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Copyright © 2019 by Rockridge Press, Emeryville, California

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ISBN: Print 978-1-64152-175-8 | eBook 978-1-64152-176-5

R1
To the technologists of tomorrow
 CONTENTS

Introduction

CHAPTER 1: Welcome to Python!

CHAPTER 2: print(“Hello!”)
CHAPTER 3: Fun with Numbers
CHAPTER 4: Strings and Other Things
CHAPTER 5: Looking at Loops
CHAPTER 6: May the Turtle Be with You
CHAPTER 7: Reusable Code
Final Bits and Bytes
Answer Key
Glossary
Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
Coding for Kids: Python is a unique and fun introduction to the Python programming language. Written for someone with absolutely
no experience with coding, this book uses silly analogies, helpful examples, and many activities and games to help anyone learn how to
code in Python!
Let me share a little about myself, your excited author: I am currently a full-time software engineer who finds joy and fulfillment in
helping new and potential coders of all kinds. I’ve spent many hours volunteering at local elementary and high schools, speaking to
students about careers in software development, and teaching the basics of coding. It is so fun to see the spark in someone’s eye when
they see the power of code. I wrote this book to spark the imagination and wonder of many more people!
Code is at the core of almost everything we use and love. We can write code to make games, create music and art, bring robots to life,
and power almost anything that is electronic. When you realize how much coding is a part of the world of the future, it becomes so
important to learn how it works! This book will help you do just that.
Coding is literally translating human ideas and actions into a language that computers can understand. Python is one of the
languages, but there are many others—for example: JavaScript, C#, Ruby, and C++. Each of these languages tells the computer how to
do something, but each one does it a bit differently. I chose Python for this book because it is very close to our speaking language of
English, which makes the coding concepts I will introduce a little easier to understand. :)
The best part about coding is that you just need a computer and this book! From the first chapter to the last, I’ll guide you through the
coding concepts you need to know, with step-by-step instructions and examples, plenty of helpful screenshots, and simple explanations
of the new programming terms you’ll learn (all of which are also available for you in the handy glossary at the back of the book!). By the
time you’ve finished this book, you’ll be creating some really cool programs and even simple games that you can play with friends!
Hangman, anyone?
Coding is one skill that you’ll only learn by doing. That’s why I’ve structured each chapter to walk you through the code as you follow
along. This makes the book truly interactive, as you’ll learn about a concept, write some code, understand what it’s doing, read and learn a
bit more, maybe fix a bug or two, and see the results of your code in real time! And to really help you understand the different coding
concepts in this book, I’ve also included activities at the end of each chapter to help you test your knowledge, combine multiple
concepts, and write more code. After all, practice makes perfect—especially with coding! Finally, if some of the activities are too easy for
you, or if you just want to keep coding, I’ve included even more difficult challenges after each chapter to really stretch your brain and
give you more chances to show off your creativity!
This book will help you start an incredible adventure into the world of programming. By the end of it, you’ll be ready for the world of
the future! What are you waiting for?
WELCOME TO PYTHON!
Hey there! Since you’re reading this book, you must be a pretty curious and cool person. Why? Because you want to learn how to code!
And who wouldn’t? Coding is an awesome skill that can help you build all kinds of things and solve a lot of problems. When you code, you
take human ideas and then translate them into a language that a machine can understand.
Coding is built around the concept of input and output. We give the computer some input, which is any information or data provided
by us humans, and expect some output, which can be words, pictures, an action, or some other result, after the computer has processed
the input we gave it. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?
How many things can you think of that follow this input/output, or I/O, concept? For example, when we press buttons on a controller
or swipe our fingers left and right on a mobile game, that’s input. And when our character jumps, ducks, moves left, or moves right, that’s
output. How about baking? All of the ingredients we need to make cookies can be considered input. After following the instructions and
using the ingredients, we get our output, which are the baked cookies!
Using examples like these, as well as silly scenarios and conversations with a computer, we’ll explore how to code in Python, and you’ll
understand what we’re doing in no time! The coolest thing about coding is that you can do it from almost anywhere. All you need is a
laptop or computer (Windows PC or Mac is fine), and I’ll help you with the rest.
Are you ready to learn how to speak to a computer? Hooray! Let’s go!

WHY PYTHON?
Just like humans can understand many different languages, a computer can understand the ideas and concepts that we input to it
through several different programming languages. In this book, we’ll focus on the Python programming language because Python is easy
to understand, can be used in many different ways, and is quick to learn. Also, it is a popular language that runs on almost every machine
and is used at many big, important organizations like Google, Instagram, NASA, and Spotify.

INSTALLING PYTHON
I know we want to dive right into coding, but we can’t do that until we have the right tools. I’ll walk you through the step-by-step process
of installing Python. Let’s get started!
ON A PC
If you are on a Windows machine, you probably don’t have Python installed already. This is because Windows operating systems don’t
usually come with the Python language. That’s okay, though! We can get it ourselves. :)
1. On your computer, open an Internet browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
2. In the address bar, type “https://www.python.org/downloads/” to go to the official Python website’s Downloads section.
3. Through the magic of coding, the website will probably know what type of computer you are using, and the DOWNLOAD button will
show you the correct version of Python to install! In our case, we want the latest version, which was Python 3.7.0 when I wrote the book.
Don’t worry if it tells you to download a newer version. Go ahead and click the DOWNLOAD button.

4. A download will start and will probably go to the bottom of your window like in the picture.
5. Once your download is complete, click on it to begin the installation. When you do, a window should pop up.

6. Go ahead and click the RUN button. Then, you’ll see this window (yours may say 32-bit if that’s right for your machine):
7. Make sure to check the ADD PYTHON 3.7 TO PATH checkbox.

8. Click INSTALL NOW. Python should begin installing. You should see a window like this one:

9. Wait for the install to finish and the green bar to be full. Once it is done, the final screen should appear, saying that your installation
was successful.
10. Whoo-hoo! You’re done! Click the CLOSE button and you’re ready to go. You’ve installed Python on Windows!
ON A MAC

1. On your computer, open an Internet browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
2. In the address bar, type “https://www.python.org/downloads/” to go to the official Python website’s Downloads section.
3. Through the magic of coding, the website will probably know what type of computer you are using, and the DOWNLOAD button will
show you the correct version of Python to install! In our case, we want the latest version, which was Python 3.7.0 when I wrote the book.
Don’t worry if it tells you to download a newer version. You can also find the installer for your specific machine in the Files section.

4. After clicking on the version, a download should start. Wait for it to finish before starting the installer.
5. When you start the installer, you should see a window like this one:
6. Click the CONTINUE button. You’ll then be presented with some important information that you can choose to read or not.

7. Click the CONTINUE button. Next you will see the license information.
8. Keep going! Click the CONTINUE button. You’ll be asked to agree to the terms of the software license agreement.

9. Click the AGREE button. You’ll reach this final window:

10. Click the INSTALL button. If you need to, enter your personal user name and password for your account on your computer. Mac OS
sometimes asks for this to make sure you want to install something. If you don’t see this pop-up window, you can skip to the next
step.

11. Installation should begin.

12. Wait for the installation to finish. Once it is done, you should see this:
13. Congratulate yourself! You’ve just installed Python on your Mac!
>>> You may have noticed we asked you to type “https://www.python.org/downloads/”. But is that https:// really necessary, or could we just start with www? The answer is
this: Python is good about redirecting you to the right site, but adding https:// before typing web addresses is a good practice to get into, so you can be sure your computer is
going to a secure site!

