Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1889-08-07

"Tu1E TWO LoCKsLEY HALLS"
"Scribner's Magazine" for August is
most interesting issue, containing, as it
does, spirited outdoor papers on the
game OF lawn tennis and on tarpon fish
ing; two papers on Tennyson, whose
eightieth birthday is thus cOmmemor-
ated; short stories by II. Il. Boyesen,
Brander Matthews, George Parsons Lath-
rop and E. G. Martin, q new writer, and
valuable additions to the Electric and
Railway series.
The end paper by Professor 7. r.
L0unsblly, on "The Two Locksley
Halls" is a sympathetic and discrim-
mating presentation Of Tennyson's atti-
tude toward life in youth and in old age.
It is preceded by q brief paper on TEN
nyson's First Flight" in which DR..
Henry van Dyke shows 1.-THE wing-trial
OF genius" In the earliest poems which
Tennyson published with his brother.
There is a fine frontispiece portrait Of
the laureate in his old age, another from
q photograph taken a dozen years ago,
and views of his houses in Surrey and
Isle of Wight.
go ae =
The instantaneous and universal pop
ularity which the first "Locksley Hall"
gained was due in part to causes indie
pendent of its form. 1t mirrored, as did
no other work, the hopes and aspirations
of its time. The period in which it was
produced vas q period Of exaltation
which reflected in faint outlines the
mood of men in the earlier months Of
the French Revolution. 1t is hard for
now to conceive the state of mind
that prevailed at the opening OF the half
century that has just closed. The opti-
mistic view Of the future was everywhere
predominant. The race was at last
emerging from the social and political
thraldom which had cramped its efforts
and crushed its spirit. Glass distinc-
tons were on the point of overthrow, an
Gent abuses Of all sorts were about to be
uprooted.
On another side there was a prospect
full as glorious. Man was speedily to as
sert his full mastery over the blind but
mighty elemental forces of which he had
hitherto been the plaything or the VIC
tim. His career Of conquest over nature
had already opened triumphantly. Steam
applied to lOc0motion was annihilating
space. Electricity, though not yet made
fully captive, was revealing the POSSIBLE
Of the humiliation of time. An alb
stract personification called Science, with
miracles already performed, and with
the promise of greater miracles to be per-
formed, was the new deity to which we
were to look for the regeneration of the
race. There was no limit to its benef-
cence, no limit to its power, no limit
to what it could and would &C
complish. To all, the future looked
for there was intoxication in the
air.
1t was at such a time az this that the
poet came forward in the original
'Locksley Hall" to put into majestic
words the majestic but vague ideas
had fired the imaginations of men.
To their shadowy conceptions he gave
and grandeur. He pictured
for them the full glory of the coming
day which had already begun to dawn.
II we turn, on the other hand to
science we find the same failure of the
present to realize the dream of the past.
Even on the purely material side the
new deity men were called upon to wor-
has not done anything which was
anticipated. The navies of the world do
not as yet fight in the mid air, as the
poet saw them in his earlier vision.
Still, though science has not fulfilled all
the expectations of its worshipers, it has
fulfilled them partially, and in some
cases has gone beyond their most ex-
hopes.
Yet its very success in certain ways
makes more pronounced its futility in
The panaceas which it was to
bring with it have turned out incapable
healing q single one of the sorrows
that are the sad inheritance of the race.
It shifts the load OF human care, but it
does not tighten it. It has shown itself
absolutely helpless to satisfy the crav-
Of the spirit. Science may add to a
mans physical we'll being, but it adds
nothing to his real happiness. 1t may
give him longer. life, but it will not teach
limsto live it any better. 1t may make
him more satisfied with himself, but it
little or nothing to his intel
ectual stature. He is nc greater now,
fifty miles an hour by the banks
# the Thames, than he was two thousand
7sars ago wandering slowly along the
Even the material comforts
which it furnishes on a much broader
Icale do not apparently remove his sui
en- discomfort with his lot, which, if not
leeper-seated than ever, is certainly far
more vocal. -
Equally futile has been the remedial
which has set out to elevate
he ace by striking off the letters that
lave held its mental and spiritual actiy-
ties in check. The fierce competition
,etween man and man which unshackled
reedom has brought in its train, presses
lpon the weaker or more luckless COM
in the struggle as heavily as did
yer the tyranny Of the most repressive
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