imself, but the various
changes he made in them have always appeared to me cruel disfigurements
of the original thoughts and expressions, which were to me treasures not
to be touched even by his hand; and his changing lines which I thought
perfect, omitting beautiful stanzas that I loved, and interpolating
others that I hated, and disfiguring and maiming his own exquisite
creations with second thoughts (none of which were best to me), has
caused me to rejoice, while I mourn, over my copy of the first version
of "The May Queen," "OEnone," "The Miller's Daughter," and all the
subsequent _improved_ poems, of which the improvements were to me
desecrations. In justice to Tennyson, I must add that the present
generation of his readers swear by _their_ version of his poems as we
did by ours, for the same reason,--they knew it first.

The early death of Arthur Hallam, and the imperishable monument of love
raised by Tennyson's genius to his memory, have tended to give him a
pre-eminence among the companions of his youth which I do not think his
abilities would have won for him had he lived; though they were
undoubtedly of a high order. There was a gentleness and purity almost
virginal in his voice, manner, and countenance; and the upper part of
his face, his forehead and eyes (perhaps in readiness for his early
translation), wore the angelic radiance that they still must wear in
heaven. Some time or other, at some rare moments of the divine spirit's
supremacy in our souls, we all put on the heavenly face that will be
ours hereafter, and for a brief lightning space our friends behold us as
we shall look when this mortal has put on immortality. On Arthur
Hallam's brow and eyes this heavenly light, so fugitive on other human
faces, rested habitually, as if he was thinking and seeing in heaven.

Of all those very remarkable young men, John Sterling was by far the
most brilliant and striking in his conversation, and the one of whose
future eminence we should all of us have augured most confidently. But
though his life was cut off prematurely, it was sufficiently prolonged
to disprove this estimate of his powers. The extreme vividness of his
look, manner, and speech gave a wonderful impression of latent vitality
and power; perhaps some of this lambent, flashing brightness may have
been but the result of the morbid physical conditions of his existence,
like the flush on his cheek and the fire in his eye; the over stimulated
and excite