USING IDLE
When you download and install Python, it will also install an application called IDLE. IDLE is short for Integrated Development and
Learning Environment (that’s a mouthful!), and it is an integrated development environment, or IDE, that helps us with writing Python
programs. Think of it as an electronic notepad with some additional tools to help us write, debug, and run our Python code. To work in
Python, you will need to open IDLE—opening Python files directly won’t work!
Let’s take a look!
ON A PC

1. Click the Windows Start menu.

2. Start typing “idle”, then select the search result IDLE (Python 3.7 64-bit). Note: Yours might say IDLE (Python 3.7 32-bit) if that’s the kind
of machine you have.
3. A window should pop up that looks like this:

4. Ta-da! Awesome! You opened IDLE on Windows and are now ready to start writing some code in Python! :)
ON A MAC

1. Navigate to GO > APPLICATIONS.

2. Find the Python 3.7 folder and open it.

3. Double-click on the IDLE icon.

4. A window should pop up that looks like this:
5. Whoo-hoo! Congratulations! You opened IDLE on a Mac and are now ready to start writing some code in Python! :)

SAY HI TO PYTHON!
Now that you’ve installed Python and IDLE on your computer, let’s say hi! Open up IDLE on your computer (if it’s not already open).
Whenever you open up the IDLE program on your computer, you will always be brought to the shell first. The shell is the interactive
window that allows you to write Python code within it and then see the results of your code right away. You’ll know when you’re in the
shell because it will say Python 3.7.0 Shell in the title bar of the window.
In your shell, go ahead and type the following code:
print("Hi Python!")
Now, hit the ENTER key. Do you see something like this?

Great job! You’ve written your first line of Python code! Give yourself a pat on the back, or high-five the person closest to you. You’re
about to learn some awesome things.

SAVING YOUR WORK

When we get into the later chapters, our programs will probably be a little longer than the ones we write in the beginning. Wouldn’t it be
useful if we could save our progress so we don’t have to re-type all the code we write? Of course it would! This is where saving your work
comes in handy.
Even though it’s a short program, let’s save our Python greeting to its own file so you can see how easy it is to save your work.
First, let’s create a new file:
1. On the MENU bar in your shell, click the FILE tab to open its context menu, which is a list of actions that you can perform.
2. Click NEW FILE.

3. A new window should pop up, like this:

4. Type in your greeting, using Python code: print("Hi Python!")

We have to put our greeting into this piece of Python code so that the computer knows to “write” this message for us onto the screen.
(You’ll learn more about this later.)

Great! Now you have your code in a file that we can save. This is important, because the first code we wrote was in the shell, which
means it won’t be saved once you close the window. Writing code directly in the shell is just a quicker way to run Python code and see
the results right away. Always create a new file and save it to keep track of your work and save your progress!
Now that we have created a file with our greeting code, let’s save it.
You can save your program in IDLE by following these next steps.
5. On the MENU bar of your shell, click the FILE tab to open its context menu.
6. Click SAVE.

7. The next window will ask you to name your file. Go ahead and give it a name. I’ll call mine “greeting.”
8. Make sure to save your Python program in a place that you won’t forget! If you don’t choose another place, new files are usually saved
in the same folder as the Python download, so go ahead and change the “Save In” place to a better spot. I created a folder called
COOL PYTHON in my DOCUMENTS directory, so that’s where I’ll save my programs.

9. Click SAVE. That’s it!

# HELPFUL HACKS: KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Saving files and our code is a big part of programming. We programmers do it so much that there are shortcuts created just for
saving, among other things. Here’s a list of very helpful keyboard shortcuts to use while coding.
CTRL key + S key: This is the standard save shortcut. You can press these two keys together to save your progress while coding or to
 save a new file!
CTRL key + N key: This shortcut will create a new file for you.
CTRL key + C key: This shortcut copies any text you have selected. Here’s how: Use your mouse to highlight some text or code. To
highlight text, place your cursor before the start of the text you want to copy, click and hold the main mouse button, drag your mouse
to the end of the text you want to copy, and then release the mouse button. After your text is highlighted, use this shortcut to copy
the highlighted text!
CTRL key + V key: After copying some text, use this shortcut to paste it. This places the text you have highlighted and copied
wherever you choose.
CTRL key + Z key: The most awesome command, this shortcut performs an undo action. If you ever need to go back a step, or bring
back some code you have accidentally deleted, this shortcut can save the day! Use this shortcut once, by pressing the CTRL key and Z
key together, and watch your last change undo itself. You can keep pressing this shortcut multiple times to keep going back further
and reversing more actions you have just performed. Remember though, this can’t undo everything—it can only reverse actions up
to the point that the computer has stored in its memory.

RUNNING A PROGRAM
This is the best part—seeing your code in action! After you write some code, save it, and are ready to see it run, follow these steps to run
your code (skip to step 4 if you already have your program open in its own window).
1. On the MENU bar in your shell, click the FILE tab to open the context menu.

2. Click OPEN.
3. A window will pop up asking you to pick the file you want to open. Go ahead and find your greeting program and select it. Click OPEN.

4. Your program should open in its own window.

5. Press the F5 key. That’s it! Your code should now execute, meaning the computer will carry out the task you asked it to do in code.
You told it to print something, and it did! You should see your greeting in the shell.
>>> Troubleshooting Tip: Is the F5 key not working for you? Some computers require you to press the Fn button along with the F5 button. Go ahead, try that instead!

# HELPFUL HACKS: RECENT FILES

Once you start writing more code, you’ll find that you will have many Python files and programs in your folders. A cool thing that the
IDLE program does is keep track of the most recent files you have worked with and make them easily available for you. To get to a file
you have recently worked with, simply click the FILE tab on the MENU bar and hover your mouse over RECENT FILES.

