Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1888-12-05
FINE POETIC FRENZY.
THB P0Bl LAUREATE DREAMS DREAMS AND
SEBS VISIONS.
His Belief in SpiritnalSn-His Economic Soul Gets
Along Without Msdium-Vivid
Revelation Of His EI-
psrisnces.

CHICAGO, December 4.-The following
is published hers: 1t is we'll known that
among the higher Scientific circles Of Eng
land, Spirituslism made q few years ago
rapid and remarkable progress, Wallace.
tie Co discoverer with Darwin with the
principles of Natural Selection; Prof.
Crookts, the eminent Chemist, on whom
the French Academic Sciences conferred o
gold medal with an honarsrium Of 5000
francs for his discoveries in Molecular
Physics; Sergeant Cox, the noted Physicist,
and Prof. Huxley himself, q skeptic Of
skeptics. were concerned in series Of ex-
periments.
The nams of the Poet Tennyson hss
rever before baeo connected with spiritual
itm. A letser written by him has come
into the posseesion of the TribuAe, which
show that he holds the conviction that
Consciousness % may pass from the body and
hold communication with the dead This
is essentially sp'ritualism; but In Tenny-
son's case, at least so far as the letter indi-
Gates, he is his own mediom. The state
ment he makes is curious. The lettsr is
in the Poets handwriting. 1t is dated
Farringford Freshwster, Isle Of Wight,
Nav Z, 1874. 1t was written to q gentle.
man who communicated to him certain
strange experiences he had when plssing
from under the effects of anesthetics.
Tennysoa writes:
81 have never had any relations through
an es,hetics, but king OF waking trancs
(tbis for lack OF a batter name / have tfe-
quent'y had, quite up from boyhood, when
| have besn alone. This has often come
upon through repeating my own name to
myself, silently, till all at once, as it were,
out of the intensity of the consciousness OF
Individuality itself seemed to dissolve and
fall away into boundles beirg; and this
not a conlu sed state, but the Cleare,t Of
the clear, the eurest OF the sure, utterly
beyond words, where death was an almost
laugbable impcsiibil;ty, the loss of per
sonslity (if 80 it weIe), seeming loss Of
existence, but the only true life"
As if conscious Of the incredible signiti-
canoe of the statement thus compiled, he
adds:
81 am ashamed of my feeble descrip-
ton. Have not said the Stats is utterly
beyond words?"
Tnis ia not vulgar table. tipping spirit
ualism. 1t is the most emphatic d dsclara-
ton that the spirit of the writer is capable
of transferring it,elf into another exist
euce, which is not only real, clear, simple,
but that Il is also infinite iu vision and
eternal in duration. For, he continues,
that when he comes back to ''sapity" he ia
ready TO fight for the truth" OF his eX-
perience, and that he hollis 1.-THE spirit,
whose separate existence he thus repeat
edIy tests-"will last Eons and ems"
1t is pointed ont by Prof. Thomas Da-
wilson, who has seen the letter, that the
same conviction, only with another is de-
scribed in "Iu Memoriam," xcv. The
stanzas are generally passed over as refer,
ring to mere poetic fancy of grief; but
reading them 10 the light of the calmly
penned statement throws an entirely diff
ferent aspect on the incident contained in
the lines:
And IN the house, light after light went out
and was all alone,
A hunger seized my heart, l read OF that glad
year which once had been, ,
In those fall leaves which kept their green the
noble letters Of the dead;
And. strangely on the silence broke the silent
speaking words,
And strange was loves dumb cry, defyiue
change to test his worth and strangely spoke
The faith, the vigor bold 30 dwell on doubts that
drive the coward back,
And keen through wordy snares 10 track sugges
tion TO her inmOst cell
Go word by word and line by line, the dead man
touched me from the past.
And all at once II seemed, at last his living sou
was flashed on mine;
And mine in his was Jund and whirled abou
empyreal heights OF thought,
And came or that which Is, and caught the deeI
pulsations OF the world;
.FonIan music measuring out the steps OF time
the shock Of Chance-the blows OF death
The idea of the actuality Of the unseen
ia conveyed in the letter. That (which is, y
is certainly q confirmation Of the state,
''Surest of the Sure" and the lasting "lol
Eons upon Eons" finds its counter part II
/" R,nian Music" As Tennyson ha'
never been connected in anyway will
physic,l science or spiiitualism, the letter
not to mention the now clearer reading o
| the poem, creates not little surprise.