We must follow
it into those depths if we are to deal with it at all, and it must
be vanquished in the region where it is born, and where it skulks
unseen.
XII
TENNYSON, RUSKIN, CARLYLE
There were three great men of the nineteenth century of whom we know
more than we know of most men, Carlyle, Ruskin, and Tennyson, in
whose lives fear was a prominent element.
Tennyson has suffered no loss of fame, but he has suffered of late
a certain loss of influence, which was bound to come, if simply
from the tremendous domination which his writings exercised in his
lifetime. He was undoubtedly one of the first word-artists who ever
lived and wrote, but he was a great deal more than that; he was a
great mystic, a man whose mind moved in a shining cloud of
inspiration. He had the constitution and the temperament of a big
Lincolnshire yeoman, with that simple rusticity that is said to
have characterised Vergil. But his spirit dwelt apart, revolving
dim and profound thoughts, brooding over mysteries; if he is
lightly said to be Early Victorian, it is not because he was
typical of his age, but because he contributed so much to make it
what it was.
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