Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-12-20
LORD TENNYSON.
A Letter Which Shows That he Possess
GlajryoVaur Powers

Knows f0SSPSSeu
Clairvoyant Powers
1t IS well known that among the higher
scientific circles of England, spiritulism
made a few years ago rapid and remark
able progress. Wallace, the co-discover-
er with Darwin of the principles of
natural selection; Prof. Crookes, The
eminent chemist on whom the French
Academic des Sciences conferred gold
medal with an honordrium OF 5000 francs
for his discoveries in molecular physics;
Sergt. Cox, the noted phychist, and Prof.
Huxley himself, a soeptic of sceptics,
were concerned in a series OF ey peri
ments, chiefly with the Medium Home,
which attracted wide attention at the
time. More of the scientists could ex-
plain the phenomenon produced by the
medium, and the report made by Prof.
Crookes is held by the professors of the
spiritual belief an overwhelming testl-
mony of its genGiness. The name of the
poet Tennyson has never before been
connected with spiritualism- letter
written by him has come into the pos
session of the Tribune, which shows that
he holds the conviction that conscious
ness may pass from the BODY and hold
communion with the dead. This is es-
sentially spiritualism, but in Tennyson's
case at least, so far as the letter indi-
Gated, he is his own medium. The state
meDt he makes is curious.
The letter is in the poets handwriting.
| 1t is dated Earring ford, Freshwater. Isle
| of Wight, May H. 1874. 1t was written
| to gentleman who communicated TO
him certain strange experiences he had
| had when passing from under the effect
| Of anasthetics.
Tennyson writes: II have never had
any revelations through an@sthetics but
| kind of waking trance (this for lack of
| a better name) I have frequently had
quite up from boyhood, when have been
all alone. This has often come upon me
by repeating my own name to myself
silently, till all at once, as 1T were, out of
the Intensity of the consciousness of
| individuality the individuality itself seem
ed dissolved and fade away into bound
| less being, and this not a confused state,
bat the clearest of the clearest. the surest
| Of the surest, utterly beyond words,
whence death was an almost la~&hable
impossihility, the loss of personality Gf
so it were) seeming no extinction, but the
only sure life"
As if conscious OF the Incredible signiti
canoe of the statement thus compacted
he adds: 81 am ashamed of my feeble des-
scription: Have not said the state is
utterly beyond words?"
This is not vulgar table-ttpping spirit
ualism. 1t is the most emphatic declar-
alton that the spirit of the writer is
capable of transferring itself into another
existence, is not only real, clear and simple
but that it is also infinite in vision and
eternal in duration. For, he continues
that when he comes back TO "sanity" he
is "ready' to fight for the truth" of mis-
experience, and that he holds 1.-THE
spirit whose separate existence, he thus
repeatedly tests-''well last for cons and
cons"
It is pointed by Prof. Th0rsas David.
soa who has seen the latter, that the same
conviction, if not the same experience
only with another, is described in "In
| Memoriam," xcv. The stanzas are gener-
ally passed over as referring to mere
poetic frenzy of grief. But reading them
in the light of the calmly penned prose
puts an entirely different aspect on the
Incident contained in the lines.
And in the house light after light
| Went out and was all alone.
| A{hunger seized nv heart; read
OF that glad year which once had been
In those falln leaves which kept theil
green,
The noble letters of the dead.
And strangely on the silence broke
| The silent speaking words and strange
Was loves dumb cry defying change
To test his worth and strangely spoke.
The faith the vigor. bold to dwell,
On doubts that drive the coward back;
And keen through wordy snareS to track
Suggestion to her inmoSt cell.
So word by word and line by line
The dead man touched me from the past,
And all at once it seemed, at last,
His living soul was flashed on mine.
And mine in his was bound and whirled
About empyreal heighthS of thought,
And came on that width is, and caught.
The deep pulsations of the world.
Eonian music measured out,
| The steps of time-the shocks OF chance
The blows of death.
The idea of the acuality is conveyed il
the letter in terms which correspond
nearly to those in the rythmic expression
} The "which is" is certainly a cOnfrma
ton of the state, ''surest of the surest,
and the lasting "for cons upon cons
finds its counterpart in "Eonian music.
If Tennyson has never been connected ii
any way with physchic science or spirit
ualism, the letter, not to mention the nov
clearer reading of the poem, will creat
not q little surprise.