You’ll see the list of files appear that you have recently worked with. Clicking on one will open that file for you. Sometimes this is an
easier way to get to a file you need, rather than hunting through your computer to find it!
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
birthplace, the home, it may be the grave, of some poet, thinker, or
ruler; and amidst all the inspiration of Nature and of the sacred
memories of the soil, shall fill our hearts with the joy in beauty and
profound veneration of the mighty Dead?
III.
In our Sunday meetings, which have been regularly continued
excepting during the four summer months, we have continued our
plan of dealing alike with the religious, the social, and the intellectual
sides of the Positivist view of life and duty. The Housing of the Poor,
Art, Biology, Socialism, our social Duties, the Memory of the Dead,
the Positivist grounds of Morality, and our Practical Duties in Life,
formed the subject of one series. Since our re-opening in the
autumn, we have had courses on the Bible, on the religious value of
the modern poets, and on the true basis of social equality. Amongst
the features of special interest in these series of discourses is that
one course was given by a former Unitarian minister who, after a life
of successful preaching in the least dogmatic of all the Christian
Churches, has been slowly reduced to the conviction that the reality
of Humanity is a more substantial basis for religion to rest on than
the hypothesis of God, and that the great scheme of human morality
is a nobler Gospel to preach than the artificial ideal of a subjective
Christ. I would in particular note the series of admirable lectures on
the Bible, by Dr. Bridges, which combined the results of the latest
learning on this intricate mass of ancient writings with the
sympathetic and yet impartial judgment with which Positivists adopt
into their sacred literature the most famous and most familiar of all
the religious books of mankind. And again I would note that
beautiful series of discourses by Mr. Vernon Lushington on the great
religious poets of the modern world:—Dante, Shakespeare, Milton,
Byron, Wordsworth and Shelley. When we have them side by side,
we shall have before us a new measure of the sound, sympathetic,
and universal spirit of Positivist belief. It is only those who are
strangers to it and to us who can wonder how we come to put the
Bible and the poets in equal places of honor as alike the great
organs of true religious feeling.
The systematic teaching of science, which is an essential part of our
conception of Positivism, has been maintained in this hall with
unabated energy. In the beginning of the year Mr. Vernon
Lushington commenced and carried through (with what an effort of
personal self-devotion no one of us can duly measure) his class on
the history and the elements of Astronomy. This winter, Mr. Lock has
opened a similar class on the History and Elements of Mathematics.
Positivism is essentially a scheme for reforming education, and it is
only through a reformed education, universal to all classes alike, and
concerned with the heart as much as the intellect, that the religious
meaning of Humanity can ever be unfolded. The singing class, the
expense of which was again assumed by Mr. Lushington, was
steadily and successfully maintained during the first part of the year.
We are still looking forward to the formation of a choir. The social
meetings which we instituted last year have become a regular
feature of our movement, and greatly contribute to our closer union
and our better understanding of the social and sympathetic meaning
of the faith we profess.
The publications of the year have been first and chiefly, The
Testament and Letters of Auguste Comte, a work long looked for, the
publication of which has been long delayed by various causes. In the
next place I would call attention to the new and popular edition of
International Policy, a work of combined essays which we put
forward in 1866, nearly twenty years ago. Our object in that work
was to state and apply to the leading international problems in turn
the great principles of social morality on which it is the mission of
Positivism to show that the politics of nations can only securely
repose. In an epoch which is still tending, we are daily assured, to
the old passion for national self-assertion, it is significant that the
Positivist school alone can resolutely maintain and fearlessly repeat
its dictates of morality and justice, whilst all the Churches, all the
political parties, and all the so-called organs of opinion, which are
really the creatures of parties and cliques, find various pretexts for
abandoning them altogether. How few are the political schools
around us who could venture to republish after twenty years, their
political programmes of 1866, their political doctrines and practical
solutions of the tangled international problems, and who could not
find in 1885 a principle which they had discarded, or a proposal
which to-day they are ashamed to have made twenty years ago.
Besides these books, the only separate publications of our body are
the affecting address of Mr. Ellis On the due Commemoration of the
Dead. The Positivist Society has met throughout the year for the
discussion of the social and political questions of the day. The most
public manifestation of its activity has been the part that it took in
the third centenary of the great hero of national independence,
William, Prince of Orange, called the Silent. The noble and weighty
address in which Mr. Beesly expressed to the Dutch Committee at
Delft the honor in which we held that immortal memory, has deeply
touched, we are told, those to whom it was addressed. And it is
significant that from this hall, dedicated to peace, to the Republic, to
the people, and to Humanity, there was sent forth the one voice
from the entire British race in honor to the great prince, the soldier,
the diplomatist the secret, subtle, and haughty chief, who, three
hundred years ago, created the Dutch nation. We have learned here
to care little for a purely insular patriotism. The great creators of
nations are our forefathers and our countrymen. Protestant or
Catholic are nothing to us, so long as either prepared the way for a
broader faith. In our abhorrence of war we have learned to honor
the chief who fought desperately for the solid bases of peace. In our
zeal for the people, for public opinion, for simplicity of life, and for
truthfulness and openness in word as in conduct, we have not
forgotten the relative duty of those who in darker, fiercer, ruder
times than ours used the weapons of their age in the spirit of duty,
and to the saving of those precious elements where-out the future of
a better Humanity shall be formed.
IV.
Turning to the political field, I shall occupy but little of your time with
the special questions of the year. We are as a body entirely
dissevered from party politics. We seek to color political activity with
certain moral general principles, but we have no interest in party
politics as such. The idea that Positivists are, as a body, Radicals or
Revolutionaries is an idle invention; and I am the more entitled to
repudiate it, in that I have myself formally declined to enter on a
Parliamentary career, on the express ground that I prefer to judge
political questions without the trammels of any party obligation. On
the one hand we are Republicans on principle, in that we demand a
government in the interest of all and of no favored order, by the
highest available capacity, without reference to birth, or wealth, or
class. On the other hand, we are not Democrats, in that we
acknowledge no abstract right to govern in a numerical majority.
Whatever is best administered is best. We desire to see efficiency for
the common welfare, responsible power intrusted to the most
capable hand, with continuous responsibility to a real public opinion.
I am far from pretending that general principles of this kind entitle
us to pass a judgment on the complex questions of current politics,
or that all Positivists who recognize these principles are bound to
judge current politics in precisely the same way. There is in
Positivism a deep vein of true Conservatism; as there is also an
unquenchable yearning for a social revolution of a just and peaceful
kind. But no one of these tendencies impel us, I think, to march
under the banner either of Mr. Gladstone or Lord Salisbury. As
Republicans on principle, we desire the end of all hereditary
institutions. As believers in public opinion, we desire to see opinion
represented in the most complete way, and without class
distinctions. As men who favor efficiency and concentration in
government, we support whatever may promise to relieve us of the
scandalous deadlock to which Parliamentary government has long
been reduced. It may be permitted to those who are wholly
detached from party interests to express a lively satisfaction that the
long electoral struggle is happily got out of the way, and that a great
stride has been taken towards a government at once energetic and
popular, without regarding the hobbies about the representation of
women and the representation of inorganic minorities.
It is on a far wider field that our great political interests are
absorbed. There is everywhere a revival of the spirit of national
aggrandisement and imperial ambition. Under the now avowed lead
of the great German dictator, the nations of Europe are running a
race to extend their borders by conquest and annexation amongst
the weak and uncivilised. There is to-day a scramble for Africa, as
there was formerly a scramble for Asia; and the scramble in Asia, or
in Polynesia, is only less urgent for the moment, in that the rivalry is
just now keenest in Africa. But in Asia, in Africa, in Polynesia, the
strong nations of Europe are struggling to found Empires by
violence, fraud, or aggression. Three distinct wars are being waged
in the East; and in Africa alone our soldiers and our Government are
asserting the rule of the sword in the North, on the East, in the
centre, on the South, and on the West at the same time. Five years
ago, we were told that for England at least there was to be some lull
in this career of blood and ambition. It was only, we see, a party cry,
a device to upset a government. There has been no lull, no pause in
the scramble for empire. The empire swells year by year; year by
year fresh wars break out; year by year the burden of empire
increases whether Disraeli or Gladstone, Liberal or Conservative, are
the actual wielders of power. The agents of the aggression, the
critics, have changed sides; the Jingoes of yesterday are the
grumblers of to-day; and the peaceful patriots of yesterday are the
Jingoes of to-day. The empire and its appendages are even vaster in
