Tennyson and his friends

by Unknown

What follows is justly thought and well said:

And is it not a noble thing that the English tongue is, as it were, the common focus and point of union to which opposite beauties converge? Is it a trifle that we temper energy with softness, strength with flexibility, capaciousness of sound with pliancy of idiom? Some, I know, insensible to these virtues, and ambitious of I know not what unattainable decomposition, prefer to utter funereal praises over the grave of departed Anglo-Saxon, or, starting with convulsive shudder, are ready to leap from surrounding Latinisms into the kindred, sympathetic arms of modern German. For myself, I neither share their regret, nor their terror. Willing at all times to pay filial homage to the shades of Hengist and Horsa, and to admit they have laid the base of our compound language; or, if you will, have prepared the soil from which the chief nutriment of the goodly tree, our British oak, must be derived, I am yet proud to confess that I look with sentiments more exulting and more reverential to the bonds by which the law of the universe has fastened me to my distant brethren of the same Caucasian race; to the privileges which I, an inhabitant of the gloomy North, share in common with climates imparadized in perpetual summer, to the universality and efficacy resulting from blended intelligence, which, while it endears in our eyes the land of our fathers as a seat of peculiar blessing, tends to elevate and expand our thoughts into communion with humanity at large; and, in the “sublimer spirit” of the Poet, to make us feel

That God is everywhere—the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty family,
Himself our Father, and the world our home.

What nice shading of thought do his remarks on Petrarch discover!

But it is not so much to his direct adoptions that I refer, as to the general modulation of thought, that clear softness of his images, that energetic self-possession of his conceptions, and that melodious repose in which are held together all the emotions he delineates.

Every one who knows anything of himself, and of his fellow-men, will acknowledge the wisdom of what follows. It displays an intimate knowledge both of the constitution and history of man, and there is much in it suited to our present need:

I do not hesitate to express my conviction, that the spirit of the critical philosophy, as seen by its fruits in all the ramifications of art, literature, and morality, is as much more dangerous than the spirit of mechanical philosophy, as it is fairer in appearance, and more capable of alliance with our natural feelings of enthusiasm and delight. Its dangerous tendency is this, that it perverts those very minds, whose office it was to resist the perverse impulses of society, and to proclaim truth under the dominion of falsehood. However precipitate may be at any time the current of public opinion, bearing along the mass of men to the grosser agitations of life, and to such schemes of belief as make these the prominent objects, there will always be in reserve a force of antagonistic opinion, strengthened by opposition, and attesting the sanctity of those higher principles which are despised or forgotten by the majority. These men are secured by natural temperament and peculiar circumstances from participating in the common delusion: but if some other and deeper fallacy be invented; if some more subtle beast of the field should speak to them in wicked flattery; if a digest of intellectual aphorisms can be substituted in their minds for a code of living truths, and the lovely semblances of beauty, truth, affection, can be made first to obscure the presence, and then to conceal the loss, of that religious humility, without which, as their central life, all these are but dreadful shadows; if so fatal a stratagem can be successfully practised; I see not what hope remains for a people against whom the gates of hell have so prevailed.

But the number of pure artists is small: few souls are so finely tempered as to preserve the delicacy of meditative feeling, untainted by the allurements of accidental suggestion. The voice of the critical conscience is still and small, like that of the moral: it cannot entirely be stifled where it has been heard, but it may be disobeyed. Temptations are never wanting: some immediate and temporary effect can be produced at less expense of inward exertion than the high and more ideal effect which art demands: it is much easier to pander to the ordinary and often recurring wish for excitement, than to promote the rare and difficult intuition of beauty. To raise the many to his own real point of view, the artist must employ his energies, and create energy in others: to descend to their position is less noble, but practicable with ease. If I may be allowed the metaphor, one partakes of the nature of redemptive power; the other of that self-abased and degenerate will, which “flung from his splendours” the fairest star in heaven.

Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the Infinite Being to the ways and thoughts of finite humanity. But until this step has been taken by Almighty Grace, how should man have a warrant for loving with all his heart and mind and strength?... Without the gospel, nature exhibits a want of harmony between our intrinsic constitution and the system in which it is placed. But Christianity has made up the difference. It is possible and natural to love the Father, who has made us His children by the spirit of adoption: it is possible and natural to love the Elder Brother, who was, in all things, like as we are, except sin, and can succour those in temptation, having been himself tempted. Thus the Christian faith is the necessary complement of a sound ethical system.

There is something to us very striking in the words “Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the Infinite Being.” This states the case with an accuracy and a distinctness not at all common among either the opponents or the apologists of revealed religion in the ordinary sense of the expression. In one sense God is for ever revealing Himself. His heavens are for ever telling His glory, and the firmament showing His handiwork; day unto day is uttering speech, and night unto night is showing knowledge concerning Him. But in the word of the truth of the gospel, God draws near to His creatures; He bows His heavens, and comes down: