to resist the heathen invaders, and devoted to the redress of human wrongs. It must be pure in thought and word and deed; for the thinking and speaking evil of others is one of the besetting sins of an aristocracy, and the spirit of slander is twin-sister to the spirit of lust. It must not banish the passion of love, nor brutalize it, but lift it up, and idealize it as the transfiguration of life, and make it a true worship with a ritual of noble deeds. And out of all this will come the right manhood, in thought, in speech, in manners, in ambition, in sincerity, in "all that makes a man." Now the art which can put this broad and strong conception of a class worthy to rule, to defend, and to lead society into a score of lines, so clear that they read without effort and so melodious that they fill the ear with pleasure, is exquisite. I think, more than anything else, it is this presence of a pure ideal shining through a refined and balanced verse, this union of moral and metrical harmony, that marks the consummation of the Tennysonian manner in "The Idylls of the King."

I have no time to speak of the patriotic poems, except to say that they ought to be studied together, because there is something in almost every one of them which is essential to the full understanding of the poet's conception of loyalty and liberty and order as the three elements of a perfect state.

The last division in the arrangement which I have made is poems of the inner life. You can probably conjecture why it is last. Partly because it is more difficult, and partly because it is higher, in the sense that it gives a more direct revelation of the personality of the poet. It is for this reason that we should not be in haste to enter it. For it is always best to look first at the fact and then at the explanation; first at a man's objective work and then at the account which he gives of himself and the spirit in which he has labored.

The group of poems in which Tennyson deals with art is important, not only for the poems themselves, but also for the light which they throw upon his artistic principles and tastes. It is not altogether by chance that the poets to whom he gives greeting are Milton, Virgil, Dante, and Victor Hugo. In "The Poet" you will find his early conception of the power of poetry; in "The Poet's Mind," his thought of its purity; in "The Poet's Song," his avowal that its charm depends upon faith in the immortal future. "The Palace of Art" is an allegory of the impotence of art when separated from human love. "The Flower" tells in a symbolic manner his experience with unreasoning critics. "The Spiteful Letter" and "Literary Squabbles" are reminiscences of the critical warfare which raged around him in

his youth, and made him sometimes forget his own principle of doing his work "as quietly and as well as possible without much heeding the praise or the dispraise."

But to my mind the most important, and in some respects the most beautiful, of these art poems is "Merlin and the Gleam." The wonder is that none of the critics seem to have recognized it for what it really is the poet's own description of his life-work, and his clear confession of faith as an idealist.

The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the poet's dream,-

this is the "Gleam" that Tennyson has followed. It glanced first on the world of fancy, with its melodies and pictures, dancing fairies and falling torrents. Then it touched the world of humanity, and the stories of man's toils and conflicts, the faces of human love and heroism, were revealed. Then it illuminated the world of imagination, and the great epic of Arthur was disclosed to the poet's vision in its spiritual meaning, the crowning of the blameless king. Then it passed through the valley of the shadow of death and clothed it with light.

And broader and brighter,
The Gleam flying onward,
Wed to the melody,
Sang thro' the world;
And slower and fainter,
Old and weary,
But eager to follow,
I saw, whenever

In passing it glanced upon
Hamlet or city,

That under the Crosses,
The dead man's garden,
The mortal hillock
Would break into blossom;
And so to the land's
Last limit I came
And can no longer,
But die rejoicing;
For thro' the Magic
Of Him the Mighty,

Who taught me in childhood,
There on the border

Of boundless Ocean,
And all but in Heaven
Hovers The Gleam.

Not of the sunlight,
Not of the moonlight,
Not of the starlight!
O, young Mariner,
Down to the haven,
Call your companions,
Launch your vessel,
And crowd your canvas,
And, ere it vanishes
Over the margin,
After it, follow it,
Follow The Gleam.

