought into the partnership a rich +and rare treasure of aid, sympathy, and intellectual appreciation. Her son +pays his tribute to her memory in an admirable passage, of which the +greater part is here extracted: + + And let me say here--although, as a son, I cannot allow myself full + utterance about her whom I loved as perfect mother and "very woman of + very woman," "such a wife" and true helpmate she proved herself. It + was she who became my father's adviser in literary matters. "I am + proud of her intellect," he wrote. With her he always discussed what + he was working at; she transcribed his poems: to her, and to no one + else, he referred for a final criticism before publishing. She, with + her "tender spiritual nature" and instinctive nobility of thought, was + always by his side, a ready, cheerful, courageous, wise, and + sympathetic counsellor.... By her quiet sense of humour, by her + selfless devotion, by "her faith as clear as the heights of the + June-blue heaven," she helped him also to the utmost in the hours of + his depression and of his sorrow; and to her he wrote two of the most + beautiful of his shorter lyrics--"Dear, near and true," and the + dedicatory lines which prefaced his last volume, "The Death of + Œnone." + +In November 1850, after Wordsworth's death, the Laureateship was offered +to Tennyson. We have good authority for stating, though not from this +_Memoir_, that Lord John Russell submitted to the Queen the four names of +Professor Wilson, Henry Taylor, Sheridan Knowles, and, last on the list, +Tennyson. The Prince Consort's admiration of "In Memoriam" determined Her +Majesty's choice, which might seem easy enough to those who measure the +four candidates by the standard of to-day. His accession to office brought +down upon Tennyson, among other honoraria, "such shoals of poems that I am +almost crazed with them; the two hundred million poets of Great Britain +deluge me daily. Truly the Laureateship is no sinecure." For the +inevitable levee he accepted, not without disquietude over the nether +garment, the loan of a Court suit from his ancient brother in song, +Rogers, who had declined the laurels on the plea of age. Soon afterward he +departed with his wife for Italy. Under the title of "The Daisy" he has +commemorated this journey in stanzas of consummate metrical form, with +their beautiful anapæstic ripple in each fourth line, to be studied by all +who would understand the quantitative value (not merely accentual) and +rhythmic effects of English syllables. On returning, they met the +Brownings at Paris. Then, in 1852, he bought Farringford in the Isle of +Wight, the Poet's favourite habitation ever afterward, within sight of +the sea and within sound of its rough weather, with its lawns, spreading +trees, and meadows under the lee of the chalk downs, that have been +frequently sketched into his verse, and will long be identified with his +presence. There he worked at "Maud," morning and evening, sitting in his +hard, high-backed wooden chair in his little room at the top of the house, +smoking the "sacred pipes" during certain half-hours of strict seclusion, +when his best thoughts came to him. + +From the final edition in 1851 of "In Memoriam" to "Maud" in 1853, which +Lowell rather affectedly called the antiphonal voice of the earlier poem, +the change of theme, tone, and manner was certainly great; and the public +seems to have been taken by surprise. The transition was from lamentation +to love-making; from stanzas swaying slow, like a dirge, within their +uniform compass, to an abundant variety of metrical movement, quickened by +frequent use of the anapæstic measure. The general reader was puzzled and +inclined to ridicule what he failed at once to understand; the ordinary +reviewer was either loftily contemptuous or indulged in puns and parodies; +the higher criticism was divided; but Henry Taylor, Ruskin, Jowett, and +the Brownings spoke without hesitation of the work's great merits. Mr. +Gladstone, whose judgment had been at first adverse, recanted, twenty +years later, in a letter that was published in his _Gleanings_, and that +now reappears in this _Memoir_: + + "Whether it is to be desired," he wrote, "that a poem should require + from common men a good deal of effort in order to comprehend it; + whether all that is put in the mouth of the Soliloquist in 'Maud' is + within the lines of poetical verisimilitude; whether this poem has the + full moral equilibrium which is so marked a characteristic of the + sister-works, are questions open, perhaps, to discussion. But I have + neither done justice in the text to its rich and copious beauties of + detail, nor to its great lyrical and metrical power. And, what is + worse, I have failed to comprehend rightly the relation between + particular passages in the poem and its general scope." + +Jowett wrote: + + No poem since Shakespeare seems to show equal power of the same kind, + or equal knowledge of human nature. No modern poem contains more lines + that ring in the ears of men. I do not know any verse of Shakespeare + in which the ecstasy of love soars to such a height. + +On the other hand, an anonymous letter, which Tennyson enjoyed repeating, +ran thus: + + SIR--I used to worship you, but now I hate you. I loathe and detest + you. You beast! So you've taken to imitating Longfellow. + + Yours in aversion, + "----" + +"I shall never forget," his son writes, + + Tennyson's last reading of "Maud," on August 24, 1892. He was sitting + in his high-backed chair, fronting a southern window which looks over + the groves and yellow cornfields of Sussex toward the long line of + South Downs that stretches from Arundel to Hastings (his high-domed + Rembrandt-like head outlined against the sunset-clouds seen through + the western window). His voice, low and calm in everyday life, capable + of delicate and manifold inflection, but with "organ tones" of great + power and range, thoroughly brought out the drama of the poem. + +"The peculiarity of this poem," Tennyson said, "is that different phases +of passion in one person take the place of different characters"; and the +effect of his own recitation was to set this conception in clear relief by +showing the connexion and significance of the linked monodies, combined +with a vivid musical rendering of a pathetic love-story. The emotional +intensity rises by degrees to the rapture of meeting with Maud in the +garden, falls suddenly to the depth of blank despair, and revives in an +atmosphere of energetic, warlike activity--the precursor of world-wide +peace. + +The poem, in fact, strikes all the highest lyrical chords, and we are +disposed to think that all of them are by no means touched with equal +skill. Possibly, the sustained and perfect execution of such a varied +composition would be too arduous a task for any artist. It is difficult +for the reader to adjust his mind to the changes of mood and motive which +succeed each other rapidly, and often abruptly, within the compass of so +short a piece; ranging from the almost melodramatic horror of the opening +stanzas to the passionate and joyous melodies of the middle part; sinking +into a wild wailing, and closing with the trumpet sounds of war. Yet every +one will now acknowledge that some passages in "Maud" are immortal, and +that the English language contains none more beautiful than the very best +of them. + +The letters in the _Memoir_ are selected from upwards of forty thousand, +and at this period we have many of singular interest. One from Mrs. Vyner, +a stranger, touched the Poet deeply. Ruskin writes with reserve, as well +he might, about the edition of the poems illustrated by Rossetti, Millais, +and others: + + I believe, in fact, that good pictures never can be; they are always + another poem, subordinate, but wholly different from the poet's + conception, and serve chiefly to show the reader how variously the + same verses may affect various minds. But these woodcuts will be of + much use in making people think and puzzle a little; art was getting + quite a matter of form in book illustrations, and it does not so much + matter whether any given vignette is right or not, as whether it + contains thought or not, still more whether it contains any kind of + plain facts. If people have no sympathy with St. Agnes, or if people, + as soon as they get a distinct idea of a living girl who probably got + scolded for dropping her candle-wax about the convent-stairs, and + caught cold by looking too long out of the window in her bedgown, + feel no true sympathy with her, they can have no sympathy in them. + +Elizabeth Barrett Browning sends a warm-hearted letter; and Jowett, who +enjoyed giving advice, evidently sat him down readily to reply when Mrs. +Tennyson asked whether he could suggest any subjects for poetry: + + I often fancy that the critical form of modern literature is like the + rhetorical one which overlaid ancient literature, and will be regarded + as that is, at its true worth in after times. One drop of natural + feeling in poetry, or the true statement of a single new fact, is + already felt to be of more value than all the critics put together. + +Four "Idylls" came out in 1859, to be rapidly and largely taken up by the +English public, with many congratulations from personal friends. Thackeray +sends, after reading them, a letter full of his characteristic humour and +cordiality: + + "The landlord"--at Folkestone--"gave two bottles of his claret, and I + think I drank the most, and here I have been lying back in the chair + and thinking of those delightful 'Idylls'; my thoughts being turned to + you; and what could I do but be grateful to that surprising genius + which has made me so happy?" + +The Duke of Argyll wrote that Macaulay had been _delighted with it_, +whereupon the Poet responds to his Grace somewhat caustically: + + MY DEAR DUKE--Doubtless Macaulay's good opinion is worth having, and I + am grateful to you for letting me know it, but this time I intend to + be thick-skinned; nay, I scarcely believe that I should ever feel very + deeply the pen-punctures of those parasitic animalcules of the press, + if they kept themselves to what I write, and did not glance spitefully + and personally at myself. I hate spite. + +Ruskin, on the other hand, is but half pleased; could not quite make up +his mind about that "increased quietness of style"; feels "the art and +finish in these poems a little more than I like"; wishes that the book's +nobleness and tenderness had been independent of a romantic condition of +externals; and suggests that "so great power ought not to be spent on +visions of things past, but on the living present." + +These latter sentences touch upon, or at least indicate, a line of +criticism upon the general conception of the "Idylls," as seen in their +treatment of the Arthurian legend, with which, although it may appear +inadequate, some of us are not indisposed to agree. Romanticism has been +defined, half seriously, as the art of presenting to a people the literary +works which can give the greatest imaginative pleasure in the actual state +of their habits and beliefs. The "Idylls" adapted the mythical tales of +the Round Table to the very highest standard of æsthetic taste, +intellectual refinement, and moral delicacy prevailing in cultivated +English society. And by that society they were very cordially appreciated. +Undoubtedly the figure of Arthur--representing a stainless mirror of +chivalry, a warrior king endowed with the qualities of patriotic +self-devotion, clemency, generosity, and noble trustfulness, yet betrayed +by his wife and his familiar friend, and dying in a lost fight against +treacherous rebels--did present a lofty ideal that might well affect a +gravely emotional people. Moreover, the poem is a splendidly illuminated +Morality, unfolding scenes and figures that illustrate heroic virtues and +human frailties, gallantry, chivalric enterprise, domestic perfidy, chaste +virginal loves, and subtle amorous enchantments. It abounds also in +descriptive passages which attest the close attention of the Poet's eye +and ear to natural sights and sounds, and his supreme art of fashioning +his verse to their colours and echoes. In short, to quote from the +biography, + + he has made the old legends his own, restored the idealism, and + infused into them a spirit of modern thought and of ethical + significance; setting his characters in a rich and varied landscape; + as indeed otherwise these archaic stories would not have appealed to + the world at large. + +This indeed he has done well. And yet it is not possible to put away +altogether the modern prejudice against unreality, the sense of having +here a vision not merely of things that are past, but of things that could +never have been, of a world that is neither ancient nor modern, but a +fairy land peopled with knights and dames whose habits and conversation +are adjusted to the decorous taste of our nineteenth century. The time has +long passed when men could look back on distant ages much as they looked +forward to futurity, through a haze of unbounded credulity. Not every one +has been able to overcome the effect of incongruity produced by a poem +which invests the legendary personages of mediæval romance with morals and +manners of a fastidious delicacy, and promotes them to be the embodiment +of our own ethical ideals. If, indeed, we regard the "Idylls" as beautiful +allegories, we may be content, as their author was, with the suggestion +that King Arthur represents Conscience, and that the poem is "a picture of +the different ways in which men looked on conscience, some reverencing it +as a heaven-born king, others ascribing to it an earthly origin." We may +then be satisfied with learning, from the Poet himself, that "Camelot, for +instance, a city of shadowy palaces, is everywhere symbolic of the gradual +growth of human beliefs and institutions, and of the spiritual development +of man." In the light of these interpretations the poem is a beautifully +woven tissue of poetic mysticism, clothing the old legend of chivalry with +esoteric meaning. We can accept and admire it freely, remarking only that +the deeper thoughts of the present generation do not run in an allegorical +vein, and that such a vesture, though of the finest texture and +embroidery, waxes old speedily. "The 'Holy Grail,'" said Tennyson, "is +one of the most imaginative of my poems. I have expressed there my strong +feeling as to the reality of the Unseen"; and truly it is a marvellous +excursion into the field of mystical romance. But Tennyson also said that +"there is no single fact or incident in the 'Idylls,' however seemingly +mystical, which cannot be explained as without any mystery or allegory +whatever"; and herein lies our difficulty. For, unless they can be read as +wholly allegorical, there is an air of unreality about those enchanting +pictures, as of scenes and persons that could never have existed anywhere. +That Tennyson is a master of the art of veiling the lessons of real life +under a fairy story, we know from the subtle symbolism with which he +tells, in the "Lady of Shalott," the tale of sudden absorbing love, +hopeless and unregarded, sinking into despair--a true parable, understood +of all men and women in all times. But those who have no great skill at +deciphering the Hyponoia, the underlying significance, of the "Idylls" may +be pardoned for confessing to an occasional feeling of something abstract, +shadowy, and spectacular in the company of these knights and dames.[96] + +FitzGerald, after reading the "Holy Grail," writes (1870) to Tennyson: + + The whole myth of Arthur's Round Table Dynasty in Britain presents + itself before me with a sort of cloudy Stonehenge grandeur. I am not + sure if the old knights' adventures do not tell upon me better touched + in some lyrical way (like your "Lady of Shalott") than when elaborated + into epic form. I never could care for Spenser, Tasso, or even + Ariosto, whose epic has a ballad ring about it.... Anyhow, Alfred, + while I feel how pure, noble, and holy your work is--and whole + phrases, lines, and sentences of it will abide with me, and, I am + sure, with men after me--I read on till the "Lincolnshire Farmer" drew + tears from my eyes. I was got back to the substantial rough-spun + Nature I knew; and the old brute, invested by you with the solemn + humour of Humanity, like Shakespeare's Shallow, became a more pathetic + phenomenon than the knights who revisit the world in your other verse. + There! I cannot help it, and have made a clean breast. + +If the extreme realism of some modern writers has been rightly condemned +as truth divorced from beauty, we may say that it has been by his skill in +maintaining their indissoluble union that Tennyson's best work shows its +peculiar strength and has earned its enduring vitality. He excels in the +verisimilitude of his portraiture, in the authentic delineation of +character, preserving the type and developing the main lines of thought +and action by imaginative insight, with high artistic fidelity in details. +I venture to anticipate that his short monodramatic pieces in blank +verse--his studies from the antique, like "Ulysses" and "Tithonus," and +his poems of English life, breathing the true idyllic spirit, like the +"Gardener's Daughter" and "Aylmer's Field"--will sustain their popularity +longer than the Arthurian Idylls. Nor can some of us honestly agree with +the unqualified praise bestowed by high authority (as the _Memoir_ +testifies) on "Guinevere," where the scene between the king and the queen +at Almesbury, with all its elevation of tone and purity of sentiment, is +not very far from a splendid anachronism. But the epilogue "To the Queen," +which closes the Arthurian epic, brings us back to modern thought and +circumstance by its ringing protest against faint-heartedness in English +politics. + +The "Northern Farmer," written in 1861, was at that time a novelty in form +and subject. It gave a strong lead, at any rate, to that school of rough +humorous versification, largely relying on quaint turns of ideas and +phrases, on racy provincial dialect and local colouring generally, which +has since had an immense success in the hands of minor artists. We may +take it to have begun, for the last century, with the _Biglow Papers_. +This form of metrical composition has latterly spread, as a species of +modern ballad, to the Indian frontier and the Australian bush, but has +little or no place in any language except the English. Such character +sketches, taken direct from studies of rude life, have been always common +in popular comic song, yet I believe that no first-class poet, after Burns +and before Tennyson, had turned his hand to this kind of work; nor has +anything been since produced upon the artistic level of the first +"Northern Farmer." "Roden Noel," writes Tennyson, "calls the two 'Northern +Farmers' photographs; but I call them imaginative"--as of course they are, +being far above mere exact copies of some individual person. + +There are some very readable _impressions de voyage_ gathered out of +journals of tours made about this time (1860) in France and England, and +the letters maintain their high level of interest. Upon the death of +Macaulay, Tennyson writes to the Duke of Argyll: + + I hardly knew him: met him once, I remember, when Hallam and Guizot + were in his company. Hallam was showing Guizot the Houses of + Parliament, then building, and Macaulay went on like a cataract for an + hour or so to those two great men, and, when they had gone, turned to + me and said, "Good morning; I am happy to have had the pleasure of + making your acquaintance," and strode away. Had I been a piquable man + I should have been piqued: but I don't think I was, for the movement + after all was amicable. + +Then follows an account, by Mrs. Bradley, of a visit to Farringford, with +"its careless ordered garden close to the ridge of a noble down"; and at +the end of the _Memoir_ is an appendix containing, among other things, +Arthur Hallam's striking critical appreciation of "Mariana in the South," +a poem which must be ranked as a masterpiece by all exiled Englishmen who +have dreamt of their native breezes and verdure, under the blinding glare +and intolerable heat of a tropical summer. Mr. Aubrey de Vere has +contributed a reminiscence describing the effect produced upon himself and +others by the poems of 1832-45, with a dissertation upon their style and +philosophic significance. And in this manner the course and circumstances +of the Poet's life are set out, with much taste and regard for +proportionate value of the materials for those singularly untroubled years +through which he rose steadily from straitened means in youth to +comparative affluence in middle age, and from distinction among a group of +choice spirits to enduring fame as the greatest of poets born in the +nineteenth century. + +When, in 1864, Tennyson returned with "Enoch Arden" to the romance of real +life among his own people, the poem was heartily welcomed, and sixty +thousand copies were speedily sold. Spedding declared it to be the finest +story he had ever heard, and added (in our opinion quite rightly) that it +was "more especially adapted for Alfred than for any other poet." Yet the +plot, so to speak, of this pathetic narrative is as ancient as the +_Odyssey_, for it rests upon a situation that must have been common in all +times of long and distant voyaging, when men disappeared across the seas, +were not heard of for years, and their wives were counted as widows. A +well-known sailor's ditty tells in rude popular rhymes the same story of +the wandering mariner's return home, to find himself forsaken and +forgotten; and it frequently occurs in the folklore of the crusades. The +first title in the proof-sheets of the "Enoch Arden" volume was "Idylls of +the Hearth," and here, says his biographer, + + he writes with as intimate a knowledge, but with greater power (than + in 1842), on subjects from English life, the sailor, the farmer, the + parson, the city lawyer, the squire, the country maiden, and the old + woman who dreams of her past life in a restful old age. + +No great poet, in fact, has travelled for his subjects so little beyond +his native land; and so his best descriptive work shows the painter's eye +on the object, with the impressions drawn fresh and at first hand from +Nature, as in the poetry of primitive bards who saw things for themselves. +His letters and notes teem with observations of wild flowers and wild +creatures, of wide prospects over sea and land; and even when he followed +Enoch Arden into the world that was to himself untravelled, he could +surprise those who knew it by his rendering of tropical scenery. + +A very good account, by the late Mr. Locker-Lampson, of his tour through +France and Switzerland with Tennyson in 1869, has preserved for us the +flavour of his table and travelling talk upon literature, and occasionally +upon religious problems. Into the philosophical or metaphysical abyss he +did not let down his plummet very far; he recognized the limits of human +knowledge, and for the dim regions beyond he accepted Faith as his guide +and comforter. In regard to the poets--"As a boy," he said, "I was a great +admirer of Byron, so much so that I got a surfeit of him, and now I cannot +read him as I should like to do." Probably this habit of premature and +excessive indulgence in Byron has blunted many an eager admirer's +appetite, and has had something to do with the prevailing distaste for +him, wherein we think that he has fallen into unmerited neglect. Of +Shelley Tennyson said that there was "a great wind of words in a good deal +of him, but that as a writer of blank verse he was perhaps the most +skilful of the moderns. Nobody admires Shelley more than I once did, and I +still admire him." For Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" he had a profound +admiration; yet even in that poem he thought "the old poet had shown a +want of literary instinct," and he touched upon some defects of +composition; but he ended by saying emphatically that Wordsworth's very +best is the best in its way that has been sent out by moderns. He told an +anecdote of Samuel Rogers. "One day we were walking arm and arm, and I +spoke of what is called Immortality, and remarked how few writers could be +sure of it. Upon this Rogers squeezed my arm and said, 'I am sure of it.'" + +His wife's journal of this time is full of interest, recording various +sayings and doings, conversations, correspondence, anecdotes, and glimpses +of notable visits and visitors, Tourguéneff, Longfellow, Jenny Lind, +Huxley, and Gladstone, to the last of whom Tennyson read aloud his "Holy +Grail." At the house of G. H. Lewes he read "Guinevere," "which made +George Eliot weep." The diary is a faithful and valuable memorial of +English country life at its best in the middle of the last century. Living +quietly with his family, he was in constant intercourse with the most +distinguished men of his day, and was himself honoured of them all. + +In 1873 Tennyson had declined, for himself, Mr. Gladstone's offer of a +baronetcy. In 1874 this offer was repeated by Mr. Disraeli, who does not +seem to have known that it had been once before made, in a high-flying +sententious letter, evidently attuned to the deeper harmonies of the +mysterious relation between genius and government. + + A government should recognize intellect. It elevates and sustains the + spirit. It elevates and sustains the spirit of a nation. But it is an + office not easy to fulfil, for if it falls into favouritism and the + patronage of mediocrity, instead of raising the national sentiment, it + might degrade and debase it. Her Majesty, by the advice of her + Ministers, has testified in the Arctic expedition, and will in other + forms, her sympathy with science. But it is desirable that the claims + of high letters should be equally acknowledged. That is not so easy a + matter, because it is in the nature of things that the test of merit + cannot be so precise in literature as in science. Nevertheless, etc. + etc. + +The honour, even thus offered, was again respectfully declined, with a +suggestion that it might be renewed for his son after his own death; but +this was pronounced impracticable. + +The Metaphysical Society was founded by Tennyson and two others in 1869, +and a list of the members is given in the _Memoir_, which touches on the +style and topics of the debates, and on the umbrage taken by agnostic +friends at the profound deference shown by Tennyson to Cardinal Manning. A +letter from Dr. James Martineau describes the Poet's general attitude +toward the Society's discussions; he sent his poem on the "Higher +Pantheism" to be read at the first meeting; and he was "usually a silent +listener, interposing some short question or pregnant hint." The letter +discourses, in expansive and perhaps faintly nebulous language, upon the +influence of his poetry on the religious tendencies of the day. + + That in a certain sense our great Laureate's poetry has nevertheless + had a dissolving influence upon the over-definite dogmatic creeds + within hearing, or upon the modes of religious thought amid which it + was born, can hardly be doubted. In laying bare, as it does, the + history of his own spirit, its conflicts and aspirations, its + alternate eclipse of doubt and glow of faith, it has reported more + than a personal experience; he has told the story of an age which he + has thus brought into Self-knowledge.... Among thousands of readers + previously irresponsive to anything Divine he has created, or + immeasurably intensified, the susceptibility of religious reverence. + +After taking into due account the circumstances in which Dr. Martineau's +letter was written, to many readers this high-flying panegyric will seem +to have in some degree overshot its mark. + +It has been my duty, in reviewing this _Memoir_, to pass under some kind +of critical survey the more important writings of Lord Tennyson, in +particular relation to the narrative of his life, and to the formation of +his views and opinions. I am, however, placed in some embarrassment by the +fact that this work is for the most part done already in the volumes +themselves. They contain ample quotations from letters and articles by +very eminent hands, written with all the vigour of immediate impressions +when the poems first appeared. And some of the reminiscences that have +since been contributed to the biography by personal friends deal so +thoroughly with its literary side as to fall little short of elaborate +essays; so that on the whole not much is left to be said by the +retrospective reviewer. We are met with this difficulty in taking up the +chapters on the Historical Plays, which set before us, with an analysis of +the plays by the biographer himself, a catena of judgments upon them, +unanimously favourable, by the highest authorities. Robert Browning writes +with generous enthusiasm of "Queen Mary." Froude, the most dramatic of +historians, expresses unbounded admiration: "You have reclaimed one more +section of English history from the wilderness, and given it a form in +which it will be fixed for ever. No one since Shakespeare has done that." +Gladstone, Mr. Aubrey de Vere, Longfellow, G. H. Lewes and his wife, the +statesmen, the poets, and the men of letters, each from his own standpoint +attests the merits of one or another play, in letters of indisputable +strength and sincerity. Nor can it be doubted that these pieces contain +splendid passages, and fine engravings, so to speak, of historical +personages, with a noble appreciation of the spacious Elizabethan period, +and of the earlier romantic episodes. The dramatic art provides such a +powerful instrument for striking deep into the national mind, and success +in this form of high poetic execution is so lasting--while it is so +rare--that almost every great English poet has written plays. On the other +hand, few of them have ventured, like Tennyson, to face the capricious +ordeal of the public theatre, where the _vox populi_ is at least so far +divine that it pronounces absolutely and often incomprehensibly. + +"For Tennyson to begin publishing plays after he was sixty-five years of +age was thought to be a hazardous experiment"; though I may remark that he +started with the advantage of a first-class poetic reputation, which +stimulated public curiosity. But he knew well the immense influence, for +good or for ill, that the stage can bring to bear on the people; and for +the stage all his plays were directly intended, not for literature, in the +expectation that the necessary technical adaptations might be supplied by +the actors or the professional playwright. Their historical truth, their +vigorous conceptions of motive and circumstance, and their poetic force +received ample acknowledgment. W. G. Ward, who was "grotesquely truthful," +though ultramontane, broke out into unqualified praise after listening to +the reading of "Becket." On the stage, where first impressions are +all-important, the pieces had their share of success. Browning writes of +the "tumult of acclaim" which greeted the appearance of "Queen Mary"; and +of "Becket" Irving has told us that "it is one of the three most +successful plays produced by him at the Lyceum." + +It is a question, often debated, whether in these latter days the theatre +can be made a vehicle for the artistic representation of history. +Literature, a jealous rival of all her sister arts, has so vastly extended +her dominion over the people, she speaks so directly to the mind, without +need of plastic or vocal interpretation, she is so independent of +accessories and intermediaries, that her competitive influence weighs down +all other departments of imaginative and pictorial idealization, religious +or romantic. Against this stream of tendency even Tennyson's genius could +hardly make sufficient headway to conquer for his plays a lasting hold +upon English audiences; and moreover his primal vigour had been spent upon +other victories. Yet to have held the stage at all, for a brief space, is +to have done more than has been achieved by any other poet of this (last) +century. In 1880 his drama, "The Cup," was produced with signal success at +the Lyceum; and Tennyson summed up his theatrical experience by observing +that "the success of a piece does not depend on its literary merit or even +on its stage effect, but on its _hitting_ somehow," wherein Miss Ellen +Terry agreed with him. + +The annals of his daily life, throughout all this later part of it, +consist of extracts from letters, journals, and memorials of intercourse, +which abound with appropriate, amusing, and valuable matter, connected by +the biographer's personal recollections. We have thus a many-coloured +mosaic, in which many figures and characters are reproduced by a kind of +literary tessellation; while, as to the Poet himself, his habits, wise or +whimsical, his thoughts from year to year on the subjects of the day, his +manner of working, are all preserved. The correspondence of his friends +maintains its high level of quality. Mr. W. H. Lecky gives us, in one of +the best among all the reminiscences, a fine sample of his own faculty for +delineation of character, bringing out the Poet's simplicity of soul, his +love of seclusion, the scope of his religious meditations, the keen +sensibility (acquired by long culture) of his rhythmic ear, and also his +susceptibility to the hum and pricking of critics. + + Many persons spoke of your father as too much occupied with his + poetry. It did, no doubt, fill a very large place in his thoughts, and + it is also true that he was accustomed to express his opinions about + it with a curiously childlike simplicity and frankness. But at bottom + his nature seemed to be singularly modest. No poet ever corrected so + many lines in deference to adverse criticism. His sensitiveness + seemed to me curiously out of harmony with his large powerful frame, + with his manly dark colouring, with his great massive hands and strong + square-tipped fingers. + +His son records how in lonely walks together Tennyson would chant a poem +that he was composing, would search for strange birds or flowers, and +would himself take flight on discovering that he was being stalked by a +tourist. Among the letters is one from Victor Hugo, in the grand +cosmopolitan style, beginning "Mon Éminent et Cher Confrère," professing +love for all mankind and admiration for noble verse everywhere; another +from Cardinal Newman, smooth and adroit; there is also a note by Dr. Dabbs +of his colloquy with Tennyson, showing how he began with the somewhat +musty question about the incompatibility of Science with Religion, and +found the Poet, as we infer, tolerably dexterous with the foils. Renan +called, and put the essence of his philosophy into one phrase, "La vérité +est une nuance"; there are jottings of talks with Carlyle, and a long +extract from the journal of a yachting voyage with Mr. Gladstone, who +said, "No man since Aeschylus could have written the _Bride of +Lammermoor_." It would be doing less than justice to the biography if I +did not choose a few samples from an ample storehouse, and it would be +unfair to make too many quotations, even from a book which surpasses all +recent memoirs as a repertory of characteristic observations and short +views of life and literature, interchanged by speech or writing, with many +notable friends and visitors. + +In 1883 the Queen, on the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone, offered +Tennyson a peerage, which, after some rumination, he accepted, saying, "By +Gladstone's advice I have consented, but for my own part I shall regret my +own simple name all my life." We are to suppose that the Prime Minister's +only misgiving "lest my father might insist on wearing his wideawake in +the House of Lords" had been duly overcome; and so next year the Poet, +having taken his seat, voted, not without some questioning and doubts of +the time's ripeness, for extension of franchise. No more worthy +representative of literature has ever added lustre to that august assembly +than he who now took his seat on the cross benches, holding no form of +party creed, but contemplating all. From a man of his traditions and +tastes, his dislike of extravagance, his feeling for the stateliness of +well-ordered movement, at his age, moderation in politics was to be +expected; and indeed we observe that he commended to his friends Maine's +work on _Popular Government_, which carries political caution to the verge +of timidity. But Tennyson, like Burke, had great confidence in the common +sense and inbred good nature of the English people. "Stagnation," he once +said, "is more dangerous than revolution." As he was throughout +consistently the poet of the _via media_ in politics, the dignified +constitutional Laureate, so he was spared the changes that passed over the +opinions of Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge, who were Radicals in +youth, and declined into elderly Tories. Undoubtedly the temper of his +time affected his politics as well as his poetry, for his manhood began in +the calm period which followed the long stormy years when all Europe was +one great war-field, and when the ardent spirits of Byron and Shelley had +been fired by the fierce uprising of the nations. + +In 1885, being then in his seventy-sixth year, Lord Tennyson published +"Tiresias," preluding with the verses to E. FitzGerald, so vigorous in +tone and so finely wrought, with their rhymes ringing true to the +expectant ear like the chime of a clear bell. Some years before, he had +paid a passing visit at Woodbridge to "the lonely philosopher, a man of +humorous melancholy mark, with his gray floating locks, sitting among his +doves.... We fell at once into the old humour, as if we had been parted +twenty days instead of so many years." It is a rarity in modern life that +two such men as Tennyson and FitzGerald, whose mutual friendship was never +shaken, should have met but once in some twenty-five years, although +divided by no more space than could be traversed by a three hours' railway +journey. "Tiresias" was soon followed by "Locksley Hall: Sixty Years +After"; then, in 1889, came "Demeter" and other poems; until, in 1892, the +volume containing the "Death of Œnone" and "Akbar's Dream" closed the +long series of poems which had held two generations under their charm. One +line in the second "Locksley Hall" its author held to be the best of the +kind he had ever written: + + Universal ocean softly washing all her warless isles; + +though in my poor judgment the harmony seems marred by the frequent +sibilants, which vex all English composers[97]; and the suggestion that +the sea would become stormless when the land should be at peace may be +thought overbold. + +It was but seasonable that his later poetry should have been tinged with +autumnal colouring. The philosophic bent of his mind had necessarily grown +with increasing years; its range had been widened by constant assimilation +with the scientific ideas of the day, with social and political changes; +but as far horizons breed sadness and wistful uncertainty, so his later +verse leans more toward the moral lessons of experience, toward +reflective and retrospective views of life and character. In poetry, as in +prose, the sequel to a fine original piece has very rarely, if ever, been +successful; though the second part, when it follows the first after a long +interval, often exhibits the special value that comes from alteration of +style and the natural changes of mood. Tennyson himself thought that "the +two 'Locksley Halls' were likely to be in the future two of the most +historically interesting of his poems, as descriptive of the tone of the +age at two distant periods of his life." In my opinion, the interest is +less historical than biographical, in the sense that the second poem takes +its deeper shade from the darkening that seems to have overspread his +later meditations. For the interval of sixty years had, in fact, brought +increased activity and enterprising eagerness to the English people; and +the gray thoughts of the sequel, the heavier feeling of errors and perils +encompassing the onward path toward the remote ideal, are the Poet's own. +He employed them, it is true, for the dramatic presentation of old age, +and disclaimed any identity with the imaginary personage. + +However this may be, the poems that appeared toward the close of his long +literary career show a change of manner. We miss, to some degree, the +delicate handling, the self-restraint, the serene air of his best +compositions; there is a certain gloominess of atmosphere,[98] breaking +out occasionally into vehement expression, in the rolling dithyrambic +stanzas of "Vastness," "The Dawn," or "The Dreamer." In the "Death of +Œnone," the beautiful antique nymph of Tennyson's youth, deserted and +passionately lamenting on many-fountained Ida, has become soured and +vindictive.