1885 than in 1880; its responsibilities are greater; its risks and
perplexities deeper; its enemies stronger and more threatening. And
in the midst of this crisis, those who condemn this policy are fewer;
their protests come few and faint. The Christian sects can see
nothing unrighteous in Mr. Gladstone; the Liberal caucuses stifle any
murmur of discontent, and force those who spoke out against Zulu,
Afghan, and Trans-Vaal wars to justify, by the tyrant’s plea of
necessity, the massacre of Egyptian fellahs and the extermination of
Arab patriots. They who mouthed most loudly about Jingoism are
now the foremost in their appeals to national vanity. And the
parasites of the parasites of our great Liberal statesman can make
such hubbub, in his utter absence of a policy, that they drive him by
sheer clamor from one adventure into another. For nearly four years
now we have continuously protested against the policy pursued in
Egypt. Year after year we have told Mr. Gladstone that it was
blackening his whole career and covering our country with shame.
There is a monotony about our protests. But, when there is a
monotony in evil-doing, there must alike be monotony in
remonstrance. We complain that the blood and treasure of this
nation should be used in order to flay the peasantry of the Nile, in
the interests of usurers and speculators. We complain that we
practically annex a people whom we will not govern and cannot
benefit. We are boldly for what in the slang of the day is called
“scuttling” out of Egypt. We think the robber and the oppressor
should scuttle as quickly as possible, that he is certain to scuttle
some day. We complain of massacring an innocent people merely to
give our traders and money-dealers larger or safer markets. We
complain of all the campaigns and battles as wanton, useless, and
unjust massacres. We especially condemn the war in the Soudan as
wanton and unjust even in the avowal of the very ministers who are
urging it. The defender of Khartoum is a man of heroic qualities and
beautiful nature; but the cause of civilisation is not served by
launching amongst savages a sort of Pentateuch knight errant. And
we seriously complain that the policy of a great country in a great
issue of right and wrong should be determined by schoolboy
shouting over the feats of our English Garibaldi.
It is true that our Ministers, especially Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville,
and Lord Derby, are the public men who are now most conspicuously
resisting the forward policy, and that the outcry of the hour is
against them on that ground. But ambition should be made of
sterner stuff. Those who aspire to guide nations should meet the
folly of the day with more vigorous assertion of principle. And the
men who are waging a wanton, bloody, and costly war in the sands
of Africa have no principle left to assert.
It may well be that Mr. Gladstone, and most of those who follow him
in office, are of all our public men those who have least liking for
these wars, annexations, and oppressive dealings with the weak.
They may have less liking for them it may be, but they are the men
who do these things. They are responsible. The blood lies on their
doorstep. The guilt hangs on their fame. The corruption of the
national conscience is their doing. The page of history will write their
names and their deeds in letters of gore and of flame. It is mockery,
even in the most servile parliamentary drudge, to repeat to us that
the wrong lies at the door of the Opposition, foreign intriguers,
international engagements, untoward circumstances. Keep these
threadbare pretexts to defend the next official blunder amidst the
cheers of a party mob. The English people will have none of such
stale equivocation. The ministers who massacred thousands at Tel-
el-Kebir, at Alexandria, at Teb, at Tamasi, who are sinking millions of
our people’s hard-won savings in the sands of Africa, in order to
slaughter a brave race whom they themselves declare to be heroes
and patriots fighting for freedom; and who after three years of this
bloodshed, ruin, and waste, have nothing to show for it—nothing,
except the utter chaos of a fine country, the extreme misery of an
innocent people, and all Europe glowering at us in menace and hate
—the men who have done this are responsible. When they fail to
annex some trumpery bit of coast, the failure is naturally set down
to blundering, not to conscience. History, their country, their own
conscience will make them answer for it. The headlong plunge of our
State, already over-burdened with the needs and dangers of a
heterogeneous empire, the consuming rage for national extension,
which the passion for money, markets, careers, breeds in a people
where moral and religious principles are loosened and conflicting,
this is the great evil of our time. It is to stem this that statesmen
should address themselves. It is to fan this, or to do its bidding, that
our actual statesmen contend. Mr. Gladstone in his heart may loathe
the task to which he is set and the uses to which he lends his
splendid powers. But there are some situations where weakness
before powerful clamor works national ruin more readily even than
ambition itself. How petty to our descendants will our squabbles in
the parliamentary game appear, when history shall tell them that
Gladstone waged far more wars than Disraeli; that he slaughtered
more hecatombs of innocent people; that he oppressed more
nations, embroiled us worse with foreign nations; left the empire of
a far more unwieldy size, more exposed and on more rotten
foundations; and that Mr. Gladstone did all this not because it
seemed to him wise or just, but for the same reason (in truth) that
his great rival acted, viz., that it gave him unquestioned ascendency
in his party and with those whose opinion he sought.
I have not hesitated to speak out my mind of the policy condemned,
not in personal hostility or irritation, however much I respect the
great qualities of Mr. Gladstone himself, however little I desire to see
him displaced by his rivals. No one will venture to believe that I
speak in the interest of party, or have any quarrel with my own
countrymen. All that I have said in condemnation of the African
policy of England I would say in condemnation of the Chinese policy
in France. I would say it all the more because, for the reasons on
which I will not now enlarge, our brethren in France have said so
little, and that little with so broken a voice. It is a weakness to our
common cause that so little has been said in France. But I rejoice to
see that in the new number of our Review, our director, M. Laffitte,
has spoken emphatically against all disturbance of the status quo,
and the policy of founding colonial empires. It behooves us all the
more to speak out plainly here. There is the same situation in France
as in England. A ministry whom the majority trust, and whom the
military and trading class can bend to do their will; a thirst in the
rich to extend the empire; a thirst in the adventurers for careers to
be won; a thirst in the journalists for material wherewith to pamper
the national vanity. There, too, are in the East backward peoples to
be trampled on, a confused tangle of pretexts and opportunities, a
Parliamentary majority to be secured, and a crowd of interests to be
bribed. In the case of M. Ferry, we can see all the weakness, all the
helpless vacillations, all the danger of his game; its cynical injustice,
its laughable pretexts and excuses, its deliberate violation of the real
interests of the nation, the formidable risks that he is preparing for
his country, and the ruin which is as certain to follow it. In Mr.
Gladstone’s case there are national and party slaves for the
conscience of the boldest critic.
The year, too, has witnessed a new form of the spread-eagle
tendency in the revival of one of our periodical scares about the
strength of the navy. About once in every ten or twenty years a knot
of shipbuilders, journalists, seamen, and gunners, contrive to stir up
a panic, and to force the nation into a great increase of its military
expenditure. I am not going to discuss the truth about the Navy, or
whether it be equal or not to the requirements of the Service. I look
at this in a new way: I take up very different ground. I say that the
service, to which we are now called on to make the navy equal, is a
service that we ought not to undertake. The requirements
demanded are wholly incompatible with the true interests of our
nation. They are opposed to the real conditions of civilisation. They
will be in a very few years, even if they are not now, beyond the
power of this people to meet. The claim to a maritime supremacy, in
the sense that this country is permanently to remain undisputed
mistress of all seas, always able and ready to overwhelm any
possible combination of any foreign Powers, this claim in itself is a
ridiculous anachronism. Whether the British fleet is now able to
overpower the combined fleets of Europe, or even of several Powers
in Europe, I do not know. Even if it be now able, such is the
progress of events, the ambition of our neighbors, and the actual
conditions of modern war, that it is physically impossible that such a
supremacy can be permanently maintained. To maintain it, even for
another generation, would involve the subjection of England to a
military tyranny such as exists for the moment in Germany, to a
crushing taxation and conscription, of which we have had no
experience. We should have to spend, not twenty-five, but fifty
millions a year on our army and navy if we intend to be really
masters in every sea, and to make the entire British empire one
continuous Malta and Gibraltar. And even that, or a hundred millions
a year, would not suffice in the future for the inevitable growth of
foreign powers and the constant growth of our own empire. To
guarantee the permanent supremacy of the seas, we shall need
some Bismarck to crush our free people into the vice of his military
autocracy and universal conscription.
“Rule Britannia,” or England’s exclusive dominion of the seas, is a
temporary (in my opinion, an unfortunate) episode in our history. To
brag about it and fight for it is the part of a bad citizen; to maintain
it would be a crime against the human race. To have founded, not
an empire, but a scattered congeries of possessions in all parts of
the world by conquest, intrigue, or arbitrary seizure, is a blot upon
our history; to perpetuate it is a burdensome inheritance to
bequeath to our children. To ask that this inorganic heap of
possessions shall be perpetually extended, made absolutely secure
against all comers, and guarded by a fleet which is always ready to
meet the world in arms—this is a programme which it is the duty of
