The record-union., 1892-12-03

l<IH sexual SrleI must necessarily pre-
dominate that Is entirely absent in 'In
Memoriam.'
l remember reading, some time ago. d
novel ~ O. w. Holmes, The Guardian
Angel" Ill which occurred a slurring
allusion to Tennyson's masterpiece. |
cannot recall the exact language used, but
IL struck me at the time as being saVagely
UNJUST. W holly incomprehensible in
man Ike the author OF the "Autocrat,"
unless lthe book was published in 1868
he had become tainted with the then pre-
Valllng hatred OF everything English,
feeling that has since happily almost dis
appeared from among Americas edu-
Gated classes.
few months ago a weIl-known San
francisco Journalist, in an article on "In
Memoriam," spoke Of the agnostic pro-
clvities of the author and cited the lines,
Behold We know not anything" to sub
stantlate his Interpretation of the work.
But l would say, most humbly and
deferentially, that the gentleman read the
poems to LITTLE purpose ii he did not find
stronger faith his own"
In the Introductory stanzas occurs the
following:
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Ihou madest man, he knows not why;
de thinks he was not made TO die,
ana thou hast made him; thou art just.
Our little systems have their day;
1hey nave their day and cease to be:
1hey are but broken lights OF thee.
ana thou, y Lord, art more than they.
Again in the body of the work:
My own dim life should teach me this.
mat life shall live iorevermore
Else earth Is darkness at the core
ana dust and ashes all that is.
IN Memoriam" was not published
until seventeen years after Hallam's
aeath, and IN the interim appeared the
English IdyIs," "Locksley Hail." with
It's bitter arraignment of a woman's in
constancy, the Tilted lovers despair and
hnal triumph:
1 am shamed through all my nature to have
loved so slight a thing.
"GOdiva," with a wealth of poetic i'm
agery that recalls Keats Eve of Saint
Agnes''-
She fingered, looking like a summer moon
Haltdipt in cloud:
And like a creeping sunbeam, slid
FROM pillar unto pillar;
The Day Dream" containing enough
jeweled rhymes to gem the crowns of a
Wnole race Of poet kings, and the court
snip OF the Lord ofBurleigh and the vii
Iage maiden, with its pathetic conclusion
that has beat in time to MANY a random
chord OF grief since it was written, and.
What mas always seemed to me to be the
-AN,SNSA EASNO VI biIdl SUILlOn, Inc Two
voices" In this poem one voice coun-
sells suicide as Il relief for physical Ills:
Consider Well" the voice replied.
ms ms iace that two hours since hath died;
VII Vhou nnd passion, pain or pride?''
III all be dark, vague voice. ." l said.
Ihese things are Wrapt in doubt and dread
nor canst thou show the dead are dead '
Whatever crazy sorrow saith
NO lie luab DreaIleS with hun1Qp brpatb
sIIas ever truly longed for death.
1is ne, Whereoi our nerves are scant
y Lie, not death, for which we uant.
More life, and fuller, that want"
In spite Of the difficulties ATTENDING tbo
triple rhyme stanza there is not forced
or labored line in the poem, subtle and
logical as 1t is, and the conclusion bears
such grand message of hope that every
man whose sun of life has been clouded
over should read it in order that he may
learn to patiently await the issue"
In lS47 The Princess" gained him
fresh laurels, and the popularity of that
work has IN no wise diminished at the
present time. Something may be found
III 1t to suit every mood and every ace.
from cradle lulluby to a sonorous bngle
song, from the dalliance of lovers in The
narrative portion, TO the sibilant speech
of war women.
In 1851 Tennyson married Emily Sell
wood (who still survives and took m his
residence on the Isle of Wight.
1t has been said that marriage RINGS the
death knell Of genius. Be this as it NAV.
Maud" which was the first work pub
Iished alUer hls marriage, marked a dis
tlnct retrogreseion. Read without tha
connecting stranzas that have been since
added 1t was about as disjointed a piece of
work as was ever written, the Garden
song being It's only redeeming feature. In
the same volume appeared the charge
OF the Light Brigade familiar to eyery
school boy, yet inferior in descrintive
power to Meek's grand and dramati.
poem on "Balaklava," or even Whvte-
Melville'S stirring prose recital DETAILING
that mad gallop Of Lucan's little band of
heroes across the fire-swept glacls and
into that gorge of death, where nearly
half their number went down before tbe
fatal fire of the Russian guns.
But the misogamists who had nre-
dlcted the setting of the Tennysonian
poetic sun had their prophecies i9uobnd
to scorn after the "IdyIs of the KInp,;
silenced the critics Of two worlds. and
his succeeding works proved how han
PLY domestic life nourished his talent.
OF the two sons Of this union there is a
portrait by Watts Il. A., that shows two
faces of almost feminine beauty. the
younger, Lionel, bearing a striking re-
semblance to Shelley's dreamy. svnpa-
thetic face, and with
Shining eyes like Jewels set In Parian statue
stone.
Thackeray,s daughter, Mrs. Annie
Richie, has described the touching fiIiai
affection shown by the sons. The elder.
Hallam. has, she writes, been for years
past the adviser, the friend and com
panion of his father and mother.v
I. II. Rearden, in ah article on Tennv
son in 1888, says that he was apt ''to sit
on stile and remark a colts points: to
fol- lanrry1fA int
crop rotation; and to have a proper inter-
change of courtesies with suspected
poachers on the subject of woodcratt. or
with pretty farmers daughters touching
their swains." All OF which shows the
grand catholicity of the immortal bard.
Iennyson mas not scrupled to appro-
pirate several passages from Homer. vet
the charge OF plagiarism must be made
with caution, for both LucretiuS and
Dante have also borrowed literally from
the immortal lays that were chanted on
the shores of the Hgean, and even the
'Divine WllF' did not disdain to tilch an
idea or two from PalIadas, as witness the
following from the muse of that phiIo-
sophical pagan:
This life q theater we well may call
Where every actor must perform with art
or laugh it through and make farce OF all
or learn to bear with grace his tragic part.
And those who criticise him for purloin-
ing the + aeon from BOccacclO should
remember that the tale was common in
Arabia long before the author of the De-
cameron was born; only in the Arabian
legend it was a favorite horse which fell a
sacrifice and was served as a repast for
the Byzantine monarch, instead Of a rare
falcon trussed for a lady love.
Probably none OF his poems called
forth such storm of adverse criticism as
"Locksley Hall Sixty Years Later But
the careless and casual raader shnrld not