The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-03-03
TENNYsoN.

IENNfSON.
Carlyle to Emerson. To-day get an
swer about Alfred Tennyson; all is right on
that side. Moxon informs me that the Rus
sell Books and Letter arrived duly and
were duly forwarded and safely received;
nay, further, that Tennyson is now in town
and means to come and see me. OF this
latter result shall be very glad Alfred is
one of the few British or Foreign Fiures IA
not increasing number / thinkl) who are
and remain beautiful to me--a true human
soul, or some authentic approximation
thereto, to whom your own soul can say,
Brother However, / doubt he will not come;
he often skips me in these brief visits to
town; skips everybody indeed, being a man
solitary and sad, as GER ain men are, dwell
ing in an element of gloom-carrying a. bit
OF Chaos about him, in short, which he is
manufacturing into Cosmos!
Alfred is the son of Lincolnshire gentle
man farmer, think; indeed, you see in his
verses that he is native of 'smoated arang-
esq and green pastures, not of mountains
and their torrents and storms. He had his
breeding at Cambridge, as if for the law or
Church; being master of small annuity on
bis fathers decease, he preferred clubbing
with bis mother and some sisters, to live un-
promoted and write poems. In this way he
lives still-now here, nov there; the family
always within reach of London, never in
1t; he himself making rare and brief visits,
lodging in some old comrades rooms.
think be must be under forty, not much I'M
der 1T. One of The finest looking men in the
world. great shock of rough, dnsty-dark
hair; bright, laughing hazel eyes; massive
aquiline face-most massive, yet most deli
cate; of sallow-brown complexion. almost
Indian-looking; clothes cynically loose, ler-
and-easy; smokes infinite tobacco. His
voice is musical metallic-fit for loud laugh
ter and piercing wall, al all that NAV lie
betw cen; speech. and speculation free and
plenteous do not meet in these late dec
AIDES such company over pipe! We shall
see what he will grow to He is often uu-
well; very chaotic-his way is through cha
os and the bottomless and painless: not
handy for making out many miles upon.
10, paperD
II ALMOST ALL BOOKS WERE BURNT"
Carlyle to Emerson, 1916. II grow to
care about an astonishingly small number
of things as times turn with me! Man, all
men seem radically dumb; jabbering mere
jargons and noises from the teeth outwards:
tuC AhhOA LASohAh6 "a tuCut-Ul bu6ul ana OF
me, poor devils-remaining shut, buried for
ever. II almost all books were burnt (my
own laid next the coal), sometimes in my
spleen feel as lift would really be better with
us! Certainly could one generation of men
be forced to live without rhetoric, babble-
ment, hearsay; in short, with the tongue we'll
cut out of them altogether-their fortunate
successors would lind most improved world
to start upon For Cant does lie piled on
us, high as the zenith; an Augean stable
with the poisonous confusion piled so high,
which, simply if there once could be moth
ing said, would m )stly dwindIe like summer
snow gradually about its business, and leave |
us free to use our eyes again When l see |
painful Professors of Greek porting in their |
sumptuous Oxfords over dead Greek for a |
thous and years or more, and leaving live |
English to develop Itself under charge of |
Pickwicks and Sam Wellers, as if it were !