every good citizen to stamp out. Whilst this savage policy is in
vogue, the very conditions of national morality, of peace, of true
industrial civilisation are wanting. The first condition of healthy
national progress is to have broken for ever with this national
buccaneering. The commerce, the property of Englishmen on the
seas must protect itself, like that of other nations, by just, prudent,
and civilised bearing, and not by an exclusive dominion which other
great nations do very well without. The commerce and the honor of
Americans are safe all over the world, though their navy is not one-
tenth of ours. And Germany can speak with us face to face on every
ocean, though she can hardly put a first-rate ship in array of battle.
To talk big about refusing to trust the greatness of England to the
sufferance of her neighbors is mere clap-trap. It is the phrase of
Mexican or Californian desperadoes when they fill their pockets with
revolvers and bowie-knives. All but two or three of the greatest
nations are obliged, at all times, to trust their existence to the
sufferance of their stronger neighbors. And they are just as safe,
and quite as proud, and more civilised than their great neighbors in
consequence. Human society, whether national or international, only
begins when social morality has taken the place of individual
violence. Society, for men or nations, cannot be based on the
revolver and bowie-knife principle.
We repudiate, then, with our whole souls the code of buccaneer
patriotism. True statesmen are bound to check, not to promote, the
expansion of England; to provide for the peaceful disintegration of
the heterogeneous empire, the permanence of which is as incapable
of being justified in policy as of being materially defended in arms.
These aggressions and annexations and protectorates, these wanton
wars amongst savages are at once blunders and crimes, pouring out
by millions what good government and thrift at home save by
thousands, degrading the present generation and deeply wronging
the next. We want no fleet greater than that of our greatest
neighbors, and the claim to absolute dominion at sea must be put
away like the claim to the kingdom of France or exclusive right to
the British Channel. We can afford to smile at the charge that we are
degenerate Britons or wanting in patriotism. Patriotism to us is a
deep and working desire for the good name of England, for the
justice and goodness of her policy, for the real enlightenment and
well-being of her sons, and for her front place in humanity and
civilisation. We smile at the vaporing of men to whom patriotism
means a good cry, and several extra editions.
It may seem for the moment that doctrines such as ours are out of
credit, and that there is little hope of their ever obtaining the
mastery. We are told that to-day not a voice is raised to oppose the
doctrines of spoliation. It is true that, owing to the hubbub of party
politics, to the servility of the Christian Churches, and the low
morality of the press, these national acts of rapacity have passed as
yet with but small challenge. But at any rate here our voice has
never wavered, nor have considerations of men, parties, or
majorities led us to temporise with our principles. We speak out
plainly—not more plainly than Mr. Gladstone and his followers on
platform and in press spoke out once—and we shall go on to speak
out plainly, whether we are many or whether we are few, whether
the opinion of the hour is with us or not. But I am not despondent.
Nor do I doubt the speedy triumph of our stronger morality. I see
with what weather cock rapidity the noisiest of the Anti-Jingoes can
change their tone. The tribe of Cleon, and the Sausage-seller are the
same in every age. I will not believe that the policy of a great nation
can be long dictated by firms of advertising touts, who will puff the
new soap, a comic singer, and an imperial war in the same page;
who are equally at home in the partition of Africa or a penny
dreadful. Nations are not seriously led by the arts which make village
bumpkins crowd to the show of the fat girl and the woolly pig. In the
rapid degradation of the press to the lower American standard we
may see an escape from its mischief. The age is one of democracy.
We have just taken a great stride towards universal suffrage and the
government of the people. In really republican societies, where
power rests on universal suffrage, as in France, and in America, the
power of the press is reduced to a very low ebb. The power of
journalism is essentially one of town life and small balanced parties.
Its influence evaporates where power is held by the millions, and
government appeals directly to vast masses of voters spread over
immense areas. Cleon and the Sausage-seller can do little when
republican institutions are firmly rooted over the length and breadth
of a great country.
The destinies of this nation have now been finally committed to the
people, and to the people we will appeal with confidence. The
laborer and the workman have no interest in these wanton wars. In
this imperial expansion, in this rivalry of traders and brag of arms;
no taste for it and no respect for it. They find that they are dragged
off to die in wars of which they know nothing; that their wages are
taxed to support adventures which they loathe. The people are by
instinct opponents of these crimes, and to them we will appeal. The
people have a natural sense of justice and a natural leaning to public
morality. Ambition, lucre, restlessness, and vainglory do not corrupt
their minds to approve a financial adventure. They need peace,
productive industry, humanity. Every step towards the true republic
is a step towards morality. To the new voters, to the masses of the
people, we will confidently appeal.
There is, too, another side to this matter. If these burdens are to be
thrust on the national purse, and (should the buccaneers have their
way) if the permanent war expenditure must be doubled, and little
wars at ten and twenty millions each are inevitable as well, then in
all fairness the classes who make these wars and profit by them
must pay for them. We have taken a great stride towards
democracy, and two of the first taxes with which the new democracy
will deal are the income-tax and the land-tax. The entire revision of
taxation is growing inevitable. It is a just and sound principle that
the main burden of taxation shall be thrown on the rich, and we
have yet to see how the new democracy will work out that just
principle. A graduated income-tax is a certain result of the
movement. The steady pressure against customs duties and the
steady decline in habits of drinking must combine to force the
taxation of the future more and more on income and on land. A
rapid rise in the scale of taxing incomes, until we reach the point
where great fortunes cease to be rapidly accumulated, would check
the wasteful expenditure on war more than any consideration of
justice. Even a China merchant would hardly promote an opium war
when he found himself taxed ten or twenty per cent. on his income.
One of the first things which will occur to the new rural voters is the
ridiculous minimum to which the land-tax is reduced. Mr. Henry
George and the school of land reformers have lately been insisting
that the land-tax must be immensely increased. At present it is a
farce, not one-tenth of what is usual in the nations of Europe. I
entirely agree with them, and am perfectly prepared to see the land-
tax raised till it ultimately brings us some ten or even twenty
millions, instead of one million. If the result would be to force a
great portion of the soil to change hands, and to pass from the rent
receivers to the occupiers, all the more desirable. But one inevitable
result of the new Reform Act must be a great raising of the taxes on
land, and when land pays one-fifth of the total taxation, our wars
will be fewer and our armaments more modest.
One of the cardinal facts of our immediate generation is the sudden
revival of Socialism and Communism. It was not crushed, as we
thought, in 1848; it was not extinguished in 1871. The new Republic
in France is uneasy with it. The military autocracy of Germany is
honeycombed with it. Society is almost dissolved by it in Russia. It is
rife in America, in Italy, in Denmark, in Austria. Let no man delude
himself that Socialism has no footing here. I tell them (and I venture
to say that I know) Socialism within the last few years has made
some progress here. It will assuredly make progress still. With the
aspirations and social aims of Socialism we have much in common,
little as we are Communists and firmly as we support the institution
of private property. But if Socialism is in the ascendant, if the new
democracy is exceedingly likely to pass through a wave of Socialist
tendency, are these the men, and is this the epoch to foster a policy
of imperial aggression? With the antipathy felt by Socialists for all
forms of national selfishness, with their hatred of war, and their
noble aspirations after the brotherhood of races and nations, we as
Positivists are wholly at one. Let us join hands, then, with Socialists,
with Democrats, with Humanitarians, and reformers of every school,
who repudiate a policy of national oppression; and together let us
appeal to the new democracy from the old plutocracy to arrest our
nation in its career of blood, and to lift this guilty burden from the
conscience of our children for ever.
So let us begin the year resolved to do our duty as citizens,
fearlessly and honestly, striving to show our neighbors that social
morality is a real religion in itself, by which men can order their lives
and purify their hearts. Let us seek to be gentler as fathers,
husbands, comrades, or masters; more dutiful as sons and
daughters, learners or helpers; more diligent as workers, students,
or teachers; more loving and self-denying as men and as women
everywhere. Let us think less about calling on Humanity and more
about being humane. Let us talk less about religion, and try more
fully to live religion. We have sufficiently explained our principles in
words. Let us manifest them in act. I do not know that more is to be
gained by the further preaching of our creed—much less by external
profession of our own conviction. The world will be ours, the day
that men see that Positivism in fact enables men to live a more pure
and social life, that it fills us with a desire for all useful knowledge,
stimulates us to help one another and bear with one another, makes
our homes the brighter, our children the better, our lives the nobler
by its presence; and that on the foundation of order, and in the spirit
of love, and with progress before us as our aim, we can live for
others, live openly before all men.—Fortnightly Review.
 THE POETRY OF TENNYSON.
BY RODEN NOEL.

