some of the phases of his genius, yet one that is defective as a clue to much that we can feel in reading his completed work. The Tennyson of the memoir is the Tennyson who wrote the Idylls, the Tennyson of "In Memoriam;" but it is not the Tennyson of "The Northern Farmer," and of "The May Queen," nor is it quite the Tennyson of those stirring lyrics that voice the soul of martial England.

Now, it was right for Hallam Tennyson to give the world a more or less idealised delineation of his father; and, if one seeks elsewhere for a truer and fuller knowledge of the man, it is not in the spirit of iconoclasm nor in that other spirit, so prevalent to-day, which worships ugliness in the morbid vein of Baudelaire. It is rather the desire to know so much of the whole truth as may be necessary to the perfect comprehension of a great man's art, and to explain what cannot otherwise be wholly comprehensible. And, indeed, when all is said that must be said, the magic of the poet and the greatness of the man will not one whit be lessened; they will only be explained.

Lord Tennyson came of a stock in which were traceable three quite distinct and different racial strains. His father's family was originally of Danish blood, descended from the Scandinavian invaders who occupied the territory to the north of the Humber in King Alfred's time. Upon his mother's side is found French ancestry; and these two elements had been blended in every century with a strong infusion of pure Saxon blood. It is no idle fancy that detects in the poet's work the vital qualities, the distinguishing characteristics, that are due to each of these three sources. To the French strain in Tennyson he owes his sense of style, his perfect clarity, his ease and flexibility of diction, and his exquisite appreciation of the unique and fitting word that always rose responsively to mirror in its sound and sense the subtlest shades of thought. From the Danish element his poetry received much of its eerie picturesqueness and the fine imaginative quality which, with a touch. of wildness, forever glows and shimmers in the poetry of the Scandinavian North.

And to the Saxon blood are due that underlying strength and sturdiness, that homely quaintness, and that ripe humanity which give to all the other qualities their full perfection and enduring power. It was this last, indeed, that bound the whole together, and imparted to the whole an honest, manly, human touch.

The Saxon side, the yeoman side, was very marked in all the personal characteristics of the man. It showed itself in many ways in ways that are intensely. characteristic of the Englishman; and it is essential that these shall be least suggested in any conscientious effort, however slight, to link the poet with the man.

In the first place, the self-assertiveness which is so typically English was very strong in Tennyson. He had but little. care for another's feelings. Visitors who came to him on his invitation or on the invitation of his wife were often appalled by his grimness, his sullen silence, his rude indifference to all the duties of a host. Nor was even his sociability at times less typical of a strangely self-centred nature; since it often took the form of egotism, and he would bear down all other conversation in his arrogant monologues upon his own achievements, ending usually with interminable recitations of his own productions; for he was inordinately fond of declamatory renderings of his latest verse; and while, no doubt, one might esteem it a high privilege to hear Tennyson interpreted by himself, the fact remains that the act was one of gross indifference to others.

In some still less commendable ways he showed the same aggressiveness. Professor Max Müller, in his lately published reminiscences, gives us a very curious case in point. While Professor Müller and his wife were still newcomers in the town of Oxford, they had the honour of entertaining Tennyson, until then a stranger to them, in their home. He spent the night there, and in the morning strode into the breakfast-room, and, without the usual salutation, stalked up to the table, which was already laid. Whipping the cover off the principal dish, he snorted with disgust.

"Mutton chops!" he roared. "The staple of every second-rate inn in England."

Again, this very fundamental and pervasive trait sometimes appeared as selfishness and perhaps ingratitude. His biographer records the long and intimate friendship between Tennyson and Edward Fitzgerald, the translator, or, perhaps, one might say the creator, of Omar Kháyyám. But naturally no mention is made of one fact which, in his lifetime, Tennyson's nearest intimates deplored and often made the subject of apologetic comment. When he was young and rather straitened in his circumstances, the future laureate, then quite unknown, first won Fitzgerald's friendship. Fitzgerald recognised his genius and was to him far more than any ordinary friend, opening his purse to him, helping him in all his numerous perplexities, and giving him the aid and comfort of which he often was most seriously in need. But when Tennyson had become famous and Fitzgerald was an old and feeble man, then the distinguished poet let the friendship die. He never went to see Fitzgerald; he never asked him to his house; and he seemed entirely forgetful of any debt of gratitude.