[99] She is now a jealous wife, to whose feet Paris, dying +from the poisoned arrow, crawls "lame, crooked, reeling," to be spurned as +an adulterer, who may "go back to his adulteress and die." Here the Poet +abandons the style and feeling of Hellenic tradition;[100] the echo of the +old-world story has died away; it is rather the voice of some tragedy +queen posing as the injured wife of modern society; and one remembers that +the Homeric adulteress, Helen of Troy, went back to live happily and +respected with her husband in Sparta. It was not to be expected that +Tennyson's later inspirations should reach the supreme level of the poems +which he wrote in his prime, or that there should be no ebb from the +high-water mark that he touched, in my opinion, fifty years earlier in +1842.[101] Yet hardly any poet has so long retained consummate mastery of +his instrument, or has published so little that might have been omitted +with advantage or without detriment to his permanent reputation. And it +will never be forgotten that he wrote "Crossing the Bar" in his +eighty-first year. + +It is clear from the _Memoir_, at any rate, that the burden of nigh +fourscore years weakened none of his interest in literature and art, in +political and philosophical speculation, or diminished his resources of +humorous observation and anecdote. Among many recollections he told of +Hallam (the historian) saying to him, "I have lived to read Carlyle's +_French Revolution_, but I cannot get on, the style is so abominable;" and +of Carlyle groaning about Hallam's _Constitutional History_: "Eh, it's a +miserable skeleton of a book"--bringing out into short and sharp contrast +two opposite schools, the picturesque and the precise, of +history-writing. Robert Browning's death in December 1889 distressed him +greatly; it was, moreover, a forewarning to the elder of two brothers, if +not equals, in renown. In 1890 Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was Tennyson's +junior by only twenty-three days, wrote to him: + + I am proud of my birth-year, and humbled when I think of who were and + who are my coevals. Darwin, the destroyer and creator; Lord Houghton, + the pleasant and kind-hearted lover of men of letters; Gladstone, whom + I leave it to you to characterise, but whose vast range of + intellectual powers few will question; Mendelssohn, whose music still + rings in our ears; and the Laureate, whose "jewels five words + long"--many of them a good deal longer--sparkle in our memories. + +He wrote kindly to William Watson and Rudyard Kipling, whose patriotic +verse pleased him; and twelve months later Watson paid a grateful tribute +to his memory in one of the best among many threnodies. He spoke of +Carlyle's having come to smoke a pipe with him one evening in London, +"when the talk turned upon the immortality of the soul, upon which Carlyle +said, 'Eh, old Jewish rags, you must clear your mind of all that. Why +should we expect a hereafter?'" and likened man's sojourn on earth to a +traveller's rest at an inn, whereupon Tennyson turned the simile against +him. His son describes how the old man's "dignity and repose of manner, +his low musical voice, and the power of his magnetic eye kept the +attention riveted." In August 1892 Lord Selborne and the Master of Balliol +visited him; but + + ... he did not feel strong enough for religious discussions with + Jowett, and begged Jowett not to consult with him or argue with him, + as was his wont, on points of philosophy and religious doubt. The + Master answered him with a remarkable utterance: "Your poetry has an + element of philosophy more to be considered _than any regular + philosophy in England_"; + +which is certainly an ambiguous and possibly not an extravagant eulogy. + +The final chapter of the _Memoir_ gives, briefly, some sentences from his +last talks, and describes a peaceful and noble ending. He found his +Christianity undisturbed by jarring of sects and creeds; but he said, "I +dread the losing hold of forms. I have expressed this in my 'Akbar.'" The +welfare of the British Empire, its expansion and its destiny, had been +from the beginning and were to the end of his poetic career matters of +intense pride and concern to him. When, in September 1892, he fell +seriously ill, and Sir Andrew Clark arrived, the physician and the patient +fell to discussing Gray's "Elegy"; and a few days later, being much worse, +he sent for his Shakespeare, tried to read but had to let his son read for +him. Next day he said: "'I want the blinds up, I want to see the sky and +the light.' He repeated 'The sky and the light.' It was a glorious +morning, and the warm sunshine was flooding the weald of Sussex and the +line of South Downs, which were seen from his window." On the second day +after this he passed away very quietly. The funeral service in Westminster +Abbey, with its two anthems--"Crossing the Bar" and "The Silent +Voices"--filling the long-drawn aisle and, rising to the fretted vault +above the heads of a great congregation, will long be remembered by those +who were present. "The tributes of sympathy," his son writes, "which we +received from many countries and from all classes and creeds, were not +only remarkable for their universality, but for their depth of feeling." + +To those who had so long lived with him, the loss of one whom they had +tended for many years with devoted affection and reverence was indeed +irreparable. Yet they had the consolation of knowing that his life had +been on the whole happy and fortunate, marked by singularly few griefs or +troubles; that he had proved himself a master of the high calling which he +set before himself, and departed, full of honours, at the coming of the +time when no man can work. + +A collection of letters that passed between the Queen and Tennyson, +including two from Her Majesty to his son on receiving the news of +Tennyson's death, is added to the _Memoir_; and the volume closes with +"Recollections of the Poet," written at some length, by Lord Selborne, +Jowett, John Tyndall, F. Myers, F. T. Palgrave, and the Duke of Argyll. +These papers will be read, as they deserve to be, with attentive interest +for their descriptions of the personal characteristics, recorded by those +who knew him best, of a very remarkable man; they show also how his poems +were conceived and elaborated, they trace his thoughts on high subjects, +and they contain very ample dissertations on his poetry. They inevitably +anticipate the work of the public reviewer, who cannot pretend to write +with equal authority, while it is not his business to criticize the +carefully composed opinions of others. + +One can see, looking backward, that Tennyson's genius flowered in due +season; there had been a plentiful harvest of verse in the preceding +generation, but it had been garnered, and the field was clear. The hour +had come for a new writer to take up the succession to that brilliant and +illustrious group who, in the first quarter of the last century, raised +English poetry to a height far above the classic level of the age before +them. Three leaders of that band--Byron, Keats, and Shelley--died young; +the sum total of their years added together exceeds by no more than a +decade the space of Tennyson's single life. And if the creative period of +a poet's life may be reckoned as beginning at twenty-one (which is full +early), it sums up to no more than thirty-one years for all the three +poets whom we have named, and to sixty years for Tennyson alone. When his +first volume appeared (1832), Byron, Shelley, and Keats were dead; Scott +and Coleridge had long ceased to write poetry, and were dying; Wordsworth, +who had done all his best work long before, alone survived, for Southey +cannot be counted in the same rank. Moreover, England may be said to have +been just then passing through one of those periods of artistic depression +that precede a revival; the popular taste was artificial and decadent, it +was running down to the pseudo-romantic and false Gothic, to the +conventional Keepsake note in sentiment, to extravagant admiration of such +poems as Moore's _Lalla Rookh_. The purchase by the State of the Elgin +Marbles, and the opening of the National Gallery, had prepared the way for +better things in art; but I may affirm, speaking broadly, that it was a +flat interval, when the new generation was just looking for some one to +give form to an upward movement of ideas. + +It was upon the rising wave after this calm that Tennyson was lifted +forward by the quick recognition of his talent among his ardent and +open-minded contemporaries; although his general popularity came +gradually, since even in 1850, as may be seen from the list already given +of his competitors for the Laureateship, his pre-eminence had not been +indisputably established in high political society. Yet all genuine judges +might perceive at once that here was the man to raise again from the lower +plane the imaginative power of verse, who knew the magical charm that +endows with beauty and dramatic force the incidents and impressions which +the ordinary artist can only reproduce in a commonplace or unreal way, +while the master-hand suddenly illumines the whole scene, foreground and +background. He struck a note that touched the feelings and satisfied the +spiritual needs of his contemporaries, and herein lay the promise of his +poetry; for to the departing generation the coming man can say little or +nothing. We have to bear in mind, also, that during Tennyson's youth the +whole complexion and "moving circumstance" of the age had undergone a +great alteration. It was the uproar and martial clang, the drums and +trampling of long and fierce wars, the mortal strife between revolutionary +and reactionary forces, that kindled the fiery indignation of Shelley and +Byron, inspiring such lines as + + Still, Freedom, still thy banner, torn yet flying, + Streams like a meteor flag _against_ the wind, + +and affected Coleridge and even Southey "in their hot youth, when George +the Third was king." Tennyson's opportunity came when these thunderous +echoes had died away, when the Reform Bill had become law, when the era of +general peace and comfortable prosperity that marks for England the middle +of this century was just setting in. The change may be noticed in +Tennyson's treatment of landscape, of the aspects of earth, sea, and sky. +With Byron and Coleridge the prevailing effects were grand, stormy, wildly +magnificent; with Tennyson the impressions are mainly peaceful, +melancholy, mysterious: he is looking on the happy autumn fields, or +listening in fancy to the long wash of Australasian seas. There are of +course exceptions on both sides; yet in Byron the best-known descriptive +passages are all of the former, and in Tennyson of the latter, character. +The difference in style corresponds, manifestly, not only with the +contrast in the temper of their times, warlike for the earlier poets and +peaceful for the later, but also with the disorder and unrest which vexed +the private lives of Byron, Shelley, and Coleridge, as compared with the +happy domestic fortunes of Tennyson. + +It is almost superfluous to lay stress on the well-known metrical variety +of Tennyson's poems, or upon the musical range of his language. He +followed the best models, and perhaps improved upon them, in using the +primitive onomatopœia as the base for a higher order of composition, +in which the words have a subtle connotation, blending sound and colour +into harmonies that accord with the sense and spirit of a passage, convey +the thought, and create the image. His skill in wielding the long flowing +line was remarkable, nor had any poet before him employed it so +frequently; its flexibility lent freedom and scope to his impersonations +of character, and in other pieces he could give it the rolling melody of a +chant or a chorus. On the instrumental power of blank verse we know that +he set the highest value; he had his own secret methods of scansion, and +his long practice enabled him to extend the capabilities of this +peculiarly English metre. But for an excellent critical analysis of +Tennyson's blank verse, in comparison with the rhythm of other masters, I +must refer my readers to Mr. J. B. Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, +with especial reference to the final chapter, where the styles of Tennyson +and Browning, as representative of modern English verse, are +scientifically examined. + +I make no apology for having included some criticisms of Tennyson's work +in this review of his life, because not the least valuable feature of the +_Memoir_ is that it has been so arranged as to form a running commentary +upon and interpretation of his poems, as reflecting his mind and his +manner of life. Throughout the second half of the last century Tennyson +has been foremost among English men of letters, and it is his proud +distinction to have maintained the apostolic succession of our national +poets in a manner not unworthy of those famous men who went immediately +before him. + + + + +TENNYSON: THE POET AND THE MAN + +By PROFESSOR HENRY BUTCHER[102] + + +A hundred years have passed since Tennyson's birth, seventeen years since +his death. It is too soon to attempt to fix his permanent place among +English poets, but it is not too soon to feel assured that much that he +has written is of imperishable worth. Will you bear with me if I offer +some brief remarks, not by way of critical estimate, but in loving +appreciation of the poet and the man? And let me say at once how deeply +all who care for Tennyson are indebted to the illuminating _Memoir_ and +Annotated Edition published by his son. + +Tennyson's poetic career is in some respects unique in English literature. +He fell upon a time when fiction, science, and sociology were displacing +poetry. He succeeded in conquering the poetic indifference of his age. For +nearly sixty years he held a listening and eager audience, including not +only fastidious hearers but also the larger public. Probably no English +poet except Shakespeare has exercised such a commanding sway over both +learned and unlearned. He unsealed the eyes of his contemporaries and +revealed to them again the significance of beauty. To the English people, +and indeed the English-speaking race, he was not merely the gracious and +entrancing singer, but also the seer who divined their inmost thoughts +and interpreted them in melodious forms of verse. + +At the outset of his poetic life, Arthur Hallam notes the "strange +earnestness of his worship of beauty." Like Milton, he was studious of +perfection. Like Milton, too, he had in a supreme degree the poet's double +endowment of an exquisite ear for the music of verse and an unerring eye +for the images of nature. Like Milton, he acquired a mastery of phrase +which has enriched the capacities of our English speech; and not Milton +himself drew from the purely English elements in the language more finely +modulated tones. No poet since Milton has been more deeply imbued with +classical literature, and the perfection of form which he sought fell at +once into a classic and mainly a Hellenic mould. We find in him +reminiscences or close reproductions not only of Homer and Theocritus, of +Virgil and Horace, of Lucretius and Catullus, of Ovid and Persius, but +also of Sappho and Alcman, of Pindar and Aeschylus, of Moschus, +Callimachus, and Quintus Smyrnaeus, more doubtfully of Simonides and +Sophocles. We can follow the tracks of his reading also in Herodotus, +Plato, Plutarch, and Livy. His early volumes contain varied strains of +classical and romantic legend. In some of the poems we are aware at once +of the pervasive atmosphere and enchantment of romance, as in "The Lady of +Shalott," "Mariana," "Sir Galahad," and many more. Others--such as +"Œnone," "The Lotos-Eaters," "Ulysses," "Tithonus"--what are we to call +them, classical or romantic? The thought and the form are chiefly +classical, but the poems are shot through with romantic gleams and tinged +with modern sentiment. Yet so skilful is the handling that there is no +sense of incongruity between the things of the past and the feelings of a +later day. The harmony of tone and colour is almost faultless, more so +than in the treatment of the longer themes taken from Celtic sources. But +while some poems are dominantly classical, others dominantly romantic, +Tennyson's genius as a whole is the spirit of romance expressing itself in +forms of classical perfection. To the romanticist he may seem classical; +to the classicist he is romantic: romantic in his choice of subjects, in +his attitude towards Nature, in his profusion of detail, in an ornateness +sometimes running to excess; in his moods, too, of reverie or languor and +in the slumberous charm that broods over many of his landscapes. Yet he is +free from the disordered individualism of the extreme romantic school. +Disquietude and unrest are not wanting, but there is no unruly +self-assertion; the cry of social revolt is faintly heard, and, when +heard, its tones are among the least Tennysonian. Those who demand subtle +or curious psychology find him disappointing; his characters are in the +Greek manner _broadly human_, types rather than deviations from the type. +That he was capable of expressing intense and poignant feeling is shown by +such impassioned utterances as those of "Fatima" and "Maud"; but passion +with him is usually restrained. There are critics for whom passion is +genuine only if turbid, just as thought is profound only if obscure; and +for them Tennyson's reserve--again a Greek quality--seems an almost +inhuman calm. His own most deeply felt experiences find their truest +expression when passed through the medium of art; they come out +tranquillized and transfigured. The sorrow and love of "In +Memoriam"--which poem I take to be the supreme effort of his genius--are +merged in large impersonal emotions. The poem, as he himself says, "is +rather the cry of the whole human race than mine." Tennyson's intense +humanity gives rise to a peculiar vein of pathos, and even of melancholy. +Side by side there are his "mighty hopes" for the future and the power and +"passion of the past"--"the voice of days of old and days to be": on the +one hand the forward straining intellect, on the other the backward +glance, the lingering regret, and "some divine farewell." Those haunting +and recurrent words, "the days that are no more," "for ever and for ever," +and the "vague world whisper" of the "far-far-away," are charged with a +sadness which recalls the pathetic but stoical refrain of "Nequiquam" in +Lucretius. + +Throughout Tennyson's long career we can trace the essential oneness of +his mind and art, beginning with his early experiments in language and +metrical form. By degrees his range of subjects was enlarged; we are +amazed at the ever-growing variety of theme and treatment and his manifold +modes of utterance. In some, as in his lyrics and dramatic monologues, he +displays a flawless excellence, in almost all consummate art. But diverse +as are the chords he has struck, the voice, the touch, the melody are all +his own. In his latest poems we may miss something of the early rapture of +his lyric song, but he is still himself and unmistakable; and had he +written nothing but the lines "To Virgil" and "Crossing the Bar" he would +surely take rank among the highest. We think of him primarily as the +artist, but the artist and the man in him were never far apart; and as +years went on his human sympathies, always strong, were strengthened and +broadened, and drew him closer to the common life of humble people. We +overhear more of "the still sad music of humanity." Towards the close of +his life the moral and religious content of the poems becomes fuller with +his deepening sense of the grandeur and the pathos of man's existence. +Some see in this a weakening of his art, the intrusion into poetry of an +alien substance. Yet eliminate this element from art, and how much of the +greatest poetry of the world is gone! Now and then, it must be confessed, +the ethical aim in Tennyson seems to some of us unduly prominent, but +_very rarely_ does the artist lose himself in the teacher or the preacher. +He has a message to deliver, but it is not a mere moral lesson: its true +appeal is to the imagination; put it into prose and it is no longer his. +It lives only in its proper form of imaginative beauty. + +Aristotle noted two types of poet, the [Greek: euphyês], the finely gifted +artist, plastic to the Muse's touch, who can assume many characters in +turn; and the [Greek: manikos], the inspired poet, with a strain of +frenzy, who is lifted out of himself in a divine transport. Were we asked +to select three examples of the former type, one from Greece, one from +Rome, and one from England, our choice from the ancient world would +probably fall on Sophocles and Virgil, and might we not, as a fitting +third, add Tennyson to the list? I do not attempt to determine their +relative rank, but I do suggest that they all belong to the same family, +and that already in this centenary year of our Poet we can recognize the +poetic kinship. Each of the three had in him the inmost heart of poetry, +beating with a full humanity and instinct with human tenderness; each +remained true to his calling as an artist and pursued throughout life the +vision of beauty; and each achieved, in his own individual way, a noble +and harmonious beauty of thought and form, of soul and sense. + + + + +JAMES SPEDDING + + + + +JAMES SPEDDING + +By W. ALDIS WRIGHT, Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. + + "Spedding was the Pope among us young men--the wisest man I + know."--_Tennyson: a Memoir, by his Son_, p. 32. + + +James Spedding, of whom FitzGerald wrote, "He was the wisest man I have +known," was born June 20, 1808, at Mirehouse, Keswick, and was the third +son of John Spedding. He was educated at the Grammar School, Bury St. +Edmunds, where his father, leaving his Cumberland home, went to live for +the purpose of putting his sons under the care of Dr. Malkin. Among his +school-fellows were W. B. Donne, J. M. Kemble (the Anglo-Saxon scholar), +the three brothers FitzGerald, and his own brother Edward, who with +himself was at the head of the school when they left. From Bury he went to +Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827, where he was contemporary with +Frederick, Charles, and Alfred Tennyson, Arthur Hallam, Monckton Milnes +(afterwards Lord Houghton), and W. H. Thompson (afterwards Master of +Trinity), and was very early admitted into the fellowship of the Apostles. +On Commemoration Day, 1830, he was called upon to deliver an oration in +the College Chapel, the subject being "An Apology for the Moral and +Literary Character of the Nineteenth Century," which was afterwards +printed. Another of his early productions was a speech against Political +Unions, written for a debating society in the University of Cambridge, +which, although anonymous, attracted the notice of the author of _Philip +van Artevelde_, afterwards his colleague in the Colonial Office, who +quoted some passages from it in the notes to his poem, with the remark: +"It is a singular trait of the times that a speech containing so much of +sagacity and mature reflection as is to be found in this exercitation, +should have been delivered in an academical debating club, and should have +passed away in a pamphlet, which, as far as I am aware, attracted no +notice. Time and place consenting, a brilliant Parliamentary reputation +might be built upon a tithe of the merit." In 1831 he won the Members' +Prize with a Latin essay on "Utrum boni plus an mali hominibus et +civitatibus attulerit dicendi copia," and in 1832 he was again a +candidate, and wrote to Thompson on the 4th of May about it: + + Tennant and I both got in our Essays, both in a very imperfect state, + and both the last minute but one.... I find that Alford also wrote. So + the Apostles have three chances. What Alford's may be I do not know. + But Tennant's and mine are neither of them worth much: Tennant's from + dryness, mine from impertinence: for of all the impertinent things I + ever wrote (and this is a bold word) my "Dissertatio Latina" was the + most impertinent. It was in the form of a letter from Son Marcus to + Father Cicero; cutting up the Offices in the most reverential way + possible. The merit of it is, that if no prize is given at all I may + fairly put it down to the novelty of the experiment and the nature of + the Judges, whom to my horror I found out the day after to be the + Heads of Colleges! Marry, God forbid! I rather calculated on + Graham's[103] being one of the chief voters, who is fond of fun in + general, and of my Latin in particular. However, it is no matter. I + spent an amusing fortnight and improved my composition: and my mind is + easy anyhow, which you will not easily believe. + +On June 21 he writes again: + + You will be glad to know that scoffing and utilizing march (like + humanity according to the St. Simonians), and that Cicero the son has + justified his parentage by getting the first prize for Latin + composition. You will be sorry to hear that not Alford nor Tennant, + but Hildyard Pet. hath obtained the second. Whether their labour has + been lost I know not, but mine has been fairly paid, being at the rate + of a guinea a day, and therefore 365 guineas a year, a very tolerable + income, and I shall increase my establishment accordingly.... I wish + you would decide, with your character, to come to Cambridge in the + vacation and not stay by that dismal sea. There will be George Farish, + and Edm. Lushington, and God knows whether Tennant, and do but add + yourself to myself, and ourselves to the aforesaid: and lo you a + select company as ever smoked under the shadow of a horse chesnut. If + you do not come, you will simply be behind the world of the wise + (which you know is as much like a goad as like a nail fastened by the + master of an assembly) in the understanding of things spoken. For we + talk out of the "Palace of Art" and the "Legend of Fair Women." The + great Alfred is here, _i.e._ in Southampton Row, smoking all the day, + and we went from this house [14 Queen Square, Westminster] on a + pilgrimage to see him; to wit, Two Heaths, my brother and myself, and, + meeting Allen on the way, we took him along with us, and when we + arrived at the place appointed we found A. T. and A. H. H. and J. M. + K. So we made a goodly company, and did as we do at Cambridge, and, + but that you were not among us, we should have been happy. + +Again, on the 18th of July: + + A new volume by A. T. is in preparation and will, I suppose, be out in + Autumn. In the meantime I have no copy of the "Palace of Art," but + shall be happy to repeat it to you when you come,--no copy of the + "Legend of Fair Women," but can repeat about a dozen stanzas which are + of the finest,--no copy of the conclusion of "Œnone" but one in + pencil which no one but myself can read. The two concluding stanzas of + "The Miller's Daughter," I can give you in this letter.... A broad + smiling letter from John Heath commissions me this morning to engage + Mrs. Perry's lodgings for Dunbar, whereat I rejoice: also informs me + that he himself keeps a Parroquet, and that Douglas has become a great + Berkeleian, and would leave his body, like Jeremy Bentham's, to be + dissected, if he thought he had one. + +His brother Edward, who had been for some time in delicate health, died on +the 24th of August 1832, and a few days later Spedding writes to Thompson: + + If you have seen Tennant you will be prepared to hear that my brother + Edward died early on Friday morning, after above a month of severe + suffering, leaving a ghastly vacancy in my prospects, not to be filled + up. However, what is past--the profit and the pleasure which I have + gathered out of long and pleasant years of brotherly society--this at + least is safe, and is so much to be thankful for. Why should I be the + sorrier because I have so long been graced with a source of comfort + and of pride, which, if I had never known, I should now be as cheerful + as when I last wrote to you? You knew him but little, but you knew him + enough to form some notion of how much I have to regret--or, in other + words, how much I have had to bless God for. He made a good and a + Christian end, and it is ascertained by a _post-mortem_ inspection + that he could not possibly have had health for any length of time + together. His disease was the formation of internal abscesses, in + consequence of a failure of some of the membranes, and quite beyond + the reach of surgery, so that, had one been at liberty to decide by a + wish whether he should live or die, it would have been an act of + unpardonable selfishness to wish him a moment more of captivity. This + too is something to take off the bitterness of regret, which, however, + in any way has no business to be bitter. But whether it is that I + value high human friendship more highly than I ought to do, or + whatever be the cause, a strange fatality seems to hang over the + objects of my more especial esteem, and I would have you, Thompson, + beware in time. But I shall lose my character with you if I do not + take care. I hope you will communicate the news to Tennant and Farish, + and to all our common friends, for explanations face to face are + formidable things. + +It was the death of this brother that gave occasion to the verses "To J. +S." which Tennyson published in the volume then in course of preparation. + +In October 1832, after unsuccessfully sitting for a Fellowship, he decided +upon another trial. Writing from Mirehouse to Thompson, he says: + + I find it impossible to read here, the valleys look so independent of + circumstances. There stand the mountains, there lie the valleys, and + there is that brook which thou hast made to take its pastime therein, + a jolly old beck that has lately taken to worshipping its maker; for + it overflowed and went into the church, turning us Christians out, or + rather preventing us from going in--a better thing, inasmuch as + prevention is better than cure. + +He was again unsuccessful, and Whiston was elected before him. + +In the spring of this year (1833) he had written to Thompson: "Hallam +announces himself this morning as not otherwise than unwell." He had long +been delicate, and his early and sudden death at Vienna on the 15th of +September came as a shock but not a surprise to his friends. There was a +suggestion that his memory should be perpetuated by an inscription in the +College Chapel, but it came to nothing. Spedding wrote to Thompson on +November 18: + + Phillips has been consulting me and others as to the propriety and + possibility of getting a tablet to Arthur Hallam's memory erected in + Trinity Chapel. Everybody approves cordially to whom he has + communicated the proposal, and he now wishes it to be known among + Hallam's friends that such a plan is in contemplation, but privately + and quietly. He will then get Christopher Wordsworth to get the + Master's permission, and then it will be time to think about the rest. + It is just possible that there may be some College etiquette or other + in the way, and it would be a pity in that case that the intention + should have been talked about publicly. Will you communicate this to + friends in Cambridge who may communicate with friends out of + Cambridge, and so there will be little difficulty in letting every one + know who is interested in the matter? Kemble can tell Trench, etc.; + Merivale, Alford, etc. Who will write to Monteith, or send me his + address? I will write to Donne myself. I think you must know every + friend of Hallam's whom I know. I have communicated with no one yet, + except those in town. You will be able to do what is fitting better + than I can tell you. + +The scheme came to nothing, for what reason we do not know; possibly +"college etiquette," as Spedding anticipated, might stand in the way, for +Hallam was neither Fellow nor Scholar of the College. + +In the spring of 1834 Spedding was still at Mirehouse, and gives Thompson +an account of a day and night he spent with Hartley Coleridge: + + The said Hartley is indeed a spirit of no common rate--his mind is + brimful of rare and precious fancies, which leap out of him as fresh + as a fountain in the sunshine. His biographical engagement with + Bingley is for the present suspended, by his own fault, as he says. I + suppose he could not stand it any longer. But the three first numbers + are completed, and bound up in a goodly fat volume of 720 closely + printed pages. It contains twelve or fifteen lives, and more good + things of all sorts and sizes than any other book of 720 pages. It is + published by Bingley in Leeds and Whitaker in London, called + _Biographia Borealis_, costs sixteen shillings, and the notes alone + are worth the money. Wherefore, I pray you not only to get it + yourself, but likewise to make everybody else get it. No apostolic + bookcase should be without it. It should become a _household_ book; + therefore, let no one think of borrowing it, but whosoever is wise and + good let him buy or steal it. If any man should ask what are the + _politics_ of the work (a question which no Apostle, who is indeed an + Apostle, ever thought of asking but in the way of mere curiosity), + then say thou, the same politics which were held in common by Plato, + Demosthenes, Shakespeare, Bacon, Burke, and God Almighty, and let him + make what he can of the information. + + Wordsworth's eyes are better, but not well, nor ever likely to be. + Reading inflames them and so does composing. I believe it was a series + of Highland Sonnets that brought on the last attack, so much worse + than any he had had before. He read me several that I had not seen nor + heard before, many of them admirably good; also a long, romantic + wizard and fairy poem, in the time of Merlin and King Arthur, very + pretty, but not of the first order. But I should not have expected + anything so good from him, which was so much out of his beat. He has + not advanced much in his knowledge of Alfred; but he is very modest in + his refusal to praise attributing his want of admiration to a + deficiency in himself, whether from the stiffness of old age, which + cannot accommodate itself to a new style of beauty, or that the + compass of his sympathies has been narrowed by flowing too long and + strongly in one direction. (_N.B._ He is not answerable for the + English that I am writing.) But he doubts not that Alfred's style has + its own beauty, though he wants the faculty to enter fully into it, + alleging as a parallel case the choruses in "Samson Agonistes" the + measure of which he has never been able to enjoy, which comes to + perhaps as high a compliment as a negative compliment can be. He spoke + so wisely and graciously that I had half a mind to try him with a poem + or two, but that would have been more perhaps than he meant. And + indeed it is always so pleasant to hear a distinguished man + unaffectedly disclaiming the office of censor, that I never think it + fair to take him at his word. I have given a copy of Alfred's second + volume to Hartley Coleridge, who, I trust, will make more of it. He + had only seen it for a few minutes, and was greatly behind the age, + though he admitted that A. T. was undoubtedly a man of genius; and was + going to say something about the _Quarterly_ in a Review of _The + Doctor_, which he was, or is, writing for Blackwood. I also sent him + yesterday a copy of Charles Tennyson, accompanied with one of my most + gentlemanly letters. + +Spedding was now nearly six-and-twenty, and had no settled plan of life +before him. "For myself," he says, "I am unsettled in all my prospects and +plans. I am, in fact, doing nothing, but I flatter myself I am pausing on +the brink to take a good look at the different ways of life which are open +to me before I take the fatal plunge." + +At the end of 1834 he invited Thompson, who was then at York, to visit him +at Mirehouse. + + Excuses shall not be admitted, at least not such as yours. Is there + not a stage-coach which fears God, and do you _for that reason_ refuse + to employ it? You ought rather to encourage it. What is a little bile + or rheumatism, compared with the advancement of Truth, and the + conservation of the Faith that is on the earth? Moreover, every + Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a coach leaves Kendal at 8 o'clock in + the morning, and arrives in Keswick about one, having traversed in the + short space of five hours many miles of the finest scenery in the + country, containing both other things and five lakes, and the + dwelling-places of Wordsworth, Hartley Coleridge, and Hamilton[104] + (more commonly known as Cyril Thornton). As for your time lost last + term, that I know, from my experience of your character, to be a + fiction of modesty: and as for your hopes of making up for it at home, + that I know, from my experience of my own character, to be humbug. + Besides, you write as one balancing his own desires according to a + principle of enlightened self-interest. You forget that it is not for + your own pleasure, but for my profit, that I ask you to come. Am I not + sliding daily from bad to worse? Am I not losing the race I do not + run? Am I not learning to look on all knowledge as vanity, all labour + as sorrow? for not the knowledge for which men labour is profitable, + but the labour only, and yet who can labour for that which profiteth + not? Have I not already parted with the hope, and am I not now parting + with the wish, to advance? Am I performing any duty? Am I making any + money? Am I not falling away from the Apostolic mind, notwithstanding? + Am I not taking pleasure in the shooting of snipes? Am I not in danger + of having a bad German pronunciation for evermore? Roll these things + in your mind, and then roll yourself into the coach. I will meet you + at Ambleside, if you like. + + I had read the review of Wordsworth several times over: and thought + the criticism (except. excipiend.) good, and the moral philosophy + superb. The passage about the moon looking round her, etc., I of + course felt to be a blunder, though I was less surprised than sorry to + see it. It seems to me to chime in too well with what I marked as the + defect of his preface to _P. v. A._,[105] so that I fear it is not a + negligent criticism, as one might have hoped: but an opinion well + weighed and carefully adopted. I wonder what he would say to Ebenezer + Elliott, with his flowers and mountains, for a taste? + + Welcome then again + Love-listening Primrose! tho' not parted long + We meet like lovers after years of pain. + Oh thou bringst blissful childhood back to me, + Thou still art loveliest in the lowest place, + Still as