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faith attracts and knits together; that faith is the tonic of the 
poetic soul; that doubt can command no prolonged sympathy, 
and consequently can find no permanent footing in the higher 
places of poetry; that faith, on the contrary, seems to clothe 
itself with poetry without effort; attracts all poetry to it as 
a seemingly natural consequence ; intertwines and interweaves 
its life with it, until, to use the strong Shakespearian phrase, 
“the two have grown together, and their parting would he a 
tortured body.”’ 
It is the possession of this double-sighted vision that has 
enabled our poet to become the interpreter of the transitional 
character of the philosophy, the religion, and to some extent, 
the politics of his time. In this aspect he is often misunder- 
stood. The critics look at the intense shadow, but overlook 
the intenser light. This double vision of the poet, the vision of 
doubt and faith, is wonderfully manifest in ‘“‘ The Two Voices.” 
Again it is seen in the ‘ Palace of Art,” where the field is con- 
tested by self-sufficient culture, against self-forgetful humility. 
But it is in ‘In Memoriam” that we meet with this double 
endowment in its richer and profounder aspect, in which the two 
voices within the poet discuss under the shadow of death some 
of the darkest riddles of the world. In this poem we have a 
prophetic solution of many of the problems of the poet’s day. 
Apart from the central idea of his lost friend Arthur Hallam, 
the work is essentially English, for it appeals to the national 
tastes, it is steeped in our thought and spirit, and its sights and 
sounds are those of our rural life. It is one of those rare songs 
that must be recited to the heart alone. 
Indeed, to understand ‘‘In Memoriam” at all, we must put 
ourselves in line with the author; must realise the subject of his 
sorrow : must weep with him as he weeps: have joy in the joy of 
his hope, notwithstanding intervening cloud; and we must 
struggle through the shades of his doubts, till we have left the 
intense shadow for the intenser light of his faith. 
The friend referred to in ‘‘In Memoriam” was Arthur Hallam, 
the son of the historian, a man of noble character, of great 
promise and powers. The loss of this friend produced deep 
sorrow and doubt: sorrow slow to heal, and doubt difficult to 
clear: hence the character of the work, which occupied seven- 
teen years of his life and thought. 
The continuity of their friendship and their participation in the 
enigmas of the world, was so real that death could not separate 
them, for as he looks over ‘the noble letters of the dead,’’ he 
declares, 
“ So word by word, and line by line, 
The dead man touch’d me from the past, 
And all at once it seem’d at last 
The living soul was flash’d in mine.” 
