STEWED PRUNES AND PRISM:
THE TENNYSON CENTENARY
Tue judicious may possibly wonder why one should dig so
deep into the tumulus of oblivion to: rescue (though but for
execration) the bones of so very dead a dog as Alfred
Tennyson.
But the truth is not so near the surface. He can hardly
be called dead who never lived; and a trodden worm writhes
longer than a felled ox. So therefore Tennyson succumbed
to contempt, not to hatred; men twitched their robes away
from the contamination of the unclean thing—there was no
fight, no bloodshed.
Now therefore the smirking approval of the neuters of
England continues unashamed, until the younger generation
(some of them) may be inclined to class Tennyson with the
poets, rather than with the Longfellows and Cloughs.
They can hardly imagine any creature, however vile, so
crapulous as to prostitute the noble legend of England herself
to dust-licking before that amiable Teutonic prig, the late
Prince Consort. Yet this busy buttock-groom gives the best
part of his flunkey’s life to the achievement. Even his own
friendships—his sdiyspusiaj—are made but the pretext fora
new servility.
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