It is perhaps difficult for men of middle age to estimate Tennyson

aright. For we who love poetry were brought up, as it were, at his
feet, and he cast the magic of his fascination over our youth. We
have gone away, we have travelled in other lands, absorbed in other
preoccupations, often revolving problems different from those
concerning which we took counsel with him; and we hear new
voices, claiming authority, who aver that our old master has been
superseded, that he has no message for a new generation, that his
voice is no longer a talisman of power. Then we return to the
country of our early love, and what shall our report be? Each one
must answer for himself; but my report will be entirely loyal to those
early and dear impressions. I am of those who believe that Tennyson
has still a message for the world. Men become impatient with
hearing Aristides so often called just, but is that the fault of
Aristides? They are impatient also with a reputation, which
necessarily is what all great reputations must so largely be—the
empty echo of living voices from blank walls. “Now again”—not the
people, but certain critics—“call it but a weed.” Yet how strange
these fashions in poetry are! I well remember Lord Broughton,
Byron’s friend, expressing to me, when I was a boy, his
astonishment that the bust of Tennyson by Woolner should have
been thought worthy of a place near that of Lord Byron in Trinity
College, Cambridge. “Lord Byron was a great poet; but Mr.
Tennyson, though he had written pretty verses,” and so on. For one
thing, the men of that generation deemed Tennyson terribly obscure.
“In Memoriam,” it was held, nobody could possibly understand. The
poet, being original, had to make his own public. Men nurtured on
Scott and Byron could not understand him. Now we hear no more of
his obscurity. Moreover, he spoke as the mouthpiece of his own time.
Doubts, aspirations, visions unfamiliar to the aging, breathed
melodiously through him. Again, how contemptuously do Broad-
church psychologists like George Macdonald, and writers for the
Spectator, as well as literary persons belonging to what I may term
the finikin school, on the other hand, now talk of our equally great
poet Byron. How detestable must the North be, if the South be so
admirable! But while Tennyson spoke to me in youth, Byron spoke to
me in boyhood, and I still love both.
Whatever may have to be discounted from the popularity of
Tennyson on account of fashion and a well-known name, or on
account of his harmony with the (more or less provincial) ideas of
the large majority of Englishmen, his popularity is a fact of real
benefit to the public, and highly creditable to them at the same time.
The establishment of his name in popular favor is but very partially
accounted for by the circumstance that, when he won his spurs, he
was among younger singers the only serious champion in the field,
since, if I mistake not, he was at one time a less “popular” poet than
Mr. Robert Montgomery. Vox populi is not always vox Dei, but it may
be so accidentally, and then the people reap benefit from their
happy blunder. The great poet who won the laurel before Tennyson
has never been “popular” at all, and Tennyson is the only true
English poet who has pleased the “public” since Byron, Walter Scott,
Tom Moore, and Mrs. Hemans. But he had to conquer their
suffrages, for his utterance, whatever he may have owed to Keats,
was original, and his substance the outcome of an opulent and
profound personality. These were serious obstacles to success, for
he neither went “deep” into “the general heart” like Burns, nor
appealed to superficial sentiments in easy language like Scott,
Moore, and Byron. In his earliest volume indeed there was a
preponderance of manner over matter; it was characterized by a
certain dainty prettiness of style, that scarcely gave promise of the
high spiritual vision and rich complexity of human insight to which
he has since attained, though it did manifest a delicate feeling for
nature in association with human moods, an extraordinarily subtle
sensibility of all senses, and a luscious pictorial power. Not Endymion
had been more luxuriant. All was steeped in golden languors. There
were faults in plenty, and of course the critics, faithful to the
instincts of their kind, were jubilant to nose them. To adapt
Coleridge’s funny verses, not “the Church of St. Geryon,” nor the
legendary Rhine, but the “stinks and stenches” of Kölntown do such
offal-feeders love to enumerate, and distinguish. But the poet in his
verses on “Musty Christopher” gave one of these people a Roland for
his Oliver. Stuart Mill, as Mr. Mathews, in his lately published and
very instructive lecture on Tennyson, points out, was the one critic in
a million who remembered Pope’s precept,
“Be thou the first true merit to befriend,
His praise is lost who waits till all commend.”
Yet it is only natural that the mediocrities, who for a moment keep
the door of Fame, should scrutinize with somewhat jaundiced eye
the credentials of new aspirants, since every entry adds fresh
bitterness to their own exclusion.
But really it is well for us, the poet’s elect lovers, to remember that
he once had faults, however few he may now retain; for the
perverse generation who dance not when the poet pipes to them,
nor mourn when he weeps, have turned upon Tennyson with the cry
that he “is all fault who has no fault at all”—they would have us
regard him as a kind of Andrea del Sarto, a “blameless” artistic
“monster, “a poet of unimpeachable technical skill, but keeping a
certain dead level of moderate merit. It is as well to be reminded
that this at all events is false. The dawn of his young art was
beautiful; but the artist had all the generous faults of youthful genius
—excess, vision confused with gorgeous color and predominant
sense, too palpable artifice of diction, indistinctness of articulation in
the outline, intricately-woven cross-lights flooding the canvas, defect
of living interest; while Coleridge said that he began to write poetry
without an ear for metre. Neither Adeline, Madeline, nor Eleanore
are living portraits, though Eleanore is gorgeously painted. “The Ode
to Memory” has isolated images of rare beauty, but it is
kaleidoscopic in effect; the fancy is playing with loose foam-wreaths,
rather than the imagination “taking things by the heart.” But our
great poet has gone beyond these. He has himself rejected twenty-
six out of the fifty-eight poems published in his first volume; while
some of those even in the second have been altogether rewritten.
Such defects are eminently present in the lately republished poem
written in youth, “The Lover’s Tale,” though this too has been
altered. As a storehouse of fine imagery, metaphor, and deftly
moulded phrase, of blank verse also whose sonorous rhythm must
surely be a fabric of adult architecture, the piece can hardly be
surpassed; but the tale as tale lingers and lapses, overweighted with
the too gorgeous trappings under which it so laboriously moves. And
such expression as the following, though not un-Shakspearian, is
hardly quarried from the soundest material in Shakspeare—for, after
all, Shakspeare was a euphuist now and then—
“Why fed we from one fountain? drew one sun?
Why were our mothers branches of one stem, if that same nearness
Were father to this distance, and that one
Vaunt courier to this double, if affection
Living slew love, and sympathy hewed out
The bosom-sepulchre of sympathy?”
Yet “Mariana” had the virtue, which the poet has displayed so pre-
eminently since, of concentration. Every subtle touch enhances the
effect he intends to produce, that of the desolation of the deserted
woman, whose hope is nearly extinguished; Nature hammering a
fresh nail into her coffin with every innocent aspect or movement.
Beautiful too are “Love and Death” and “The Poet’s Mind;” while in
“The Poet” we have the oft-quoted line: “Dowered with the hate of
hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love.”
Mr. G. Brimley was the first, I believe, to point out the distinctive
peculiarity of Lord Tennyson’s treatment of landscape. It is treated
by him dramatically; that is to say, the details of it are selected so as
to be interpretative of the particular mood or emotion he wishes to
represent. Thus in the two Marianas, they are painted with the
minute distinctness appropriate to the morbid and sickening
observation of the lonely woman, whose attention is distracted by no
cares, pleasures, or satisfied affections. That is a pregnant remark, a
key to unlock a good deal of Tennyson’s work with. Byron and
Shelley, though they are carried out of themselves in contemplating
Nature, do not, I think, often take her as interpreter of moods alien
to their own. In Wordsworth’s “Excursion,” it is true, Margaret’s
lonely grief is thus delineated though the neglect of her garden and
the surroundings of her cottage; yet this is not so characteristic a
note of his nature-poetry. In the “Miller’s Daughter” and the
“Gardener’s Daughter” the lovers would be little indeed without the
associated scene so germane to the incidents narrated, both as
congenial setting of the picture for a spectator, and as vitally fused
with the emotion of the lovers; while never was more lovely
landscape-painting of the gentle order than in the “Gardener’s
Daughter.” Lessing, who says that poetry ought never to be pictorial,
would, I suppose, much object to Tennyson’s; but to me, I confess,
this mellow, lucid, luminous word-painting of his is entirely
delightful. It refutes the criticism that words cannot convey a picture
by perfectly conveying it. Solvitur ambulando; the Gardener’s
Daughter standing by her rose-bush, “a sight to make an old man
young,” remaining in our vision to confound all crabbed pedants with
pet theories.