of old Day glows with love for thee, + And reads our heavenly Father in thy face. + Surely thy thoughts are humble and devout, + Flower of the pensive gold! for why should heaven + Deny to thee his noblest boon of thought, + If to Earth's demigods 'tis vainly given? + Answer me, Sunless Sister, Thou hast speech + Though silent Fragrance is thy eloquence, + Beauty thy language, and thy smile might teach + Ungrateful man to pardon providence. + + He would call it a very bold figure of speech: figure of _speech_, + quotha! However, Philip is a noble fellow, and the apology for this + piece of criticism is so wise and so good that one can hardly regret + that an apology was needed. I have sent for the citation of Will. + Shakespeare, though rather with the desire than the expectation of + great delight. I read a few extracts in the _Atlas_, with which I was + not at all struck, or, if at all, not favourably; but that does not go + for much, as I did not know who it was by, or anything about it, and + the extracts were most probably ill-chosen. But to tell you the truth + I never took much to Landor. To be sure I never read much of him, but + I have often had the book in my hand. Perhaps I might have liked him + better if the speakers had been named Philander and Strephon, and + Philalethes and the like, instead of Bacon, and Hooker, and Raleigh, + and so following. I shall have every chance this time: for besides the + prejudice derived from your praise, I am by no means easy in feeling + no great respect for a writer of whom _P. v. A._ speaks so very + highly. There is something in Philip's intellect which commands more + than my usual reverence. More _genial_ minds I have met with, but for + strength, and integrity, and _discretion_ of understanding, I do not + know his equal. He puts me in mind of F. Malkin. We must have him + change his mind, though, about the moon and the streams. I read the + review of Coleridge in the _Quarterly_ the other day. The parts which + are not Coleridge's own might have been better, but they are well + enough. + +The spring of 1835 was memorable at Mirehouse for a visit of Tennyson and +FitzGerald. That this made a vivid impression on FitzGerald is evident +from a letter which he wrote after Spedding's death to his niece, when +there was some idea of gathering together his miscellaneous essays: + + "I rejoice," he says, "to hear of a Collection, or Reprint, of his + stray works.... I used to say he wrote 'Virgilian Prose.' One only of + his I did not care for; but that, I doubt not, was because of the + subject, not of the treatment: his own printed Report of a Speech he + made in what was called the 'Quinquaginta Club' Debating Society (not + the Union) at Cambridge about the year 1831. This speech his Father + got him to recall and recompose in Print; wishing always that his Son + should turn his faculties to such public Topics rather than to the + Poets, of whom he had seen enough in Cumberland not to have much + regard for: Shelley for one, at one time stalking about the mountains + with Pistols, and other such Vagaries. I do not think he was much an + admirer of Wordsworth (I don't know about Southey), and I well + remember that when I was at M_e_rehouse (as Miss Bristowe would have + us call it), with A. Tennyson in 1835, Mr. Spedding grudged his Son's + giving up much time and thought to consultations about Morte + d'Arthur's, Lords of Burleigh, etc., which were then in MS. He more + than once questioned me, who was sometimes present at the meetings, + 'Well, Mr. F., and what is it? Mr. Tennyson reads, and Jem + criticizes:--is that it?' etc. This, while I might be playing Chess + with dear Mrs. Spedding, in May, while the Daffodils were dancing + outside the Hall door." + + "At the end of May," he writes to Mrs. Kemble, "we went to lodge for a + week at Windermere--where Wordsworth's new volume of _Yarrow + Revisited_ reached us. W. was then at his home, but Tennyson would not + go to visit him: and of course I did not: nor even saw him." + +In the summer of 1835 Thompson spent the Long Vacation at the Lakes, and +Spedding was engaged in securing lodgings for him and his pupils, while +Tennyson was still at Mirehouse. + + "I am going," he writes, "with Alfred, I believe, to Buttermere, and + so have not time to tell you how much I am rejoiced that your destiny + should have dragged you hither--nor to discuss the London Review--nor + to tell you about Fitz and Alfred Tennyson, and Hartley Coleridge, + and W. W., etc., only that Alfred is very gruff and unmanageable, and + the weather very cold. He desires to be remembered. Fitz is gone." + +A few days later he says: + + Alfred left us about a week since, homeward bound, but meaning to + touch at Brookfield's on his way. The weather has been much finer + since he went; certainly, while he was here, our northern sun did not + display himself to advantage. Nevertheless, I think he took in more + pleasure and inspiration than any one would have supposed who did not + know his almost personal dislike of the Present, whatever it may be. + Hartley Coleridge is mightily taken with him; and, after the fourth + bottom of gin, deliberately thanked Heaven (under me, I believe, or me + under Heaven, I forget which) for having brought them acquainted. Said + Hartley was busy with an article on "Macbeth," to appear (the + vegetable spirits permitting) in the next _Blackwood_. He confessed to + a creed touching Destiny which was new to me: denying Free Will (if I + understood him right) _in toto_; but at the same time maintaining that + man is solely and entirely answerable for whatever evil he does: not + merely that he is to suffer for it, which I could understand, but that + he is _answerable_ for it which I do not. Now this, I think, is not + fair. I could not get Alfred to Rydal Mount, he would and would + not--sulky one, although Wordsworth was hospitably minded towards him; + and would have been more so had the state of his household permitted, + which I am sorry to say is full of sickness.... By a letter from D. D. + H[eath] received to-day I infer that _Subscription no Bondage_ is out; + which I shall accordingly send for. I am sorry it is not to be + understood in the sense of "Killing no Murder," which seems to me, + till I be further enlightened, the only sort of construction which + will make sense of it. D. D. H. looketh on this pamphlet as the final + cause of the system of subscription at Oxford, and, now that the + effect hath been accomplished doth heartily wish that custom may be + discontinued. Euge, D. D. H.! For myself, since Alfred went, my time + has been chiefly employed (that is, all my time which was not occupied + in exercising the puppies) upon three several books: to wit, _Ralph + Esher_, a sort of novel by Leigh Hunt, containing a most graceful and + lively portraiture of Charles II.'s times, a good deal of rot about + Truth and Love, and a good deal of metaphysics, hard to understand in + parts, but in parts (to me, at least) very deep and touching. Item, + _Isaac Comnenus_, a Play (Murray, 1827): by Henry Taylor, as Southey + who lent me the book informs me; a work much in the tone and [style + of] _P. v. A._, and though far behind in design and execution by [no + means] an unworthy precursor. It has some passages as fine as anything + in _Philip_. Item, thirdly and lastly, Basil Montagu's _Life of + Bacon_, a work of much labour both on the writer's part and the + reader's, but well meant, and if not itself a good one containing all + the materials necessary for a good one, which is saying a great deal. + I have not read all the notes. In fact I believe they are all + contained in the text. I should think that on a moderate computation, + half the two volumes is a reprint of the other half, for if there are + a few pages which are printed twice over, there are many half and + quarter pages which are repeated four or five times. I should half + like to review it. + +If he had acted on his own suggestion we might not have had Macaulay's +_Essay_, and certainly should not have had the _Evenings with a Reviewer_. +This is the first intimation of his interest in what was to be the work of +his life. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Henry +(afterwards Sir Henry) Taylor, the author of _Philip van Artevelde_, which +influenced his occupation for the next six years. + + "At this time," says Sir Henry in his Autobiography, "I obtained + another relief, and in obtaining it obtained a friend for life. James + Spedding was the younger son of a Cumberland squire who had been a + friend of my father's in former, though I think they had not met in + latter days. In the notes to _Van Artevelde_ I had quoted a passage + from an admirable speech of his spoken in a debating club at Cambridge + when he was an undergraduate. This led to my making his acquaintance; + and when some very laborious business of detail had to be executed, I + obtained authority to offer him the employment with the remuneration + of £150 a year. He was in a difficulty at the time as to the choice of + a profession, and feeling that life without business and occupation + of some kind was dangerous, was glad to accept this employment as one + which might answer the purpose well enough, if he proved suited to it, + and if not might be relinquished without difficulty and exchanged for + some other. I wrote to Mr. Southey, 24th January 1836: + + "'Spedding has been and will be invaluable, and they owe me much for + him. He is regarded on all hands, not only as a man of first-rate + capacity, but as having quite a genius for business. I, for my part, + have never seen anything like him in business on this side Stephen.... + When I contemplate the easy labours of Stephen and one or two others I + am disposed to think that there are giants in _these_ days.' + + "For six years Spedding worked away with universal approbation, and + all this time he would have been willing to accept a post of précis + writer with £300 a year, or any other such recognised position, and + attach himself permanently to the office. But none such was placed at + his disposal ... and he took the opportunity of the Whig government + going out in 1841 to give up his employment. He then applied himself + to edit the works and vindicate the fame of Lord Bacon. In 1847, on + Sir James Stephen's retirement, the office of Under Secretary of State + with £2000 a year was offered to him by Lord Grey, before it was + offered to me, and he could not be induced to accept it. He could not + be brought to believe, what no one else doubted, that he was equal to + the duties. + + "Be this as it may, the fact that the man being well known and close + at hand for six years, who could have been had for £300 a year in + 1841, should have been let slip, though he was thought worth £2000 a + year in 1847, if not a rare, is a clear example of the little heed + given by the Government of this country to the choice and use of + instruments." + +The exact date of Spedding's beginning work at the Colonial Office is not +known, but it must have been between the middle of June 1835 and the end +of August,[106] for by that time he found that Downing Street was "no +place for the indulgence of the individual genius." In a letter to +Thompson he writes: + + I did take the liberty of insinuating a scoff at a Spanish Governor in + one of my Despatches, but H. T. said it was clever and would not do. + Said H. T. rises day by day in my esteem. He is not the least stiff or + awful, but very gentle and majestic. He has a great deal of P. v. A. + in him. But we do not talk much except on matters of business, which, + however, rises in his hands to the dignity of statesmanship. I have + not yet ascertained the contingencies on which my stay here depends, + but I should think it probable that I may in the end have the offer of + a permanent appointment in the office. If I have, I mean to take it, + purely from a sense of duty; that I may have a nominal employment to + satisfy impertinent enquiries withal, and perhaps also (as I dream in + my more romantic moments) that I may have a real employment to + discipline my own soul withal. The prospect of its leading to wealth + or dignity is so small under present circumstances as not to be worth + taking into account, yet not exactly so neither, for any prospect of + any thing to come, however faint and distant, dignifies an employment + with a relationship to the future and the indefinite. + + I meant to have gone to Kitlands to-day, but the coach was full. + Recollect that _you_ are not a man of many cares new taken up, and + therefore may find time to shower your wiser meditations upon a sheet + of paper, which addressed to me under cover to "R. W. Hay, Esq., Under + Secretary of State, Colonial Office, Downing Street," will not be lost + upon one who sometimes did but observe and wonder, but has now to + enquire and dispatch. + +Thompson had been with a reading party at Keswick during the summer, but +had proved a bad correspondent. + + "I have heard," Spedding writes in November, "occasionally from + Mirehouse dim intimations of your supposed existence; and latterly I + have seen Martineau, to whom I have carefully pointed out the weak + points in your character, which he had not observed. I have reason to + believe that I am rising rapidly in public estimation, and I have only + to pray that I may not become too sufficient for my place. My sense of + Duty has already been appealed to in the most flattering manner, to + draw me to the undertaking of nobler business, which, being capable + of, I have no right (it is said) to decline. My capacity, it would + seem, is beyond doubt; and, as it has been evinced without any effort + or observation of mine, perhaps the best way after all will be to let + it have its own way and trouble my soul no more about it. Turn it + adrift in the world, leave it to find its own market and provide its + own goods, and if my soul (which would be a stranger in such + pilgrimage) should return in after years to enquire after it, who + knows how great she may find it grown? P. v. A. is away for his + holidays. If you can suggest a good subject for a dramatic romance out + of English or Scotch history between the Conquest and the time of + Elizabeth, you shall thereby do him a good turn, and perhaps get + praised in a note. Helps has just been here asking for information + about Cambridge in general, more particularly about you and Blakesley. + I could only tell him what I knew of you, which you must confess is + not much to your credit. Sterling has established himself and his + family in Bayswater, and gives tea parties to the wiser minds. I am + going thither to-night. Garden (I understand from himself, writing + from Carstairs) is to curatise in Cornwall. D. D. H. thinks there is + humour in an equity draft.... My own career is as far from being + marked out as ever. There is no present prospect of a vacancy here, + and I cannot get any body to advise me to accept it if there were." + +In the following year Thompson was appointed to the Head Mastership of the +recently founded Leicester and Leicestershire Collegiate School, and at +the opening ceremony on August 9, 1836, he delivered an address, of which +Spedding says: + + I have read your speech, not with the distant and respectful + admiration, the wonder broken off, which I am apt to call _faith_, but + with the deliberate admiration of a man who understands and strongly + assents. I see your audience had sense enough to utter loud cheers, + but I want to know whether they had sense enough to see that such a + speech ought not to be let pass away in a newspaper, but to be + provided with some permanent, portable, and self-subsisting existence. + If the proceedings of the day are to be published in a pamphlet, I + should like to invest money in a few copies. If not, I shall think + about printing your part of them in a legible shape on my own + account.... G. Farish is going to Madeira, with Sterling, I believe. + James F. speaks hopefully of the latter, but is more alarmed about his + brother. + +In a letter to Allen we get a glimpse of Tennyson: + + Alfred Tennyson has reappeared, and is going to-day or to-morrow to + Florence, or to Killarney, or to Madeira, or to some place where some + ship is going--he does not know where. He has been on a visit to a + madhouse for the last fortnight (not as a patient), and has been + delighted with the mad people, whom he reports the most agreeable and + the most reasonable persons he has met with. The keeper is Dr. Allen + (any relation of yours?), with whom he had been greatly taken! + +Again writing to Thompson in October 1840 he says: + + I have been studying Alfred Tennyson's MSS., and I send you a copy of + a poem which I think he once repeated to you and me, and which we + neither of us much entered into. Reading it again the other day, I was + surprised with the power and beauty of it, and I now think it wants + nothing but a better name, or, I should rather say, a historical + foundation. I would have it put into the mouth of some noted man + (among the many such that must have been) involved in a marriage which + he does not like, in violation of a pre-existing attachment. The + imagining of such situations for the mere purpose of entering into the + feelings which belong to them has something unwholesome in it, to my + fancy; but the situation being given (whether in fact or fiction), + there is no harm in turning it into poetry. + +In 1840 Lord Lyndhurst was a candidate for the office of High Steward of +the University of Cambridge in opposition to Lord Lyttelton. Spedding +voted for the latter. + + "I went down to Cambridge," he writes to Thompson, "to support Lord + Lyttelton in his late distinguished defeat, of which you have, of + course, heard all particulars with apostolic embellishments and + illustrations both from other apostolic souls and from Merivale. I + have been happy in being able in these trying circumstances to + preserve my natural tranquillity. My view of the nature of the contest + is this: The University would select Lord Lyndhurst as the sort of man + whom a University should delight to honour. A dissentient minority say + not content. The majority reply to the dissentients, 'Why divide? You + see you cannot win.' The minority rejoins, 'Never mind; divide we + will, win or not win. If Lord Lyndhurst is to be selected for such an + honour as this, it shall be deliberately and not by accident. The + objections shall be formally brought forward and formally overruled.' + The bringing of the question to the poll I consider as an appeal to + the constituency to consider what they were about; and, in spite of + the result, I am glad it has been brought to this issue. For the + credit of the University it was fit it should be known that there were + 500 dissentients, and for the instruction of mankind it was fit it + should be known that there was a majority of two masters of arts to + one who thought Lord Lyndhurst the proper man to receive the honours + and dignities of the University. Had I been an enemy I should have + voted in the majority; but being a dutiful, though not perhaps a very + respectful son, I was glad of an opportunity of making the 586 into + 587." + +The friends of Lord Lyndhurst made every effort to secure his election, +and we learn from his Life by Sir Theodore Martin that he was only induced +to be a candidate on condition that his return would be certain. The +majority was 480. + +Thompson, who had returned to Cambridge, was at this time in feeble +health, and, as it was not known where a letter would find him, FitzGerald +wrote under cover to Spedding, who was still at the Colonial Office. The +letter does not appear to have been preserved, but it suggested to +Spedding some criticism of the theatres and actors of the time which is +not without interest at the present day. + + "Fitz," he writes on November 25, 1840, "has forwarded this to me that + I may direct it properly, and as it is not sealed I have made free + with the contents. The meaning of the writing on the wall had + hitherto escaped me, I confess, but the effect of my head in the Pit + has often occurred to me as something unseemly, like Scriptures out of + Church; inasmuch as when I am by myself I always choose a place where + I can wear my hat. I have sometimes thought of getting a wig to wear + in such places of vain resort. But to say the truth, a bad play will + often afford more rational entertainment for two or three hours than + an average dinner party, provided a man goes to it with an + understanding that such a thing can be neither better nor worse than a + shadow, and with an imagination to amend it. It is strange enough, for + your best modern plays and your modern acting of the best plays + (except in a very few instances) are so wretched that one should think + they could only bore and disgust one--meagre, vapid, false and vulgar + in the highest degree. One only wonders that so many human heads and + hearts can consent to sit it out, and be amused and refreshed by it. I + believe it is this very problem which gives the theory an interest to + me, for certainly the spectators are to me an integral part of the + spectacle (do I use 'integral' right? I could never properly + understand the calculus), and the most entertaining part of the action + is the action of the play upon the audience. You not only see the + mirror held up to Nature, but you see Nature looking at her image in + it, which presents her in still another aspect. Of the nature of the + multitude, their ways of thinking and feeling certainly, and partly + too of their ways of acting, much may be learned in the pit of a + theatre. From the effect of Bulwer's plays upon the play-going public + one might have inferred the effect of his novels upon the reading + public, almost as surely as you might have inferred the effect of his + plays from observing the style of acting which is most popular. But + besides my pleasure in contemplating the nature of the fool multitude, + I am curious about the laws of art, and I observe, in that as in other + things, that specimens of the want of the thing are as instructive as + the specimen of the thing itself. I never understood Shakespeare's + idea of Julius Caesar till I once saw George Bennett enact him; and I + think I gained more light as to the meaning of many parts of Falstaff + in the _Merry Wives_ from the grossest and, I think, worst piece of + acting I ever saw (by Bartley) than I have gained as to _Benedick_ + from C. Kemble, or _Hamlet_ from Macready. Altogether, I find that the + clumsy, tawdry, motley pageant, with its little good and much bad, + its touches of nature here and there, and its scene after scene of + vulgarity, insipidity, cant, and monstrous unnaturalness, has the + effect of provoking my understanding and imagination into agreeable + exercise." + +The time had come when, after six years of service, Spedding resolved to +shake himself free from the uncongenial business of the Colonial Office, +and devote himself to what was to be the work of his life. On the 19th of +August 1841 he writes from Wycliffe Rectory to Thompson who was then in +Germany: + + You told me to write on speculation and not put off too long, but I + suppose I am not the less qualified to perform the former part of your + injunction for having neglected to perform the latter. But I suppose + the worst consequence will be that my letter will not reach you, by + which you will save something in postage and lose nothing in any other + way. The fact is that your letter reached me during the last hours of + my official life, when between the duty of clearing my table, and + preparing for another and a better life (packing up, to wit), I had no + time to write anything that was to go as far as Dresden. From the + business of Downing St. I relapsed suddenly to the not less absorbing + recreations of the 12th August and the moors; and since we left the + grouse in quiet I have been on constant duty in looking at rocks and + rivers and whatever there is to be looked at in a country not barren + of natural attractions and the scene of one of Walter Scott's poems. + To-day I have been I do not know how many miles to see a handsome + modern house and fine estate on the banks of the Tees, and to enjoy + the most formidable of all mortal entertainments, a lunch of about 16 + persons at a house you were never in before; all low voices and only + one of the family known to you by name. However the beef was good, and + silence is richer than speech. I am now returned, my skin is full of + tea and bread and butter, and the room is full of young women talking + about ghosts and singing Irish melodies. I have borrowed this sheet of + thin paper that you may have the less to pay, and I have set off in + this minute hand that I may have the more room to utter whatsoever + shall be given to me to utter in this house: what that may be I shall + not stay to conjecture, but proceed at once to the proof. + + I need not describe to you the appearance of London or the manners of + the inhabitants in the galleries and institutions with which it + abounds, as you have had opportunities of learning better by the use + of your own eyes and ears as much about these as you wish to know. + Something I might say about the manners and morals of Downing Street + which would be new to you, that section of London society having been + rarely penetrated by travellers, and if penetrated still more rarely + escaped from without the loss of that peculiar faculty by virtue of + which man tells truth. But this also I shall at present spare you. + Downing Street already lies behind me, and I think it is St. Paul who + tells us that we should fix our eyes on what is before, and what, I + wonder, is before _me_? I see a fair array of years abounding in + capabilities and in leisure to cultivate them, and if I could follow + that precept of St. Paul's faithfully, and abstain from looking + backwards at an equally fair array of opportunities unimproved and + leisure run to waste, I should think the prospect a splendid one.... + For these six years past I have been working for other men's purposes, + and cultivating my life for their use. Now I set up for myself; and + the question is this, of all things which most need to be done what am + I best able to do?... But I had forgotten that all this will be a + mystery to you who do not know what I have done to myself since I saw + you. You must know this that as soon as it was clear which way the + elections were going, I wrote to Stephen to say that I meant to leave + the C.O., not because the change of parties need make any difference + to me, but because my position had already yielded all the good I + could expect from it, and a change of administration formed a natural + period which it would not be desirable to let pass, the gain of the + salary being, in fact, to a person who could live without it, no + adequate compensation for the loss of time to a person who could use + it in other ways, etc. etc. Stephen thought me quite right, and + recommends me to persevere in my present intention of making + literature my business: so far at least as to make a fair experiment + of it: not doubting that, for a man who has enough to live upon, and + who has resolution enough to employ five or six hours every day in + reading or writing with some definite practical object, there is no + kind of life so eligible: and there is plenty of work to do. So on the + 10th of August 1841 (which day I will trouble you, in the memoir of my + life which you will prefix to your edition of the fragments of my + great work which you will find among my papers at my untimely death, + to make for ever memorable) I took my leave of the Colonial Office and + recovered possession of my time and my hours at the moderate cost of + £150 per annum, and here I am with the responsibility: a German, I + suppose, would spell it with a capital R. And now what have you to + say? One thing I really think is promising. I set out with a definite + project, not too big or too remote: and if I had not involved myself + in a desire to make something of these Baconian letters, which I could + not so well do without more leisure and liberty to hunt down my game, + I should not have trusted myself to my own guidance with quite so free + a conscience. I have already made an entrance into the Lambeth Library + and satisfied myself that former editors are not to be trusted; and + that a great deal may probably be done by a man who unites two + important requisites which have not yet met in any of them, industry + and brains. Would you believe, for instance, that there is more than + one letter from Francis Bacon to his Mother, and vice versa, which + have never been included in any collection of his letters? And that + there are many letters between Antony Bacon and his mother relating to + the prospects and goings on of the two brothers between the ages of + twenty and thirty-five which no biographer of Francis appears to have + studied, probably none has ever seen? Mr. Maitland showed me a MS. + commonplace book containing a good many anecdotes about Bacon and the + people of that time (most of them published I believe in the + Apophthegms, etc.) interspersed with memoranda of all kinds, of which + he says he can find no account. I suspect it to be Dr. Rawley's + private memorandum book; a point which may easily be verified: and if + so it will no doubt contain many things which being laid alongside of + many other things will throw light upon various obscurities. That such + a MS. should be known to exist in the Lambeth Library, and that, after + some half-dozen editors have been over the ground in pursuit of + Baconiana, it should remain there without anything being known about + it, is it not a proof that in fact the ground has yet to be explored? + And if so who can say but that among the volumes upon volumes of + letters relating to these times which are still preserved in print or + in MS., matter may not be found out of which to construct an edition + of Bacon's letters that will read as easily and as clearly as a + novel. I am sure if it were done properly, it would be one of the most + valuable historical and probably the most valuable biographical works + that has been produced about these times. For there is hardly any + contemporary political question of interest which is not indirectly or + directly touched upon at one time or another, and which would not + therefore require elucidation. + +The subject is pursued in the next letter written from Mirehouse ten days +later to Thompson, who was still abroad. + + I am quite sure that much remains to be done with regard to those + Baconian letters which I told you of, and I am sure too that without + leisure and liberty I at least could not fairly set about it. I have + been among the MSS. in the Lambeth Library and found that, though + there are probably not many letters of Bacon's which have not been + published, there is a wilderness of papers closely connected with them + which has never been properly explored. It is a field in which nobody + has been at work that had both industry and brains. For the present, + therefore, I look forward to this as my main business, in which if I + prosper, I shall know what to do when (Peel having lost that no + confidence in his opponents in which consists all the confidence he + has to rest upon himself) Lord John shall come in again and fortune + shall be again in a condition to be wooed; if I prosper not, I shall + still know what to do; though it will be different. But I am filling a + second letter with myself. + + I am afraid you are not likely to see any people of the right sort, + such as you describe, at Munich; though I duly advertised them of your + street and lodging. Pollock has been circuiting as simple barrister, + and will shortly have to circuit again as Barrister revising. In the + between he comes here, and indeed I expect him this evening.... + Douglas Heath had meant to join John, who has been tumbling up and + down the Alps under the guidance of some Geologist; an unsafe guide, I + should fancy, for what death so sweet to a Geologist as to knock out + his brains against a stone; or to be embedded in some liquid, + liquefying, or indurescent substance (such as snow or mud or lava) in + which a million of years hence some other Geologist may find him + embedded and so satisfy himself that a man was once there? He seems + to have had some fine rides on the backs of avalanches down fissures. + But Douglas was kept in London by business partly, and partly by the + illness of his mother and the uncertain health of his father, and does + not expect to get out of England this year. I hope he will contrive to + get hither in about a month. I am afraid there is no chance of your + finding a chink of time between your return to England and your + October term business in which you might pay us another visit. Your + first object ought to be to put yourself into the most convenient + place for being thoroughly cured, which implies the neighbourhood of a + thoroughly good Doctor: a luxury which we cannot offer you here. But I + hope that, now the year is mine all round to dispose of as I think + best, we shall be able some day to make our several times suit and our + several lines meet at Mirehouse, and run on together for a while. You + are very much approved of by everybody here. + +Early in the year 1842, Spedding accompanied the first Lord Ashburton to +the United States as Secretary to a commission, the object of which was to +determine a boundary question which was successfully settled by the treaty +of Washington. He writes to Thompson from Gosport on February 9, 1842: + + Having heard that you think I might have written to you upon the + occasion by my breaking out in this new light, and partly concurring + in that sentiment, and finding myself as much at leisure for the rest + of the evening as if the destinies of no country, much less the + destinies of two, depended upon me, I sit down to shake mental hands + with you, and to wish you prosperity during my eclipse and setting + behind the Atlantic. + + I will not trouble you with explanations concerning my inducement for + taking so considerable a step as this. You will easily understand that + I had to listen to more inward voices than one, and to wait the result + of much confused inward debate before I decided to take it. + Fortunately there was no question as to the comparative worth of the + said two voices, nor any doubt as to the side on which they + respectively appeared. It was the Fiend, _i.e._ the baser nature, the + human instinct, that said, "Budge not." The better voice said, "Go, + why not?" The decision was soon taken, and being taken, the thing + itself seemed much easier than it looked at first. It is now above + three weeks since I have looked at it only as a thing that is to be, + and I almost feel as if it would be strange if it were otherwise. What + the effect of it may be on my character and fortunes I do not trouble + myself to prophesy. It will at least make me think many things easy + which seemed unapproachably difficult a month ago. It will teach me to + keep accounts. And it will give me some insight into the nature of a + state-conscience, a state-reason, a state-understanding, and a + state-character. Many things besides. It may very likely ruin my + reputation, but I am not sure that that would be an evil. I should be + much happier, I think, without any reputation, not to add that if it + were gone, I should be thrown upon my resources, which might after all + turn out to be a better thing. But let these things pass. One thing is + quite clear, that I could not spend the next six months in any way by + which I should gain so much either in knowledge or in power. My + immortal work must, of course, be suspended, but what is six months in + an immortality? By the way, touching my Falstaff Platonizing, I agree + with you, as reported by Merivale, that the insertion of such a joke + would be unbecoming in a Museum Academicum, the more's the pity, for + with the joke itself I was a good deal pleased. But then, on the other + hand, you will not let me prefix a serious introduction, explaining + the thing which it is meant to illustrate. I can only suggest that you + should yourself write an introduction _refuting_ the said theory, if + you really believe that the thing is worth putting in at all. But let + this also pass, for I see the bottom of my paper (by the way I suppose + I must not say such a thing in the U.S.), and the chambermaid would + fain be dismissed to her bed. At present you may truly say that I am + going ahead, for I alone of the suite have arrived, and my master, by + being unpunctual, has lost a day of fair wind. + +At this time FitzGerald wrote to Laurence, the artist: + + You have, of course, read the account of Spedding's forehead landing + in America. English sailors hail it in the Channel, mistaking it for + Beachy Head. There is a Shakespeare cliff, and a Spedding cliff. Good + old fellow! I hope he'll come back safe and sound, forehead and all. + Not swords, nor cannon, nor all the bulls of Bashan butting at it, + could, I feel sure, discompose that venerable forehead. No wonder that + no hair can grow at such an altitude; no wonder his view of Bacon's + virtue is so rarefied, that the common consciences of men cannot + endure it. Thackeray and I occasionally amuse ourselves with the idea + of Spedding's forehead; we find it somehow or other in all things, + just peering out of all things; you see it in a milestone, Thackeray + says. He also draws the forehead rising with a sober light over Mont + Blanc, and reflected in the Lake of Geneva. We have great laughing + over this. + +Tennyson's 1842 volume came out while Spedding was at Washington, and +FitzGerald, writing to Pollock, regretted that it contained some pieces +which he thought better omitted. + + I agree with you quite about the skipping-rope, etc. But the bald men + of the Embassy would tell you otherwise. I should not wonder if the + whole theory of the Embassy, perhaps the discovery of America itself, + was involved in that very Poem. Lord Bacon's honesty may, I am sure, + be found there. + + "The Yankees," Donne writes to Bernard Barton, "seem to think baldness + a rarity appertaining to the old country, for their papers could not + sufficiently express their wonder, when Ld. Ashburton went over about + the Boundary question, at the lack of hair among his attachés. + Spedding's crown imperial of a cranium struck them like a view of + Teneriffe or Atlas." + + "Nothing has been heard of Spedding," says FitzGerald, "but we all + conclude, from the nature of the case, that he has not been scalped." + +The mission ended happily in the treaty of Washington, and Spedding +returned to his friends, in spite of the forebodings of FitzGerald, who +says: + + A man on the coach the other day told me that all was being settled + very easily in America, but stage-coach politicians are not always to + be trusted. + +By the end of the year (1842), Spedding was again at Mirehouse. + + "I am at present," he writes to Thompson, "absorbed in teaching the + young idea of a water spaniel how to shoot. He promises to be an + accomplished dog. He can already catch a wounded hare and bring it, + rescue a snipe out of a rapid stream, hunt (though in vain) for a + water-hen among the roots of an alder-bush, and wait with intense + breathless anxiety to hear the sound of a duck's wing in the gloaming. + In time I hope to teach him to do as I bid him. We are all well here. + How is all at Cambridge? What shall you do at Christmas? If I am still + here, can you come so far north? You shall see the dog." + +But although these country delights had their attractions for him, he had +for some years established himself in London, where his rooms at 60 +Lincoln's Inn Fields were the meeting-place of Tennyson, Thackeray, +FitzGerald, and any of his friends who happened to be in London at the +time. + + "Spedding is just now furnishing chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields," + FitzGerald writes in 1836, "so that we may look on him as a fixture in + London. He and I went to dine with Tennant at Blackheath last + Thursday: there we met Edgeworth, who has got a large house at Eltham, + and is lying in wait for pupils. I am afraid he will not find many. We + passed a very delightful evening." + +His return from America after four months at Washington, led to his being +selected by the editor of the _Edinburgh Review_ to write an article on +Dickens's _American Notes_, which gave the novelist strange and +unreasonable offence. Spedding had originally written, "He is understood +to have gone out as a kind of missionary in the cause of international +copyright," and this had been changed by the editor to "He went out, if we +are rightly informed, as a kind of missionary," etc. To this Dickens +writes in a towering passion, "I deny it wholly. He is wrongly informed, +and reports without enquiry, a piece of information which I could only +characterise by using one of the shortest and strongest words in the +language." And yet his letters show that, whether the subject of +international copyright were the real object of his visit or not, his +speeches on it are referred to with a kind of satisfaction as if they were +of the utmost importance. Apparently he was dissatisfied with the +impartial way in which Spedding distributed his praise and blame, praising +only where praise was due and blaming where it was not, and not +attributing too much value to the hasty results of a four months' +experience of the country. + +But for several years Spedding had been a contributor to the _Edinburgh +Review_, and the articles which he selected for republication are full of +that calm wisdom which distinguished all that he wrote. In 1836 he +reviewed his friend Henry Taylor's _Statesman_; in 1838 he wrote on "Negro +Apprenticeship"; in 1839 on the "Suspension of the Jamaica Constitution"; +in 1840 on the "Wakefield Theory of Colonization"; in 1841 on the +"Civilization of Africa and the Niger Expedition," in which his friend +John Allen lost a brother; and in 1842 on "South Australia in 1841," a +sequel to the article on the "Wakefield Theory of Colonization." And now +for the next thirty years of his life he devoted himself to the task of +what FitzGerald called washing his blackamoor, "a Tragedy pathetic as +Antigone or Iphigenia." His own special work was the arrangement of +Bacon's letters and minor writings, which had hitherto been very +carelessly edited, and for this purpose he spent his days among the +originals in the Lambeth Library and the British Museum. "Spedding devotes +his days to Lord Bacon in the British Museum," writes FitzGerald in 1844; +and again in 1846, "I saw very little of Spedding in London, for he was +out all day at State paper offices and Museums." + +But he was not so absorbed in his special pursuits as not to take interest +in public affairs, and the Maynooth Grant in 1845 and the opposition +which it excited caused him to take part in an address to the Chancellor +of the Exchequer in its favour. + + "You will see in the _Morning Herald_ of to-day," he writes to + Thompson, "that the great event has already taken place, and though + the world continues to move as it did, there does appear to be a + change of weather. + + "We had only 300 names. But that was quite enough, considering all + things, especially the respectability of the people, and the + imperfection of the agitation, to make the address well worth + presenting. Having gone so far, to hold back altogether would have + been to confess that the attempt was a mere failure, which nobody can + say it was. To hold it back past the time specified in the circulars + and originally designed, for the chance of obtaining more signatures, + would have been useless: people would have only said that though we + boasted of the shortness of the time in which the signatures were + collected, yet in fact we waited as long as there was any chance of + gathering any more. And in point of fact they had begun to come in + very slowly by Monday morning. At best, it could not have been + improved into an effectual canvass, and as it is, it shows very well. + Let any one put the two lists side by side, and then say, if the + weight of opinion in Cambridge inclines one way, which way is it? I + was doubtful of the expediency of stirring it at first, but I am now + very glad that it has been done. I wish the _Herald_ had printed the + names. But it was an unlucky day, there being a great debate in both + Houses. + + "Hare declined presenting; upon which H. Lushington, Venables, + Micklethwaite, and myself (who had, in fact, been the chief actors), + distributed ourselves into two cabs: and drove slap up to the + Chancellor of Exchequer's. Harry Lushington was the chief speaker, and + did it very well and gracefully. Goulburn was, of course, gracious, + but I should hardly have inferred that he was glad. However, he said + he was; glad that this had been done, and glad that no more had been + done; and (upon the whole) easy about the matter. The fever (he said) + appeared to be gradually subsiding, and indeed the opposition was less + formidable than might be supposed. 