Another quality like this-an English, Saxon, peasant quality-is found in a strong vein of coarseness that belonged to the very nature of the man. He had a homely way of uttering coarse things in language that was direct and forcible, but that was strange enough in the mouth of a poet of such exquisite delicacy and grace. A very curious story that has never before, I think, been printed, may be set down here with an apology for telling it. It illustrates so perfectly one phase of Tennyson's mentality that the reader will perhaps forgive its crudeness. It seems that Carlyle once, while visiting the poet, brought up the subject of William the Conqueror, and with his usual tendency to hero-worship set forth in a long and glowing monologue the ability and native power of the Norman king. He lauded his martial qualities, he defended and justified his cruelties to the vanquished Saxons, and he ended with a passionate eulogy of the man. All this time Tennyson had uttered not a word, but sat in silence, puffing slowly at the stem of a short black pipe. At last, after an hour of declamation, Car

lyle turned to his listener and cried out, triumphantly:

"Come, man, what think ye of him, now ?"

Tennyson took another puff or two and then drew the pipe from his mouth. "If I had been there," he observed sententiously, "he'd very soon have felt my knife in his guts!"

When Longfellow first visited Tennyson, the Englishman entertained him for an hour or more with the narration of obscene stories. Longfellow, a man of extreme and almost feminine refinement, listened silently, suppressing out of courtesy his ineffable disgust. After

ward a friend of both of them ventured as delicately as possible to intimate to Tennyson how he had shocked and disappointed his American guest. There still exists a letter which is half apology and half explanation, written to Longfellow by the other poet, and giving, as an excuse, the reaction that he always felt after devoting himself so intensely to the subtlest niceties of language-a reaction which drove him often into the utterance of things both gross and vile.

It is not necessary to illustrate further this side of Tennyson's personality, as to which, however, an abundance of authentic material exists. What has been said is quite sufficient to explain some characteristics of his work. And it has, indeed, a larger meaning of which one ought not to lose sight. It touches the far-reaching question of the true significance, and the limitations also, of the very highest culture-the culture that gets its inspiration from the past and that is linked inseparably with the classical traditions.

The assertion is often very freely made that there is something intellectually enervating in the academic training; that it kills originality, that it over-refines, and makes of its possessor a creature of mere rule and precedent, so finical and so self-critical as to lose all spontaneity and creative energy. There is an element of truth in this, but it is only part of a much broader truth-that there is no training whatsoever which can compensate for the lack of native gifts. A saphead will be a saphead still, even after the university has done its very best for

him. A flabby, hesitating, timid spirit will acquire no real strength and force from any teaching. And more than this, it is quite true that there is such a thing as over-refinement. A person whose cast of mind is wholly æsthetic, whose life lies all in his emotions and his feelings, and in whom these things are not kept sanely balanced by a certain purely physical endowment, will surely suffer harm from any training which accentuates what is already abnormally developed in him. The seeds of higher culture are like the seeds of grain in the parable of the sower. If they fall on stony ground they can but die; if they fall on an impoverished soil they will germinate to sicken and wither away. It is only when they are dropped into the teeming, fructifying earth that they spring up into a growth that yields abundant harvest.

But when an intellect is richly endowed with all the highest qualities of imagination and insight and with an exquisite sensitiveness for what is rare and beautiful in nature and in human life

and thought, and when this intellect is buttressed by the good, sound animality of the fully developed man, then it is that the old-time training can accomplish such results as nothing else has ever yet evolved. For the whole splendour of the classic past, flaming upon the ardent mind in a stupendous revelation, inspires and stimulates to unsparing effort. It brings no dark discouragement, but it rouses emulation and whets the edge of intellectual ambition. It sharpens the mental vision and refines the taste; and if there exists a coarser strain, this is not destroyed nor yet intensified; it is but transmuted by a magic touch into a source of strength and power. And it was just this perfect combination of the intellectual and the physical, blended harmoniously by the classical tradition into an absolutely perfect unity that gave to the world in Tennyson a poet who could stir the heart of every kind of man, and who, therefore, may even now with confidence be added to the roll of those few golden-throated singers whose names the world will never willingly let die. Harry Thurston Peck.

NCE upon a time the writer of this impression found hidden in the leaves of Temple Bar a short story. The name of the author was new, but the story made a deep impression. Condensed into a few short pages, one felt the irresponsibility, the gaiety, the mockery of Paris; and suddenly as a cloud obscures the sunone realised, too, the tragedy, the squalour, and the bitter tears underlying the charm of that wonderful city.

