In the chancel of Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, rest the mortal
remains of Arthur Henry Hallam, eldest son of our great philosophic
historian and critic,--and the friend to whom "_In Memoriam_" is sacred.
This place was selected by his father, not only from the connection of
kindred, being the burial-place of his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham
Elton, but likewise "on account of its still and sequestered situation,
on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol Channel." That lone hill, with
its humble old church, its outlook over the waste of waters, where "the
stately ships go on," was, we doubt not, in Tennyson's mind, when the
poem, "Break, break, break," which contains the burden of that volume in
which are enshrined so much of the deepest affection, poetry,
philosophy, and godliness, rose into his "study of imagination"--"into
the eye and prospect of his soul."[36]
[36] The passage from Shakspeare prefixed to this paper, contains
probably as much as can be said of the mental, not less than
the affectionate conditions, under which such a record as
_In Memoriam_ is produced, and may give us more insight into
the imaginative faculty's mode of working, than all our
philosophizing and analysis. It seems to let out with the
fulness, simplicity, and unconsciousness of a
child--"Fancy's Child"--the secret mechanism or procession
of the greatest creative mind our race has produced. In
itself, it has no recondite meaning, it answers fully its
own sweet purpose. We are not believers, like some folks, in
the omniscience of even Shakspeare. But, like many things
that he and other wise men and many simple children say, it
has a germ of universal meaning, which it is quite lawful to
bring out of it, and which may be enjoyed to the full
without any wrong to its own original beauty and fitness. A
dew-drop is not the less beautiful that it illustrates in
its structure the law of gravitation which holds the world
together, and by which "the most ancient heavens are fresh
and strong." This is the passage. The Friar speaking of
Claudio, hearing that Hero "died upon his word," says,--
"The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination;
And every lovely organ of her life
Shall come apparelled in more precious habit--
More moving delicate, and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
Than when she lived indeed."
We have here expressed in plain language the imaginative
memory of the beloved dead, rising upon the past, like
moonlight upon midnight,--
"The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme."
This is its simple meaning--the statement of a truth, the
utterance of personal feeling. But observe its hidden
abstract significance--it is the revelation of what goes on
in the depths of the soul, when the dead elements of what
once was, are laid before the imagination, and so breathed
upon as to be quickened into a new and higher life. We have
first the _Idea of her Life_--all he remembered and felt of
her, gathered into one vague shadowy image, not any one
look, or action, or time--then the idea of her life
_creeps_--is in before he is aware, and SWEETLY
creeps,--it might have been softly or gently, but it is the
addition of affection to all this, and bringing in another
sense--and now it is in his _study of imagination_--what a
place! fit for such a visitor. Then out comes the _Idea_,
more particular, more questionable, but still ideal,
spiritual--_every lovely organ of her life_--then the
clothing upon, the mortal putting on its immortal, spiritual
body--_shall come apparelled in more precious habit, more
moving delicate_--this is the transfiguring, the putting on
strength, the _poco piu_--the little more which makes
immortal,--_more full of life_, and all this submitted
to--_the eye and prospect of the soul_.
"Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
"O well for the fisherman's boy
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
"And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill!
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
"Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me."
Out of these few simple words, deep and melancholy, and sounding as the
sea, as out of a well of the living waters of love, flows forth all _In
Memoriam_, as a stream flows out of its spring--all is here. "I would
that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me,"--"the touch
of the vanished hand--the sound of the voice that is still,"--the body
and soul of his friend. Rising as it were out of the midst of the gloom
of the valley of the shadow of death,--
"The mountain infant to the sun comes forth
Like human life from darkness;"
and how its waters flow on! carrying life, beauty, magnificence,--shadows
and happy lights, depths of blackness, depths clear as the very body of
heaven. How it deepens as it goes, involving larger interests, wider
views, "thoughts that wander through eternity," greater affections, but
still retaining its pure living waters, its unforgotten burden of love
and sorrow. How it visits every region! "the long unlovely street,"
pleasant villages and farms, "the placid ocean-plains," waste howling
wildernesses, grim woods, _nemorumque noctem_, informed with spiritual
fears, where may be seen, if shapes they may be called--
"Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton,
And Time the Shadow;"
now within hearing of the Minster clock, now of the College bells, and
the vague hum of the mighty city. And overhead through all its course
the heaven with its clouds, its sun, moon, and stars; but always, and in
all places, declaring its source; and even when laying its burden of
manifold and faithful affection at the feet of the Almighty Father,
still remembering whence it came,--
"That friend of mine who lives in God,
That God which ever lives and loves;
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves."
It is to that chancel, and to the day, 3d January, 1834, that he refers
in poem XVIII. of _In Memoriam_.
"'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand
Where he in English earth is laid,
And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
"'Tis little; but it looks in truth
As if the quiet bones were blest
Among familiar names to rest,
And in the places of his youth."