'From what the gentleman said who + presented the address on the other side, he gathered that it was for + the most part a _conscientious_ opposition, not arising from any + political animosity.' Certainly _Punch_ cannot be said to beat + Nature." + +Nothing, however, diverted him from his great object. FitzGerald writes to +Frederick Tennyson: + + Spedding, you know, does not change: he is now the same that he was + fourteen years old when I first knew him at school, more than twenty + years ago; wise, calm, bald, combining the best qualities of Youth and + Age. + +But his calmness was not proof against the enthusiasm created by the +advent of Jenny Lind in 1847. Again FitzGerald writes: + + All the world has been, as I suppose you have read, crazy about Jenny + Lind.... Spedding's cool blood was moved to hire stalls several times + at an advanced rate.... I have never yet heard the famous Jenny Lind, + whom all the world raves about. Spedding is especially mad about her, + I understand: and, after that, is it not best for weaker vessels to + keep out of her way? Night after night is that bald head seen in one + particular position in the Opera house, in a stall; the miserable man + has forgot Bacon and philosophy, and goes after strange women. + +His health, however, had been giving some cause for anxiety at this time +to his old friend, who writes to Carlyle: + + Thank you for your account of Spedding: I had written however to + himself, and from himself ascertained that he was out of the worst. + But Spedding's life is a very ticklish one. + +Hitherto Spedding had been working in his own way at Bacon's life and +letters without any idea of contributing to a complete edition of his +works, but rather with the object of defending him against what he +believed to be the injustice done him by Macaulay in his famous _Essay_. +But in 1847 Mr. Leslie Ellis had been preparing an edition of Bacon's +philosophical works which was offered for publication to Messrs. Longman, +and Spedding acted as intermediary. + + "Better, I think," he writes to Thompson, "to be with the publishers + than against them so long as one keeps the reins. Therefore I have + written to Longman, reporting Ellis's proposition, and recommending + them to treat immediately with him upon those terms; for that if they + get the philosophical works alone so edited, their edition will + command the market, even if they do nothing but reprint the rest as + they are. Whereas, if any other publisher should engage Ellis's + services for that portion, their trade edition would be worthless for + ever. All which I believe to be true, and I hope will be conclusive. + When that point is fixed there will be time enough to consider what + else may be done. If they refuse the opportunity, I think I shall + decline further connexion with the enterprise. My own project, as I + never counted upon anything but expense from it, will not be much + affected either way." + +The result, as is well known, was a complete edition of Bacon's works, in +which Mr. Leslie Ellis undertook the philosophical, Mr. Douglas Heath the +legal and professional, and Spedding the literary and miscellaneous, to +which he afterwards added the life and letters. In the meantime he wrote, +but never published, for his own satisfaction and that he might gather the +opinions of his friends, _Evenings with a Reviewer_, the reviewer being +Macaulay and the review his Essay on Bacon. In sending a copy to Dr. +Whewell he says: + + It may seem absurd in a man to print a book, and yet to wish not only + to keep it private, but also to prevent it from _circulating_ + privately. But after considering the matter carefully, with reference + to what I may call the interest of the subject--I mean to the chance + of making a successful and durable impression upon the popular + opinion--I am satisfied that it would not be judicious to present the + question to the public _first_ in this form. It would probably provoke + controversy. The result of the controversy would depend upon + reviewers. Reviewers, until they have heard the evidence as well as + the argument, are not in a condition to judge; yet unless the evidence + be made easily accessible and bound up with the argument, they cannot + be expected either to seek it out or to suspend their opinions, but + will simply proceed to judgment _without_ hearing it. In such a case, + considering the strength of popular prepossessions and the tendency of + the first blow at them to raise a dust of popular objections, the + verdict would in the first instance go against me; and though I might + appeal with a better chance to the second thoughts and the next + generation, yet the appeal would be conducted at great disadvantage, + because I should then stand in the position of an advocate with a + personal interest in the cause. As it is, I hope in my division of + Bacon's works to set forth _all_ the evidence clearly and impartially, + so that everybody who has the book will have the means of judging for + himself, and if I can get that credit for justice and impartiality + which I mean to deserve, I do not much doubt the issue. But the first + reception of the work, upon which in these times so much depends, will + itself depend very much upon my coming before the public with a clear + and unsuspected character: and this, if I should previously acquire + the reputation (justly or not) of an advocate engaged to make good his + own cause, I could not expect. + +FitzGerald, writing to Donne at the end of 1848, says of _Evenings with a +Reviewer_: + + I saw many of my friends in London, Carlyle and Tennyson among them; + but most and best of all, Spedding. I have stolen his noble book away + from him; noble, in spite (I believe, but am not sure) of some + _adikology_ in the second volume: some special pleadings for his idol: + amica Veritas, sed magis, etc. + +And Donne in reply: + + I, too, have Spedding's "glorious book," which I prefer to any modern + reading. Reading one of his "Evenings" is next to spending an evening + with the author. + +Thompson, whose health had completely broken down in 1849, was undergoing +the water-cure at Great Malvern, and early in 1850 Spedding writes to him: + + They tell me that a letter will find you at Great Malvern. Indeed, I + had reason to think so before, for I had heard of you twice since you + went thither; once from Spring Rice and once from Blakesley.... I + have been stationary here since August, seeing nobody and hearing + nothing, so you must not expect any news.... You want to know, + perhaps, what I am about myself. I am at this moment sitting in an + easy-chair with the ink on a table beside me, and the papers on a + blotting-board on my knee. On the little table beside me is first a + leaden jar, bought long since to keep tobacco in, now holding + snipe-shot. Next to it a pocket Virgil lying on its belly. On my left + a ledge made for a lamp, on which are three different translations of + Bacon's _Sapientia Veterum_, and some loose pieces of paper destined + in due time to be enriched with a fourth translation, of which I need + say no more. Next to my little table stands a large round table, now + quite uninhabitable by reason of the litter of books that has taken + possession of it, as, for instance, another Virgil with English + translation and notes, open, upon its back; a Dryden's translation + shut, and standing upright on its edge. A letter-clip holding a packet + in brown-paper cover, inscribed "De sapientia veterum: translation." A + volume of Bacon standing shut on its edge. A Cruden's _Concordance_; + and near it, lying on its side and shut, Alford's Greek Testament (an + excellent book of immense industry, and very neat execution; good in + all ways so far as I have looked, and so far as I can judge of what I + see in such a matter; it seems as if one might find in it everything + one can want to know about the four gospels, that an editor can tell + one). Another volume of Bacon open, on its back; beneath it a folio + Aristotle (!) also open, and beneath that again a huge old folio + Demosthenes and Æschines (but this was brought down from the garret + two days ago, and has not yet been put away). Many other things of the + same kind; which, however, I cannot describe particularly without + getting up, which I do not feel disposed to do. But I must not forget + a striped box which belongs to my portmanteau, but serves here as a + receptacle for loose papers, and stands on the table. Another table in + the corner sustaining two vols. of Facciolati evidently out for use, + reposing on a huge Hogarth which lies there because no bookcase is big + enough to hold it, and itself reposes upon all the Naval Victories, + flanked by a ball of string, an unopened packet of Bernard Barton's + remains, a Speed's _History of England_, a ream of scribbling paper, + and an Ainsworth. Under my chair lies my own dog Tip, who once went + with you and me to the top of Ullock. Opposite stands a long narrow + box containing bows, and hung about with quivers, belts, and other + archery equipments. The chimney-piece is littered with disabled + arrows. It is now half-past 3 P.M., I have a slight headache, due (I + really believe) to a sour orange. The lake was yesterday frozen over + with ice as smooth and transparent as glass. I had no skates, and + to-day it is going either to thaw or to snow. I intended to buy a pair + of skates last midsummer, but forgot. I have a great mind to go and + buy a pair now. I leave you to gather the condition of my mind from + the condition of my room. I am in truth doing very little. These + family establishments are not favourable for work. I do not know how + it is; the day seems as long, and one seems to have it all to oneself, + but there are no _hours_ in it. What becomes of half of them I cannot + guess. Time leaks in a gentleman's house. + + My father has had a bad cold this winter, which hung about him longer + than usual, and made him both look and feel ill. But he has thrown it + quite off and seems now to be as well [as] usual, which is very well. + His sight grows worse as of course it must do; but as fast as it + leaves him he learns to make less do, so that he does not appear to be + much distressed by the gradual privation. His old bitch is dead, and + his old mare retires upon a pension, a paddock, a horse-pond, and a + house, all to herself, with a daily feed of corn. He is now very well + mounted on a fast walking pony, borrowed from a neighbour, and has a + boy to walk with him and two puppies. He looks after his farming + affairs as usual, and does not at all believe that land can be ruined + by plenty. In truth we hear little in these latitudes of the + agricultural distress of which we see so much in the newspapers. + + I have not heard from Ellis since he left England, and I do not know + exactly where he is. He talked of staying some time at Avignon. But I + am so doubtful whether a letter would find him there that I do not + care to write upon the chance. Our publishers seem to be quite easy in + mind, and made no enquiries as to the rate of progress. If Ellis can + be ready within two years, I shall have to stir myself in order to be + ready with my contribution. But I expect a good year's respite. I have + finished the _Henry VII._, however, which is my principal labour; and + I like very well what I have done. + +But all his plans were disarranged by Mr. Ellis's illness. In the latter +part of 1849, while travelling on the Riviera, Ellis had a severe attack +of rheumatic fever, from which he never recovered, and which entirely +disabled him for the work he had undertaken and in which he had made some +progress. Spedding, therefore, had to take his place and edit as best he +could Bacon's Philosophical Works. He has explained very fully in the +Preface to them the method he adopted, and the careful manner in which he +kept Mr. Ellis's work distinct. "Early in 1853," he says, "I took the work +in hand." In the meanwhile he was to be found at his rooms in Lincoln's +Inn Fields, and there FitzGerald visited him in April 1850. + + "Spedding is my sheet-anchor," he says, "the truly wise and fine + fellow: I am going to his rooms this very evening, and there I believe + Thackeray, Venables, etc. are to be. I hope not a large assembly, for + I get shyer and shyer even of those I know." + + "I was in London only for ten days this spring," FitzGerald writes to + Frederick Tennyson, "and those ten days not in the thick of the + season.... The most pleasurable remembrance I had of my stay in town + was the last day I spent there; having a long ramble in the streets + with Spedding, looking at books and pictures; then a walk with him and + Carlyle across the Park to Chelsea, where we dropped that Latter-Day + Prophet at his house; then, getting upon a steamer, smoked down to + Westminster; dined at a chop-house by the Bridge, and then went to + Astley's; old Spedding being quite as wise about the horsemanship as + about Bacon and Shakespeare. We parted at midnight in Covent Garden, + and this whole pleasant day has left a taste on my palate like one of + Plato's lighter, easier, and more picturesque dialogues." + +In August he went into Suffolk to stay with FitzGerald and the Cowells at +their home in Bramford, near Ipswich. FitzGerald again writes to Frederick +Tennyson: + + I have not seen any one you know since I last wrote; nor heard from + any one: except dear old Spedding, who really came down and spent two + days with us, me and that Scholar and his Wife in their Village, in + their delightful little house, in their pleasant fields by the River + side. Old Spedding was delicious there; always leaving a mark, I say, + in all places one has been at with him, a sort of Platonic perfume. + For has he not all the beauty of the Platonic Socrates, with some + personal beauty to boot? He explained to us one day about the laws of + reflection in water; and I said then one never could look at the + willow whose branches furnished the text without thinking of him. How + beastly this reads! As if he gave us a lecture! But you know the man, + how quietly it all came out; only because I petulantly denied his + plain assertion. For I really often cross him only to draw him out; + and vain as I may be, he is one of those that I am well content to + make shine at my own expense. + +In August 1851 he writes again to Frederick Tennyson: + + Almost the only man I hear from is dear old Spedding, who has lost his + Father, and is now, I suppose, a rich man. This makes no apparent + change in his way of life; he has only hired an additional Attic in + Lincoln's Inn Fields, so as to be able to bed a friend upon occasion. + I may have to fill it ere long. + +And a few months later: + + Spedding is immutably wise, good, and delightful; not as immutably + well in Body, I think, though he does not complain. + +The great work went slowly on, but nothing as yet was published. Spedding +had just taken over Ellis's portion and was devoting himself to this. We +get a glimpse of him again in FitzGerald's letters: + + I saw old Spedding in London; only doubly calm after the death of a + Niece he dearly loved, and whose death-bed at Hastings he had just + been waiting upon. + +It was 1857 before the first three volumes appeared, followed by three +others in 1858, and by the final volume in 1859. Ellis did not live to see +the completion of the work, for he died in May of that year. + +FitzGerald, writing in 1857 to Cowell, who was now in Calcutta, from +Portland Terrace, where he lived during his early married life, says: + + Spedding has been once here in near three months. His _Bacon_ keeps + coming out: his part, the Letters, etc., of Bacon, is not come yet; so + it remains to be seen what he will do then, but I can't help thinking + he has let the Pot boil too long. + +It was 1861, however, before the first volume of the _Life and Letters_ +appeared, and Spedding found that he had already been forestalled by +Hepworth Dixon in _The Story of Lord Bacon's Life_. In a note to the +earliest letter printed, probably the earliest specimen remaining of +Bacon's handwriting, he says, with quiet contempt: + + The copies of some of these letters lately published by Mr. Hepworth + Dixon ... differ, I observe, very much from mine; most of them in the + words and sense, more or less, and some in the name of the person + writing, or the person written to, or both. But as mine are more + intelligible, and were made with care and at leisure, and when my eyes + were better than they are now, I do not suspect any material error in + them, and have not thought it worth while to apply for leave to + compare them again with the originals. + + "I am very glad," FitzGerald writes to Thompson, "to hear old Spedding + is really getting _his_ share of Bacon into Print: I doubt if it will + be half as good as the "Evenings," where Spedding was in the _Passion_ + which is wanted to fill his Sail for any longer Voyage." + +Some three years later, he says: + + Spedding's _Bacon_ seems to hang fire; they say he is disheartened at + the little Interest, and less Conviction, that his two first volumes + carried; Thompson told me they had convinced _him_ the other way; and + that _Ellis_ had long given up Bacon's Defence before he died. + +And so it continued to the end. When the sixth volume appeared in 1872 +FitzGerald wrote: + + And here is Spedding's vol. vi. which leaves me much where it found me + about Bacon: but though I scarce care for him, I can read old + Spedding's pleading for him for ever; that is old Spedding's simple + statement of the case, as he sees it. The Ralegh business is quite + delightful, better than Old Kensington. + +Carlyle alone of all the critics was unstinted, though rather patronizing, +in his praise. Writing to FitzGerald, he says: + + Like yourself I have gone through _Spedding_, seven long long volumes, + not skipping except when I had got the sense with me, and generally + reading all of Bacon's own that was there: I confess to you I found it + a most creditable and even surprising Book, offering the most perfect + and complete image both of Bacon and of Spedding, and distinguished as + the hugest and faithfullest bit of literary navvy-work I have ever met + with in this generation. Bacon is washed down to the natural skin; and + truly he is not, nor ever was, unlovely to me; a man of no culpability + to speak of; of an opulent and even magnificent intellect, but all in + the magnificent prose vein. Nothing or almost nothing of the "melodies + eternal" to be traced in him. There is a grim strength in Spedding, + quietly, very quietly invincible, which I did not quite know of till + this Book; and in all ways I could congratulate this indefatigably + patient, placidly invincible and victorious Spedding. + +But for the last eight years he had given up his rooms in Lincoln's Inn +Fields and gone to live with his nieces at 80 Westbourne Terrace, where he +remained till his death. Thompson, in succession to Dr. Whewell, had been +appointed Master of Trinity, and in writing to congratulate him Spedding +says: + + I was not unprepared for your news, having just returned from + Kitlands, where the Pollocks were, and the rumour was under discussion + and generally thought to be well-founded, and the thing if true very + much rejoiced over. I have great pleasure in adding my own + congratulations, as well to yourself as to Trinity. It was all that + was wanted to make one of the last acts of Lord Russell a complete + success. I should be very glad to think that I had as much to do with + it as you suppose: but I was only one of many, and not by any means + the most influential, and as the thing is done, no matter how it was + brought about. + + I am myself preparing for a shift of position, though the adventure is + of a milder kind. My nephew (J. J. S.) is going to be married within a + month or so: and it has been settled that he is to live at Greta Bank, + and that the rest of the party now living there are to take a house in + London: where I am invited to join them, with due securities for + liberties and privileges. Though the exertion incident to dislodgment + from quarters overgrown with so many superfetations of confusion and + disorder, is formidable to contemplate, the proposed arrangement is so + obviously convenient and desirable, that I am going to encounter it. + And though the place is not yet settled, it seems probable that before + the end of the year I shall be transferred or transferring myself and + my goods to the western part of London, and preparing to remodel my + manners and customs (in some respects) according to the usages of + civilized society. Though I shall live among women, they will be women + of my own house, and therefore not worshippers, which is a great + advantage, and though there may be some danger for an obedient uncle + in being where he can always be caught, I hope to be able to preserve + as much independence as is good for a man. + + I have four proof sheets to settle, and have just been interrupted by + an engraver with a proof [of] the D. of Buccleugh's miniature of + Bacon, which will be the best portrait that has yet been done of him + in black and white. + +This was the miniature which was reproduced at the beginning of the third +volume of the _Life and Letters_, and which Spedding regarded as the +original of Van Somer's portrait. + +The following letter to Tennyson, written in 1870, is necessary to the +full understanding of Tennyson's reply (see _Memoir by his Son_)[107]: + + MY DEAR ALFRED--I do not know where you are, and I want to know for + three reasons: 1st, that I may thank you for your book; 2nd, that I + may send you mine; 3rd, that I may let you know, if you do not know it + already, that there has been a box here these many weeks, which is + meant for you and comes from FitzGerald. + + A copy of your new volume[108] came early from the publisher, yet not + so early but that it found me already half way through. I was happy to + observe that neither years nor domestic happiness have had any + demoralizing effect upon you as yet. Your touch is as delicate and + vigorous and your invention as rich as ever: and I am still in hope + that your greatest poem of all has not yet been written. Some years + ago, when you were in want of a subject, I recommended Job. The + argument of Job, to be treated as you treat the legends of Arthur, as + freely and with as much light of modern thought as you find fit. As we + know it now, it is only half intelligible, and must be full of + blunders and passages misunderstood. Probably also the peculiar + character of the oriental style would at any rate stand in the way and + prevent it from producing its proper effect upon the modern and + western mind. Yet we can see through all the confusion what a great + argument it is, and I think it was never more wanted than now. If you + would take it in hand, and tell it in verse in your own way, without + any scruples about improving on Scripture, I believe it would be the + greatest poem in the language. The controversy is as much alive to-day + in London as it could ever have been in the place where and the time + when it was composed, of which, as the author, I am altogether + ignorant. And the voice out of the whirlwind may speak without fear of + anachronisms. + + My own book,[109] though there is only one volume this time, is much + bigger than yours. It is wrapped up ready to go by the book-post, and + only wants to know to which of your many mansions it is to be + directed. + + Fitz's box, which is about as large as a tailor's box for a single + suit, contains a drawing of Thackeray's, an illustration of the "Lord + of Burghley," a pretty sketch of the landskip-painter and the village + maiden. He sent it here under the vain delusion that whenever you + happened to come to London I should be sure to know. And I presume he + sent word to you of what he had done, for he did not ask me to + communicate the fact. I was only to write to _him_ in case the box did + _not_ arrive, and as the box did arrive I did not write. If you will + let me know what you wish to be done with it, I will do with it + accordingly. + + There is a line in your last volume which I can't read: the last line + but one of the "flower in the crannied wall." + +In the course of the same year he edited the _Conference of Pleasure_, +written by Bacon for some masque or festive occasion, and printed from a +MS. belonging to the Duke of Northumberland which had been slightly +injured by fire. FitzGerald, in a letter to me, says of it: + + Spedding's Introduction to his grilled Bacon, I call it really a + beautiful little _Idyll_, the mechanical Job done so perfectly and so + elegantly. + +But while he was engaged in the great labour of his life he found time to +write beautiful pieces of criticism on Shakespeare to which FitzGerald +would willingly have had him devote his whole attention. "I never heard +him read a page," he writes to Sir Frederick Pollock, "but he threw some +new light upon it." In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for August 1850 he +contributed a paper on "Who wrote Shakespeare's _Henry VIII._?" which he +discussed with characteristic thoroughness. His conclusion was that it was +the work of two authors, one of whom was Fletcher, and this was confirmed +by the investigations of another enquirer, who independently arrived at +substantially the same result. The division of the Acts in _Much Ado_, +_Twelfth Night_, _Richard II._, and _King Lear_ formed the subject of +other discussions, and these he considered his most valuable contribution +to the restoration of Shakespeare. A criticism of Miss Kate Terry's acting +in Viola gave him the opportunity of pointing out the corruptions by which +the fine comedy, _Twelfth Night_, has been degraded into farce. + + "Spedding says," FitzGerald writes in 1875 to Fanny Kemble, "that + Irving's Hamlet is simply--_hideous_--a strong expression for Spedding + to use. But--(lest I should think his condemnation was only the Old + Man's fault of depreciating all that is new) he extols Miss Ellen + Terry's Portia as simply _a perfect Performance_: remembering (he + says) all the while how fine was Fanny Kemble's." + +Again to the same correspondent early in 1880 he says: + + By far the chief incident in my life for the last month has been the + reading of dear old Spedding's Paper on the _Merchant of Venice_, + there, at any rate, is one Question settled, and in such a beautiful + way as only he commands. I could not help writing a few lines to tell + him what I thought, but even very sincere praise is not the way to + conciliate him. About Christmas I wrote him, relying on it that I + should be most likely to secure an answer if I expressed dissent from + some other work of his, and my expectation was justified by one of the + fullest answers he had written to me for many a day and year. + +The paper referred to was "The Story of the _Merchant of Venice_" in the +_Cornhill Magazine_ for March 1880. In sending a copy to Frederick +Tennyson he says: + + I now post you a paper by old Spedding--a very beautiful one, I think; + _settling_ one point, however unimportant, and in a graceful, as well + as logical, way such as he is Master of. + + A case has been got up--whether by Irving, the Stage Representative of + Shylock, or by his Admirers--to prove the Jew to be a very amiable and + ill-used man: insomuch that one is to come away from the theatre + loving him and hating all the rest. He dresses himself up to look like + the Saviour, Mrs. Kemble says. So old Jem disposes of _that_, besides + unravelling Shakespeare's mechanism of the Novel he draws from, in a + manner (as Jem says) more distinct to us than in his treatment of any + other of his Plays "not professedly historical." And this latter point + is, of course, far more interesting than the question of Irving and + Co.,--which is a simple attempt, both of Actor and Writer, to strike + out an original idea in the teeth of common-sense and Tradition. + +And now came the end, unexpected and the result of an accident, which he +maintained was entirely his own fault. In writing to tell me of the fatal +result, one of his dearest friends said: + + I grieve to tell you that all is over with our dear old friend.... He + intended to cross before two carriages--crossed before one--found + there was not time to pass before the other, and instead of pausing + stepped back under the hansom which he had not seen, and which had not + time to alter its course. He spent more strength in exculpating the + poor driver than on any personal matter during his illness as soon as + he regained memory of the circumstances. + + "Mowbray Donne," says FitzGerald, when all was over, "wrote me that + Laurence had been there four or five days ago, when Spedding said, + that had the Cab done but a little more, it would have been a good + Quietus. Socrates to the last." + +And in another letter: + + Tennyson called at the Hospital, but was not allowed to see him, + though Hallam did, I think. Some one calling afterwards, Spedding took + the doctor's arm, and asked, "Was it Mr. Tennyson?" Doctors and nurses + all devoted to the patient man. + +To Fanny Kemble he writes: + + It was very, very good and kind of you to write to me about Spedding. + Yes: Aldis Wright had apprised me of the matter just after it + happened--he happening to be in London at the time; and but two days + after the accident heard that Spedding was quite calm, and even + cheerful; only anxious that Wright himself should not be kept waiting + for some communication which S. had promised him! Whether to live, or + to die, he will be Socrates still. + + Directly that I heard from Wright I wrote to Mowbray Donne to send me + just a Post Card--daily, if he or his wife could, with but one or two + words on it--"Better," "Less well," or whatever it might be. This + morning I hear that all is going on even better than could be + expected, according to Miss Spedding. But I suppose the Crisis, which + you tell me of, is not yet come; and I have always a terror of that + French Adage--"_Monsieur se porte mal--Monsieur se porte + mieux--Monsieur est--_" Ah, you know, or you guess, the rest. + + My dear old Spedding, though I have not seen him these twenty years + and more--and probably should never see him again--but he lives--his + old Self--in my heart of hearts; and all I hear of him does but + embellish the recollection of him--if it could be embellished--for he + is but the same that he was from a Boy--all that is best in Heart and + Head--a man that would be incredible had one not known him. + +Again he writes of him to Professor Norton: + + He was the wisest man I have known; a great sense of Humour, a + Socrates in Life and in Death, which he faced with all Serenity so + long as Consciousness lasted. I suppose something of him will reach + America, I mean, of his Death; run over by a Cab and dying in St. + George's Hospital to which he was taken, and from which he could not + be removed home alive. + + "I did not know," he says in another letter, "that I should feel + Spedding's Loss as I do, after an interval of more than twenty years + [since] meeting him. But I knew that I could always get the Word I + wanted of him by Letter, and also that from time to time I should + meet with some of his wise and delightful Papers in some Quarter or + other. He talked of Shakespeare, I am told, when his Mind wandered. I + wake almost every morning feeling as if I had lost something, as one + does in a Dream; and truly enough, I have lost _him_. 'Matthew is in + his Grave, etc.'" + +In apologizing to Fanny Kemble for not writing to her as usual, he says: + + I have let the Full Moon pass because you had written to me so lately, + and so kindly, about our lost Spedding, that I could not call on you + too soon again. Of him I will say nothing except that his Death has + made me recall very many passages in his Life in which I was partly + concerned. In particular, staying at his Cumberland Home along with + Tennyson in the May of 1835.... His Father and Mother were both + alive--he a wise man, who mounted his Cob after Breakfast, and was at + his Farm till Dinner at two--then away again till Tea: after which he + sat reading by a shaded lamp: saying very little, but always courteous + and quite content with any company his Son might bring to the house, + so long as they let him go his way: which indeed he would have gone + whether they let him or no. But he had seen enough of Poets not to + like them or their Trade: Shelley for a time living among the Lakes: + Coleridge at Southey's (whom perhaps he had a respect for--Southey, I + mean); and Wordsworth, whom I do not think he valued. He was rather + jealous of "Jem," who might have done available service in the world, + he thought, giving himself up to such Dreamers; and sitting up with + Tennyson conning over the "Morte d'Arthur," "Lord of Burleigh," and + other things which helped to make up the two Volumes of 1842. So I + always associate that Arthur Idyll with Basanthwaite Lake, under + Skiddaw. Mrs. Spedding was a sensible, motherly Lady, with whom I used + to play Chess of a Night. And there was an old Friend of hers, Miss + Bristowe, who always reminded me of Miss La Creevy, if you know of + such a Person in _Nickleby_. + +We will conclude with what his old friend, Sir Henry Taylor, wrote of him +after his death: + + As he will not read what I write I may allow myself to say something + more. He was always master of himself and of his emotions; but + underlying a somewhat melancholy composure and aspect there were + depths of tenderness known only to those who knew his whole nature and + his inward life, and it is well for those by whom he is mourned if + they can find what he has described in a letter to be his great + consolation in all his experiences of the death of those he loved + (experiences which had begun early and had not been few), "that the + past is sacred and sanctified; nothing can happen hereafter to disturb + or obliterate it; nor need the recollection have any bitterness if a + man does not, out of a false and morbid sentiment, make it so for + himself." + +And he adds: + + To me there are no companions more welcome, cordial, consolatory or + cheerful than my dead friends. + + + + +ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM + + +[Illustration: ARTHUR HALLAM READING "WALTER SCOTT" ALOUD ON BOARD THE +"LEEDS," BOUND FROM BORDEAUX TO DUBLIN, SEPT. 9, 1830. + +After Tennyson's and Hallam's memorable journey to the Pyrenees in aid of +the revolutionary movement against King Ferdinand of Spain, vividly +described by Carlyle in his _Life of John Sterling_. + +Alfred Tennyson (in profile), John Harden and Mrs. Harden (on the left), +and the Miss Hardens.] + + +ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM + +By DR. JOHN BROWN + + [The following article, containing the Memoir of Arthur Hallam by his + father, Henry Hallam, is reprinted from _Horae Subsecivae_.