But

emancipation, or separation, from earth ties.
The Ring also descends lower, and connects a whole
series of solemn spiritualistic phenomena with a circlet
of metal. (I have myself known a ring to be made
the lying basis of an elaborate spiritualistic deception.)
This I mean the poet's ring and its asserted powers
-brings us down to the depths of pagan fetishism,
to which, indeed, spiritualism itself tends.

How our poet arrived in this region, or what connection this phase of his writings has with his personal opinions, I do not know (except a little by hearsay, and that is not worthy to be called knowing), nor is it my business to inquire. I deal with the writings. But in these is to be found what may be the root of this fruit. Like every spiritual-minded man, Tennyson has always been deeply interested in the question of the condition of the dead, and the event which gave birth to In Memoriam of course deepened the interest. Now, as I have pointed out in the commentary upon the poem, an alternative presented itself to the mind of the poet. Either, said he, they sleep absolutely till the Resurrection (In Memoriam, XLIII.), or they enter at once upon an active and progressive state. To the former view he did not adhere; nor did he even entertain the view of the Christian doctrine of Paradise. He committed himself to the view of an immediate entrance upon a full and active consciousness. This involved the fear of an ever-increasing separation, and might have provoked longings for, and suggested the possibility of, spirit visitations. Whether it did, I, of course, do not know. I only say that the passing by of the eminently sane doctrine of Paradise, and the adoption of

1

this other view instead, suggests a possible root for what has followed.

The glory of Tennyson's writings is that they are, almost without a fleck, morally clean,― clean in tone and intention, dealing holily with characters and actions, whether the characters and actions themselves are holy or unholy. One longs to feel that the spiritual cleanness is equally perfect. And the great pain, over and above their danger, connected with the elements of which I have been speaking is that they mar the sense of complete spiritual wholesomeness which otherwise the poems might have left upon the mind.

I promised to comment upon the state of extasy described in In Memoriam, XCV., read as it now stands since the change of "his" to "the."

With this I would link II. 4

"And gazing on thee, sullen tree,
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,
I seem to fail from out my blood
And grow incorporate into thee."

With this also I would connect the supposed condition of rapture (already discussed) of The Ancient Sage.

And, finally, I would quote (at second hand) a description of his own feelings given by Wordsworth. "I was often unable," he says, "to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times, while going to school, have I grasped at a wall or a

tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality."

What shall we say to such experiences? Are they aspects of superior faculty? Or are they touches of that madness to which genius is said to lie so near? Are they, or any of them, triumphs of the supernatural in man? Or are they bits of passing morbidity? If the reader is more prepared than I am to give a positive answer to this question, it may be because he is wiser, or because he is more rash.

However, I incline to value most the full integrity of body, soul, and spirit, the full balance of all the faculties, the full activity of all the perceptions, genius in the harness of a sound, sane mind.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PLAYS

WE glance briefly at the plays. With the question whether any of them are plays proper, or whether they are all dramatic poems, I shall not much concern myself. From the stage point of view the question is a very important one; from the point of view of literature it is less important. Until 1875 there

was no play to discuss. Before that, when the only poem of Tennyson's in the dramatic form was the trifle Walking to the Mail, I expressed the opinion that though the poet's writings were full of dramatic faculty, he himself was not a dramatist. "Tennyson," I said, “has a strong dramatic tendency, but he has no tendency to write plays. This This is because of his also strong lyric tendency. He loves to project himself into other and very different characters; but then he loves to sing through them, or at least to make them sing. He consents to become objective, that his characters may become subjective. But this is not the pure dramatic spirit. In the perfect play, not only the poet lives in his characters, but they live in each other. If the poet forgets his characters, and begins to utter himself, or if the characters forget each other,

and begin simply to utter themselves, the drama is at an end. Tennyson does not usually do the former, but his characters are very apt to do the latter, or rather would do the latter were he not wise enough to place them in what I may call lyrical situations."

Except that the poet did afterwards take to writing plays, and, incidentally, that, as I have elsewhere said, I have more fully realised his idyll-making power, there is nothing much to alter in the above.

The "strong dramatic tendency" has continued to manifest itself in the poems generally, apart from the plays. Most of the later characters (portraits) utter themselves, and many of the later idylls are put into the mouths of persons of the story. The poem which, without being a drama, is the most dramatic is Maud; in later editions it is, as I have already pointed out, called a Monodrama.

Until 1875 (the poet being then sixty-six years of age) the only poem in the dramatic form was, we say, the trifle Walking to the Mail. The plays now form

between a third and a fourth of the total of the writings of their author. That is a very curious phe

nomenon.

The Ring, as regards form, is on about the same level as Walking to the Mail, except that there is a great deal more characterisation of the persons of the dialogue. The plays, in the order of their publication, are