That is the confession of a poet's faith in the ideal. It is the cry of a prophet to the younger singers of a faithless and irresolute generation. Among the poems which touch more broadly upon the common experience of mankind in love, and sorrow, and death, you will find first a group which are alike only in their manner of treatment. It is allegorical, mystical, emblematic-find a name for it if you will. I mean that these poems convey their meaning under a mask; they use a symbolic language, just as "Merlin" and "The Flower" do in the preceding group. You must read "The Deserted House," "The Voyage," "The Sailor Boy," "The Islet," "The Vision of Sin," "The Voice and the Peak," for their secret significance. Then come three precious fragments of philosophy more directly uttered. "Will," "Wages," and "Flower in the crannied wall" go down to the very roots of human action, and aspiration, and thought. Then follows a group of poems more personal, varied in manner, and dealing in different moods with the sorrow of death. Their deepest and sweetest note is reached in the two lyrics which sprang out of the poet's grief for the death of Arthur Hallam. The world has long since accepted the first of these as the perfect song of mourning love. "Break, break, break," once heard, is never to be forgotten. It is the melody of tears. But the fragment called "In the Valley of Cauteretz" seems to me no less perfect in its way. And surely a new beauty comes into both of the poems when we read them side by side. For the early cry of longing,

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

finds an answer in the later assurance of consolation,

And all along the valley, by rock and cave and

tree,

The voice of the dead was a living voice to me.

Of the final group of poems I shall say nothing, because it will not be possible to say enough. "In Memoriam " alone would require a volume, if one attempted to speak of it adequately. Indeed no less than five such volumes have been written; three in England by F. W. Robertson, Alfred Gatty, and Elizabeth Rachel Chapman, two in America by Professors Thomas Davidson and John F. Genung. If you

need an analysis or commentary on the poem you can find it easily. The one thing that I hope you will feel in reading this great poem, and the others which are grouped with it, is that they are real records of the inward conflict between doubt and faith, and that in this conflict faith has the victory. And you may well ask yourself whether this very victory has not meant the winning and unsealing and guarding of the fountainhead of Tennyson's poetic power. How many of his noblest poems, "Locksley Hall," "The May Queen," "Rizpah," "Guinevere,” “Enoch Arden," find their uplifting inspiration, and reach their climax, in “the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for "! Could he have written anything of his best without that high faith in an immortal life which he has expressed in the rolling lines of "Vastness," and in that last supreme, faultless lyric, "Crossing the Bar"? Can any man be a poet without faith in God and his own soul?

And now when you turn to look back on your study of Tennyson, what are you to think of him? Is he a great poet? Your reply to that will depend on whether you think the nineteenth century is a great century. For there can be no doubt that he represents the century better than any other man. The thoughts, the feelings, the desires, the conflicts, the aspirations of our age are mirrored in his verse. And if you say that this alone prevents him from being great, because greatness must be solitary and independent, I answer, No; for the great poet does not anticipate the conceptions of his age; he only anticipates their expression. He says what is in the heart of the people, and says it so beautifully, so lucidly, so strongly, that he becomes their voice. Now if this age of ours, with its renaissance of art and its catholic admiration of the beautiful in all forms, classical and romantic; with its love of science and its joy in mastering the secrets of nature; with its deep passion of humanity protesting against social wrongs and dreaming of social regeneration; with its introspective spirit searching the springs of character and action; with its profound interest in the problems of the unseen and its reaction from the theology of the head to the religion of the heart-if this age of ours is a great age, then Tennyson is a great poet, for he is the clearest, sweetest, strongest voice of the century.

Henry van Dyke.

J

XVIII.

SWEET PEAS.

ALTER LODLOE was now as much flushed with the fever of love-making as Lanigan Beam had been flushed with the fever of money-making, but he did not have the other man's luck. Mrs. Cristie gave him few opportunities of making her know him. as he wished her to know him. He had sense enough to see that this was intentional, and that if he made any efforts to improve his opportunities he might drive her away.

As he sat at his tower window, his fingers in his hair and his mind trying to formulate the prudent but bold thing he ought to do, a voice came up from below. It was that of Ida Mayberry.

