g A

e would deny that letters and life had bee

. One air brought death; one air brought more abundant life. What do ideas effect, and how do they affect him who entertains them is the final question and the final test. Now, our earth is always trying to grow men. Not harvests nor flowers nor forests, but man, is what the earth is proudest of. On transparent June days, standing upon the cliffs of the Isle of Man, I have seen the golden wheatfields on the hills of Wales; but heaven,

e has opened eyes to see the best, and spurred men to attempt the best they saw; if he has enamored them of virtue as aforetime they were enamored of vice,-trust me, that man was good. He will endure, and be passed from age to age, like rare traditions through centuries, till time shall die. Submit Alfred Tennyson to this test. Is virtue more apparent, more love

nhood which Tennyson has constructed in his cycle of poems, thus taking into our field of vision, not simply "The Idyls of the King," adequate as they may be, but, in addition, "Enoch Arden," "Ulysses," "The Vision of S

have seen a King Arthur, and to have held high converse with him through many years. Whiteness of life is not an episode foreign to biography. There are many lives running white toward heaven as I have seen a path across the moonlit sea. Not to be credulous is well; not to be incredulous is better, when heavenly visions and heavenly incarnations are the theme. This is affirmed, that King Arthur is not more unreal than others Tennyson delineates. His art lacks the power to flood his people's veins with blood to plethora, with such bounding vitality as marks Shakespeare's creations. They lack, sometimes, color on the cheek and lip and sunlight in the eyes. His characters are as if seen in mist. Our failin

with beard of gold, holding the sun as harvests do. Tourneys done, the king is turned battleward, where he is to die; and a man's picture comes to have special value at h

history, he made himself and his kingdom. And this is oft-repeated history. When a man makes a kingdom, he first made himself. He does two things. Might goes not single, loves not solitude, but makes itself company. Milton made himself before he made the Bible epic of the world. He wrought himself and his complex history into his Iliad of heavenly battle. Souls have, in a true sense, a beaten path to tread. There is a highway worn to ruts and dust by travel of the great men's feet. And Arthur had much company, if he knew it not.

ety will accept, and the only credentials. This view is scarcely English, but is fully American. And Tennyson was not sympathetic with America. Democracies possessed not the flavor of the fruit he loved. When, however, the biography of greatness is to be written, who writes the story, if he write it truly, must tell a story of democracy. Tennyson is unconscious democrat when he writes Arthur's biography, because as poet he saw. His intuitions led him. He spoke, not as a lover of a certain social and political system, but as a discerner of spirits. The poet is not his best as a planned philosophizer; for in that role he becomes self-conscious; but is at his best when the wheel of his burning spirit, revolving as the planets do, throws off sparks or streams of

t be, it s

y noble t

are more t

aith than No

t of the political system of his native land. Himself was self-made. Who were the Tennysons? Who are the Tennysons? He made a house. And in the list of lords,

t reached at

the ladder by

earth to the

its summit ro

upon them afterward. Man builds his own stairway greatnessward. In the Idyl of the King, entitled "Gareth and Lynette,"

all, like voi

ame; until I

s will

sults on him like a winter's sleet-this hindered not his service. He knew to wait, and dare, and do. His fame was in him. A great life bears not its honors on its back, as mountain

divinely-

in low es

imple vill

is birth's i

he skirts of

the blows of

es with hi

y force his

clutch the

ighty State

e whisper of

on from hig

Fortune's c

of a peop

of a worl

wider than a baron's field. Arthur Hallam, whose epitaph is the sweetest ever written, and bears title of "In Memoriam,"-Arthur Hallam, so greatly loved and missed, was never nobleman in genealogy, but was full prince in youth and ideality and purity and genius and promise, worth more than all the ancestries of buried kings. More: Tennyson was as much self

ious

ndred shields,

midriff of a p

s were novi viri. Wh

ercivale? And how

n their d

her th

e. "The May Queen," "The Gardener's Daughter," "The Grandmother," "Rizpah," and, above all, "Enoch Arden," are poems showing how poetry dwells in the hearts of common folks. The verse of books they may not know; the verse of sent

te as woven of the beams of noon. King Arthur, expecting the better of the world, in so doing followed the example of his Savior, Christ, who was most surely optimist. King Arthur, in his midnight hour, when knight and wife and Lancelot deserted him, when his "vast pity almost made him die," still kept the lamp of hope aflame and sheltered from the wind, lest it flame, flare, and die. His fool still loved him and clasped his feet; and bold Sir Bedivere staid with him through the thunder shock of that last battle in the west. Not all were false. Some friends abide. Though his application was not always wise, his attitude was justified. Having done his part, he had not been betrayed; for he was still victor. Lancelot and Guinevere were defeated, ruined, as were Gawain and Ettarre, who, as they wake, find across their naked throats the bare sword of Pelleas; then Ettarre knew what knight was knightly. Goodness wins in the long battle, though supposed defeated in the petty frays, Tennyson makes his ideal man an optimist. "Maud" is a study in pessimism. The lover's blood is tainted with insanity. He raves, is suspicious, is at war with all things and all men; rails at the social system, not from any broad sympathy with better things, but from a strident selfishness, rasping and self-proclamatory, lacking elevation, save as his love puts wings beneath him for a moment and lifts him, as eagles billow up their young; is weak, and tries to cover weakness up by ranting. We pity, then despise him, then pity him once more, and in sheer charity think him raving mad. Stand Maud's lover alongside King Arthur, and how splendid does King Arthur look! The lover was pessimist and wrong; Arthur was optimist and, in his temper, right. Though hacked at by the careless or vicious swords of cumulating hatreds, underestimations, selfishness, and lewdness of lesser and cruder souls, knowing, as he did, how God is on goodness' side, knew, therefore, who is on God's side keeps hope in good, believing better things. Those who, thinking themselves shrewd, and are perennially suspicious, do really lack in shrewdness, lacking depth. The far view is the serene view. Pelleas, too, is a study in

