Beneath the State, the Church, the Throne, and roll their ruins down
the slope.
I should say that all this is a legitimate consequence of the tone and
convictions of the earlier standards and points of view. Then some
reflections, down to the hard-pan of this sort of thing.
The course of progressive politics (democracy) is so certain and
resistless, not only in America but in Europe, that we can well afford
the warning calls, threats, checks, neutralizings, in imaginative
literature, or any department, of such deep-sounding, and high-soaring
voices as Carlyle's and Tennyson's. Nay, the blindness, excesses,
of the prevalent tendency--the dangers of the urgent trends of our
times--in my opinion, need such voices almost more than any. I should,
too, call it a signal instance of democratic humanity's luck that it
has such enemies to contend with--so candid, so fervid, so heroic.
But why do I say enemies? Upon the whole is not Tennyson--and was not
Carlyle (like an honest and stern physician)--the true friend of our
age?
Let me assume to pass verdict, or perhaps momentary judgment, for the
United States on this poet--a remov'd and distant position giving some
advantages over a nigh one. What is Tennyson's service to his race,
times, and especially to America? First, I should say--or at least not
forget--his personal character. He is not to be mention'das a rugged,
evolutionary, aboriginal force--but (and a great lesson is in it) he
has been consistent throughout with the native, healthy, patriotic
spinal element and promptings of himself.
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