"Mr. Lodloe! Mr. Lodloe!" she cried; and when he had put his head out of the window she called to him:

"Don't you want to come down and help us teach Mr. Tippengray to play tennis? He has taught us so much that we are going to teach him something."

"Who are going to teach ?" asked Lodloe. "Mrs. Cristie and I," said Ida. "Will you come?"

Instantly consenting, Lodloe drew in his head, his love fever rising.

The Greek scholar was one of the worst tennis-players in the world. He knew nothing of the game, and did not appear capable of learning it. And yet when Lanigan Beam appeared, having just arrived on horseback from Romney, Mrs. Cristie would not allow the Greek scholar to give up his place to the younger man. She insisted on his finishing the game, and when it was over she declared the morning too warm to play any more. As she and Lodloe stood together for a moment, their rackets still in their hands, Mrs. Cristie smiled, but at the same time frowned. "It is too provoking," she said; "I wish Douglas would wake up and scream his very loudest. I was just on the point of asking Ida to go with me into the garden to pick sweet peas, when Mr. Beam hands her that horrible bunch of wild flowers, crammed full of botany,

I've no doubt. And now just look at them! Before one could say a word, there they are on that bench, heads together, and pulling the weeds to pieces. Think of it! Studying botany with him, and Mr. Tippengray on the same lawn with her!"

"Oh, he 's too hot to teach anything," said Lodloe. "You don't seem to approve of Mr. Beam's attentions to that young woman."

"I do not," said she. "You know what he is as well as I do."

"Better," said Lodloe. For a moment he paused, and then continued: "Mrs. Cristie, I wish you would let me go into the garden with you to pick sweet peas and to talk about Mr. Beam."

"Mr. Beam?" she repeated.

"Yes," said Lodloe; "I wish very much to speak to you in regard to him, and I cannot do it here where we may be interrupted at any

moment."

As a young and pretty woman who knew her attractions, and who had made resolutions in regard to the preponderance of social intercourse in a particular direction, Mrs. Cristie hesitated before answering. But as a matron who should know all about a young man who was paying very special attention to a younger woman in her charge, she accepted the invitation, and went into the garden with Lodloe.

The sweet-pea blossoms crowded the tall vines which lined one side of a path, and as she picked them he talked to her.

He began by saying that he had noticed, and he had no doubt that she had noticed, that in all the plain talk they had heard about Mr. Beam there had been nothing said against his moral character except that he did not pay his debts nor keep his promises. To this Mrs. Cristie assented, but said that she thought these were very bad things. Lodloe agreed to this, but said he thought that when a young man of whom even professional slanderers did not say that he was cruel, or that he gambled or drank or was addicted to low company and pursuits, had determined to reform his careless and thoughtless life, he ought to be encouraged and helped in every possible way. And then when she asked him what reason he had to suppose that Mr. Beam had determined to reform, he straightway told her everything about Lanigan, Chicago oats and all, adding

that the young man did not wish him to say anything about this matter, but he had taken it upon himself to do so because Mrs. Cristie ought to know it, and because he was sure that she would not mention it to any one. When Mrs. Cristie exclaimed at this, and said that she thought that the sooner everybody knew it the better, Lodloe told her of the state of affairs between Calthea Rose and Lanigan Beam, and why the latter did not wish his reform to be known at present.

Mrs. Cristie dropped upon the ground every sweet-pea blossom she had gathered.

"I cannot imagine," she said, how you can take the part of a man who would deliberately attempt to lower himself in the eyes of one woman in order that he might have a better chance to win another woman.”

"Mrs. Cristie," said Lodloe, “ I am a young man, and I have lived much among young men. I have seen many of them in dangerous and troubled waters, floating down to ruin and destruction, and now and then I have seen one who had turned and was trying to strike out for the shore. In every case of this kind I have tried to give the poor fellow a hand, and help him get his feet on firm ground. Sometimes he jumped in again, and sometimes he did n't, but all that was not my affair; I was bound to help him when I saw him facing the right way, and that is just the way I feel about young Beam. I do not approve of all his methods, but if he wants moral support I say he ought to have it."

