The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-10-09


In his youth Tennyson Is content to
play the melodious lovers lutte, but in his
robust manhood he dropped this for the
harp Of humanity and made its strings
speak Of mans earthly toll and conflict;
of his heroism. Then he wrote of bis
spiritual struggles; of death and the flu
ture life; his poetry may be said to lit.
orally follow man not only from the cradle
to the grave, but beyond the grave up to
the gates Of Paradise.
"In Memoriam" has been called "the
spiritual autobiography Of our genera
tion," and his 1.-TWO Voices" is q picture
of the inward duel of doubt and faith. A
man of devout, religious, reverent spirit,
Tennyson has little respect for the con-
ventional forms of popular religion. He
halls joyfully the preacher whom he
describes as one who twill stir the busted
velvets and scare the church harpies from
the Masters Feast" he denounces n.y.
pocrisy as the sin that neither God nor
man can well forgive" In his Simon
Styiites" he fairly gitbets the sancti-
monious, selfdepreciating, yet self-wor.
shipping ascetic. In "Sea Dreams" we find
these lines:
"With oil his conscience aud one eye askew,
So falso he partly took hirnself for true;
Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry
Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye"
He never conceals his adherence Of
those preachers who dwelt constantly not
on the coming of the kingdom of heaven
but on the terrors of hell. In his poem OF
despair" he draws powerful picture Of
those who are nursed in the dark night
fold" OF the creed OF ancient Calvinism
who believe that Christ spake of hell
without help. without end" and break
away from the Christ, their human
brother and friend" Tennyson derives
the disbelief and hopelessness of the sui.
eide in Despair" from the teachings of 4
ferocious theology preached by one who
"hawled the dark side of his faith and a
God Of eternal rage"
Nevertheless Tennyson finds skepticisrn
as repugnant as ecclesiastical bigotry and
dogmatism. His hear. is full Of the
springs Of faith. His sturdy moral nature
revolts against the fashionable skepticism
OF his time, of which he SAYS:
doubt IL the lord Of this dunghill. and crows
to the sun and the moon.'
He rejects both the popular nnbelief and
the popular ecclesiastical bsgotry and dog
ms,ism. His faith is not knowledge: he
| stands
Upon the great worlds altar stairs
That slope through darkness UP 80 God;
cropping and calling like suppliant- He
is tolerant always, tender always to those
who seem 20 him 10 walk in darkness,
who stumble and rebel. Like Words
worth, he thinks honest doubt better than
tie mechanical repetition Of theological
| formulas. Creeis are TO Tennyson bu;
imperfect sud traditional garments 10
eternal truths. He Welcomes scientific
criticism, Investigation and the most
searching doubt, and then demands that
| the spirit Re heard. lie pleads for tho
| personal experience of the soul as the
| source Of the s;resm Of his faith He trusts
| in q sene1eent Providence He afl.ms
! All IS vel though tsith 40 form
Be sundsred ia TIE aiga; OF feAa
one tar~oE Divine even;
To which the whole creation moves
Somehow god
| VIII he the aasl goal o. IL,
A. times Tennyson seems 10 reach in
his verse no higher than the pantheisn 0.