--ED.] + + PRAESENS imperfectum,--perfectum, plusquam perfectum + FUTURUM.--GROTIUS. + + The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep + Into my study of imagination; + And every lovely organ of thy life + Shall come apparelled in more precious habit-- + More moving delicate, and full of life, + Into the eye and prospect of my soul, + Than when thou livedst indeed. + _Much Ado about Nothing._ + + +In the chancel of Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, rest the mortal remains +of Arthur Henry Hallam, eldest son of our great philosophic historian and +critic,--and the friend to whom "In Memoriam" is sacred. This place was +selected by his father, not only from the connection of kindred, being the +burial-place of his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton, but likewise +"on account of its still and sequestered situation, on a lone hill that +overhangs the Bristol Channel." That lone hill, with its humble old +church, its outlook over the waste of waters, where "the stately ships go +on," was, we doubt not, in Tennyson's mind when the poem, "Break, break, +break," which contains the burden of that volume in which are enshrined so +much of the deepest affection, poetry, philosophy, and godliness, rose +into his "study of imagination"--"into the eye and prospect of his +soul."[110] + + Break, break, break, + On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! + And I would that my tongue could utter + The thoughts that arise in me. + + O well for the fisherman's boy, + That he shouts with his sister at play! + O well for the sailor lad, + That he sings in his boat on the bay! + + And the stately ships go on + To their haven under the hill; + But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, + And the sound of a voice that is still! + + Break, break, break, + At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! + But the tender grace of a day that is dead + Will never come back to me. + +Out of these few simple words, deep and melancholy, and sounding as the +sea, as out of a well of the living waters of love, flows forth all "In +Memoriam," as a stream flows out of its spring-all is here. "I would that +my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me,"--"the touch of the +vanished hand--the sound of the voice that is still,"--the body and soul +of his friend. Rising as it were out of the midst of the gloom of the +valley of the shadow of death: + + The mountain infant to the sun comes forth + Like human life from darkness; + +and how its waters flow on! carrying life, beauty, magnificence,--shadows +and happy lights, depths of blackness, depths clear as the very body of +heaven. How it deepens as it goes, involving larger interests, wider +views, "thoughts that wander through eternity," greater affections, but +still retaining its pure living waters, its unforgotten burden of love and +sorrow. How it visits every region! "The long unlovely street," pleasant +villages and farms, "the placid ocean-plains," waste howling wildernesses, +grim woods, _nemorumque noctem_, informed with spiritual fears, where may +be seen, if shapes they may be called: + + Fear and trembling Hope, + Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, + And Time the Shadow; + +now within hearing of the Minster clock, now of the College bells, and the +vague hum of the mighty city. And overhead through all its course the +heaven with its clouds, its sun, moon, and stars; but always, and in all +places, declaring its source; and even when laying its burden of manifold +and faithful affection at the feet of the Almighty Father, still +remembering whence it came: + + That friend of mine who lives in God, + That God, which ever lives and loves, + One God, one law, one element, + And one far-off divine event, + To which the whole creation moves. + +It is to that chancel, and to the day, 3rd January 1834, that he refers in +Poem XVIII. of "In Memoriam": + + 'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand + Where he in English earth is laid, + And from his ashes may be made + The violet of his native land. + + 'Tis little; but it looks in truth + As if the quiet bones were blest + Among familiar names to rest + And in the places of his youth. + +And again in XIX.: + + The Danube to the Severn gave + The darken'd heart that beat no more; + They laid him by the pleasant shore, + And in the hearing of the wave. + + There twice a day the Severn fills; + The salt sea-water passes by, + And hushes half the babbling Wye, + And makes a silence in the hills. + +Here, too, it is, LXVII.: + + When on my bed the moonlight falls, + I know that in thy place of rest + By that broad water of the west, + There comes a glory on the walls: + + Thy marble bright in dark appears, + As slowly steals a silver flame + Along the letters of thy name, + And o'er the number of thy years. + +This young man, whose memory his friend has consecrated in the hearts of +all who can be touched by such love and beauty, was in nowise unworthy of +all this. It is not for us to say, for it was not given to us the sad +privilege to know, all that a father's heart buried with his son in that +grave, all "the hopes of unaccomplished years"; nor can we feel in its +fulness all that is meant by + + such + A friendship as had master'd Time; + Which masters Time indeed, and is + Eternal, separate from fears: + The all-assuming months and years + Can take no part away from this. + +But this we may say, we know nothing of in all literature to compare with +the volume from which these lines are taken, since David lamented with +this lamentation: "The beauty of Israel is slain. Ye mountains of Gilboa, +let there be no dew, neither rain upon you. I am distressed for thee, my +brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me, thy love for me +was wonderful." We cannot, as some have done, compare it with +Shakespeare's sonnets, or with "Lycidas." In spite of the amazing genius +and tenderness, the never-wearying, all-involving reiteration of +passionate attachment, the idolatry of admiring love, the rapturous +devotedness, displayed in these sonnets, we cannot but agree with Mr. +Hallam in thinking "that there is a tendency now, especially among young +men of poetical tempers, to exaggerate the beauties of these remarkable +productions"; and though we would hardly say with him, "that it is +impossible not to wish that Shakespeare had never written them," giving +us, as they do, and as perhaps nothing else could do, such proof of a +power of loving, of an amount of _attendrissement_, which is not less +wonderful than the bodying forth of that myriad-mind which gave us Hamlet, +and Lear, Cordelia, and Puck, and all the rest, and indeed explaining to +us how he could give us all these;--while we hardly go so far, we agree +with his other wise words:--"There is a weakness and folly in all +misplaced and excessive affection"; which in Shakespeare's case is the +more distressing, when we consider that "Mr. W. H., the only begetter of +these ensuing sonnets," was, in all likelihood, William Herbert, Earl of +Pembroke, a man of noble and gallant character, but always of licentious +life. + +As for "Lycidas," we must confess that the poetry--and we all know how +consummate it is--and not the affection, seems uppermost in Milton's mind, +as it is in ours. The other element, though quick and true, has no glory +through reason of the excellency of that which invests it. But there is no +such drawback in "In Memoriam." The purity, the temperate but fervent +goodness, the firmness and depth of nature, the impassioned logic, the +large, sensitive, and liberal heart, the reverence and godly fear, of + + That friend of mine who lives in God, + +which from these Remains we know to have dwelt in that young soul, give to +"In Memoriam" the character of exactest portraiture. There is no excessive +or misplaced affection here; it is all founded in fact: while everywhere +and throughout it all, affection--a love that is wonderful--meets us first +and leaves us last, giving form and substance and grace, and the breath of +life and love, to everything that the poet's thick-coming fancies so +exquisitely frame. We can recall few poems approaching to it in this +quality of sustained affection. The only English poems we can think of as +of the same order, are Cowper's lines on seeing his mother's portrait: + + O that these lips had language! + +Burns' "To Mary in Heaven"; and two pieces of Vaughan--one beginning + + O thou who know'st for whom I mourn; + +and the other: + + They are all gone into the world of light. + +But our object now is, not so much to illustrate Mr. Tennyson's verses, as +to introduce to our readers, what we ourselves have got so much delight, +and, we trust, profit from--_The Remains in Verse and Prose, of Arthur +Henry Hallam_, 1834; privately printed. We had for many years been +searching for this volume, but in vain; a sentence quoted by Henry Taylor +struck us, and our desire was quickened by reading "In Memoriam." We do +not remember when we have been more impressed than by these Remains of +this young man, especially when taken along with his friend's Memorial; +and instead of trying to tell our readers what this impression is, we have +preferred giving them as copious extracts as our space allows, that they +may judge and enjoy for themselves. The italics are our own. We can +promise them few finer, deeper, and better pleasures than reading, and +detaining their minds over these two books together, filling their hearts +with the fulness of their truth and tenderness. They will see how accurate +as well as how affectionate and "of imagination all compact" Tennyson is, +and how worthy of all that he has said of him, that friend was. The +likeness is drawn _ad vivum_: + + When to the sessions of sweet silent thought + He summons up remembrance of things past. + +"The idea of his Life" has been sown a natural body, and has been raised a +spiritual body, but the identity is unhurt; the countenance shines and the +raiment is white and glistering, but it is the same face and form. + +The Memoir is by Mr. Hallam. We give it entire, not knowing anywhere a +nobler or more touching record of a father's love and sorrow. + + Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place,[111] London, on the 1st + of February 1811. Very few years had elapsed before his parents + observed strong indications of his future character, in a peculiar + clearness of perception, a facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above + all, in an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and adherence to his + sense of what was right and becoming. As he advanced to another stage + of childhood, it was rendered still more manifest that he would be + distinguished from ordinary persons, by an increasing thoughtfulness, + and a fondness for a class of books, which in general are so little + intelligible to boys of his age, that they excite in them no kind of + interest. + + In the summer of 1818 he spent some months with his parents in Germany + and Switzerland, and became familiar with the French language, which + he had already learned to read with facility. He had gone through the + elements of Latin before this time; but that language having been laid + aside during his tour, it was found upon his return that, a variety of + new scenes having effaced it from his memory, it was necessary to + begin again with the first rudiments. He was nearly eight years old at + this time; and in little more than twelve months he could read Latin + with tolerable facility. In this period his mind was developing itself + more rapidly than before; he now felt a keen relish for dramatic + poetry, and wrote several tragedies, if we may so call them, either in + prose or verse, with a more precocious display of talents than the + Editor remembers to have met with in any other individual. The natural + pride, however, of his parents, did not blind them to the uncertainty + that belongs to all premature efforts of the mind; and they so + carefully avoided everything like a boastful display of blossoms + which, in many cases, have withered away in barren luxuriance, that + the circumstances of these compositions was hardly ever mentioned out + of their own family. + + In the spring of 1820, Arthur was placed under the Rev. W. Carmalt, at + Putney, where he remained nearly two years. After leaving this school, + he went abroad again for some months; and, in October 1822, became the + pupil of the Rev. E. C. Hawtrey, an Assistant Master of Eton College. + At Eton he continued till the summer of 1827. He was now become a good + though not perhaps a first-rate scholar in the Latin and Greek + languages. The loss of time, relatively to this object, in travelling, + but far more his increasing avidity for a different kind of knowledge, + and the strong bent of his mind to subjects which exercise other + faculties than such as the acquirement of languages calls into play, + will sufficiently account for what might seem a comparative deficiency + in classical learning. It can only, however, be reckoned one, + comparatively to his other attainments, and to his remarkable facility + in mastering the modern languages. The Editor has thought it not + improper to print in the following pages an Eton exercise, which, as + written before the age of fourteen, though not free from metrical and + other errors, appears, perhaps to a partial judgment, far above the + level of such compositions. It is remarkable that he should have + selected the story of Ugolino, from a poet with whom, and with whose + language, he was then but very slightly acquainted, but who was + afterwards to become, more perhaps than any other, the master-mover of + his spirit. It may be added, that great judgment and taste are + perceptible in this translation, which is by no means a literal one; + and in which the phraseology of Sophocles is not ill substituted, in + some passages, for that of Dante. + + The Latin poetry of an Etonian is generally reckoned at that School + the chief test of his literary talent. That of Arthur was good without + being excellent; he never wanted depth of thought, or truth of + feeling; but it is only in a few rare instances, if altogether in any, + that an original mind has been known to utter itself freely and + vigorously, without sacrifice of purity, in a language the capacities + of which are so imperfectly understood; and in his productions there + was not the thorough conformity to an ancient model which is required + for perfect elegance in Latin verse. He took no great pleasure in this + sort of composition; and perhaps never returned to it of his own + accord. + + In the latter part of his residence at Eton, he was led away more and + more by the predominant bias of his mind, from the exclusive study of + ancient literature. The poets of England, especially the older + dramatists, came with greater attraction over his spirit. He loved + Fletcher, and some of Fletcher's contemporaries, for their energy of + language and intenseness of feeling; but it was in Shakespeare alone + that he found the fulness of soul which seemed to slake the thirst of + his own rapidly expanding genius for an inexhaustible fountain of + thought and emotion. He knew Shakespeare thoroughly; and indeed his + acquaintance with the earlier poetry of this country was very + extensive. Among the modern poets, Byron was at this time, far above + the rest, and almost exclusively, his favourite; a preference which, + in later years, he transferred altogether to Wordsworth and Shelley. + + He became, when about fifteen years old, a member of the debating + society established among the elder boys, in which he took great + interest; and this served to confirm the bias of his intellect towards + the moral and political philosophy of modern times. It was probably, + however, of important utility in giving him that command of his own + language which he possessed, as the following Essays will show, in a + very superior degree, and in exercising those powers of argumentative + discussion, which now displayed themselves as eminently characteristic + of his mind. It was a necessary consequence that he declined still + more from the usual paths of study, and abated perhaps somewhat of his + regard for the writers of antiquity. It must not be understood, + nevertheless, as most of those who read these pages will be aware, + that he ever lost his sensibility to those ever-living effusions of + genius which the ancient languages preserve. He loved Aeschylus and + Sophocles (to Euripides he hardly did justice), Lucretius and Virgil; + if he did not seem so much drawn towards Homer as might at first be + expected, this may probably be accounted for by his increasing taste + for philosophical poetry. + + In the early part of 1827, Arthur took a part in the Eton Miscellany, + a periodical publication, in which some of his friends in the debating + society were concerned. He wrote in this, besides a few papers in + prose, a little poem on a story connected with the Lake of Killarney. + It has not been thought by the Editor advisable, upon the whole, to + reprint these lines; though, in his opinion, they bear very striking + marks of superior powers. This was almost the first poetry that Arthur + had written, except the childish tragedies above mentioned. No one was + ever less inclined to the trick of versifying. Poetry with him was not + an amusement, but the natural and almost necessary language of genuine + emotion; and it was not till the discipline of serious reflection, and + the approach of manhood, gave a reality and intenseness to such + emotions, that he learned the capacities of his own genius. That he + was a poet by nature, these Remains will sufficiently prove; but + certainly he was far removed from being a versifier by nature; nor was + he probably able to perform, what he scarce ever attempted, to write + easily and elegantly on an ordinary subject. The lines on the story of + Pygmalion are so far an exception, that they arose out of a momentary + amusement of society; but he could not avoid, even in these, his own + grave tone of poetry. + + Upon leaving Eton in the summer of 1827, he accompanied his parents to + the Continent, and passed eight months in Italy. This introduction to + new scenes of nature and art, and to new sources of intellectual + delight, at the very period of transition from boyhood to youth, + sealed no doubt the peculiar character of his mind, and taught him, + too soon for his peace, to sound those depths of thought and feeling + from which, after this time, all that he wrote was derived. He had, + when he passed the Alps, only a moderate acquaintance with the Italian + language; but during his residence in the country he came to speak it + with perfect fluency, and with a pure Sienese pronunciation. In its + study he was much assisted by his friend and instructor, the Abbate + Pifferi, who encouraged him to his first attempts at versification. + The few sonnets, which are now printed, were, it is to be remembered, + written by a foreigner, hardly seventeen years old, and after a very + short stay in Italy. The Editor might not, probably, have suffered + them to appear even in this private manner, upon his own judgment. But + he knew that the greatest living writer of Italy, to whom they were + shown some time since at Milan, by the author's excellent friend, Mr. + Richard Milnes, has expressed himself in terms of high approbation. + + The growing intimacy of Arthur with Italian poetry led him naturally + to that of Dante. No poet was so congenial to the character of his own + reflective mind; in none other could he so abundantly find that + disdain of flowery redundance, that perpetual preference of the + sensible to the ideal, that aspiration for somewhat better and less + fleeting than earthly things, to which his inmost soul responded. Like + all genuine worshippers of the great Florentine poet, he rated the + _Inferno_ below the two latter portions of the _Divina Commedia_; + there was nothing even to revolt his taste, but rather much to attract + it, in the scholastic theology and mystic visions of the _Paradiso_. + Petrarch he greatly admired, though with less idolatry than Dante; and + the sonnets here printed will show to all competent judges how fully + he had imbibed the spirit, without servile centonism, of the best + writers in that style of composition who flourished in the sixteenth + century. + + But poetry was not an absorbing passion at this time in his mind. His + eyes were fixed on the best pictures with silent intense delight. He + had a deep and just perception of what was beautiful in this art, at + least in its higher schools; for he did not pay much regard, or + perhaps quite do justice, to the masters of the seventeenth century. + To technical criticism he made no sort of pretension; painting was to + him but the visible language of emotion; and where it did not aim at + exciting it, or employed inadequate means, his admiration would be + withheld. Hence he highly prized the ancient paintings, both Italian + and German, of the age which preceded the full development of art. But + he was almost as enthusiastic an admirer of the Venetian, as of the + Tuscan and Roman schools; considering these masters as reaching the + same end by the different agencies of form and colour. This + predilection for the sensitive beauties of painting is somewhat + analogous to his fondness for harmony of verse, on which he laid more + stress than poets so thoughtful are apt to do. In one of the last days + of his life, he lingered long among the fine Venetian pictures of the + Imperial Gallery at Vienna. + + He returned to England in June 1828; and, in the following October, + went down to reside at Cambridge; having been entered on the boards of + Trinity College before his departure to the Continent. He was the + pupil of the Rev. William Whewell. In some respects, as soon became + manifest, he was not formed to obtain great academical reputation. An + acquaintance with the learned languages, considerable at the school + where he was educated, but not improved, to say the least, by the + intermission of a year, during which his mind had been so occupied by + other pursuits, that he had thought little of antiquity even in Rome + itself, though abundantly sufficient for the gratification of taste + and the acquisition of knowledge, was sure to prove inadequate to the + searching scrutiny of modern examinations. He soon, therefore, saw + reason to renounce all competition of this kind; nor did he ever so + much as attempt any Greek or Latin composition during his stay at + Cambridge. In truth he was very indifferent to success of this kind; + and conscious as he must have been of a high reputation among his + contemporaries, he could not think that he stood in need of any + University distinctions. The Editor became by degrees almost equally + indifferent to what he perceived to be so uncongenial to Arthur's + mind. It was, however, to be regretted that he never paid the least + attention to mathematical studies. That he should not prosecute them + with the diligence usual at Cambridge, was of course to be expected; + yet his clearness and acumen would certainly have enabled him to + master the principles of geometrical reasoning; nor, in fact, did he + so much find a difficulty in apprehending demonstrations, as a want of + interest, and a consequent inability to retain them in his memory. A + little more practice in the strict logic of geometry, a little more + familiarity with the physical laws of the universe, and the phenomena + to which they relate, would possibly have repressed the tendency to + vague and mystical speculations which he was too fond of indulging. In + the philosophy of the human mind, he was in no danger of the + materializing theories of some ancient and modern schools; but in + shunning this extreme, he might sometimes forget that, in the honest + pursuit of truth, we can shut our eyes to no real phenomena, and that + the physiology of man must always enter into any valid scheme of his + psychology. + + The comparative inferiority which he might show in the usual trials of + knowledge, sprung in a great measure from the want of a prompt and + accurate memory. It was the faculty wherein he shone the least, + according to ordinary observation; though his very extensive reach of + literature, and his rapidity in acquiring languages, sufficed to prove + that it was capable of being largely exercised. He could remember + anything, as a friend observed to the Editor, that was associated with + an idea. But he seemed, at least after he reached manhood, to want + almost wholly the power, so common with inferior understandings, of + retaining, with regularity and exactness, a number of unimportant + uninteresting particulars. It would have been nearly impossible to + make him recollect for three days the date of the battle of Marathon, + or the names in order of the Athenian months. Nor could he repeat + poetry, much as he loved it, with the correctness often found in young + men. It is not improbable, that a more steady discipline in early life + would have strengthened this faculty, or that he might have supplied + its deficiency by some technical devices; but where the higher powers + of intellect were so extraordinarily manifested, it would have been + preposterous to complain of what may perhaps have been a necessary + consequence of their amplitude, or at least a natural result of their + exercise. + + But another reason may be given for his deficiency in those + unremitting labours which the course of academical education, in the + present times, is supposed to exact from those who aspire to its + distinctions. In the first year of his residence at Cambridge, + symptoms of disordered health, especially in the circulatory system, + began to show themselves; and it is by no means improbable, that these + were indications of a tendency to derangement of the vital functions, + which became ultimately fatal. A too rapid determination of blood + towards the brain, with its concomitant uneasy sensations, rendered + him frequently incapable of mental fatigue. He had indeed once before, + at Florence, been affected by symptoms not unlike these. His + intensity of reflection and feeling also brought on occasionally a + considerable depression of spirits, which had been painfully observed + at times by those who watched him most, from the time of his leaving + Eton, and even before. It was not till after several months that he + regained a less morbid condition of mind and body. This same + irregularity of circulation returned in the next spring, but was of + less duration. During the third year of his Cambridge life, he + appeared in much better health. + + In this year (1831) he obtained the first college prize for an English + declamation. The subject chosen by him was the conduct of the + Independent party during the civil war. This exercise was greatly + admired at the time, but was never printed. In consequence of this + success, it became incumbent on him, according to the custom of the + college, to deliver an oration in the chapel immediately before the + Christmas vacation of the same year. On this occasion he selected a + subject very congenial to his own turn of thought and favourite study, + the influence of Italian upon English literature. He had previously + gained another prize for an English essay on the philosophical + writings of Cicero. This essay is perhaps too excursive from the + prescribed subject; but his mind was so deeply imbued with the higher + philosophy, especially that of Plato, with which he was very + conversant, that he could not be expected to dwell much on the praises + of Cicero in that respect. + + Though the bent of Arthur's mind by no means inclined him to strict + research into facts, he was full as much conversant with the great + features of ancient and modern history, as from the course of his + other studies and the habits of his life it was possible to expect. He + reckoned them, as great minds always do, the groundworks of moral and + political philosophy, and took no pains to acquire any knowledge of + this sort from which a principle could not be derived or illustrated. + To some parts of English history, and to that of the French + Revolution, he had paid considerable attention. He had not read nearly + so much of the Greek and Latin historians as of the philosophers and + poets. In the history of literary, and especially of philosophical and + religious opinions, he was deeply versed, as much so as it is possible + to apply that term at his age. The following pages exhibit proofs of + an acquaintance, not crude or superficial, with that important branch + of literature. + + His political judgments were invariably prompted by his strong sense + of right and justice. These, in so young a person, were naturally + rather fluctuating, and subject to the correction of advancing + knowledge and experience. Ardent in the cause of those he deemed to be + oppressed, of which, in one instance, he was led to give a proof with + more of energy and enthusiasm than discretion, he was deeply attached + to the ancient institutions of his country. + + He spoke French readily, though with less elegance than Italian, till + from disuse he lost much of his fluency in the latter. In his last + fatal tour in Germany, he was rapidly acquiring a readiness in the + language of that country. The whole range of French literature was + almost as familiar to him as that of England. + + The society in which Arthur lived most intimately, at Eton and at the + University, was formed of young men, eminent for natural ability, and + for delight in what he sought above all things, the knowledge of + truth, and the perception of beauty. They who loved and admired him + living, and who now revere his sacred memory, as of one to whom, in + the fondness of regret, they admit of no rival, know best what he was + in the daily commerce of life; and his eulogy should, on every + account, better come from hearts which, if partial, have been rendered + so by the experience of friendship, not by the affection of nature. + + Arthur left Cambridge on taking his degree in January 1832. He resided + from that time with the Editor in London, having been entered on the + boards of the Inner Temple. It was greatly the desire of the Editor + that he should engage himself in the study of the law; not merely with + professional views, but as a useful discipline for a mind too much + occupied with habits of thought, which, ennobling and important as + they were, could not but separate him from the everyday business of + life, and might, by their excess, in his susceptible temperament, be + productive of considerable mischief. He had, during the previous long + vacation, read with the Editor the _Institutes_ of Justinian, and the + two works of Heineccius which illustrate them; and he now went through + Blackstone's _Commentaries_, with as much of other law-books as, in + the Editor's judgment, was required for a similar purpose. It was + satisfactory at that time to perceive that, far from showing any of + that distaste to legal studies which might have been anticipated from + some parts of his intellectual character, he entered upon them not + only with great acuteness, but considerable interest. In the month of + October 1832, he began to see the practical application of legal + knowledge in the office of an eminent conveyancer, Mr. Walters of + Lincoln's Inn Fields, with whom he continued till his departure from + England in the following summer. + + It was not, however, to be expected, or even desired by any one who + knew how to value him, that he should at once abandon those habits of + study which had fertilized and invigorated his mind. But he now, from + some change or other in his course of thinking, ceased in a great + measure to write poetry, and expressed to more than one friend an + intention to give it up. The instances after his leaving Cambridge + were few. The dramatic scene between Raffaelle and Fiammetta was + written in 1832; and about the same time he had a design to translate + the _Vita Nuova_ of his favourite Dante; a work which he justly + prized, as the development of that immense genius, in a kind of + autobiography, which best prepares us for a real insight into the + _Divine Comedy_. He rendered accordingly into verse most of the + sonnets which the _Vita Nuova_ contains; but the Editor does not + believe that he made any progress in the prose translation. These + sonnets appearing rather too literal, and consequently harsh, it has + not been thought worth while to print. + + In the summer of 1832, the appearance of Professor Rosetti's + _Disquisizioni sullo spirito Antipapale_, in which the writings of + Arthur's beloved masters, Dante and Petrarch, as well as most of the + mediæval literature of Italy, were treated as a series of enigmas, to + be understood only by a key that discloses a latent Carbonarism, a + secret conspiracy against the religion of their age, excited him to + publish his own Remarks in reply. It seemed to him the worst of + poetical heresies to desert the Absolute, the Universal, the Eternal, + the Beautiful and True, which the Platonic spirit of his literary + creed taught him to seek in all the higher works of genius, in quest + of some temporary historical allusion, which could be of no interest + with posterity. Nothing, however, could be more alien from his + courteous disposition than to abuse the licence of controversy, or to + treat with intentional disrespect a very ingenious person, who had + been led on too far in pursuing a course of interpretation, which, + within certain much narrower limits, it is impossible for any one + conversant with history not to admit. + + A very few other anonymous writings occupied his leisure about this + time. Among these were slight memoirs of Petrarch, Voltaire, and + Burke, for the Gallery of Portraits, published by the Society for the + Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.