In his second volume, indeed, the poet’s art was well mastered, for
here we find the “Lotos-eaters,” “Œnone,” “The Palace of Art,” “A
Dream of Fair Women,” the tender “May-Queen,” and the “Lady of
Shalott.” Perhaps the first four of these are among the very finest
works of Tennyson. In the mouth of the love-lorn nymph Œnone he
places the complaint concerning Paris into which there enters so
much delightful picture of the scenery around Mount Ida, and of
those fair immortals who came to be judged by the beardless apple-
arbiter. How deliciously flows the verse!—though probably it flows
still more entrancingly in the “Lotos-eaters,” wandering there like
clouds of fragrant incense, or some slow heavy honey, or a rare
amber unguent poured out. How wonderfully harmonious with the
dream-mood of the dreamers are phrase, image, and measure! But
we need not quote the lovely choric song wherein occur the lines—
“Music that gentlier on the spirit lies
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes,”
so entirely restful and happy in their simplicity. If Art would always
blossom so, she might be forgiven if she blossomed only for her own
sake; yet this controversy regarding Art for Art need hardly have
arisen, since Art may certainly bloom for her own sake, if only she
consent to assimilate in her blooming, and so exhale for her
votaries, in due proportion, all elements essential to Nature, and
Humanity: for in the highest artist all faculties are transfigured into
one supreme organ; while among forms her form is the most
consummate, among fruits her fruit offers the most satisfying
refreshment. What a delicately true picture have we here—
“And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall, and pause and fall did seem,”
where we feel also the poet’s remarkable faculty of making word and
rhythm an echo and auxiliary of the sense. Not only have we the
three cæsuras respectively after “fall,” and “pause” and “fall,” but the
length, and soft amplitude of the vowel sounds with liquid
consonants aid in the realization of the picture, reminding of Milton’s
beautiful “From morn to noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, a
summer’s day.” The same faculty is notable in the rippling lilt of the
charming little “Brook” song, and indeed everywhere. In the “Dream
of Fair Women” we have a series of cabinet portraits, presenting a
situation of human interest with a few animating touches, but still
chiefly through suggestive surroundings. There occurs the
magnificent phrase of Cleopatra: “We drank the Lybian sun to sleep,
and lit lamps which outburned Canopus.” The force of expression
could be carried no further than throughout this poem, and by
“expression” of course I do not mean pretty words, or power-words
for there own sweet sake, for these, expressing nothing, whatever
else they may be, are not “expression;” but I mean the forcible or
felicitous presentment of thought, image, feeling, or incident,
through pregnant and beautiful language in harmony with them;
though the subtle and indirect suggestion of language is
unquestionably an element to be taken into account by poetry. The
“Palace of Art” is perhaps equal to the former poem for lucid
splendor of description, in this instance pointing a moral, allegorizing
a truth. Scornful pride, intellectual arrogance, selfish absorption in
æsthetic enjoyment, is imaged forth in this vision of the queen’s
world-reflecting palace, and its various treasures—the end being a
sense of unendurable isolation, engendering madness, but at last
repentance, and reconcilement with the scouted commonalty of
mankind.
The dominant note of Tennyson’s poetry is assuredly the delineation
of human moods modulated by Nature, and through a system of
Nature-symbolism. Thus, in “Elaine,” when Lancelot has sent a
courtier to the queen, asking her to grant him audience, that he may
present the diamonds won for her in tourney, she receives the
messenger with unmoved dignity; but he, bending low and
reverently before her, saw “with a sidelong eye”
“The shadow of some piece of pointed lace
In the queen’s shadow vibrate on the walls,
And parted, laughing in his courtly heart.”
The “Morte d’Arthur” affords a striking instance of this peculiarly
Tennysonian method. That is another of the very finest pieces. Such
poetry may suggest labor, but not more than does the poetry of
Virgil or Milton. Every word is the right word, and each in the right
place. Sir H. Taylor indeed warns poets against “wanting to make
every word beautiful.” And yet here it must be owned that the result
of such an effort is successful, so delicate has become the artistic
tact of this poet in his maturity.1 For, good expression being the
happy adaptation of language to meaning, it follows that sometimes
good expression will be perfectly simple, even ordinary in character,
and sometimes it will be ornate, elaborate, dignified. He who can
thus vary his language is the best verbal artist, and Tennyson can
thus vary it. In this poem, the “Morte d’Arthur,” too, we have “deep-
chested music.” Except in some of Wordsworth and Shelley, or in the
magnificent “Hyperion” of Keats, we have had no such stately,
sonorous organ-music in English verse since Milton as in this poem,
or in “Tithonus,” “Ulysses,” “Lucretius,” and “Guinevere.” From the
majestic overture,
“So all day long the noise of battle rolled
Among the mountains by the winter sea,”
onward to the end, the same high elevation is maintained.
But this very picturesqueness of treatment has been urged against
Tennyson as a fault in his narrative pieces generally, from its alleged
over-luxuriance, and tendency to absorb, rather than enhance, the
higher human interest of character and action. However this be (and
I think it is an objection that does apply, for instance, to “The
Princess”), here in this poem picturesqueness must be counted as a
merit, because congenial to the semi-mythical, ideal, and parabolic
nature of Arthurian legend, full of portent and supernatural
suggestion. Such Ossianic hero-forms are nearly as much akin to the
elements as to man. And the same answer holds largely in the case
of the other Arthurian Idylls. It has been noted how well-chosen is
the epithet “water” applied to a lake in the lines, “On one side lay
the ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full.”
Why is this so happy? For as a rule the concrete rather than the
abstract is poetical, because the former brings with it an image, and
the former involves no vision. But now in the night all Sir Bedevere
could observe, or care to observe, was that there was “some great
water.” We do not—he did not—want to know exactly what it was.
Other thoughts, other cares, preoccupy him and us. Again, of dying
Arthur we are told that “all his greaves and caisses were dashed with
drops of onset.” “Onset” is a very generic term, poetic because
removed from all vulgar associations of common parlance, and
vaguely suggestive not only of war’s pomp and circumstance, but of
high deeds also, and heroic hearts, since onset belongs to mettle
and daring; the word for vast and shadowy connotation is akin to
Milton’s grand abstraction, “Far off His coming shone” or Shelley’s,
“Where the Earthquake Demon taught her young Ruin.”
It has been noted also how cunningly Tennyson can gild and furbish
up the most commonplace detail—as when he calls Arthur’s
mustache “the knightly growth that fringed his lips,” or condescends
to glorify a pigeon-pie, or paints the clown’s astonishment by this
detail, “the brawny spearman let his cheek Bulge with the
unswallowed piece, and turning stared;” or thus characterizes a pun,
“and took the word, and play’d upon it, and made it of two colors.”
This kind of ingenuity, indeed, belongs rather to talent than to
genius; it is exercised in cold blood; but talent may be a valuable
auxiliary of genius, perfecting skill in the technical departments of
art. Yet such a gift is not without danger to the possessor. It may
tempt him to make his work too much like a delicate mosaic of
costly stone, too hard and unblended, from excessive elaboration of
detail. One may even prefer to art thus highly wrought a more
glowing and careless strain, that lifts us off our feet, and carries us
away as on a more rapid, if more turbid torrent of inspiration, such
as we find in Byron, Shelley, or Victor Hugo. Here you are compelled
to pause at every step, and admire the design of the costly
tesselated pavement under your feet. Perhaps there is a jewelled
glitter, a Pre-Raphaelite or Japanese minuteness of finish here and
there in Tennyson, that takes away from the feeling of aërial
perspective and remote distance, leaving little to the imagination;
not suggesting and whetting the appetite, but rather satiating it; his
loving observation of minute particulars is so faithful, his knowledge
of what others, even men of science, have observed so accurate, his
fancy so nimble in the detection of similitudes. But every master has
his own manner, and his reverent disciples would be sorry if he could
be without it. We love the little idiosyncracies of our friends.
I have said the objection in question does seem to lie against “The
Princess.” It contains some of the most beautiful poetic pearls the
poet has ever dropped; but the manner appears rather
disproportionate to the matter, at least to the subject as he has
chosen to regard it. For it is regarded by him only semi-seriously; so
lightly and sportively is the whole topic viewed at the outset, that
the effect is almost that of burlesque; yet there is a very serious
conclusion, and a very weighty moral is drawn from the story, the
workmanship being labored to a degree, and almost encumbered
with ornamentation. But the poet himself admits the ingrained
incongruity of the poem. The fine comparison of the Princess Ida in
