National Republican., 1886-12-17
pegsimIsn In Poetry,

Though II is clear enough even from the
unpunctuated installmGnts Of Tennyson's
new volume that the laureato's "way OF life
has fallen into the seer and yellow leaf" It
must be confessed that from the point Of
view Of poet and a thinker the difference
between the first and second "Lockeley
HGlr' cannot justly be regarded with much
astonishment. When the fervid egotist OF
more than thirty years ago threw behind
him the memory Of his infatuation aud
said, ~, myself, must mis- with action lest
perish by despair his outlook upon lie
was rich In the promise OF great and benef-
cent reforms. The ample scroll Of molern
science had begun TO unfold some wondrous
tales, and the poetic eye caught visions Of
"airy navies" which were to precede the
death throb Of the war drum aud OF the fold.
ing Of all battle flags. "Men, my brothers,
fellow workers, ever reaplng something
new; that which they have done
but earnest of the work that
they shall do" were urged
TO move forward, forward let us range;
let the great world spin forever down the
ringing grooves Of CHANGE until it swept
into the new era when universal peace
should wrap the land. But the dream, like
other visions, has not come true, and now,
IN his old age, the poet is brought face 10
face with problems more difficult than all
preceding ones, and only TO be solved by
methods which are contrary to every tradi.
tion Of liberal though an essentially feudal-
| minded poet. Tcnnyson could understand
bow England should meet Napoleon III
| with armed ritlemen and "hauds all roun1,n
but be never barganed for the claims of
organized democracy us they have been
manifested by the labor associations of
| Europe and America. He never drcamt OF
saltpetre being transformed into dynamite
or of untrammeled literature rising to the
realism of Zola. He sees those things
now, but his old notions, borrowed from
Burke, Of "freedom broadening slowly
down from precedent to precedent"
have been ruthlessly crushed, and the
great new era becomes for him only huge
barbaric retrogresslOn. lie cannot adopt
the tranquil optimism Of Emerson, and his
pessimism is only tempered by the sugges-
tion that this apparent hopecssness may,
after all, spring from his own temperament
and not from any change in the uniformity
Of naturo's law of progress.
There is q good deal Of barren optimism
in the air, and to keep the balance oven APP
proximatcly true, II may be necessary that
there should be n considerable amount Of
barren pessimism also.
Mark Tapley is ever accompanied by
Martin Chu22lewit and Candlde dogs the
footsteps OF DIR. Pangloss. The stole
confropts Epicurus and thorns still sur
round the rose. Materalism and despair
are characteristic of q world which is pass
ing through one Of the periodic stages o
lofty spirit have not escaped contagion
Wemay disguise 1t as We please, but non
OF us are particularly sanguIne about "thi
woDdrous, wondrous age" the New Yorl
Herald, and James Gordon Bennett, ant
Stanley Africanus Notwithstanding. II tht
world is ever TO become better 1t must full,
, realize all the facts. Pessmism and de
spair are prominent among the facts OF ou
time, and Tennyson is thorough loyal t,
himself and his age when he tells us no
what is good, or what is bad, but what III
believes to be true.