[112] His time was, however, principally + devoted, when not engaged at his office, to metaphysical researches, + and to the history of philosophical opinions. + + From the latter part of his residence at Cambridge, a gradual but very + perceptible improvement in the cheerfulness of his spirits gladdened + his family and his friends; intervals there doubtless were when the + continual seriousness of his habits of thought, or the force of + circumstances, threw something more of gravity into his demeanour; but + in general he was animated and even gay, renewing or preserving his + intercourse with some of those he had most valued at Eton and + Cambridge. The symptoms of deranged circulation which had manifested + themselves before, ceased to appear, or at least so as to excite his + own attention; and though it struck those who were most anxious in + watching him, that his power of enduring fatigue was not quite so + great as from his frame of body and apparent robustness might have + been anticipated, nothing gave the least indication of danger either + to their eyes, or to those of the medical practitioners who were in + the habit of observing him. An attack of intermittent fever, during + the prevalent influenza of the spring of 1833, may perhaps have + disposed his constitution to the last fatal blow. + +To any one who has watched the history of the disease by which "so quick +this bright thing came to confusion," and who knows how near its subject +must often, perhaps all his life, have been to that eternity which +occupied so much of his thoughts and desires, and the secrets of which +were so soon to open on his young eyes, there is something very touching +in this account. Such a state of health would enhance, and tend to +produce, by the sensations proper to such a condition, that habitual +seriousness of thought, that sober judgment, and that tendency to look at +the true life of things--that deep but gentle and calm sadness, and that +occasional sinking of the heart, which make his noble and strong inner +nature, his resolved mind, so much more impressive and endearing. + +This feeling of personal insecurity--of life being ready to slip away--the +sensation that this world and its on-goings, its mighty interests, and +delicate joys, is ready to be shut up in a moment--this instinctive +apprehension of the peril of vehement bodily enjoyment--all this would +tend to make him "walk softly," and to keep him from much of the evil that +is in the world, and would help him to live soberly, righteously, and +godly, even in the bright and rich years of his youth. His power of giving +himself up to the search after absolute truth, and the contemplation of +Supreme goodness, must have been increased by this same organization. But +all this delicate feeling, this fineness of sense, did rather quicken the +energy and fervour of the indwelling soul--the [Greek: ti thermon pragma] +that burned within. In the quaint words of Vaughan, it was "manhood with a +female eye." These two conditions must, as we have said, have made him +dear indeed. And by a beautiful law of life, having that organ out of +which are the issues of life, under a sort of perpetual nearness to +suffering, and so liable to pain, he would be more easily moved for +others--more alive to their pain--more filled with fellow-feeling. + + The Editor cannot dwell on anything later. Arthur accompanied him to + Germany in the beginning of August. In returning to Vienna from Pesth, + a wet day probably gave rise to an intermittent fever, with very + slight symptoms, and apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood + to the head put an instantaneous end to his life on the 15th of + September 1833. The mysteriousness of such a dreadful termination to a + disorder generally of so little importance, and in this instance of + the slightest kind, has been diminished by an examination which showed + a weakness of the cerebral vessels, and a want of sufficient energy in + the heart. Those whose eyes must long be dim with tears, and whose + hopes on this side the tomb are broken down for ever, may cling, as + well as they can, to the poor consolation of believing that a few more + years would, in the usual chances of humanity, have severed the frail + union of his graceful and manly form with the pure spirit that it + enshrined. + + The remains of Arthur were brought to England, and interred on the 3rd + of January 1834, in the chancel of Clevedon Church, in Somersetshire, + belonging to his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton, a place + selected by the Editor, not only from the connection of kindred, but + on account of its still and sequestered situation, on a lone hill that + overhangs the Bristol Channel. + + More ought perhaps to be said--but it is very difficult to proceed. + From the earliest years of this extraordinary young man, his premature + abilities were not more conspicuous than an almost faultless + disposition, sustained by a more calm self-command than has often been + witnessed in that season of life. The sweetness of temper which + distinguished his childhood, became with the advance of manhood a + habitual benevolence, and ultimately ripened into that exalted + principle of love towards God and man, which animated and almost + absorbed his soul during the latter period of his life, and to which + most of the following compositions bear such emphatic testimony. He + seemed to tread the earth as a spirit from some better world; and in + bowing to the mysterious will which has in mercy removed him, + perfected by so short a trial, and passing over the bridge which + separates the seen from the unseen life, in a moment, and, as we may + believe, without a moment's pang, we must feel not only the + bereavement of those to whom he was dear, but the loss which mankind + have sustained by the withdrawing of such a light. + + A considerable portion of the poetry contained in this volume was + printed in the year 1830, and was intended by the author to be + published together with the poems of his intimate friend, Mr. Alfred + Tennyson. They were, however, withheld from publication at the request + of the Editor. The poem of Timbuctoo was written for the University + prize in 1829, which it did not obtain. Notwithstanding its too great + obscurity, the subject itself being hardly indicated, and the + extremely hyperbolical importance which the author's brilliant fancy + has attached to a nest of barbarians, no one can avoid admiring the + grandeur of his conceptions, and the deep philosophy upon which he has + built the scheme of his poem. This is, however, by no means the most + pleasing of his compositions. It is in the profound reflection, the + melancholy tenderness, and the religious sanctity of other effusions + that a lasting charm will be found. A commonplace subject, such as + those announced for academical prizes generally are, was incapable of + exciting a mind which, beyond almost every other, went straight to the + farthest depths that the human intellect can fathom, or from which + human feelings can be drawn. Many short poems, of equal beauty with + those here printed, have been deemed unfit even for the limited + circulation they might obtain, on account of their unveiling more of + emotion than, consistently with what is due to him and to others, + could be exposed to view. + + The two succeeding essays have never been printed; but were read, it + is believed, in a literary society at Trinity College, or in one to + which he afterwards belonged in London. That entitled _Theodicaea + Novissima_ is printed at the desire of some of his intimate friends. A + few expressions in it want his usual precision; and there are ideas + which he might have seen cause, in the lapse of time, to modify, + independently of what his very acute mind would probably have + perceived, that his hypothesis, like that of Leibnitz, on the origin + of evil, resolves itself at last into an unproved assumption of its + necessity. It has, however, some advantages, which need not be + mentioned, over that of Leibnitz; and it is here printed, not as a + solution of the greatest mystery of the universe, but as most + characteristic of the author's mind, original and sublime, uniting, + what is very rare except in early youth, a fearless and unblenching + spirit of inquiry into the highest objects of speculation, with the + most humble and reverential piety. It is probable that in many of his + views on such topics he was influenced by the writings of Jonathan + Edwards, with whose opinions on metaphysical and moral subjects he + seems generally to have concurred. + + The extract from a review of Tennyson's poems in a publication now + extinct, the _Englishman's Magazine_, is also printed at the + suggestion of a friend. The pieces that follow are reprints, and have + been already mentioned in this Memoir. + +We have given this Memoir almost entire, for the sake both of its subject +and its manner--for what in it is the father's as well as for what is the +son's. There is something very touching in the paternal composure, the +judiciousness, the truthfulness, where truth is so difficult to reach +through tears, the calm estimate and the subdued tenderness, the +ever-rising but ever-restrained emotion; the father's heart-throbs +throughout. + +We wish we could have given in full the letters from Arthur's friends +which his father has incorporated in the Memoir. They all bring out, in +different but harmonious ways, his extraordinary moral and intellectual +worth, his rare beauty of character, and their deep affection. + +The following extract from one seems to us very interesting: + + Outwardly I do not think there was anything remarkable in his habits, + except _an irregularity with regard to times and places of study_, + which may seem surprising in one whose progress in so many directions + was so eminently great and rapid. _He was commonly to be found in some + friend's room, reading or canvassing._ I daresay he lost something by + this irregularity, _but less than perhaps one would at first imagine_. + I never saw him idle. He might seem to be lounging, or only amusing + himself, but his mind was always active, and active for good. In fact, + his energy and quickness of apprehension did not stand in need of + outward aid. + +There is much in this worthy of more extended notice. Such minds as his +probably grow best in this way, are best left to themselves, to glide on +at their own sweet wills; the stream was too deep and clear, and perhaps +too entirely bent on its own errand, to be dealt with or regulated by any +art or device. The same friend sums up his character thus: + + I have met with no man his superior in metaphysical subtlety; no man + his equal as a philosophical critic on works of taste; no man whose + views on all subjects connected with the duties and dignities of + humanity were more large and generous, and enlightened. + +And all this said of a youth of twenty--_heu nimium brevis aevi decus et +desiderium_! + +We have given little of his verse; and what we do give is taken at random. +We agree entirely in his father's estimate of his poetical gift and art, +but his mind was too serious, too thoughtful, too intensely dedicated to +truth and the God of truth, to linger long in the pursuit of beauty; he +was on his way to God, and could rest in nothing short of Him, otherwise +he might have been a poet of genuine excellence. + + Dark, dark, yea, "irrecoverably dark," + Is the soul's eye; yet how it strives and battles + Through th' impenetrable gloom to fix + That master light, the secret truth of things, + Which is the body of the infinite God! + + * * * * * + + Sure, we are leaves of one harmonious bower, + Fed by a sap that never will be scant, + All-permeating, all-producing mind; + And in our several parcellings of doom + We but fulfil the beauty of the whole. + Oh, madness! if a leaf should dare complain + Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be + The gayer, brighter thing that wantons near. + + * * * * * + + Oh, blessing and delight of my young heart, + Maiden, who wast so lovely, and so pure, + I know not in what region now thou art, + Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure. + Not the old hills on which we gazed together, + Not the old faces which we both did love, + Not the old books, whence knowledge we did gather, + Not these, but others now thy fancies move. + + I would I knew thy present hopes and fears, + All thy companions with their pleasant talk, + And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears: + So, though in body absent, I might walk + With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood + Did sanctify mine own to peerless good. + + * * * * * + + Alfred, I would that you beheld me now, + Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall + On a quaint bench, which to that structure old + Winds an accordant curve. Above my head + _Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves_, + Seeming received into the blue expanse + That vaults this summer noon. + + * * * * * + + Still here--thou hast not faded from my sight, + _Nor all the music round thee from mine ear: + Still grace flows from thee to the brightening year, + And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light_. + Still am I free to close my happy eyes, + And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form, + That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm, + And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies: + With, oh! the blissful knowledge all the while + That I can lift at will each curvèd lid, + And my fair dream most highly realize. + The time will come, 'tis ushered by my sighs, + When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid + True light restore that form, those looks, that smile. + + * * * * * + + The garden trees _are busy with the shower_ + That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk, + Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour, + One to another down the grassy walk. + Hark the laburnum from his opening flower, + This cheery creeper greets in whisper light, + While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, + Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore.[113] + What shall I deem their converse? would they hail + The wild grey light that fronts yon massive cloud, + Or the half bow, rising like pillar'd fire? + Or are they fighting faintly for desire + That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed, + And dews about their feet may never fail? + +In the Essay, entitled _Theodicaea Novissima_, from which the following +passages are taken, to the great injury in its general effect, he sets +himself to the task of doing his utmost to clear up the mystery of the +existence of such things as sin and suffering, in the universe of a being +like God. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. It is in the spirit of +his friend's words: + + An infant crying in the night, + An infant crying for the light, + And with no language but a cry. + + Then was I as a child that cries, + But, crying, knows his father near. + +It is not a mere exercitation of the intellect, it is an endeavour to get +nearer God--to assert His eternal Providence, and vindicate His ways to +men. We know no performance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal might +have written it. As was to be expected, the tremendous subject remains +where he found it--his glowing love and genius cast a gleam here and there +across its gloom; but it is brief as the lightning in the collied +night--the jaws of darkness do devour it up--this secret belongs to God. +Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its abyss of thick +cloud, "all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark," no steady ray has ever, or +will ever, come--over its face its own darkness must brood, till He to +whom alone the darkness and the light are both alike, to whom the night +shineth as the day, says, "Let there be light!" There is, we all know, a +certain awful attraction, a nameless charm for all thoughtful spirits, in +this mystery, "the greatest in the universe," as Mr. Hallam truly says; +and it is well for us at times, so that we have pure eyes and a clean +heart, to turn aside and look into its gloom; but it is not good to busy +ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly to criticize the +speculations of others--it is a wise and pious saying of Augustine, +_Verius cogitatur Deus quam dicitur; et verius est quam cogitatur_. + + I wish to be understood as considering Christianity in the present + Essay rather in its relation to the intellect, as constituting the + higher philosophy, than in its far more important bearing upon the + hearts and destinies of us all. I shall propose the question in this + form, "Is there ground for believing that the existence of moral evil + is absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of God's essential love for + Christ?" (_i.e._ of the Father for Christ, or of [Greek: ho patêr] for + [Greek: ho logos]). + + "Can man by searching find out God?" I believe not. I believe that the + unassisted efforts of man's reason have not established the existence + and attributes of Deity on so sure a basis as the Deist imagines. + However sublime may be the notion of a supreme original mind, and + however naturally human feelings adhered to it, the reasons by which + it was justified were not, in my opinion, sufficient to clear it from + considerable doubt and confusion.... I hesitate not to say that I + derive from Revelation a conviction of Theism, which, without that + assistance, would have been but a dark and ambiguous hope. _I see that + the Bible fits into every fold of the human heart. I am a man and I + believe it to be God's book because it is man's book._ It is true that + the Bible affords me no additional means of demonstrating the falsity + of Atheism; _if mind had nothing to do with the formation of the + Universe, doubtless whatever had was competent also to make the + Bible_; but I have gained this advantage, that my feelings and + thoughts can no longer refuse their assent to _what is evidently + framed to engage that assent; and what is it to me that I cannot + disprove the bare logical possibility of my whole nature being + fallacious? To seek for a certainty above certainty, an evidence + beyond necessary belief, is the very lunacy of scepticism_: we must + trust our own faculties, or we can put no trust in anything, save that + moment we call the present, which escapes us while we articulate its + name. _I am determined therefore to receive the Bible as Divinely + authorized, and the scheme of human and Divine things which it + contains, as essentially true._ + + * * * * * + + In the Supreme Nature those two capacities of Perfect Love and Perfect + Joy are indivisible. Holiness and Happiness, says an old divine, are + two several notions of one thing. Equally inseparable are the notions + of Opposition to Love and Opposition to Bliss. _Unless, therefore, the + heart of a created being is at one with the heart of God, it cannot + but be miserable._ Moreover, there is no possibility of continuing for + ever partly with God and partly against Him: we must either be capable + by our nature of entire accordance with His will, or we must be + incapable of anything but misery, further than He may for a while "not + impute our trespasses to us," that is, He may interpose some temporary + barrier between sin and its attendant pain. _For in the Eternal Idea + of God a created spirit is perhaps not seen, as a series of successive + states_, of which some that are evil might be compensated by others + that are good, _but as one indivisible object of these almost + divisible modes_, and that either in accordance with His own nature, + or in opposition to it.... + + Before the Gospel was preached to man, how could a human soul have + this love, and this consequent life? I see no way; but now that Christ + has excited our love for Him by showing unutterable love for us; now + that we know Him as an Elder Brother, a being of like thoughts, + feelings, sensations, sufferings, with ourselves, it has become + possible to love as God loves, that is, to love Christ, and thus to + become united in heart to God. Besides, Christ is the express image of + God's person: in loving Him we are sure we are in a state of readiness + to love the Father, whom we see, He tells us, when we see Him. Nor is + this all: the tendency of love is towards a union so intimate as + virtually to amount to identification; when then by affection towards + Christ we have become blended with His being, the beams of eternal + love, falling, as ever, on the one beloved object, will include us in + Him, and their returning flashes of love out of His personality will + carry along with them some from our own, since ours has become + confused with His, and so shall we be one with Christ, and through + Christ with God. Thus, then, we see the great effect of the + Incarnation, as far as our nature is concerned, _was to render human + love for the Most High a possible thing_. The law had said, "Thou + shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, + and with all thy strength"; and could men have lived by law, "which is + the strength of sin," verily righteousness and life would have been by + that law. But it was not possible, and all were concluded under sin, + that in Christ might be the deliverance of all. I believe that + Redemption (_i.e._, what Christ has done and suffered for mankind) is + universal, in so far as it left no obstacle between man and God, but + man's own will; that indeed is in the power of God's election, with + whom alone rest the abysmal secrets of personality; but as far as + Christ is concerned, His death was for all, since His intentions and + affections were equally directed to all, and "none who come to Him + will He in any wise cast out." + + I deprecate any hasty rejection of these thoughts as novelties. + Christianity is indeed, as St. Augustine says, "pulchritudo tam + antiqua"; but he adds, "tam nova," for it is capable of presenting to + every mind a new face of truth. The great doctrine which in my + judgment these observations tend to strengthen and illumine, _the + doctrine of personal love for a personal God_, is assuredly no + novelty, but has in all times been the vital principle of the Church. + Many are the forms of anti-christian heresy, which for a season have + depressed and obscured that principle of life, but its nature is + conflictive and resurgent; and neither the Papal Hierarchy with its + pomp of systematized errors, nor the worst apostasy of latitudinarian + Protestantism, have ever so far prevailed, but that many from age to + age have proclaimed and vindicated the eternal gospel of love, + believing, as I also firmly believe, that any opinion which tends to + keep out of sight the living and loving God, whether it substitute for + Him an idol, an occult agency, or a formal creed, can be nothing + better than a vain and portentous shadow projected from the selfish + darkness of unregenerate man. + +The following is from the Review of Tennyson's Poems; we do not know that +during the lapse of years anything better has been said: + + Undoubtedly the true poet addresses himself, in all his conceptions, + to the common nature of us all. Art is a lofty tree, and may shoot up + far beyond our grasp, but its roots are in daily life and experience. + Every bosom contains the elements of those complex emotions which the + artist feels, and every head can, to a certain extent, go over in + itself the process of their combination, so as to understand his + expressions and sympathize with his state. _But this requires + exertion_; more or less, indeed, according to the difference of + occasion, but always some degree of exertion. For since the emotions + of the poet during composition follow a regular law of association, it + follows that to accompany their progress up to the harmonious prospect + of the whole, and to perceive the proper dependence of every step on + that which preceded, it is absolutely necessary _to start from the + same point_, _i.e._, clearly to apprehend that leading sentiment of + the poet's mind, by their conformity to which the host of suggestions + are arranged. _Now this requisite exertion is not willingly made by + the large majority of readers. It is so easy to judge capriciously, + and according to indolent impulse!_ + + Those different powers of poetic disposition, the energies of + Sensitive, of Reflective, or Passionate emotion, which in former times + were intermingled, and derived from mutual support an extensive empire + over the feelings of men, were now restrained within separate spheres + of agency. The whole system no longer worked harmoniously, and by + intrinsic harmony acquired external freedom; but there arose a violent + and unusual action in the several component functions, each for + itself, all striving to reproduce the regular power which the whole + had once enjoyed. _Hence the melancholy which so evidently + characterizes the spirit of modern poetry_; hence that return of the + mind upon itself, and the habit of seeking relief in idiosyncrasies + rather than community of interest. _In the old times the poetic + impulse went along with the general impulse of the nation._ + + One of the faithful Islâm, a poet in the truest and highest sense, we + are anxious to present to our readers.... He sees all the forms of + Nature with the _eruditus oculus_, and his ear has a fairy fineness. + There is _a strange earnestness in his worship of beauty_, which + throws a charm over his impassioned song more easily felt than + described, and not to be escaped by those who have once felt it. We + think that he has _more definiteness and roundness of general + conception_ than the late Mr. Keats, and is much more free from + blemishes of diction and hasty capriccios of fancy.... The author + imitates nobody; _we recognize the spirit of his age, but not the + individual form of this or that writer_. His thoughts bear no more + resemblance to Byron or Scott, Shelley or Coleridge, than to Homer or + Calderon, Ferdusi or Calidasa. We have remarked five distinctive + excellences of his own manner. First, his luxuriance of imagination, + and at the same time his control over it. Secondly, his power of + embodying himself in ideal characters, or rather modes of character, + with such extreme accuracy of adjustment, that the circumstances of + the narration seem to have a natural correspondence with the + predominant feeling, and, as it were, to be evolved from it by + assimilative force. Thirdly, his vivid, picturesque delineation of + objects, and the peculiar skill with which he holds all of them + _fused_, to borrow a metaphor from science, in a medium of strong + emotion. Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures, and exquisite + modulation of harmonious words and cadences to the swell and fall of + the feelings expressed. Fifthly, the elevated habits of thought, + implied in these compositions, and imparting a mellow soberness of + tone, more impressive, to our minds, than if the author had drawn up a + set of opinions in verse, and sought to instruct the understanding, + _rather than to communicate the love of beauty to the heart_. + +What follows is justly thought and well said: + + And is it not a noble thing that the English tongue is, as it were, + the common focus and point of union to which opposite beauties + converge? Is it a trifle that we temper energy with softness, strength + with flexibility, capaciousness of sound with pliancy of idiom? Some, + I know, insensible to these virtues, and ambitious of I know not what + unattainable decomposition, prefer to utter funereal praises over the + grave of departed Anglo-Saxon, or, starting with convulsive shudder, + are ready to leap from surrounding Latinisms into the kindred, + sympathetic arms of modern German. For myself, I neither share their + regret, nor their terror. Willing at all times to pay filial homage to + the shades of Hengist and Horsa, and to admit they have laid the base + of our compound language; or, if you will, have prepared the soil from + which the chief nutriment of the goodly tree, our British oak, must be + derived, I am yet proud to confess that I look with sentiments more + exulting and more reverential to the bonds by which the law of the + universe has fastened me to my distant brethren of the same Caucasian + race; to the privileges which I, an inhabitant of the gloomy North, + share in common with climates imparadized in perpetual summer, to the + universality and efficacy resulting from blended intelligence, which, + while it endears in our eyes the land of our fathers as a seat of + peculiar blessing, tends to elevate and expand our thoughts into + communion with humanity at large; and, in the "sublimer spirit" of the + Poet, to make us feel + + That God is everywhere--the God who framed + Mankind to be one mighty family, + Himself our Father, and the world our home. + +What nice shading of thought do his remarks on Petrarch discover! + + But it is not so much to his direct adoptions that I refer, _as to the + general modulation of thought, that clear softness of his images, that + energetic self-possession of his conceptions, and that melodious + repose in which are held together all the emotions he delineates_. + +Every one who knows anything of himself, and of his fellow-men, will +acknowledge the wisdom of what follows. It displays an intimate knowledge +both of the constitution and history of man, and there is much in it +suited to our present need: + + _I do not hesitate to express my conviction, that the spirit of the + critical philosophy, as seen by its fruits in all the ramifications of + art, literature, and morality, is as much more dangerous than the + spirit of mechanical philosophy_, as it is fairer in appearance, and + more capable of alliance with our natural feelings of enthusiasm and + delight. Its dangerous tendency is this, that it perverts those very + minds, whose office it was to resist the perverse impulses of society, + and to proclaim truth under the dominion of falsehood. However + precipitate may be at any time the current of public opinion, bearing + along the mass of men to the grosser agitations of life, and to such + schemes of belief as make these the prominent objects, _there will + always be in reserve a force of antagonistic opinion, strengthened by + opposition, and attesting the sanctity of those higher principles + which are despised or forgotten by the majority_. These men _are + secured by natural temperament_ and peculiar circumstances from + participating in the common delusion: but if some other and deeper + fallacy be invented; if some more subtle beast of the field should + speak to them in wicked flattery; if a digest of intellectual + aphorisms can be substituted in their minds for a code of living + truths, and the lovely semblances of beauty, truth, affection, can be + made first to obscure the presence, and then to conceal the loss, of + that religious humility, without which, as their central life, all + these are but dreadful shadows; if so fatal a stratagem can be + successfully practised; I see not what hope remains for a people + against whom the gates of hell have so prevailed. + + But the number of pure artists is small: few souls are so finely + tempered as to preserve the delicacy of meditative feeling, untainted + by the allurements of accidental suggestion. The voice of the critical + conscience is still and small, like that of the moral: it cannot + entirely be stifled where it has been heard, but it may be disobeyed. + Temptations are never wanting: some immediate and temporary effect can + be produced at less expense of inward exertion than the high and more + ideal effect which art demands: it is much easier to pander to the + ordinary and often recurring wish for excitement, than to promote the + rare and difficult intuition of beauty. _To raise the many to his own + real point of view, the artist must employ his energies, and create + energy in others: to descend to their position is less noble, but + practicable with ease._ If I may be allowed the metaphor, one partakes + of the nature of redemptive power; the other of that self-abased and + degenerate will, which "flung from his splendours" the fairest star in + heaven. + + _Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the Infinite Being to the + ways and thoughts of finite humanity._ But until this step has been + taken by Almighty Grace, how should man have a warrant for loving with + all his heart and mind and strength?... Without the gospel, nature + exhibits a want of harmony between our intrinsic constitution and the + system in which it is placed. But Christianity has made up the + difference. It is possible and natural to love the Father, who has + made us His children by the spirit of adoption: it is possible and + natural to love the Elder Brother, who was, in all things, like as we + are, except sin, and can succour those in temptation, having been + himself tempted. _Thus the Christian faith is the necessary complement + of a sound ethical system._ + +There is something to us very striking in the words "Revelation is a +_voluntary_ approximation of the Infinite Being." This states the case +with an accuracy and a distinctness not at all common among either the +opponents or the apologists of _revealed religion_ in the ordinary sense +of the expression. In one sense God is for ever revealing Himself. His +heavens are for ever telling His glory, and the firmament showing His +handiwork; day unto day is uttering speech, and night unto night is +showing knowledge concerning Him. But in the word of the truth of the +gospel, God draws near to His creatures; He bows His heavens, and comes +down: + + That glorious form, that light unsufferable, + And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, + +he lays aside. The Word dwelt with men. "Come then, let _us_ reason +together";--"Waiting to be gracious";--"Behold, I stand at the door, and +knock; if any man open to Me, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and +he with Me." It is the father seeing his son while yet a great way off, +and having compassion, and running to him and falling on his neck and +kissing him; for "it was meet for us to rejoice, for this my son was dead +and is alive again, he was lost and is found." Let no man confound the +voice of God in His Works with the voice of God in His Word; they are +utterances of the same infinite heart and will; they are in absolute +harmony; together they make up "that undisturbèd song of pure concent"; +one "perfect diapason"; but they are distinct; they are meant to be so. A +poor traveller, "weary and waysore," is stumbling in unknown places +through the darkness of a night of fear, with no light near him, the +everlasting stars twinkling far off in their depths, and yet unrisen sun, +or the waning moon, sending up their pale beams into the upper heavens, +but all this is distant and bewildering for his feet, doubtless better +much than outer darkness, beautiful and full of God, if he could have the +heart to look up, and the eyes to make use of its vague light; but he is +miserable, and afraid, his next step is what he is thinking of; a lamp +secured against all winds of doctrine is put into his hands, it may in +some respects widen the circle of darkness, but it will cheer his feet, it +will tell them what to do next. What a silly fool he would be to throw +away that lantern, or draw down the shutters, and make it dark to him, +while it sits "i' the centre and enjoys bright day," and all upon the +philosophical ground that its light was of the same kind as the stars', +and that it was beneath the dignity of human nature to do anything but +struggle on and be lost in the attempt to get through the wilderness and +the night by the guidance of those "natural" lights, which, though they +are from heaven, have so often led the wanderer astray. The dignity of +human nature indeed! Let him keep his lantern till the glad sun is up, +with healing under his wings. Let him take good heed to the "sure" [Greek: +logon] while in this [Greek: auchmêrô topô]--this dark, damp, unwholesome +place, "till the day dawn and [Greek: phôsphoros]--the day-star--arise." +Nature and the Bible, the Works and the Word of God, are two distinct +things. In the mind of their Supreme Author they dwell in perfect peace, +in that unspeakable unity which is of His essence; and to us His children, +every day their harmony, their mutual relations, are discovering +themselves; but let us beware of saying all nature is a revelation as the +Bible is, and all the Bible is natural as nature is: there is a perilous +juggle here. + +The following passage develops Arthur Hallam's views on religious feeling; +this was the master idea of his mind, and it would not be easy to overrate +its importance. + + "My son, give me thine heart";--"Thou shalt _love_ the Lord thy + God";--"The fool hath said in his _heart_, There is no God." + +He expresses the same general idea in these words, remarkable in +themselves, still more so as being the thought of one so young. + + The work of intellect is posterior to the work of feeling. _The latter + lies at the foundation of the man_; it is his proper self--the + peculiar thing that characterizes him as an individual. No two men are + alike in feeling; but conceptions of the understanding, when distinct + are precisely similar in all--the ascertained relations of truths are + the common property of the race. + +Tennyson, we have no doubt, had this thought of his friend in his mind, in +the following lines; it is an answer to the question, Can man by searching +find out God?-- + + I found Him not in world or sun, + Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye; + Nor thro' the questions men may try, + The petty cobwebs we have spun: + + If e'er when faith had fallen asleep, + I heard a voice "believe no more," + And heard an ever-breaking shore + That tumbled in the godless deep; + + _A warmth within the breast would melt_ + The freezing reason's colder part, + _And like a man in wrath, the heart + Stood up and answered, "I have felt."_ + + No, like a child in doubt and fear: + But that blind clamour made me wise; + Then was I as a child that cries, + But, crying, knows his father near; + + And what I seem beheld again + What is, and no man understands: + And out of darkness came the hands + That reach thro' nature, moulding men. + +This is a subject of the deepest personal as well as speculative interest. +In the works of Augustine, of Baxter, Howe, and Jonathan Edwards, and of +Alexander Knox, our readers will find how large a place the religious +affections held in their view of Divine truth as well as of human duty. +The last-mentioned writer expresses himself thus: + + Our sentimental faculties are far stronger than our cogitative; and + the best impressions on the latter will be but the moonshine of the + mind, if they are alone. Feeling will be best excited by sympathy; + rather, it cannot be excited in any other way. Heart must act upon + heart--the idea of a living person being essential to all intercourse + of heart. You cannot by any possibility _cordialize_ with a mere _ens + rationis_. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," otherwise we + could not have "beheld His glory," much less "received of His + fulness."[114] + +Our young author thus goes on: + + This opens upon us an ampler view in which the subject deserves to be + considered, and a relation still more direct and close between the + Christian religion and the passion of love. What is the distinguishing + character of Hebrew literature, which separates it by so broad a line + of demarcation from that of every ancient people? Undoubtedly the + sentiment of _erotic devotion_ which pervades it. Their poets never + represent the Deity as an impassive principle, a mere organizing + intellect, removed at infinite distance from human hopes and fears. He + is for them a being of like passions with themselves, _requiring heart + for heart, and capable of inspiring affection, because capable of + feeling and returning it_. Awful indeed are the thunders of His + utterance and the clouds that surround His dwelling-place; very + terrible is the vengeance He executes on the nations that forget Him: + but to His chosen people, and especially to the men "after His own + heart," whom He anoints from the midst of them, His "still, small + voice" speaks in sympathy and loving-kindness. Every Hebrew, while his + breast glowed with patriotic enthusiasm at those promises, which he + shared as one of the favoured race, had a yet deeper source of + emotion, from which gushed perpetually the aspirations of prayer and + thanksgiving. He might consider himself alone in the presence of his + God; the single being to whom a great revelation had been made, and + over whose head an "exceeding weight of glory" was suspended. For him + the rocks of Horeb had trembled, and the waters of the Red Sea were + parted in their course. The word given on Sinai with such solemn pomp + of ministration was given to his own individual soul, and brought him + into immediate communion with his Creator. That awful Being could + never be put away from him. He was about his path, and about his bed, + and knew all his thoughts long before. _Yet this tremendous, enclosing + presence was a presence of love. It was a manifold, everlasting + manifestation of one deep feeling--a desire for human affection._ Such + a belief, while it enlisted even pride and self-interest on the side + of piety, had a direct tendency to excite the best passions of our + nature. Love is not long asked in vain from generous dispositions. A + Being, never absent, but standing beside the life of each man with + ever-watchful tenderness, and recognized, though invisible, in every + blessing that befel them from youth to age, became naturally the + object of their warmest affections. Their belief in Him could not + exist without producing, as a necessary effect, that profound + impression _of passionate individual attachment_ which in the Hebrew + authors always mingles with and vivifies their faith in the Invisible. + All the books of the Old Testament are breathed upon by this breath of + life. Especially is it to be found in that beautiful collection, + entitled the Psalms of David, which remains, after some thousand + years, perhaps the most perfect form in which the religious sentiment + of man has been embodied. + + But what is true of Judaism is yet more true of Christianity: "_matre + pulchrâ filia pulchrior_." In addition to all the characters of Hebrew + Monotheism, _there exists in the doctrine of the Cross a peculiar and + inexhaustible treasure for the affectionate feelings_. The idea of the + [Greek: Theanthrôpos], the God whose goings forth have been from + everlasting, yet visible to men for their redemption as an earthly, + temporal creature, living, acting, and suffering among themselves, + then (which is yet more important) transferring to the unseen place of + His spiritual agency the same humanity He wore on earth, so that the + lapse of generations can in no way affect the conception of His + identity; this is the most powerful thought that ever addressed + itself to a human imagination. It is the [Greek: pou stô], which alone + was wanted to move the world. Here was solved at once the great + problem which so long had distressed the teachers of mankind, how to + make _virtue the object of passion_, and to secure at once the warmest + enthusiasm in the heart with the clearest perception of right and + wrong in the understanding. The character of the blessed Founder of + our faith became an abstract of morality to determine the judgment, + _while at the same time it remained personal, and liable to love_. The + written word and established church prevented a degeneration into + ungoverned mysticism, but the predominant principle of vital religion + always remained that of self-sacrifice to the Saviour. Not only the + higher divisions of moral duties, but the simple, primary impulses of + benevolence, were subordinated to this new absorbing passion. The + world was loved "in Christ alone." The brethren were members of His + mystical body. All the other bonds that had fastened down the spirit + of the universe to our narrow round of earth were as nothing in + comparison to this golden chain of suffering and self-sacrifice, which + at once riveted the heart of man to one who, like himself, was + acquainted with grief. _Pain is the deepest thing we have_ in our + nature, and union through pain has always seemed more real and more + holy than any other.