Mrs. Cristie looked at the pink, blue, and purple blossoms on the ground. His sentiments are good and generous ones," she thought," and I shall not say one word against them, but Ida Mayberry shall not marry that exceedingly slippery young man, and the good Mr. Tippengray shall not be caught by Calthea Rose." She came to this resolution with much firmness of purpose, but as she was not prepared to say anything on the subject just then, she looked up very sweetly at Lodloe, and said: "Suppose we drop Mr. Beam."

He looked for an instant into her eyes. "Gladly," he exclaimed, with an impulse like a lightning-flash, and speak of Walter Lodloe."

But the flowers we came to gather you have dropped upon the ground."

"They can easily be picked up again,” she said.

"Not at all," he cried, and, stepping forward, put his foot upon the fragrant blossoms. Then with a few rapid dashes he gathered a bunch of sweet peas and extended them towards Mrs. Cristie.

"Will you not take these instead ?” he said. She put her hands behind her back. "I do not mean," he said, speaking low but strongly," that in accepting them you accept me. I only want to know that you will talk to me of what I said, or at any rate think of it."

But still she kept her hands behind her back. In her heart she knew that she wanted those flowers, but the knowledge had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and so unreasonably, that she did not even look at them, and clasped her fingers together more tightly.

"Some one is coming," said Lodloe. “Tell me quickly, must these flowers be dropped?" Steps could be plainly heard not far away. Mrs. Cristie looked up.

"I will take one," she said; "the very smallest.”

He thrust the bunch of flowers towards her, and she hastily drew from it one which happened to be the largest of them all.

The person who now appeared in the garden walk was Calthea Rose. She experienced no emotions but those of mild amusement at seeing these two together. At present she did not care very much about either of them, although, when she had heard of the expected coming of the young widow, she had been afraid of her, and was prepared to dislike her. But finding her, as she supposed, already provided with a lover. Calthea was quite satisfied with Mrs. Cristie. She liked Lodloe on general principles, because he was a man. Her greeting was very pleasant. It often happened that the people whom Calthea Rose neither liked nor disliked were those who found her the most pleasant.

She was inclined to walk on and leave them among the sweet-pea blossoms, but Mrs. Cristie would not allow this. She joined Calthea, and the three went on together. When they stepped upon the open lawn, Calthea gave a quick glance around, and the result was very satisfactory. Ida Mayberry and Lanigan were still sitting together under a tree, and she saw Mr. Tippengray talking to Mrs. Petter not far from the summer-house. Nothing could be better arranged. Lanigan was on the right road, and it would be quite as natural for her immediately to join Mrs. Petter as it would be easy to get rid of her.

The party separated, Lodloe going to his

interest. Indeed, she would not ask him to teach her anything, but she was going to give him the opportunity to do so, and she was quite sure that that would be sufficient for her purpose.

She intended to make herself an audience of one, and to listen in a way she knew would please him to the recital of his travels and experiences. Of these he had often essayed to talk to her, but she had not encouraged him. She never liked to talk upon subjects of which other people knew more than she did, and she always endeavored to bring the conversation into a channel where she could take an equal part. If she could lead, so much the better. VOL. XLII.-66.

go out quite as promptly, which was true, when Miss Calthea chose to put it out,-but she was a little surprised that Calthea, after so recently going away in a huff, should treat Mr. Tippengray with such easy friendliness. If the Greek scholar himself felt surprised, he did not show it, for he was always ready to meet a cordial overture.

Miss Calthea had just accepted an invitation to be seated in the shade,-which she knew would very soon be followed by Mrs. Petter's going into the house, for that good woman seldom content to sit long out of doors,-w up stepped Ida Mayberry.

"Mr. Tippengray," said she in the clear,