econd two both start with the same seven words.] There is no separation between act and thought in a wise estimate. They are not enemies, but friends. We are to think and act. We are, in a word, not to dream or do, but dream and do, the dreaming being prelude to the doing. Who dreams not is metallic. Dreams redeem deeds from being stereotyped, and make motions sinuous and graceful as a bird's flight across the sky; and when

tood before him

hable prese

untenance of

n

ed with him and s

ambient air of thought and action into something better than it was; and for such change he must associate him with the lives he fain would help. Arthur brooded and dreamed, and saw the Christ, and then conceived his worthiest service to be to interpret the What he heard and

t the meadow a

purpose? H

hem with t

how to do the most for some one besides yourself while you are in the world; and this attitude is otherness, altruism. Nurture strength to use. Pass your might on. Knighthood was to serve everybody else first, after the fashion of the Founder of knighthood, even Christ, "who came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister." King Arthur served. Play battles stung him not to prowess, but, as Lancelot saw, in the actual battle, the hero was not Lancelot, but Arthur. May be a too deep seriousness was in him. I think it probable. He had been more masterful in wielding men had he been colored more by laughter and jest

e, he mee

im dead for t

t he loves not, with a passion white as sun's flame, the good and pure, but that he has sagacity to see such quest will scatter the round table and its fellowship, and would dispeople his forces, whose presence makes for peace and sovereignty in all his realm and compels the sovereignty of law. Him, their king, these errant knights heeded not, so enticing and noble seemed the warfare they espoused, and thought their sovereign cold and calculating, while, in fact, he knew them for visionaries. He was right. Without them he was bankrupt in strength to compel social betterment. The visionary, in so far as he is simply visionary, is foe to progress; for progress comes by battle and by association in affairs, and he who would be helper to the better life o

s presence, and there is a presence which is absence; and what is asked of all men, near or far, is that they

e a king's offices, and thought himself a saint by such omission, when what God and the realm wanted and needed was a man to rule and suffer for the common weal. Arthur was not a thing "enskied and sainted;" rather a wholesome man, whose duty lay in working for men. Sir Percivale became a monk; other knights returned no mote, thus spilling the best blood of the table round. Meantime the king's enemies multiplied, and these visionaries decimated the ranks of opposition to the wrong; but come what would, King Arthur served. An appeal to him for help found answer, though treasons plotted at his back. As to his last battle, though his heart was breaking, he marched nor paused, perceiving, so long as he was king, he must uphold the order of the State. He was no dilettante. Great service called him, and he thought he heard the voice of God

ent. Can any person of just judgment rise from reading "Idyls of the King" without feeling a repugnance toward vice, like a nausea, and a magnetism in virtue? An admiration for Arthur becomes intense. The poet draws no moral from his parable: doing what is better, he puts morals into one's blood. While never railing at Guinivere, he makes us ashamed of her and for her, and does the same with Lancelot. He makes virtue eloquent. King Arthur is neither drunkard nor libertine, therein contradicting the pet theories of many people's heroes. He loves cleanness and is clean. He demands in man a purity equal to woman's; setting up one standard of mortals and not two. The George Fourth style of king, happily, Arthur is not; for George was a shame to England and to men at large, while Arthur is a glory, burning on above the cliffs of Wales, l

he would have achieved kingship indeed. "Mea vita vota" was Dempster's motto,-a sentiment Arthur knew by heart. His life was owed to God, and right manfully he paid his debt. Arthur exalted God in his heart and court and on hard-fought field. So intense and vivid his se

systems ha

eir day and

t broken li

Lord, art mo

ritten in verse. St. Augustine and Wesley were not more certainly theologians than this poet L

uld have knelt,

so that falli

to the wet ear

n

all unhappy.

nd firm faith

living source

through all t

s of sweet wa

a livin

r, dying,

s are wroug

dreams of. Where

ountain, for m

en better than

blind life wi

they lift not

es and those that

ole round wor

chains about t

am" is the biography of doubt and faith at war. The battle waxes sore, but the day is God's. The battle ebbs to quiet. Calm after tempest. Tennyson could not stay in doubt. 'T is not a goodly land. If trepidation has white lip and cheek, 't is not forever. Living through an

and even

clear ca

out our bourn

d may be

e my Pilot f

ve cross'

r is action; and action is antidote

, not dream the

nd he was left a wreck of what he had been in his better days; yet finds, in giving alms to a leprous beggar at his castle gate to whom he had denied alms in the spirit of alms when he set out to hunt the Holy Grail, that in so giving he found the Christ. Action helps God into the heart. Doubts are, many of them, brain-born and academical; and such, service helps to dispel. To Arthur, God was vital fact. To Him he held as tenaciously as to his sword; and he was comforted. All good things a

s prows into t

st, and sailed t

the mountain

ivers roll fr

red as himself

than onc

ud and storm, wh

t of sight, I h

wn. I lead the

I shall hear h

He has led m

et too old to

oice

God helps him into a

, kindness, purity, ma

pring about him as he

me. Nothing good

f Art" presents the poet's perception of the failure of culture. Ethics, not aesthetics, compel manho

ld's best thought and purpose. We see him-not saw him. He is never past, bu

e and gl

laces, like a

eve