Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-12-04
I'd EDITION.
Latest qGleglanS 10 The Star.
TENNYsON AND sPIRITUALIsM.
What a Chicago Person Finds Evil
deuce Of I'm the Poets WritfnGp.

w nat a chicago ferSOn Ftn0S EVE
dence Of I'm the Poets Writings.
CHICAGO, Dec. 4-The following il published
here: It is well known that among the higher
scientific circles of England spiritualsim made
a few years ago rapid and remarkable progress.
Wallace, the co-discover, 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 honorarium
OF 5000 francs for his discoveries in
molecular physics; Sergeant Cox, the noted
psychist, and Prof Huxley himself, skeptic
Of skeptics, were concerned in q series of ex-
periments. chiefly with the Medium home.
which attracted wide attention at the time
None OF the scientists could explain the phe-
nomena produced by the medium, and the re-
port made by Prof. Crookes is held by the
professors of the spiritualist belief an over
whelming testimony to its genuineness.
The name Of the poet Tennyson has never
before been connected with spiritualism.
letter written by him has come into the posses
sion of the tribune, which shows that he holds
the conviction that consciousness may pass
from the body and hold communion with the
dead. This is essentially spiritualism but in
Tennysons case, at least so far as the letter in
dicates, he Is his own medium. The statement
he makes is curious. The letter Is in the poet Q
handwriting. 1t is dated Farringford, Fresh
water, Isle Of Wight, May Z, 1874; 1t was writ
ten to a gentleman who communicated to him
certain strange experiences he had had when
passing from under the effect of anesthetics
Tennyson writes:
Il have never had any revelations through
anasthetics, but kind of waking trance (this
for lack of better name) / have frequently
had, quite up from boyhood, when have been
all alone. This has often come upon me
through repeating my own name to myself,
silently, till, all at once, Ii were, out Of the
intensity OF the consciousness of individuality
inn nall tu
and fade away into boundless being; and
this was not a confused state, but the
clearest of the clearest the surest of the sur
est, utterly beyond words, where death was an
almost iaughable impossibility, the loss Of per-
sonallty Qf SO it werel seeming no extinction,
but the only true life."
As if conscious Of the Incredible significance
OF the statement thus compacted, he adds: Il
am ashamed of my feeble description Have
not said the state is utterly beyond wor6s?"
This is not vulgar table-tapping spiritual
Ism. IL Is the most emphatic declaration that
the spirit Of the writer is capable Of transfer
ring itself into another existence not only real
clear, simple but that it is also infinite in vis-
ion and eternal in duration. For he continues
that when he comes back to sanity he is
ready to fight for the truth .'of his experience"
and a that ne holds 1.-THE spirit whose separate
for aons and sons" It is pointed out
by Professor Thomas Davidson, who
has seen the letter, that the
same conviction, If not the same experience,
only with another. is described in In Memoir
lam. The stanzas are generally 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 my heart; read
OF that glad year which once had been
In those fall-leaves which kept their green,
The noble letters of the dead.
Sand strangely on the silence broke
The silent-speaking words, and strange
Was loves dumb cry defying change
To test his worth, and strangely spoke.
1.-The faith, the vigor, bold to dwell
On doubts that drive the coward back;
And keen through wordy snares to track
Suggestion to her Utmost cell.
$50 word by word and line by line
The dead 1nan touched me from the past,
And. all at once, il seemed at last,
His living soul was flashed on mine.
''And mine in his was bound and whirled
About empyreal heights of thought,
And came on that which is, and caught
The deep pulsations of the world.
'Eonian music measuring out
The steps of time--the shocks Of chance
The blows of death -"
The idea Of the actually Of the unseen is
in the letter in terms which CORES
pond nearly to those in the rhythmic express
sion. That which is is certainly confrma-
ton of the state, 'surest of the surest," and
the lasting 'aons upon eons' finds its counter
part in ''eonian music As Tennyson has
never been concerned in any way with psychic
science or spirltnslism the letter, not to men
ton the now clear reading of the poem, will
create not little surprise.