Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-04
FINDS TEXT IN
TENNYSON'S LIFE
DR.. C. E. LOCKE EUL0GIZES
THE ENGLISH POET
SAYS HE WAS LEADING LYRIC
AND IDYLLlc SoNGSTER
Points Moral in the Purity and
Strength of Lesson Shown in
"The ldylls of the
King"

last evening at the t1rst MetIioulS'
church on the subject, 1.-The Message
of Alfred Tennyson to This Genera
ton" The text was: BLESSED are
the pure in heart" Matt, VS.. DR..
Locke said in part:
"The year 1909 has an imperishaole
place in history. 1t gave to states
manship Abraham Lincoln and Will
lam e. Gladstone; to music, gentle
Mendelssohn and charming Chopin; to
science, Charles Darwin; and to
roetry. oliver wendell Holmes and AL
fred Tennyson.
ascend with me the graceful slopes
of Mount Parnassus. Here in pic
turesoue groups are blind Homer,
queenly Sappho, tragic Sophocles3'
Horace, Virgil, Dante, majestic Mil
ton; Chaucer, Spenser and versa
tile Shakespeare, Pope, Dryden
Keats. Shelley, Coleridge, wordsworth,
Browning and Tennyson; Whittier,
Lowell, Longfellow and many others.
Poetry is "a sublime gift of God. IL
has been defined as the concrete ana
artistic expression of the human NINA
in emotional and rhythmical language;
and as one of those primal forces that
goes to the development of the race.
Matthew Arnold said: The great
power of poetry is its interpretatlVe
bower True poetry Is God endeaV-
orine TO reveal himself through poor
human channels Poetry, like music
sculpture and painting, is radiation
of Cod. as beams leap forth from the
bosom of the sun. The poet expresses
what Others feel but cannot phrase.
All normal souls are full of poetry, but
only the true poet can give express
sion to it,
NobIest Poet of the Age
"Alfred Tennyson is easily the
noblest poet of our age. He stands
at the head of the lyric and idyllic
poets of our time. None has equaled
him in the exquisite finish of his Hnes'
he wrote and rewrote, sometimes as
often as fifty times. He was a per-
feet wizard in verbal br1lliancles' ana 4I,a
a genius in painstaking devotion. His
smiles and figures and antitheses re-
veal the most indefatigable care as
we'll as a profound knowledge of men
and things.
"He sang of love, the tenderest emo
ton of the soul and his poetry is a
fountain of purity, All his lines are
as chaste and modest as if his lovely
wife had inspired each tender word.
pressions that Tennyson can be read
without losing a measure at our fire
sides, without the slightest contamina-
ton, or any expurgation. In this ne
is like his majestic contemporary
Robert Browning.
byron, Burns, Dryden and others
often plunged into the filth and slime
of miasmatic swamps, and, by, an un-
accountable oscillation from the high
to the low, soiled their beautiful Wis
ions with objectionable baldnesses
and indecencies which, in any others,
would be rancid obscenities. Not Sc
with Tennyson. The prurient and i'm
pure never ruthlessly seized his chaste
and delicate Tyre. Bishop Quayle calls
attention to how, in Locksley Hall
Sixty Years After the dear poet, now
an old man, righteously indignant, Sc
verely denounces the trough of Zola-
ISM and the stencil and foulness OF
the swinish tendencies of many modern
writer's Neither in fiction nor on the
stage should there be tolerated such
revolving use of impurity as is seen
today.
Was a Poet of Character
"Tennyson was primarily a poet OF
character, of true manhood and true
womanhood. While some differ as be-
tween In Memoriam' and THE Idylls
terpiece is the latter. 1t is a marvel
GUS epic poem which must rank with
the Iliad,' Inferno and Paradise
Lost 1t is his strongest and his sad
dest work. I never read over the pa
thetic description of the Passing OF
Arthur but my eyes are blinded with
tears. 1t is a poem Of chivalry; the
scenes are mediaeval, but the spirit
and application are intensely modern
1t is a great preachment on purity.
Tennyson is the preachers poet.
"Our youth should study the Tdylls
of the devastation which betrayal of
purity will bring inevitably upon hui
terpiece, and here is his message to
thur had assembled about his round
the solemn vows of knighthood. They
ed his trusted knights. He fully
trusted Launcelot his favorite knight,
and Launcelot betrayed that trust in
thur wore the white flower of a blame
less life Why should not man be as
pure as the purest woman?
"The Josephinian standards of right
eousness should be upheld today. No
so black as when trusted friend be-
hearts. The seventh commandment is
not annulled!"