Putnam patriot., 1909-08-13

THE LAUREATE ~As He sang of the
 GOOD READER hidden things of the soul. the finest distractions of thought, and again of the heart throbs If the people. the homely joys and sorrows of common life. He was equally at home in the castle and the hut. As he imaged the mountain and the sea. the forest, brook and meadow in nature. so he touched rbe heights and the levels of human life. He talked as he wrote and lived AS he talked He had in him the ele- inents of the actor. the painter and the musician and was the artist in them all He was little given to the crowd. but with those of kindred thought he WIS a boon companion and steadfast friend. His home life was that of a simple Christian gentleman without cant and without pretense. He was loved by his queen and loved as much by The servant about his estate. He was loved most by those who were nearest to him, who saw the inner most recesses of his thought or as much of them as everyday mortals may see of the soul of one who talks with the infinite.
 Some one has said that Tennyson was the wisest man of his time Bay ard Taylor remarked his intimate ac- auaintance with science. his knowledge of the geologic formation of the re- zion in which he lived. He was the friend of scientists and statesmen as well as of men of letters. That there was nothing little in his nature was shown by his appreciation of all con temporary poets worthy of the name. He was a boon companion of the Brown ings and was in touch by letters and personal contact with men like Glad stone. Carlyle. Emerson. Longfellow, Fitzgerald. Tyndall and most of those who ruled the destinies and nodded the thought of his time. Gladstone and Fitzgerald he knew from his youth. His freedom from pettiness Is charm ingly shown in little poem to a brother bard who had sent him a spite ful letter
 Greater than I? Is that your cryf
 And men shall live to see t?
 Well. if 1t be so so 1t Is. you know.
 And if 1t be so so be it.
 When 1 first read Tennyson's poems l was struck by wonder and admira- tion. When l read his letters l was drawn to him as to a big brother, but when I read his life l saw him as bluff and manly man, touched with infinite tendernesses and living as near to the Christ ideal as we earth folk may we'll attain. His "In Memoriam' shows the love of an immortal for an idealized brother, filled with all the nobility of sorrow, with all the purity of love. with all the highest of faith and hope. In "The Princess he shad- ows forth a nobler manhood and wo- manhood. higher marriage, sweeter and diviner civilization and breathes through II all such music, such an air from the eternal hills, such an at mosphere of the things of the soul and humanity that it must charm the world and win it to the fulfillment of his dream
 To me .sThe Princess" Is his great est poem Others think his highest notes are struck in .sThe Idylls of the King The Princess" looks forward. ssFhe Idylls. backward One pictures the golden age ahead; the other pie tures it in the past. Perhaps 1t is nei- ther onward nor behind. but in the present, If at all. Tennyson himself said as much in "The Golden Year. Yet if we must place the goal at distance I prefer it in the days that Ere To come rather than in those that are no more" II Is one thing to sigh for glory that has gone; it Is quite another to reach out for a glory that Is to be. We have had our eyes too much on the past. Why not face to the slnrisef Tennyson believed in the cry of Forward" in his younger days and only hushed it when an old man thinking gray thoughts" We'll the rest of us are not all old and hope never to be old In spirit. so we may be Permitted to keep the cry of For sard" now and always. We prefer to follow Tennyson at his best. not his worst "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" is very well in It's way except that II is too conscious of those sixty years. What are years to an imnor. tais What are a few revolutions of the sln to a race that is going onward se the heichtss If Homer occasionally Bodied. Tennysou may he forgiven q slight lapse into pessimism that hardly represented his true self. We are strange combination Of sneei .nf hast. and sometimes the beas
 sfeas in spite of us. whi is tr@s oi the genius as well as the raasfa2rut ..I.acksley Han~ is The cal of bueae@ IL echo. -ssxfy Years After" is f val I prefer to follow the tuEie Faf Der than the wall We have enousA caab5s # our owu we need the poet t8 give us faith. not despair. let rhe later poem ls not all a riaiat 1T read deeply The boy was too eager. teo Impatient for the millennium to ar rive by lightning express. The oad man Is saGdened by the fact that esrth's golden year" does not come Tn that way Then, I fear. our laureate great as he was, was so welded to the old that he could not always interpret