[115] + +There is a sad pleasure--_non ingrata amaritudo_--and a sort of meditative +tenderness in contemplating the little life of this "dear youth," and in +letting the mind rest upon these his earnest thoughts; to watch his keen +and fearless, but childlike spirit, moving itself aright--going straight +onward along "the lines of limitless desires"--throwing himself into the +very deepest of the ways of God, and striking out as a strong swimmer +striketh out his hands to swim; to see him "mewing his mighty youth, and +kindling his undazzled eye at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance": + + Light intellectual, and full of love, + Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy, + Joy, every other sweetness far above. + +It is good for every one to look upon such a sight, and as we look, to +love. We should all be the better for it; and should desire to be thankful +for, and to use aright a gift so good and perfect, coming down as it does +from above, from the Father of lights, in whom alone there is no +variableness, neither shadow of turning. + +Thus it is, that to each one of us the death of Arthur Hallam--his +thoughts and affections--his views of God, of our relations to Him, of +duty, of the meaning and worth of this world and the next--where he now +is--have an individual significance. He is bound up in our bundle of life; +we must be the better or the worse of having known what manner of man he +was; and in a sense less peculiar, but not less true, each of us may say: + + ----The tender grace of a day that is dead + Will never come back to me. + + ----O for the touch of a vanished hand, + And the sound of a voice that is still! + + God gives us love! Something to love + He lends us; but when love is grown + To ripeness, that on which it throve + Falls off, and love is left alone: + + This is the curse of time. Alas! + In grief we are not all unlearned; + Once, through our own doors Death did pass; + One went who never hath returned. + + This star + Rose with us, through a little arc + Of heaven, nor having wandered far, + Shot on the sudden into dark. + + Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace; + Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, + While the stars burn, the moons increase, + And the great ages onward roll. + + Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet, + Nothing comes to thee new or strange, + Sleep, full of rest from head to feet; + Lie still, dry dust, secure of change. + + _Vattene in pace, alma beata e bella._--Go in peace, soul beautiful + and blessed. + + "O man greatly beloved, go thou thy way till the end, for thou shalt + rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."--DANIEL. + + + + +APPENDICES + + + + +APPENDIX A + +THE COMMENTS OF TENNYSON ON ONE OF HIS LATER ETHICAL POEMS[116] + +By WILFRID WARD + + +He had often said he would go through the "De Profundis" with me line by +line, and he did so late in January or early in February 1889, when I was +staying at Farringford. He was still very ill, having had rheumatic fever +in the previous year; and neither he nor his friends expected that he +would recover after his many relapses. He could scarcely move his limbs, +and his fingers were tied with bandages. We moved him from bed to sofa, +but he could not sit up. His mind, however, was quite clear. He read +through the "De Profundis," and gave the substance of the explanation I +have written down. He began languidly, but soon got deeply interested. +When he reached the prayer at the end, he said: "A B" (naming a well-known +Positivist thinker) "exclaimed, when I read it to him, 'Do leave that +prayer out; I like all the rest of it.'" + +I proceed to set down the account of the poem written (in substance) +immediately after his explanation of it. The mystery of life as a whole +which so constantly exercised him is here most fully dealt with. He +supposes a child just born, and considers the problems of human existence +as presented by the thought of the child's birth, and the child's future +life with all its possibilities. The poem takes the form of two greetings +to the new-born child. In the first greeting life is viewed as we see it +in the world, and as we know it by physical science, as a phenomenon; as +the materialist might view it; not indeed coarsely, but as an outcome of +all the physical forces of the universe, which have ever contained in +themselves the potentiality of all that was to come--"all that was to be +in all that was." These vast and wondrous forces have now issued in this +newly given life--this child born into the world. There is the sense of +mystery in our greeting to it; but it is of the mysteries of the physical +Universe and nothing beyond; the sense of awe fitting to finite man at the +thought of infinite Time, of the countless years before human life was at +all, during which the fixed laws of Nature were ruling and framing the +earth as we know it, of the countless years earlier still, during which, +on the nebular hypothesis, Nature's laws were working before our planet +was separated off from the mass of the sun's light, and before the similar +differentiation took place in the rest of the "vast waste dawn of +multitudinous eddying light." Again, there is awe in contemplating the +vastness of space; in the thoughts which in ascending scale rise from the +new-born infant to the great globe of which he is so small a part, from +that to the whole solar system, from that again to the myriad similar +systems "glimmering up the heights beyond" us which we partly see in the +Milky Way; from that to those others which human sight can never descry. +Forces in Time and Space as nearly infinite as our imagination can +conceive, have been leading up to this one birth, with the short life of a +single man before it. May that life be happy and noble! Viewing it still +as the course determined by Nature's laws--a course unknown to us and yet +unalterably fixed--we sigh forth the hope that our child may pass +unscathed through youth, may have a full and prosperous time on earth, +blessed by man for good done to man, and may pass peacefully at last to +rest. Such is the first greeting--full of the poetry of life, of its +wondrous causes, of the overwhelming greatness of the Universe of which +this new-given baby is the child, cared for, preserved hitherto unscathed +amid these awful powers, all in all to its parents, inspiring the hope +which new-given joy makes sanguine, that fortune may be kind to it, that +happiness may be as great, sorrow and pain as little, as the chances of +the world allow. + +After his explanation, he read the first greeting to the child: + + Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, + Where all that was to be, in all that was, + Whirl'd for a million æons through the vast + Waste dawn of multitudinous eddying light-- + Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, + Thro' all this changing world of changeless law, + And every phase of ever-heightening life, + And nine long months of antenatal gloom, + With this last moon, this crescent--her dark orb + Touch'd with earth's light--thou comest, darling boy; + Our own; a babe in lineament and limb + Perfect, and prophet of the perfect man; + Whose face and form are hers and mine in one, + Indissolubly married like our love; + Live and be happy in thyself, and serve + This mortal race thy kin so well, that men + May bless thee as we bless thee, O young life, + Breaking with laughter from the dark; and may + The fated channel where thy motion lives + Be prosperously shaped, and sway thy course + Along the years of haste and random youth + Unshatter'd; then full-current thro' full man; + And last, in kindly curves, with gentlest fall, + By quiet fields, a slowly-dying power + To that last deep where we and thou art still. + +And then comes the second greeting. A deeper chord is struck. The +listener, who has, perhaps, felt as if the first greeting contained +all--all the mystery of birth, of life, of death--hears a sound unknown, +unimagined before. A new range of ideas is opened to us. The starry +firmament disappears for the moment. The "deep" of infinite time and space +is forgotten. A fresh sense is awakened, a deeper depth disclosed. We +leave this wondrous world of appearances. We gaze into that other +deep--the world of spirit, the world of realities; we see the new-born +babe coming to us from that _true_ world, with all the "abysmal depths of +personality," no longer a mere link in the chain of causes, with a fated +course through the events of life, but a moral being, with the awful power +of making or marring its own destiny and that of others. The proportions +are abruptly reversed. The child is no longer the minute outcome of +natural forces so much greater than itself. It is the "spirit," the moral +being, a reality which impinges on the world of appearances. Never can I +forget the change of voice, the change of manner, as Lord Tennyson passed +from the first greeting, with its purely human thoughts, to the second, so +full of awe at the conception of the world behind the veil and the moral +nature of man; an awe which seemed to culminate when he paused before the +word "Spirit" in the seventh line and then gave it in deeper and more +piercing tones: "Out of the deep--_Spirit_,--out of the deep." This second +greeting is in two parts: + + I + + Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, + From that great deep, before our world begins, + Whereon the Spirit of God moves as He will-- + Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, + From that true world within the world we see, + Whereof our world is but the bounding shore-- + Out of the deep, Spirit, out of the deep, + With this ninth moon, that sends the hidden sun, + Down yon dark sea, thou comest, darling boy. + + + II + + For in the world, which is not ours, they said, + "Let us make man," and that which should be man, + From that one light no man can look upon, + Drew to this shore, lit by the suns and moons + And all the shadows. O dear Spirit, half-lost + In thine own shadow and this fleshly sign + That thou art thou--who wailest being born + And banish'd into mystery, and the pain + Of this divisible-indivisible world + Among the numerable-innumerable + Sun, sun, and sun, thro' finite-infinite space, + In finite-infinite Time--our mortal veil + And shatter'd phantom of that infinite One, + Who made thee unconceivably Thyself + Out of His whole World-self, and all in all-- + Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape + And ivyberry, choose; and still depart + From death to death thro' life and life, and find + Nearer and ever nearer Him, who wrought + Not matter, not the finite-infinite, + But this main-miracle, that thou art thou, + With power on thine own act and on the world. + +Note that the second greeting considers the reality of the child's life +and its meaning, the first only its appearance. The great deep of the +spiritual world is "that true world within the world we see, Whereof our +world is but the bounding shore." And this indication that the second +greeting gives the deeper and truer view, is preserved in some of the side +touches of description. In the first greeting, for example, the moon is +spoken of as "touch'd with earth's light"; in the second the truer and +less obvious fact is suggested. It "sends the hidden sun down yon dark +sea." The material view again looks at bright and hopeful appearances in +life, and it notes the new-born babe "breaking with laughter from the +dark." The spiritual view foresees the woes which, if Byron is right in +calling melancholy the "telescope of truth," are truer than the joys. It +notes no longer the child's laughter, but rather its tears, "Thou wailest +being born and banished into mystery." Life, in the spiritual view, is in +part a veiling and obscuring of the true self as it is, in a world of +appearances. The soul is "half lost" in the body which is part of the +phenomenal world, "in thine own shadow and in this fleshly sign that thou +art thou." The suns and moons, too, are but shadows, as the body of the +child itself is but a shadow--shadows of the spirit-world and of God +Himself. The physical life is before the child; but not as a fatally +determined course. Choice of the good is to lead the spirit ever nearer +God. The wonders of the material Universe are still recognized: "Sun, sun, +and sun, thro' finite-infinite space, in finite-infinite Time"; but they +vanish into insignificance when compared to the two great facts of the +spirit-world which consciousness tells us unmistakably--the facts of +personality and of a responsible will. The great mystery is "Not Matter, +nor the finite-infinite," but "_this main-miracle, that thou art thou, +with power on thine own act and on the world_." + +"Out of the deep"--in this conception of the true "deep" of the world +behind the veil we have the thought which recurs so often, as in the +"Passing of Arthur" and in "Crossing the Bar"[117]--of birth and death as +the coming from and returning to the spirit-world and God Himself. +Birth[118] is the coming to land from that deep; "of which our world is +but the bounding shore;" death the re-embarking on the same infinite sea, +for the home of truth and light. + +He seemed so much better when he had finished his explanation that I asked +him to read the poem through again. This he did, more beautifully than I +ever heard him read. I felt as though his long illness and his expectation +of death gave more intensity and force to his rendering of this wonderful +poem on the mystery of life. He began quietly, and read the concluding +lines of the first "greeting," the brief description of a peaceful old age +and death, from the human standpoint, with a very tender pathos: + + And last, in kindly curves, with gentlest fall + By quiet fields, a slowly-dying power, + To that last deep where we and thou are still. + +Then he gathered force, and his voice deepened as the greeting to the +immortal soul of the man was read. He raised his eyes from the book at the +seventh line and looked for a moment at his hearer with an indescribable +expression of awe before he uttered the word "spirit"; "Out of the +deep--Spirit,--out of the deep." When he had finished the second greeting +he was trembling much. Then he read the prayer--a prayer he had told me of +self-prostration before the Infinite. I think he intended it as a contrast +to the analytical and reflective character of the rest. It is an +outpouring of the simplest and most intense self-abandonment to the +Creator, an acknowledgment, when all has been thought and said with such +insight and beauty, that our best thoughts and words are as nothing in the +Great Presence--in a sense parallel to the breaking off in the "Ode to the +Duke of Wellington": + + Speak no more of his renown, + Lay your earthly fancies down. + +He began to chaunt in a loud clear voice: + + Hallowed be Thy Name--Halleluiah. + +His voice was growing tremulous as he reached the second part: + + We feel we are nothing--for all is Thou and in Thee; + We feel we are something--_that_ also has come from Thee. + +And he broke down as he finished the prayer: + + We know we are nothing--but Thou wilt help us to be. + Hallowed be Thy Name--Halleluiah! + + + + +APPENDIX B + + +It will be seen below that the lines to which reference is made-- + + That man's the true cosmopolite + Who loves his native country best, + +have been altered to suit my mother's setting, arranged by Sir Charles +Stanford, to + + He best will serve the race of men + Who loves his native country best. + + +HANDS ALL ROUND + +A NATIONAL SONG + +THE MELODY BY EMILY, LADY TENNYSON AND ARRANGED BY C. VILLIERS STANFORD + +_With breadth and not too slow._ + + First pledge our Queen, my + friends, and then A health to Eng-land eve-ry guest; He + best will serve the race of men, Who loves his na-tive + coun-try best. May Free-dom's oak for ev-er last, With + lar-ger life, from day to day; He loves the pre-sent and the past, Who + lops the moulder'd branch a-way. + +CHORUS (_ad lib._) + +_Broadly._ + + Hands all round! + God the traitor's hope con-found! To the great cause of Free-dom + drink, my friends, And the great name of Eng-land + round and round. + + + To all the loyal hearts who long + To keep our English Empire whole! + To all our noble sons, the strong + New England of the Southern Pole! + To England under Indian skies, + To those dark millions of her realm! + To Canada whom we love and prize, + Whatever statesman hold the helm. + Hands all round! God the traitor's hope confound! + To the great cause of Freedom drink, my friends, + And the great name of England round and round. + + To all our statesmen so they be + True leaders of the land's desire! + To both our Houses, may they see + Beyond the borough and the shire! + We sail'd wherever ship could sail, + We founded many a mighty state; + Pray God our greatness may not fail + Thro' craven fears of being great. + Hands all round! God the traitor's hope confound! + To the great cause of Freedom drink, my friends, + And the great name of England round and round. + + + + +APPENDIX C + +MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN FRIENDS + + +[During the last twenty-five years of his life my father was probably, +throughout the whole English-speaking race, the Englishman who was most +widely known. Hence the letters addressed to him by strangers competed in +number with those which, it is well known, add a needless weariness to the +heavy task of governing a civilized state. This became a correspondence +mainly of request or of reverence, although the voice of disappointment or +of envy of what is ranked above oneself which lurks in common human nature +may have occasionally been audible. My father's experience here was that +of Dr. Johnson and, doubtless, of many more men of commanding eminence; +that of writers submitting their work for candid criticism, charging him +with conceit if he suggested publication as unadvisable; if it were +advised, and the book failed, with deception. Probably many of those who +wrote thus soon repented of their eloquence; at any rate nothing of this +nature will be here preserved. But of the ordinary type of strangers' +letters some specimens may be of interest. And although these few have +been chosen mainly from the letters addressed to my father during his last +fifteen years yet they will give a general impression of the vast quantity +received. + +I place first letters upon poetry submitted (or proposed for submission) +to my father's judgment.] + +(1884) + + I hope you will forgive the liberty I am taking in writing to you. I + have heard a great deal about you, and I read a part of one of your + poems, "The May Queen." I have not had an opportunity to read the + whole of it, but I like what I have seen very much.... I have tried + to write some poems myself. I have enclosed one for you to see, which + came into my mind while I was digging a ditch in my garden. I am only + nine years old, and if I keep on trying some day I shall write a grand + poem. + +(1882) + + HONOURED SIR--It has been said: where a great apology is most needed, + it is best to begin with the business at once. + + I never had the pleasure of seeing you, but it is enough for me to + have had the pleasure of reading your heart in your works, "though + they be but a part of your inward soul." I am a lad scarcely seventeen + summers old. In some of my leisure hours, particularly morning and + evening ones, I penned a few thousand lines of small poems in fair + metre,--so my simple-minded friend or two pronounce them in their + partiality.... [He deprecates the suspicion that he is applying for + money.] Will you allow me to forward to you through the post a few of + my poems? And when your benevolent soul has given up time to read some + of my verses ("the primrose fancies of a boy"), and should my + productions be considered by you deserving of your good word, half the + difficulty of finding a willing publisher will, I know, be removed. + +There is something truly felt and pathetic in the two following letters. +The first is from a young poetess. + + I hardly know how I have summoned up sufficient courage to address + you, although I have long wished to do so! Studying that most touching + of poems "Enoch Arden," I felt somehow convinced that the heart that + had inspired so much which is beautiful and touching, would also + prompt a kind answer to me. Ever since I was a child (not so very long + ago), writing was my only consolation and solace in moments of great + grief or joy; writing--I shall not say _poetry_ but rhyme. + +(1881) + + DEAR MR. TENNYSON--I have heard and believed that great men are always + the best hearted, and therefore hope you will kindly look at the + enclosed and tell me if there is any hope that I may ever write + anything worthy the name of poetry, and if those lines are anything + but doggerel, I hope you will not think me as presumptuous as I do; + something tells me you will be kind. + +Now follow good average specimens. + +(1890) + + DEAR AND MUCH-ADMIRED LORD TENNYSON--The writer of this, an humble + admirer of your Poetry,--an uneducated girl from the bogs of Ireland, + has the audacity to send you her first effort in verse: whether it is + poetry or not I leave you to decide, as I am entirely incapable of + judging myself, as I am wholly ignorant of the art of versification, + and indeed would never dream of attempting to write verse, only I was + very anxious to succeed in prose writing.... + +(1882) + + Will you kindly pardon my venturing to ask you to read some of my + verses, and to tell me whether you consider me capable of ever writing + poetry fit to be read? I have never had any desire to become a poet, + but lately ideas have come into my head, once I seemed to see a line + or two before my eyes, and in order to free myself from these fancies + I wrote. + +(1884) + + DEAR SIR--I remember your figure and attire at Shiplake Vicarage in + Mrs. Franklyn Rawnsley's house, 1852, thirty-two years ago. Does your + memory travel back to a fine December morning when, the house full of + guests for the christening of the latest blossom of the Rawnsley + house, there drove up through the flooded meadows surrounding the low + old vicarage, a cab with a young foreigner, a child of sixteen + summers, all tremulous how she should be received, not speaking a word + of English but her native German tongue, besides French, introduced by + Miss Amélie Bodte, the authoress in Dresden, to teach music to Mrs. + Rawnsley's children? What a woeful feeling for the well-known + counsellor's daughter to be treated in a cool way as the engaged + teacher of little children. However, there was an oasis in the desert. + On the following morning Mrs. Rawnsley proposed to the assembled + guests to take a walk in a neighbouring Squire's park while she looked + after some home duties, and a tall young gentleman with an enormous + Tyrolese hat offered to walk with a solitary stranger. He spoke a + little German and tried to divert the gloom of the young girl by + crossing the lawn and breaking a belated rose she admired coming from + snow-bound Saxony. They stopped at a turtle-dove house where he made + the prettiest little German pun she never forgot hereafter, "Ich bin + eine kleine Taube" (I am a little dove (deaf)?). And it began to rain, + and he--it was you--took off the Spanish cloak gathered with narrow + stitches on the throat, a black velvet collar falling over it, and + wrapped it round the girl's shoulders. The ladies of the company + frowned, returning home, all told as with one voice to Mrs. Rawnsley + what had happened during the walk, and she laughed and said to me in + French, "My dear, you had all the honours as a German because you did + not try for them, this is the Poet Laureate, and it displeases him + that the ladies torment him for attentions." And now do you remember, + of course you know this girl was I. And the next day you read the "Ode + to the Queen," of which I did not understand a word, and you went away + to the sea to meet your wife and baby son, and I never saw you again. + Now after thirty-two years undergoing purification in the crucible of + humble life, I come to ask you to accept kindly the dedication of one + of my compositions--a song. Your name is as illustrious here as in + England, and my poor song will find more eager listeners with your + name attached as a patron than otherwise.... "A turtle dove" could but + bring an olive branch to a lone woman and gladden the heart of your + Lordship's most respectful admirer, + + MARIA * * * + +(1890) + +Now a Transatlantic poetess: + +(After excuse asked for "presumption" she says:) + + I have to thank you for some of the best thoughts and the purest + pleasure I have ever derived from anything. + + I am an American girl nineteen years of age, and was named from the + hero of "Aylmer's Field." + + I enclose some verses I have written. I would like exceedingly to hear + your opinion of them and to know if they contain anything of promise. + + LEOLINE * * * + +(1877) + +From America also we have one who modestly describes himself as "a mere +Collegian, a youth to fortune and to fame unknown...." + + I have during the past summer been engaged, to my great entertainment + and instruction, in the perusal of your poetical works, reading many + for the first time though of course familiar with a large number; + having finished them, I could not refrain from expressing my + admiration of your great genius in a few lines which I send herewith. + + O Tennyson, how great a soul is thine! + Thy range of thought how varied + and how vast... + +(1862) + + Will you accept the enclosed lines as a slight testimonial of the high + admiration entertained for your exquisite genius, by a rhyming + daughter of Columbia; whose poetic wings just fledging from a first + unpublished vol. (commended by Wm. Cullen Bryant and Geo. Bancroft, + Esqrs.) permit only a feeble fluttering around the base of that + "Parnassus," whose summit you have so brilliantly, and justly + attained. * * * + +(187-) + +Then an "Agent for Stars" offers my father £20,000 if said Agent is +permitted to arrange a tour for him in the United States. + +(1884) + +The following is another--we will not say, a less acceptable offering: + + I send you by my good friend ---- a dozen small parcels of smoking + tobacco.... + + We think it the best smoking tobacco in the world and I trust that you + may find reason to agree with us. If it shall give you one moment's + pleasure in return for the countless hours of delight that you have + given me, I shall count myself a happy mortal. + +(1890) + +A gift certainly not less acceptable comes from a little girl: + + MY LORD--_Please_ let these flowers be in your room, and _do_ wear the + little bunch.--I remain, your true admirer, * * * + +Now follows the _Grande Armée_ of natural, amiable, but remorseless +autograph hunters. A miscellaneous group comes first. + +(1890) + + HONOURED LORD--May I (an Australian maiden born 1870) hope to be + pardoned for taking the liberty of writing to you--so distinguished a + gentleman--to express my great admiration for your poems? It is my + admiration that has emboldened me to venture so far ... etc. etc. + + Let me conclude with one request: namely to ask you to do me the very + great honour to acknowledge this letter; so that I may be able to + boast of, and dearly treasure, even a line from the Great Poet. + +(1890) + +An obvious fisher for good things follows: + + SIR--I hope that you will kindly excuse the liberty I take in + requesting you to be so good as to inform me how the word "humble" + should be pronounced: _i.e._ whether or not it is proper to aspirate + the "h"? + + A reply at your kind convenience will inexpressibly oblige.... + +(1890) + +Another ingenuously finds it needful to ask whether the word be pronounced +_I_dylls or _E_dylls. + +(1891) + + DEAR SIR--A simple child (who writes from Holland), would feel + extremely happy, would be in the seventh heaven, when she would be + favoured with a mere line of the greatest poet of renown, Alfred + Tennyson. Allow her, to offer you before, her sincere thanks for your + autograph, with which she would feel the happiest child in the world. + + With kind regards, most honourable lord, yours respectfully. + +(1882) + + A (German) collector of autographs, who has an autograph of Mr. Kinkel + and Victor Hugo, the greatest living poets of Germany and France, only + misses in his collection the autograph of the greatest living English + poet. Therefore he requests you to give him an autograph of yours. May + it only be your signature, it will find in my album a place of honour. + +(1882) + + _To the prince of poets._ + + MONSIEUR--Forgive me, I beseech you, the liberty I take in daring to + write to you; but I wish to beg the greatest of favours. + + This favour, Monsieur, it is your signature. + + I am only a young Belgian girl, and I have no reason to proffer why + you should thus distinguish me; but I feel you must love all girls, or + you could not have written "Isabel" or "Lilian"; and you must be kind + and good, or you would not have given them to the world. + + So, Monsieur, I humbly beg you send me the name we all venerate, + traced by the hand that has guided the world with so much beauty, and + make one more heart supremely happy.--One who loves you, * * * + +Three petitions, which touched my father, may here have place. + +The first (1884) consists of some twenty letters, in very creditable +English and excellent hand-writing, each saying some handsome thing about +the "May Queen," which they had learned, and now criticized with amusing +_naïveté_, and asking for a line from Tennyson--signed with the children's +names, and dated from a German High School for girls: "who," says their +Mistress, "in the joy of their hearts tried to express their feeling of +admiration in their imperfect knowledge of the English language." + + * * * * * + +In the next a young girl from India, training in England with comrades +apparently for Zenana work, thanks "Our dear aziz Sahib" for a copy of the +Poems, and then proceeds, in neat round hand: + + Oh how we wish we could see you even for one minute The Great and good + Poet Laureate, whom everybody loves so much and we love you too dear + sweet Sahib, we are going to learn that pretty Poetry "The May Queen" + and several others out of that lovely Book. Will you please, dear + Sahib, write out "The May Queen" and "The Dedication of the Idyols of + the King," with your own hand, we will keep it till the last day of + our lives. + +They then explain why the "Dedication" is asked for; "because we know how +dearly Prince Albert loved you, and, also our beloved Queen Empress, and +how you love them": also how they long to go back "to our dear India," and +sing hymns, and nurse and dose "our own countrywomen in the Zenanas." + + Now good-bye our aziz (beloved) Sahib I am sending you some wild + daisies and moss as you are so fond of flowers and everything + beautiful in God's world. May God give you a sweet smile every day, + prays your little loving, Indian Friend, * * * + +This last explains itself: + + DEAR MR. TENNYSON--I am one of a large struggling family of girls and + boys who have never yet been able to afford to give 9s. for that + much-coveted green volume Tennyson's "Poems," so at last, the boys + having failed to obtain it as a prize, and the girls as a birthday + present, I, the boldest of the party, venture to ask if you would + kindly bestow a copy on a nest full of young admirers. * * * + +He wrote his little Indian maid a pretty letter, and sent his poems to the +"best girl." And in many an instance, (requests for aid included) the +correspondence bears witness to my father's open-hearted kindliness and +liberality. His _beggars_, at any rate, were often _choosers_. + +The wish for an autograph, we may again reasonably suppose, was not absent +from the minds of the following (and other analogous) writers. The first +dates from Scotland: + +(1878) + + I take the great liberty in writing to you, in order to settle a + dispute that has arisen amongst several parties, regarding the song + written by Sir Walter Scott, _Jock O' Hazeldean_. The words are as + follows, + + And ye shall be his bride Lady; + So comely to be seen. + + Does comely apply to the bride, or the bridegroom? As your opinion + will be considered satisfactory to all, your reply will be considered + a lasting favour. * * * + +(1883) + + I am an enthusiastic reader and admirer of your works, and have read + those which I like especially, over and over again, in particular + "Maud," which I consider to be surpassingly fresh and beautiful--there + is a sort of fascination about the poem to me ... but I really cannot + understand the meaning of the end of it. + + I should very much like to know whether it is intended to mean that + Maud's brother, "that curl'd Assyrian bull," is slain by her lover: + whether Maud is supposed to die of a broken heart, or does her lover + come back, long after, presumably from the Russian war and marry her? + +The remaining examples, in which respect is curiously blended with +familiarity, are dated from the United States. + +A lively boy of thirteen (1884) who loves "Nature and Poetry" shall here +have precedence: + + In the first place I wish to ask your pardon for bothering you with + this letter, but I want to make a collection, or I mean get the + autographs of 5 or 6 distinguished poets; and so I thought I would + write and get yours if possible and then the minor ones may follow. + + I have read most of your poems, and like them _very much_ indeed, etc. + etc. + + (A biographical sketch follows, including a visit to England.) When we + drove back from Stoke Pogis to Windsor we saw the deer in the Queen's + hunting grounds, and the tall, mighty oaks on each side of the road + seemed to say, "This is an Earthly Paradise."... + + If you would write a verse or two from some one of your poems and + write your name under it, I should be _very much_ obliged to you + indeed. + +(1885) + + Forgive the intrusion of a stranger (says a lady). Long have I desired + to have some one of the noble thoughts, I have so learned to love, in + your own handwriting. I have felt a delicacy in asking this, but the + wish is so earnest with me that I will venture this first and last + request.... I crave some tangible proof that my "hero-worship" has + some sympathetic, human foundation. Could I choose a couplet?... They + spring to my memory in legions. The wild melody of "Blow, bugle, + blow," etc. etc. ... They have helped to make my life beautiful, + earnest and true, and I am grateful for it all. If I might be once + more your debtor it would be a real joy to me, but if it _feels_ like + a burden, do not give it another thought. + + * * * * * + +(1891) + + ... In behalf of _Charity Circle_, a non-sectarian organization of the + order of King's Daughters, we are making a collection of autographs of + prominent men and women to be used in a souvenir banner: which when + finished will be sold and the proceeds devoted to charity work. We + feel as if the banner will not be complete without Lord Tennyson's + autograph. + +(1891) + + BELOVED SIR--I feel awkward and abashed, as I thus come before you, + who are so great, so honored, so crowned with earthly fame and glory; + and, so worthy to be thus crowned, and known to fame: but, I know, + that in the midst of all these honors, which might spoil one, of the + common sort of souls; you are a poet, _born_, _not_ made; and + therefore, you have the essential gift of the poet [sympathy] and can + feel for the imprisoned soul, beating against the stifling walls of + silence: and longing, fainting, to come forth into the glad sunshine, + the sweet, fresh air of _utterance_, so strangely withheld from it.... + From [youth] till now, Beloved Sir, you have been my friend, my + soother; the dear angel, whose kindly office it has been, ever and + anon, to speak _for_ me ... and thus to give me the _sweet sense_ of + having been led forth from prison for a while into the blessed light + and freedom of utterance. + + I will never forget the relief afforded by those lines: + + My very heart faints and my soul grieves + Etc. etc. + + * * * * * + +(1891) + +A lady writes to the honored Poet-Laureate of England, and the beloved +world-renowned verse-maker. + + Knowing the value of even one verse and your autograph I write to you + and make my request, which if granted will be beyond my anticipations. + I want a dedicatory poem so much, but if I get only a line from you I + should be happy. I always loved your poetry. Now please, do send me + the coveted verse. I, a beggar-maid at the throne of poetry, kneel and + beg of the monarch a crumb. Have you any grandchildren? I wish I + could get one of their photos for my book. Hoping you will act like + the good king in the fairy kingdom and grant the request--I remain + etc. etc. + +(1885) + + DEAR LADY TENNYSON--It is one of the glorious privileges of our + government that the "first ladies of the land" may be courteously + addressed without the formalities of an introduction, and why not the + same rule in your country? Therefore, without the semblance of an + apology, I request you will do me the honor to grant a small favor. I + am engaged in collecting souvenirs from celebrated writers, and you + being the wife of England's Poet Laureate, I would prize beyond + measure a contribution from you: a _scrap_ of silk or velvet from one + of _your dresses_, and also a scrap of one of your husband's + _neckties_.... There is no one who loves his works as myself ... he + reaches further down into the human heart and touches its tender cords + (sic) as no man has since the days of Shakespeare.... My husband, who + has won an enviable reputation as a writer hopes soon to produce his + work on _The Lives of English and American Poets_. Hoping you will not + refuse me, etc. etc. + +A few miscellaneous oddities follow. + +(1883) + + DEAR SIR--May I ask you as a favour where I could find a "wold," to + illustrate the following verse: + + Calm and deep peace on this high wold, + And on these dews that drench the furze, + And all the silvery gossamers + That twinkle into green and gold: + ("In Memoriam," XI.) + + which is the subject given this year for a painting (for the Gold + Medal), to the Students of the Royal Academy of Arts? + +(1840) + +A young girl, writing from America, asks a natural question. + + We have your book of poems, and I have read "Enoch Arden." So I + thought I would write and see if it is true. Was there a girl whose + name was Anna Lee, and two boys named Enoch Arden and Philip Ray? + + I felt very sorry for Philip at first and afterward for Enoch, when + he came home and found his wife had married Philip and he saw her + children grown up, but could not go to see them.... + + I have a pet rooster, and it is very cunning. I hold it and pet it and + I love it _lots_. + + Well, I must close, hoping to hear from you soon, for I want to know + if the story of Enoch is true. + +(1891) + +U.S.A. again supplies the following _naïveté_: + + DEAR SIR--I intrude a line on your notice, to ask a little favor. + + I am in my fourteenth year; am considered fairly advanced for my age, + by older heads. I _wish your opinion_ of the _best line of books_ for + me to read at leisure hours, aside from novels or fiction. I attend + the high school, and on Saturdays, clerk in the store, of which my + father is senior partner. + + _P.S._--You will find five cents for return postage. + + _2nd P.S._--My mother says you are not living, but I say to her, I + believe she is mistaken; in other words, I am glad one time to differ + with her. + +(1888) + + MY DEAR LORD TENNYSON--I once met you.... + + You will think it strange indeed, my Lord, when I assure you that I am + often supposed to be your noble self, once in Scarborough, often in + Town at the great exhibitions and elsewhere. I wear a large Tyrolese + felt hat. + + There is to be a grand summer party here, my Lord, gentlemen to appear + in character, I having been requested to appear as "Lord Tennyson." + + Could your Lordship kindly lend me any outer clothing, by Thursday + morning at latest? a cloak, etc.? Then I should feel so thankful and + fulfil the character better. + + * * * * * + +America characteristically supplies the following: + + Permit me to call your special attention to a pamphlet I mail you + herewith, of an address to the _New Shakespere Society_, containing + the announcement of a momentous discovery which I have made in the + "Shakespeare" plays. + + My unveiling therein of the allegory of _Cymbeline_ is but a sample of + what I have similarly discerned in the other dramas, and in which I + find the same conclusions consistently to be reached. + + * * * * * + +The fair writer's answers to objections and discourse on her discovery +unhappily throw no light upon the subject. She proceeds: + + I would add that it is singular to myself there should be so strong a + prejudice against the acceptance of Bacon's authorship of these + dramas, investing them, as it does, with such additional interest both + of a historical and an autobiographical kind, in the light of his + concealment of it. + + The value of truth, and the interests of literature, constitute my + apology for this intrusion upon your valuable time. + + * * * * * + +[The acceptance of Bacon's authorship of Shakespeare's dramas and the +attack on Shakespeare's character made my father register his opinion +thus: + + Not only with no sense of shame + On common sense you tread, + Not only ride your hobby lame, + But make him kick the dead. ED.] + +(1882) + + RIGHT HONORABLE SIR--The editor of a Bohemian literary journal takes + the liberty of applying, in a very delicate matter, to you the most + renowned poet of the first literature in the world. Yet this liberty I + draw from having a great belief in the generous character of the + English nation. + + What I do venture to impress on your mind is this, that a poem of + yours written on, and dedicated to the poor descendants of Bohemia's + happier ancestors, would as a mighty missionary go the round all over + their fair country evoking everywhere loud echoes out of the graves of + their heroes! + +(1892) + +The following is a letter from an hysterical Irishman: + + EMINENT SIR--I send you the inside poem to show you what the American + people think of your lives of tyranny, and may the day come when your + infernal land may be torn to a million pieces. Curse you for your + highway robbery of Ireland, and then holding her down in such misery, + and also for your cowardly war with Napoleon. You could fight him + alone, could you? I wish that every Englishman was in the hottest + place of hell--their bones made into gridirons to roast their hearts + on. * * * + +(1888-1892) + +A French chemist, hearing that "Monsieur" suffers from gout, has a certain +secret cure. If he could, he would come over to England, "et ... je vous +guérirais complètement." + +He is assured that this remedy will rapidly make him rich. But it should +be known beyond France. + + On m'a dit que je pouvais trouver quelques-uns à l'étranger qui + sauraient l'apprécier et le faire valoir que cela vaut une petite + fortune pour moi; ne serai-je que pour l'humanité, je me tacherai de + la vendre. + + Je vous le répète, Monsieur, c'est bien regrettable que je ne sois pas + plus près de chez vous, car je vous soulagerois et, Monsieur, on peut + se renseigner sur moi; je ne suis pas riche mais honnête et d'une + bonne famille, et en faisant mon chimisterie je m'occupe un peu + d'antiquités. + +Two of the latest letters amused my father much, one from Canada from a +little boy who said that his mother liked cheeses, and he would like +Tennyson to send him money to buy a good cheese: the other from an English +artist who said that his speciality was drawing cows, but that he must +have a cow of his own to live with and make proper studies of, would +therefore Tennyson give him a cow? + + + + +APPENDIX D + +TENNYSON'S ARTHURIAN POEM[119] + +By SIR JAMES KNOWLES, K.C.V.O. + + + [This letter was written after a talk with my father, and no doubt Sir + James Knowles has caught much of the meaning of "The Idylls of the + King." About this poem my father said to me, "My meaning was + spiritual. I only took the legendary stories of the Round Table as + illustrations. Arthur was allegorical to me. I intended him to + represent the Ideal in the Soul of Man coming in contact with the + warring elements of the flesh."