ived, and moved, and had his culture,
and which he reflects more than any of his poetical contemporaries.
The most emphasized and most vitalized idea, the idea which
glints forth everywhere in his poetry, which has the most important
bearing on man's higher life, and which marks the height
of the spiritual tide reached in his poetry, is, that the highest
order of manhood is a well-poised, harmoniously operating duality
of the active or intellectual or discursive, and the passive
or spiritually sensitive. This is the idea which INFORMS his poem
of `The Princess'. It is prominent in `In Memoriam' and in
`The Idylls of the King'. In `The Princess', the Prince,
speaking of the relations of the sexes, says:--
"in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind;
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words;
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other ev'n as those who love.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:
Then springs the crowning race of humankind."
To state briefly the cardinal Tennysonian idea, man must realize
a WOMANLY MANLINESS, and woman a MANLY WOMANLINESS.
Tennyson presents to us his ideal man in the 109th section
of `In Memoriam'. It is descriptive of his friend,
Arthur Henry Hallam. All that is most characteristic of Tennyson,
even his Englishness, is gathered up in this poem of six stanzas.
It is interesting to meet with such a representative and comprehensive
bit in a great poet.
"HEART-AFFLUENCE in discursive talk
From household fountains never dry;
The CRITIC CLEARNESS of an eye,
That saw through all the Muses' walk;
SERAPHIC INTELLECT AND FORCE
TO SEIZE AND THROW THE DOUBTS OF MAN;
IMPASSIONED LOGIC, which outran
The bearer in its fiery course;
HIGH NATURE AMOROUS OF THE GOOD,
BUT TOUCH'D WITH NO ASCETIC GLOOM;
And passions pure in snowy bloom
Through all
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