Some years later a lucky chance threw into the writer's hands the first volume of The Yellow Book,, containing "The Bohemian Girl." The two words "Henry Harland" spelt just name at that time -how much more they have come to mean since then, only those who were

privileged to know the man for whom they stand as symbol can comprehend.

No man ever valued that subtle essence we call "style" more than Henry Harland, yet no man depended less upon it; because behind the chiselled sentences shines the beautiful soul of him; so that, while he worked with his mediumwords-taking infinite care and infinite joy in the working, the vitality of what he has left behind him springs from sources deeper than words and touches the very essence of humanity. Again (perhaps he would not be pleased with the writer for saying this), but it is the truth: It was impossible for him, whether he talked, or wrote stories, books or letters, not to radiate comfort, consolation, and a fine comprehension of life -at once sad yet gay-peculiarly his own. Here is a bit from a letter of his

written in London, during a spell of foggy weather; he was a child of the sun, and he hated bad weather; besides, he wanted to join his wife in Paris; and at the moment he was concerned because the public did not appreciate Henry James:

To think that Henry James's Maisie has never gone into a second edition! I hope you read it with unutterable admiration? There! you see, when I do sit down to write a letter, I go gabbling on forever. And am I sufficiently depressed and depressing? I wish I was seven years old, building a castle of wooden bricks on the floor of a nice warm nursery. That's the nearest approach to joy we can get in this vale of tears, I think. Nursery castles, and nursery tea, and nursery fairy tales, and nursery bed and sleep. Why do we ever grow up?

This letter was, of course, written years ago. Times and tastes have changed since then, or at least have changed sufficiently to allow Henry James to come into his own so far as the discriminating public is concerned. That this is so, we owe much to Henry Harland; and we owe it no less to his personality, to the quality of his heart and of his soul, than to his work and to the excellence of his judgment. His influence on literature was and is great; he never in matters literary grudged praise or shrank from blame; the number of those whom he helped, whom he toiled for and encouraged is amazing. The writer never knew him to shirk a criticism about "work," or knew him to pass one upon any human being's character or actions. His generosity and sympathy were limitless. He writes, after four large pages of closely written criticism in that characteristic handwriting which crowded so much upon the page: "I fancy you reading this letter, pale and disheartened by it; and my conscience smites me that I should have written it; and I long to comfort and encourage you." And this to a stranger whom he had never met, and at a time when he was desperately busy editing The Yellow Book; when he was at work upon big stories and novels; when he was one of a brilliant literary and artistic circle. Again he writes:

I am sorry, sorry, sorry. Forgive me. I can't help it. I can lie about anything in the world except literature. And besides, you will have your revenge when you read my "Rosemary for Remembrance." I'm sure it's twaddle.

This letter was just like him! Barely a word about his own work. Sheets of careful criticism and help for somebody else of no importance whatever; the fear of giving pain, the desire to console; and then that jesting sentence, "I can lie about anything in the world except literature." That was funny! That made one laugh. Because Henry Harland never grew up, and if he ever told lies, surely they were, like the fibs of childhood, extremely obvious. He was the most perfectly joyous of men. As one who knew him very intimately says: "He loved every aspect of life; it was so charmingly full of delight to him. He saw it always truly, and he enjoyed like a child and a poet the pageant and the show of it."

Of course, where his art was concerned he could be severe. He was a merciless critic to those who do not put their utmost into their work; he had no patience whatever with sham, with vulgar success, with slovenly and indifferent accomplishment thrust upon the public as of paramount importance and merit. It is something, in an age when every one is carried away by cheap success, to find a man thus utterly determined to fight for the best. The best as he saw it then, as so many have come to see it since. When The Cardinal's Snuffbox appeared, what a chorus of praise broke forth! And yet even that novel cannot surpass some of the short stories in Grey Roses, or those which first appeared in The Yellow Book and afterward in book form, under the title Comedies and Errors.

The writer once asked him: "But why Grey Roses?" He answered with the quotation which faces the title page of the volume: "Yes-the conception was a rose! But the achievement was a rose grown grey." That sentence is part of his gospel: one must try, and try, and try again, yet never hope to touch the skirts of achievement-here.

There is so much to say about Henry Harland's work! But it is not for the present writer to say it. He belonged