--ED.] + +The fine and wholesome moral breeze which always seems to blow about the +higher realms of Art comes to us fresh as ever from this great poem, and +more acceptably than ever just now. A constant worship of Purity, and a +constant reprobation of Impurity as the rock on which the noble projects +of the "blameless king" are wrecked, appear throughout upon the surface of +the story. + +But besides this, there doubtless does run through it all a sort of +under-tone of symbolism, which, while it never interferes with the clear +_melody_ of the poem, or perverts it into that most tedious of riddles, a +formal allegory, gives a profound _harmony_ to its music and a prophetic +strain to its intention most worthy of a great spiritual Bard. + +King Arthur, as he has always been treated by Tennyson, stands obviously +for no mere individual prince or hero, but for the "King within us"--our +highest nature, by whatsoever name it may be called--conscience; spirit; +the moral soul; the religious sense; the noble resolve. His story and +adventures become the story of the battle and pre-eminence of the soul and +of the perpetual warfare between the spirit and the flesh. + +For so exalting him there is abundant warrant in the language of many old +compilers, by whom "all human perfection was collected in Arthur"; as +where, for instance, one says,--"The old world knows not his peer, nor +will the future show us his equal,--he alone towers over all other kings, +better than the past ones, and greater than those that are to be"; or +another, "In short, God has not made, since Adam was, the man more perfect +than Arthur." + +How and why Arthur ever grew to so ideal a height we need not now inquire, +it is sufficient here to note the fact, and that Tennyson is +archæologically justified thereby in making him the type of the soul on +earth, from its mysterious coming to its mysterious and deathless going. + +In the "Idylls of the King," the soul comes first before us as a conqueror +in a waste and desert land groaning under mere brute power. Its history +before then is dark with doubt and mystery, and the questions about its +origin and authority form the main subject of the introductory poem. + +Many, themselves the basest, hold it to be base-born, and rage against its +rule: + + And since his ways are sweet, + And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man; + And there be those who deem him more than man, + And dream he dropt from heaven. + +Of those who recognize its claim, some, as the hoary chamberlain, accept +it on the word of wizards who have written all about it in a sacred book +which, doubtless, some day will become intelligible. Others, as Ulfius, +and Brastias, standing for commonplace men with commonplace views, are +satisfied to think the soul comes as the body does, or not to think at all +about it. Others, again, as Bedivere, with warmer hearts, feel there is +mystery, where to the careless all is plain, yet seek among the dark ways +of excessive natural passion for the key, and drift towards the scandalous +accordingly. Then comes the simple touching tenderness of the woman's +discovery of conscience and its influence given by Queen Bellicent in the +story of her childhood; and this, again, is supplemented and contrasted by +the doctrine of the wise men and philosophers put into Merlin's mouth. His +"riddling triplets" anger the woman, but are a wonderful summary of the +way, part-earnest, part-ironical, and all-pathetic, in which great wit +confronts the problem of the soul. + +The inscrutableness of its origin being thus signified, we see next the +recognition of its supremacy, and its first act of kinghood,--the +inspiration of the best and bravest near it with a common enthusiasm for +Right. The founding of the Order of the Round Table coincides with the +solemn crowning of the soul. Conscience, acknowledged and throned as king, +binds at once all the best of human powers together into one brotherhood, +and that brotherhood to itself by vows so strait and high, + + That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some + Were pale as at the passing of a ghost, + Some flush'd, and others dazed, as one who wakes + Half-blinded at the coming of a light. + +At that supreme coronation-moment, the Spirit is surrounded and cheered on +by all the powers and influences which can ever help it--earthly servants +and allies and heavenly powers and tokens--the knights, to signify the +strength of the body; Merlin, to signify the strength of intellect; the +Lady of the Lake, who stands for the Church, and gives the soul its +sharpest and most splendid earthly weapon; and, above all, three fair and +mystic Queens, "tall, with bright sweet faces," robed in the living +colours sacred to love and faith and hope, which flow upon them from the +image of our Lord above. These, surely, stand for those immortal virtues +which only will abide "when all that seems shall suffer shock," and +leaning upon which alone, the soul, when all else falls from it, shall go +towards the golden gates of the new and brighter morning. + +As the first and introductory idyll thus seems to indicate the coming and +the recognition of the soul, so the ensuing idylls of the "Round Table" +show how its influence fares--waxes or wanes--in the great battle of life. +Through all of these we see the body and its passions gain continually +greater sway, till in the end the Spirit's earthly work is thwarted and +defeated by the flesh. Its immortality alone remains to it, and, with +this, a deathless hope. + +From the story of "Geraint and Enid," where the first gust of poisoning +passion bows for a time with base suspicion, yet passes, and leaves pure a +great and simple heart, we are led through "Merlin and Vivien," where, +early in the storm, we see great wit and genius succumb,--and through +"Lancelot and Elaine," where the piteous early death of innocence and hope +results from it,--to "The Holy Grail," where we find religion itself +under the stress of it, and despite the earnest efforts of the soul, blown +into mere fantastic shapes of superstition. It would be difficult to find +a nobler and manlier apology for pure and sane and practical religion, fit +for mighty men, than the verdict of the King at the end of this wonderful +poem. + +In "Pelleas and Ettarre" the storm of corruption culminates, whirling the +sweet waters of young love and faith (the very life-spring of the world) +out from their proper channels, sweeping them into mist, and casting them +in hail upon the land. A scarcely-concealed harlot here rides splendid to +the Court, and is crowned Queen of Beauty in the lists; the lust of the +flesh is all but paramount. Then comes in "Guinevere" the final lightning +stroke, and all the fabric of the earthly life falls smitten into dust, +leaving to the soul a broken heart for company, and a conviction that if +in this world only it had hope, it were of all things most miserable. + +Thus ends the "Round Table," and the story of the life-long labour of the +soul.... + +There remains but the passing of the soul "from the great deep to the +great deep," and this is the subject of the closing idyll. Here the "last +dim, weird battle," fought out in densest mist, stands for a picture of +all human death, and paints its awfulness and confusion. The soul alone, +enduring beyond the end wherein all else is swallowed up, sees the mist +clear at last, and finds those three crowned virtues, "abiding" true and +fast, and waiting to convey it to its rest. Character, upheld and formed +by these, is the immortal outcome of mortal life. They wail with it awhile +in sympathy for the failure of its earthly plans; but at the very last of +all are heard to change their sorrow into songs of joy, and departing, +"vanish into light." + +Such or such like seems to be the high significance and under-meaning of +this noble poem,--a meaning worthy of the exquisite expression which +conveys it and of the wealth of beauty and imagery which enfolds it. + +But nothing is more remarkable than the way in which so much symbolic +truth is given without the slightest forcing of the current of the +narrative itself. Indeed, so subtle are the touches, and so consummately +refined the art employed, that quite possibly many readers may hold there +is no parable at all intended. It is most interesting, for instance, to +note the thread of realism which is preserved throughout, and which, +whether intentionally or not, serves the double purpose of entirely +screening any such symbolic under-meaning from all who do not care to seek +it, and also of accounting naturally for all the supernatural adventures +and beliefs recorded in the story itself. + +Thus, in "The Holy Grail," the various apparitions of the mystic vessel +are explicable by passing meteors or sudden lightning flashes seen in a +season of great tempests and thunderstorms--first acting on the hysterical +exaltation of an enthusiastic nun, and then, by contagion from her faith, +upon the imaginations of a few kindred natures. + +Again, in the "Coming of Arthur," the marvellous story of his birth, as +told by Bleys, might simply have been founded on a shipwreck when the sea +was phosphorescent, and when all hands suddenly perished, save one infant +who was washed ashore. + +Or, again, in the same poem, the three mystic Queens at the +Coronation--who become, in one sense, so all-important in their +meaning--derive their import in the eyes of Bellicent simply from the +accident of coloured beams of light falling upon them from a stained-glass +window. + +May I, in conclusion say how happily characteristic of their English +author, and their English theme, seems to me the manner in which these +"Idylls of the King" have become a complete poem? It brings to mind the +method of our old cathedral-builders. Round some early shrine, too +precious to be moved, were gathered bit by bit a nave and aisles, then +rich side chapels, then the great image-crowded portals, then a more noble +chancel, then, perhaps, the towers, all in fulfilment of some general plan +made long ago, but each produced and added as occasion urged or natural +opportunity arose. As such buildings always seem rather to have _grown_ +than been _constructed_, and have the wealth of interest, and beauty, and +variety which makes Canterbury Cathedral, for instance, far more poetical +than St. Paul's--so with these "Idylls." Bit by bit the poem and its +sacred purport have grown continually more and more connected and +impressive. Had Tennyson sat down in early youth to write the symbolic +epic of King Arthur which he then projected, his "Morte d'Arthur" is +enough to show how fine a work might have resulted. But, for once, at any +rate, the interposing critics did art good service, for they deferred +till the experience of life had given him, as it were, many lives, a poem +which could not have been produced without wide acquaintanceship with the +world and human nature. We should never otherwise have had the parable +"full of voices" which we now fortunately possess. + + +THE END + +_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Henry Sellwood. + +[2] Sister of Sir John Franklin. + +[3] [EXTRACT from a LETTER from my MOTHER to Mrs. GRANVILLE BRADLEY, April +23, 1873. + +"To think of your having been among our Aldworth giants (the monuments in +Aldworth Church)! Pibworth belonged to my grandmother, a Rowland from +Wales. I am glad you did not go there, for all the grand pine grove, which +backed it, was cut down as soon as it was bought, some years ago, by some +London man, and I hear it has sunk into a mere commonplace house. The +little estate, in which were the ruins of Beche Castle, was ours. The +tombs are those of the 'de la Beches.' Their pedigree was said to have +been taken down to show to Queen Elizabeth--when she came to look at the +old yew tree, the remains of which, I hope, still exist--and never to have +been replaced, so that no more is known of the giants than that they were +'de la Beches.' Neither do we know if they were really our ancestors, as +they have been reported to be, or whether the report came from our having +owned the remains of the castle."--ED.] + +[4] Rev. Drummond Rawnsley. + +[5] This is written of the Lincolnshire coast. + +[6] This taken from what he saw from the cliffs over Scratchell's Bay near +the Needles in the Isle of Wight. + +[7] Afterwards married to Judge Alan Ker, Chief Justice of Jamaica. + +[8] At Mablethorpe there was no post at all, and Alfred tells how he was +indebted to the muffin man for communication with the outer world. + +[9] His wife. + +[10] Mother of Lady Boyne. + +[11] [The unpublished letters from Frederick Tennyson, quoted throughout +the chapter, were written either to my father, or to my father's friend, +Mary Brotherton, the novelist. The lives of my uncles Frederick and +Charles were so much interwoven with the lives of some of my father's +friends that I have ventured to insert this account of them here. +Moreover, these two brothers represent "the two extremes of the Tennyson +temperament, the mean and perfection of which is found in Alfred."--ED.] + +[12] Unpublished letter to Alfred Tennyson. + +[13] Alfred was always telling his brother that Spiritualism was a subject +well worthy of examination, but not to be swallowed whole. He had a great +admiration for certain passages in Swedenborg's writings. + +[14] Alfred used to say of the Sonnets that many of them had all the +tenderness of the Greek epigram, while a few were among the finest in our +language. + +[15] The other three were Franklin, Harry, and Tom. + +[16] She often used to sing to us "Elaine's song" which she had set to +music. + +[17] [My father was devoted to Henry Lushington, and pronounced him to be +the best critic he had ever known. To him he dedicated "In +Memoriam."--ED.] + +[18] There are also the fine "beardless bust" by Tennyson's friend, Thomas +Woolner, R.A., and the earliest "beardless portrait" of him by his +sister-in-law, Mrs. Weld. + +[19] This was a misunderstanding on the part of FitzGerald. + +[20] This account of the talk in the Woodbridge garden has been taken from +a letter to me from the present Lord Tennyson. + +[21] Sophocles, _Ajax_, 674-5. + +[22] This old French paraphrase of Horace, _Odes_, I. xi., FitzGerald was +very fond of, and quotes more than once in his letters. + +[23] Of the _Conversations with Eckermann_, he said, "almost as repeatedly +to be read as Boswell's _Johnson_--a German Johnson--and (as with Boswell) +more interesting to me in Eckermann's Diary than in all his own famous +works."--_Letters to Mrs. Kemble._ + +[24] [Some of these sayings appeared in my Memoir of my father.--ED.] + +[25] See _Tennyson: a Memoir, by his Son_, p. 373. + +[26] See _Tennyson: a Memoir, by his Son_, p. 352. + +[27] "I suppose the worship of wonder, such as I have heard grown-up +children tell of at first sight of the Alps."--_Euphranor_, by E. F. G. + +[28] Arthur Hallam, Harry Lushington, and Sir John Simeon. + +[29] "The Death of Œnone." + +[30] ["Ulysses," the title of a number of essays by W. G. Palgrave, +brother of my father's devoted friend Francis T. Palgrave.--ED.] + +[31] 1888. + +[32] Garibaldi said to me, alluding to his barren island, "I wish I had +your trees." + +[33] The tale of Nejd. + +[34] The Philippines. + +[35] In Dominica. + +[36] The Shadow of the Lord. Certain obscure markings on a rock in Siam, +which express the image of Buddha to the Buddhist more or less distinctly +according to his faith and his moral worth. + +[37] The footstep of the Lord on another rock. + +[38] The monastery of Sumelas. + +[39] Anatolian Spectre stories. + +[40] The Three Cities. + +[41] Travels in Egypt. + +[42] Lionel Tennyson. + +[43] In Bologna. + +[44] They say, for the fact is doubtful. + +[45] Demeter and Persephone. + +[46] [This Home was founded at the suggestion of my father, for he and +Gordon had discussed the desirability of founding training camps all over +England for the training of poor boys as soldiers or emigrants, Gordon +saying to him, "You are the man to found them."--ED.] + +[47] One of Tennyson's friends asked a cabman at Freshwater, "Whose house +is that?" Cabman: "It belongs to one Tennyson." Friend: "He is a great +man, you know?" Cabman: "He a great man! he only keeps one man-servant, +and he don't sleep in the house!" + +[48] Now grown into one hundred and fifty acres. + +[49] He used to protest against the misuse of words of mighty content as +mere expletives, contrasting "God made Himself an awful rose of dawn," and +the colloquial "young-ladyism," as he called it, of "awfully jolly." (See +the _Memoir_.) + +[50] And, though I knew him to the end of his days, that interval never +seemed to lengthen. [Among Mr. Dakyns's rough notes I find the Greek +phrase [Greek: aei pais], with an emphatic reference to "The Wanderer." I +know he thought the spirit of him "who loves the world from end to end and +wanders on from home to home" was really Tennyson's own.--F. M. S.] + +[51] See _Memoir_, ii. 400. + +[52] [I think that this riddle was originally made by Franklin +Lushington.--ED.] + +[53] See _Memoir_, ii. 288. + +[54] ii. 284 foll., 293, "Some Criticism on Poets and Poetry"; _ib._ 420 +foll., "Last Talks": that wonderful chapter. + +[55] See "Poets and Critics," one of his last poems. + +[56] _Solaciolum_, "poor dear, some solace"; _turgiduli ... ocelli_ (see +below), "her poor dear swollen eyes." + +[57] _Miselle_, epithet of the dead like our "poor" So-and-so. + +[58] Robinson Ellis notes, "The rhythm of the line and the continued +_a_-sound well represent the eternity of the sleep that knows no waking," +and that is just the effect that Tennyson's reading gave with infinite +pathos; and then the sudden passionate change, _da mi basia_---- + +[59] An old experiment, being written in 1859, finished in 1860. He +himself only called it "a far-off echo of the _Attis_ of Catullus." + +[60] See Carlyle, _Fr. Rev._ (Part I. Bk. v. c. ix), for the cry of the +mob. And for Béranger, cf. _Memoir_, ii. 422. + +[61] Compare Merlin's song, "From the great deep to the great deep he +goes." + +[62] Some commentators insist that Tennyson was born on August 5 because +the date looks like 5th in the Register of his birth. He used to say, "All +I can state is that my mother always kept my birthday on August 6, and I +suppose she knew." + +[63] I can confirm this last statement from more than one talk with him. +He would note the perfection of the metre. The second line affords an +instance of the delicacy of his ear. We were speaking of the undoubtedly +correct reading: + + The lowing herd _wind_ slowly o'er the lea, + +not, as is so often printed, _winds_. I forget his exact comment, but the +point of it was that the double s, wind_s_ _s_lowly, would have been to +his ear most displeasing. + +Again, speaking of the line, + + And all the air a solemn stillness holds, + +he observed how seldom Gray seemed satisfied with this inversion of the +accusative and the nominative, and how he himself endeavoured, as a rule, +to avoid it.--H. M. B. + +[64] My own writing he compared to "the limbs of a flea." + +[65] In _Problems and Persons_ (Longmans), Appendix A. + +[66] _Nineteenth Century_, January 1893. + +[67] _Sunday, October 27, 1872._--I asked A. T. at Aldworth what he +thought he had done most perfect. He said, "Nothing," only fragments of +things that he could think at all so--such as "Come down, O Maid," written +on his first visit to Switzerland, and "Tears, idle Tears." + +He told me he meant to write the siege of Delhi, an ode in rhyme, but was +refused the papers. + +[68] ["Until absorbed into the Divine."--ED.] + +[69] See Appendix C. + +[70] See Translation by Frederick Tennyson, p. 56. + +[71] Some extracts from the paper on Tennyson in _Studies and Memories_ +are included in this chapter by kind permission of Messrs. Constable & Co. + +[72] [First published as a preface to _Tennyson as a Student and Poet of +Nature_ in 1910, and republished here by the kind permission of Sir Norman +Lockyer and Messrs. Macmillan.--ED.] + +[73] See the fine Parsee Hymn to the Sun (written by Tennyson when he was +82) at the end of "Akbar's Dream": + + I + + Once again thou flamest heavenward, once again we see thee rise. + Every morning is thy birthday gladdening human hearts and eyes. + Every morning here we greet it, bowing lowly down before thee, + Thee the Godlike, thee the changeless in thine ever-changing skies. + + II + + Shadow-maker, shadow-slayer, arrowing light from clime to clime, + Hear thy myriad laureates hail thee monarch in their woodland rhyme. + Warble bird, and open flower, and, men, below the dome of azure + Kneel adoring Him the Timeless in the flame that measures Time! + +[74] [See _Tennyson: a Memoir_, p. 259. "It is impossible," he said, "to +imagine that the Almighty will ask you, when you come before Him in the +next life, what your particular form of creed was: but the question will +rather be 'Have you been true to yourself, and given in My Name a cup of +cold water to one of these little ones?'" Yet he felt that religion could +never be founded on mere moral philosophy; that there were no means of +impressing upon children systematic ethics apart from religion; and that +the highest religion and morality would only come home to the people in +the noble, simple thoughts and facts of a Scripture like ours.--ED.] + +[75] [He added, "_The_ Son of Man is the most tremendous title +possible."--ED.] + +[76] From Tennyson's last published sonnet, "Doubt and Prayer." + +[77] [Toward the end of his life he would say, "My most passionate desire +is to have a clearer vision of God."--ED.] + +[78] [The eldest daughter of Sir John Simeon, who was my father's most +intimate friend in later life--a tall, broad-shouldered, genial, generous, +warm-hearted, highly gifted, and thoroughly noble country gentleman; in +face like the portrait of Sir Thomas Wyatt, by Holbein.--ED.] + +[79] This MS. was given back to Tennyson at his request after Sir John +Simeon's death, and after Tennyson's death presented by his son and +Catherine, Lady Simeon, to the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. + +[80] He afterwards built a larger study for himself, "looking into the +heart of the wood," as he said. + +[81] "In the Garden at Swainston." + +[82] Tennyson said to her, "Perhaps your babe will remember all these +lights and this splendour in future days, as if it were the memory of +another life." + +[83] From "The Death of Œnone and other Poems," afterwards published +1892. + +[84] First published 1909, by Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd., 1s. net., and +kindly corrected by the author for republication here. + +[85] Now Lady Ritchie. + +[86] [Greek: ouranothen te huperragê aspetos aithêr.] + +[87] See note by Tennyson in the "Eversley Edition" of the poems: "I made +this simile from a stream (in North Wales), and it is different, tho' like +Theocritus, _Idyll_ xxii. 48 ff.: + + [Greek: en de myes stereoisi brachiosin akron hyp' ômon + estasan, êute petroi holoitrochoi, houste kylindôn + cheimarrous potamos megalais periexese dinais.]" + +When some one objected that he had taken this simile from Theocritus, he +answered: "It is quite different. Geraint's muscles are not compared to +the rounded stones, but to the stream pouring vehemently over them."--ED. + +[88] [I am much obliged to Mr. Sidgwick for having omitted his original +statement that Tennyson "takes the anti-reform line" in the matter of the +higher education of women. My father's friends report him to have said +that the great social questions impending in England were "the housing and +education of the poor, and the higher education of women"; and that the +sooner woman finds out, before the great educational movement begins, that +"woman is not undevelopt man, but diverse," the better it will be for the +progress of the world. She must train herself to do the large work that +lies before her, even though she may not be destined to be wife and +mother, cultivating her understanding, not her memory only, her +imagination in its higher phases, her inborn spirituality, and her +sympathy with all that is pure, noble, and beautiful, rather than mere +social accomplishments; then and then only will she further the progress +of humanity, then and then only will men continue to hold her in +reverence. See _Tennyson: a Memoir_, pp. 206, 208.--ED.] + +[89] From Virgil's Georgics. + +[90] From Theocritus. + +[91] [For another view of "Gareth" see FitzGerald's letter to my father in +1873: + +MY DEAR ALFRED--I write my yearly letter to yourself this time, because I +have a word to say about "Gareth" which your publisher sent me as "from +the author." I don't think it is mere perversity that makes me like it +better than all its predecessors, save and except (of course) the old +"Morte." The subject, the young knight who can endure and conquer, +interests me more than all the heroines of the 1st volume. I do not know +if I admire more _separate_ passages in this "Idyll" than in the others; +for I have admired _many_ in _all_. But I do admire several here very +much, as + + The journey to Camelot, pp. 13-14, + All Gareth's vassalage, 31-34, + Departure with Lynette, 42, + Sitting at table with the Barons, 54, + Phantom of past life, 71, + +and many other passages and expressions "quae nunc perscribere longum +est."--ED.] + +[92] Bedivere. + +[93] Reprinted, with some few alterations, from the _Edinburgh Review_, +No. ccclxxxii., by the kind permission of the Editor and the late Sir +Alfred Lyall. + +[94] E. FitzGerald. + +[95] He said to Bishop Lightfoot, "The cardinal point of Christianity is +the Life after Death." + +[96] See Appendix C. + +[97] [The sibilants give the lisping peacefulness of the waves. For beauty +of sound he would cite the following lines: + + The moan of doves in immemorial elms, + And murmuring of innumerable bees; + +and + + The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm; + +and + + And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn, + +ED.] + +[98] [My father would not have allowed this. He said, "It is pure nonsense +to say that my later poems are melancholy. In old age I have a stronger +faith in God and human good than I had in youth."--ED.] + +[99] [This is taken from Quintus Calaber.--ED.] + +[100] [It is interesting to note that Sir Richard Jebb held that the +"Death of Œnone" was "essentially Greek."--ED.] + +[101] [This passage must not be misunderstood, as Sir Alfred Lyall thought +that he had touched high-water mark in some of his later poems, such as: +"In Memoriam," certain passages in the "Idylls of the King," "The Ancient +Sage," and "Maud," the "Northern Farmers," "Rizpah," "The Revenge," the +Dedication to Edward FitzGerald of "Tiresias," and "Crossing the +Bar."--ED.] + +[102] Presidential Address to the British Academy, October 1909 (Tennyson +centenary), published here by the late Professor Butcher's kind +permission. + +[103] The Master of Christ's. + +[104] Captain Thomas Hamilton, who then lived at Elleray. He was the +brother of Sir William Hamilton, and is frequently mentioned in Sir Walter +Scott's Journal. + +[105] _Philip van Artevelde_, by Henry Taylor. + +[106] Probably August 10. See letter to Thompson, August 19, 1841. + +[107] The reply referred to is:-- + + FARRINGFORD, _Jan. 19th, 1870_. + + MY DEAR JAMES--Send the box, please, not without your new volume + hither. I shall be grateful for both. I am glad that you find anything + to approve of in the "H. G." I have not yet finished the Arthurian + legends, otherwise I might consider your Job theme. Strange that I + quite forgot our conversation thereupon. Where is Westbourne Terrace? + If I had ever clearly made out I should assuredly have called. I have + often when in town past by the old 60, the "vedovo sito," with a + groan, thinking of you as no longer the comeatable, runupableto, + smokeablewith J. S. of old, but as a family man, far in the west, + sitting cigarless among many nieces, clean and forlorn, but I hope to + see you somewhere in '70, for I have taken chambers in Victoria Street + for three years, though they are not yet furnished. + + Where is the difficulty of that line in the "Flower"? It is rather + rough certainly, but, had you followed the clue of "little flower" in + the preceding line, you would not have stumbled over this, which is + accentual anapaest, + + What you are, root and all: + + rough--doubtless.--Believe me yours ever, + + A. TENNYSON. + +[108] [_The Holy Grail and other Poems._ It was Spedding chiefly who urged +my father about this time to write his plays, because he thought that he +had the true dramatic instinct. He criticized them in proof, and gave them +his warm commendation.--ED.] + +[109] _Life and Letters_, vol. v. + +[110] The passage from Shakespeare prefixed to this paper contains +probably as much as can be said of the mental, not less than the +affectionate conditions, under which such a report as "In Memoriam" is +produced, and may give us more insight into the imaginative faculty's mode +of working, than all our philosophizing and analysis. It seems to let out +with the fulness, simplicity, and unconsciousness of a child--"Fancy's +Child"--the secret mechanism or procession of the greatest creative mind +our race has produced. In itself, it has no recondite meaning, it answers +fully its own sweet purpose. We are not believers, like some folks, in the +omniscience of even Shakespeare. But, like many things that he and other +wise men and many simple children say, it has a germ of universal meaning, +which it is quite lawful to bring out of it, and which may be enjoyed to +the full without any wrong to its own original beauty and fitness. A +dewdrop is not the less beautiful that it illustrates in its structure the +law of gravitation which holds the world together, and by which "the most +ancient heavens are fresh and strong." This is the passage. The Friar +speaking of Claudio, hearing that Hero "died upon his words," says: + + The idea of her life shall sweetly creep + Into his study of imagination; + And every lovely organ of her life + Shall come apparelled in more precious habit-- + More moving delicate, and full of life, + Into the eye and prospect of his soul, + Than when she lived indeed. + +We have here expressed in plain language the imaginative memory of the +beloved dead, rising upon the past, like moonlight upon midnight: + + The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme. + +This is its simple meaning--the statement of a truth, the utterance of +personal feeling. But observe its hidden abstract significance--it is the +revelation of what goes on in the depths of the soul, when the dead +elements of what once was, are laid before the imagination, and so +breathed upon as to be quickened into a new and higher life. We have first +the _Idea of her Life_--all he remembered and felt of her, gathered into +one vague shadowy image, not any one look, or action, or time,--then the +idea of her life _creeps_--is in before he is aware, and SWEETLY +creeps--it might have been softly or gently, but it is the addition of +affection to all this, and bringing in another sense,--and now it is in +his _study of imagination_--what a place! fit for such a visitor. Then out +comes the _Idea_, more particular, more questionable, but still ideal, +spiritual,--_every lovely organ of her life_--then the clothing upon, the +mortal putting on its immortal, spiritual body--_shall come apparelled in +more precious habit, more moving delicate_--this is the transfiguring, the +putting on strength, the _poco più_--the little more which makes +immortal,--_more full of life_, and all this submitted to--_the eye and +prospect of the soul_. + +[111] + + Dark house, by which once more I stand + Here in the long unlovely street; + Doors, where my heart was wont to beat + So quickly, waiting for a hand. + "In Memoriam." + +This is a mistake, as his friend Dr. A. P. Stanley thus corrects: "'The +long unlovely street' was Wimpole Street, No. 67, where the Hallams lived; +and Arthur used to say to his friends, 'You know you will always find us +at sixes and sevens.'" + +[112] We had read these lives, and had remarked them, before we knew whose +they were, as being of rare merit. No one could suppose they were written +by one so young. We give his estimate of the character of Burke. "The mind +of this great man may perhaps be taken as a representation of the general +characteristics of the English intellect. Its groundwork was solid, +practical, and conversant with the details of business; but upon this, and +secured by this, arose a superstructure of imagination and moral +sentiment. He saw little, _because it was painful to him_ to see anything, +beyond the limits of the national character. In all things, while he +deeply reverenced principles, he chose to deal with the concrete rather +than with abstractions. He studied men rather than man." The words in +italics imply an insight into the deepest springs of human action, the +conjunct causes of what we call character, such as few men of large +experience attain. + +[113] This will remind the reader of a fine passage in _Edwin the Fair_, +on the specific differences in the sounds made by the ash, the elm, the +fir, etc., when moved by the wind; and of some lines by Landor on flowers +speaking to each other; and of something more exquisite than either, in +_Consuelo_--the description of the flowers in the old monastic garden, at +the "sweet hour of prime." + +[114] _Remains_, vol. iii. p. 105. + +[115] This is the passage referred to in Henry Taylor's delightful _Notes +from Life_ ("Essay on Wisdom"): + +"Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight: spiritual fear, of a foresight +that reaches beyond the grave; temporal fear, of a foresight that falls +short; but without fear there is neither the one foresight nor the other; +and as pain has been truly said to be "the deepest thing in our nature," +so is it fear that will bring the depths of our nature within our +knowledge. A great capacity of _suffering_ belongs to genius; and it has +been observed that an alternation of joyfulness and dejection is quite as +characteristic of the man of genius as intensity in either kind." In his +_Notes from Books_, p. 216, he recurs to it: "'Pain,' says a writer whose +early death will not prevent his being long remembered, 'pain is the +deepest thing that we have in our nature, and union through pain has +always seemed more real and more holy than any other.'" + +[116] From _Problems and Persons_, by Wilfrid Ward, published here by his +kind permission and that of Longmans, Green and Co. + +[117] "From the great deep to the great deep he goes;" and "when that +which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home." + +[118] + + For in the world which is not ours, they said, + "Let us make man," and that which should be man, + From that one light no man can look upon, + Drew to this shore, lit by the suns and moons + And all the shadows. + +[119] Reprinted from the _Spectator_ of January 1, 1870. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these +letters have been replaced with transliterations. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tennyson and His Friends, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TENNYSON AND HIS FRIENDS *** + +***** This file should be named 38420-0.txt or 38420-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/2/38420/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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