,8,,. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 643 



But it was apparently only " the fairy tales," the sensational con- 

 clusions and not the methods of scientilic thought, that fascinated 

 him ; and when 



" Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space 

 Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage, into commonest commonplace." 



the fairy tales lost their charm. Hence his enthusiasm for science 

 soon vanished. " Science grows but beauty dwindles," he laments 

 in one place: "the sun and moon of our science are both of them 

 turned into blood," he protests in another. The astronomy of his 

 early years had resolved the Milky Way, examined nebulae, and dis- 

 covered new planets and satellites : these results could appeal to 

 Tennyson's imagination, and he would with pleasure watch 



" the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, 

 Glitter like a swarm of fire-liies tangled in a silver braid." 



The astronomy of his old age compelled the light of the stars to deliver 

 their message and tell us of the chemical composition of the heavenly 

 bodies : but it did not interest Tennyson to know that tellurium had 

 been discovered in the stars, for he simply "knew that their light 

 was a lie." 



With his loss of interest in the results of scientific research, 

 Tennyson grew intolerant of the school of thought it had estabhshed. 

 The man who 50 years before gloried that he was " the heir of all the 

 ages in the foremost files of time," who then cried his loudest 



" Forward, forward, let us range. 

 Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change," 



now confessed that this was all " the babble of a foolish past," 



" Fires that shook me once but now to silent ashes fall'n away." 

 Like Newman, who welcomed the night because he held the 

 daylight "garish," Tennyson felt that scientific progress had only 

 led us — 



" From a cheerless night to the glare of a drearier day," 



and the author of " In Memoriam " could now draw the spiteful sketch 

 of " Edgar " in the " Promise of May," and the burlesque of the 

 monomaniac of " Despair." 



Hence the ' naturalists of the younger generation had sadly 

 learnt to realise that we could expect no more the manly 

 enthusiasm of Tennyson's younger days, and that we must trust 

 " for songs to encourage us not from his lyre." Nevertheless, his 

 poems have always been looked for with pleasure, for even amid the 

 most petulant of his latest lamentations there was sure to be some 

 splendid image, some polished couplet, some echo of the "curlew's 

 call," to remind us that Tennyson was still a naturalist as well as a 

 poet. Hence regret that he did not always " sweep into the younger 

 day " is finally lost in gratitude for- the echoes of the birds' songs, the 

 pictures of the flowers, and all the exquisite Nature-touches which 

 he has left to help us "to smell the meadow in the street." 



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