The times., 1899-01-01
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poet, philosopher and grizzly bear by
I turns writes thus of Tennyson in 1874:
Alfred is one of the few British or foreign fig
uTes IA not increasing number, l think) who are
and remain beautiful to me, a true human soul
or some authentic approximation thereto, 10
whom your soul say, Brother How
ever, doubt he will not come; he often skips
me in these brief visits to town; ssips every
! body, indeed, being man solitary anu SAD, as
certain are, dwelling in element of gloou'
carrying bit of Chaos about him, in short, which
he is manufacturing into Cosmos.
And again:
Alfred is the son of a Lincolnshire gentleman
farmer. ! think, indeed, you i'll his verses
that he Is native Of ''fioated grangcs and
green fat Pastures, not of mountains and their
torrents and storms He had his breeding at
Cambridge as II for the law ch...ch; being
master of small annuity on his fathers decease,
he preferred clubbing with his mother and some
sisters, to live unpronoted and write poems. In
this way he lives still, here, there, the
family always within reach Of London. never in
1t; he himself making rare and brief visits, lodg-
ing in seine old comrade's rooms. think he
must be under forty, and not much under it. One
! OF the finest looking in the world. A great
shock of rough. dusty-dark hair; bright laughing
/ hazel eyes, massive aquiline face. most massive
I yet most delicate; of sallow-bTown complexion.
almost Indian-looking Clothes cynicaly loose,
! free and easy-srnokes infinite tobacco. His voice
7 IS musical. metallicfit for loud laughter and
/ piercing vail, and all thai may lie between;
speech and speculation free and pIenteous. | do
not meet in these late decades such company over
! pipe. We shall sec what lie will grow to- lie
/ is often unwell very chaotic-his way is through,
/ Chaos and the BottomlesS and Pathless not handy
! Tor making out many miles upon.
Another opinion of Tennyson which is
| especially interesting is that of Emerson.
! written at about the same time One can
not quite see why the author of these rem
iniscences should call Emerson the in
spred rustic, even if he did live in a
Massachusetts country village. Concord,
where the philosopher made his home, is
considerably less rustic than Somersby,
with its sixtytwo inhabitants; and Emer-
sons ancestors were clergymen, school
masters and educated men. Be that as it
may, this is what the New England Greek
had to say of Tennyson:
] was c0ntrnted with him at once; he is tail
and scholastic looking, dandy, but great deal
of plain strength about him, and though cultivat
! ed. quite unaffected. Quiet sluggish sense and
thought refined all English are and good
humored. There Is in him an air Of general
superiority tiIt is very satisfactory He lives
Q with his college set and has the air of who is
accustomed TO be petted and indulged by those
he lives with. Take away Hawthornc's bashful-
ness and let bim talk easily and fast and you
would have a pretty good Teunyson.
! Still another interesting letter on Ten
nyson is that CT Lowell written in 1872,
. concerning the "Idyls of the King"
! Oddly enough when got your letter about Ten
I nyson's poem, | had Just finished reading 4 real
/ Arthrian rOmance-''F 'FerglIs''-not one of the
: best certainly but having that merit of being
genuine blossom for which no triumph of
tilce can compensate; having, in short, that
woodsy hint and rehabilitation of perfume which is
infinitely better than anything more defined.
Emerson had left me Tennyson's book; last
night ! took il to bed with me and finished il
/ at gulp-reading. like naughty boy, till half
| past one. The contrast between his pomp and my
old rhymeT's simpleness very curious and
. even instructive One bit OF the latter-which |
cannot recollect elsewhere amused me a good
deal as Yankee. When Fergus comes to Ar
( thurs court and Sir KAY ''sarses'' him (Which
you know is Dc rigHeur in the old poems) Sir
Gawain saunreTs up whiting q stick as a medi-
cine against cnlui. So afterwards, when Arthur
Is drcadfuly bored by hearing no news OF Fergus,
he fecliilts at table without any taste for his din
Eer, and wht;les TO purge his heart of melan-
ciioly- J suppose a modern poet would dare
10 come near Nature this lest she should
fling up her heels. But am not vet ''aif wi the
auld love- quite ION wi the new" There
are very fine childish things in Tennyson's poem,
and fine manly things too, If seems to me- but
conceive the theory 10 be wrong. / have The
same feeling q an not wholly sure of its justice)
that ] have when / see these modern medieval
pictufes-l am dcfrauded; / do not see fcalitY,
but 4 masquerade. The costumes are all that is
genuine. and the people inside them are shams-
which, take It, j. Just the reverse of what ought
TO be- Ono special criticism ] should make on
Z Ienny-ors new ldviS and that Is that the simi-
les are so often dragged in by the hair. S1me-
times II almost ii the verses were rIlde
for the SMILES instead of being the creating of a
geu- TO the costume objection. and springs per
laps FROM The same cause.-The making OF poetry
, with malice pTcpenSc. However | am not going
| TO forget tho lovely things that Tennyson has
written, and ] think they give him rather hard
measure now. However, it Is the natural recoil
OF too rapid fame.
Wordsworth lad the true bind-an unpopularity
that reused and stimulated while he was strong
enough 20 deSpi>o II. and honor, obedience, troop:
Of friends, when the gTasshopper would have beer
a burden TO the dropping shoulders. TcnnYson
q fbI
have these Whipper-snappers who cry 60 vi
. baldhead' done that be named with sorlt
things of his! lie his been the greatest artist il
words We have had since Gray-and remember
how GTay holds his own with little fuel but rea
fire. lie lad the secret Of the inconsumable oil
and So fancy, has Temyson.
There is chapter on Enoch Arden ani
the dialect poems, and another on Tenny-
son as a dramatist. One OF the pictures il
the latter is an uncommonIy fine portrai
OF Henry Irving; but perhaps the finest o
all the Illustrations is the portrait of Ten
nyson in his old age. There is but LITTLE
of the moody, gloomy, vision-haunted gen
ius OF his earlier manhood in this picture
we have here the soul that spoke in tina
matchless lyric Crossing the Bar" SOM
! one ought to publish those brief and ex
5 quisite stanzas in little book by them
selves, and make this portrait the fronts
piece. The book as whole is an impair
[ tial yet sympathetic character study. ant
/. well worth reading. (New York: G. p
I / Putnams Sons. $3.50