the battle to a beacon glaring ruin over raging seas, for instance,
seems too grand for the occasion. How differently, and in what
burning earnest has a great poet-woman, Mrs. Browning, treated
this grave modern question of the civil and political position of
women in “Aurora Leigh!” Tennyson’s is essentially a man’s view, and
the frequent talk about women’s beauty must be very aggravating to
the “Blues.” It is this poem especially that gives people with a limited
knowledge of Tennyson the idea of a “pretty” poet; the prettiness,
though very genuine, seems to play too patronizingly with a
momentous theme. The Princess herself, and the other figures are
indeed dramatically realized, but the splendor of invention, and the
dainty detail, rather dazzle the eye away from their humanity. Here,
however, are some of the loveliest songs that this poet, one of our
supreme lyrists, ever sung: “Tears, idle tears!” “The splendor falls,”
“Sweet and low,” “Home they brought,” “Ask me no more,” and the
exquisite melody, “For Love is of the valley.” Moreover, the grand
lines toward the close are full of wisdom—
“For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse: could we make her as the man
Sweet love were slain,” &c.
I feel myself a somewhat similar incongruity in the poet’s treatment
of his more homely, modern, half-humorous themes, such as the
introduction to the “Morte d’Arthur,” and “Will Waterproof;” not at all
in the humorous poems, like the “Northern Farmer,” which are all of
a piece, and perfect in their own vein. In this introduction we have
“The host and I sat round the wassail bowl, then half-way ebb’d;”
but this metaphorical style is not (fortunately) sustained, and so, as
good luck would have it, a metaphor not being ready to hand, we
have the honester and homelier line, “Till I tired out with cutting
eights that day upon the pond;” yet this homespun hardly agrees
with the above stage-king’s costume. And so again I often venture
to wish that the Poet-Laureate would not say “flowed” when he only
means “said.” Still, this may be hypercriticism. For I did not
personally agree with the critic who objected to Enoch Arden’s fish-
basket being called “ocean-smelling osier.” There is no doubt,
however, that “Stokes, and Nokes, and Vokes” have exaggerated the
poet’s manner, till the “murex fished up” by Keats and Tennyson has
become one universal flare of purple. Beautiful as some of Mr.
Rossetti’s work is, his expression in the sonnets surely became
obscure from over-involution, and excessive fioriture of diction. But
then Rossetti’s style is no doubt formed considerably upon that of
the Italian poets. One is glad, however, that, this time, at all events,
the right man has “got the porridge!”
In connection with “Morte d’Arthur,” I may draw attention again to
Lord Tennyson’s singular skill in producing a rhythmical response to
the sense.
“The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch.”
Here the anapest instead of the iambic in the last place happily
imitates the sword Excalibur’s own gyration in the air. Then what
admirable wisdom does the legend, opening out into parable,
disclose toward the end! When Sir Bedevere laments the passing
away of the Round Table, and Arthur’s noble peerage, gone down in
doubt, distrust, treachery, and blood, after that last great battle in
the West, when, amid the death-white mist, “confusion fell even
upon Arthur,” and “friend slew friend, now knowing whom he slew,”
how grandly comes the answer of Arthur from the mystic barge, that
bears him from the visible world to “some far island valley of
Avilion,” “The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and God
fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt
the world!” The new commencement of this poem, called in the idyls
“The Passing of Arthur,” is well worthy of the conclusion. How
weirdly expressive is that last battle in the mist of those hours of
spiritual perplexity, which overcloud even strongest natures and
firmest faith, overshadowing whole communities, when we know not
friend from foe, the holiest hope seems doomed to disappointment,
all the great aim and work of life have failed; even loyalty to the
highest is no more; the fair polity built laboriously by some god-like
spirit dissolves, and “all his realm reels back into the beast;” while
men “falling down in death” look up to heaven only to find cloud,
and the great-voiced ocean, as it were Destiny without love and
without mind, with voice of days of old and days to be, shakes the
world, wastes the narrow kingdom, yea, beats upon the faces of our
dead! The world-sorrow pierces here through the strain of a poet
usually calm and contented. Yet “Arthur shall come again, aye, twice
as fair;” for the spirit of man is young immortally.
Who, moreover, has moulded for us phrases of more transcendent
dignity, of more felicitous grace and import, phrases, epithets, and
lines that have already become memorable household words? More
magnificent expression I cannot conceive than that of such poems
as “Lucretius,” “Tithonus,” “Ulysses.” These all for versification,
language, luminous picture, harmony of structure have never been
surpassed. What pregnant brevity, weight, and majesty of
expression in the lines where Lucretius characterizes the death of his
namesake Lucretia, ending “and from it sprang the commonwealth,
which breaks, as I am breaking now!” What masterly power in
poetically embodying a materialistic philosophy, congenial to modern
science, yet in absolute dramatic keeping with the actual thought of
the Roman poet! And at the same time, what tremendous grasp of
the terrible conflict of passion with reason, two natures in one,
significant for all epochs! In “Tithonus” and “Ulysses” we find
embodiments in high-born verse and illustrious phrase of ideal
moods, adventurous peril-affronting Enterprise contemptuously
tolerant of tame household virtues in “Ulysses,” and the bane of a
burdensome immortality, become incapable even of love, in
“Tithonus.” Any personification more exquisite than that of Aurora in
the latter were inconceivable.
M. Taine, in his Litterature Anglaise, represents Tennyson as an
idyllic poet (a charming one), comfortably settled among his
rhododendrons on an English lawn, and viewing the world through
the somewhat insular medium of a prosperous, domestic and
virtuous member of the English comfortable classes, as also of a
man of letters who has fully succeeded. Again, either M. Taine, M.
Scherer, or some other writer in the Revue des deux Mondes,
pictures him, like his own Lady of Shalott, viewing life not as it really
is, but reflected in the magic mirror of his own recluse fantasy. Now,
whatever measure of truth there may formerly have been in such
conceptions, they have assuredly now proved quite one-sided and
inadequate. We have only to remember “Maud,” the stormier poems
of the “Idylls,” “Lucretius,” “Rizpah,” the “Vision of Sin.” The recent
poem “Rizpah” perhaps marks the high-water mark of the Laureate’s
genius, and proves henceforward beyond all dispute his wide range,
his command over the deeper-toned and stormier themes of human
music, as well as over the gentler and more serene. It proves also
that the venerable master’s hand has not lost its cunning, rather that
he has been even growing until now, having become more
profoundly sympathetic with the world of action, and the common
growth of human sorrows. “Rizpah” is certainly one of the strongest,
most intensely felt, and graphically realized dramatic poems in the
language; its pathos is almost overwhelming. There is nothing more
tragic in Œdipus, Antigone, or Lear. And what a strong Saxon
homespun language has the veteran poet found for these terrible
lamentations of half-demented agony, “My Baby! the bones that had
sucked me, the bones that had laughed and had cried, Theirs! O no!
They are mine not theirs—they had moved in my side.” Then the
heart-gripping phrase breaking forth ever and anon in the
imaginative metaphorical utterance of wild emotion, to which the
sons and daughters of the people are often moved, eloquent beyond
all eloquence, white-hot from the heart! “Dust to dust low down! let
us hide! but they set him so high, that all the ships of the world
could stare at him passing by.” In this last book of ballads the style
bears the same relation to the earlier and daintier that the style of
“Samson Agonistes” bears to that of “Comus.” “The Revenge” is
equally masculine, simple, and sinewy in appropriate strength of
expression, a most spirited rendering of a heroic naval action—
worthy of a place, as is also the grand ode on the death of
Wellington, beside the war odes of Campbell, the “Agincourt” of
Drayton, and the “Rule Britannia” of Thomson. The irregular metre
of the “Ballad of the Fleet” is most remarkable as a vehicle of the
sense, resonant with din of battle, full-voiced with rising and
bursting storm toward the close, like the equally spirited concluding
scenes of “Harold,” that depict the battle of Senlac. The dramatic
characterizations in “Harold” and “Queen Mary” are excellent—Mary,
Harold, the Conqueror, the Confessor, Pole, Edith, Stigand, and other
subordinate sketches, being striking and successful portraits; while
“Harold” is full also of incident and action—a really memorable
modern play; but the main motive of “Queen Mary” fails in tragic
dignity and interest, though there is about it a certain grim subdued
pathos, as of still life, and there are some notable scenes. Tennyson
is admirably dramatic in the portrayal of individual moods, of men or
women in certain given situations. His plays are fine, and of real
historic interest, but not nearly so remarkable as the dramatic poems
I have named, as the earlier “St. Simeon Stylites,” “Ulysses,”
“Tithonus,” or as the “Northern Farmer,” “Cobblers,” and “Village
Wife,” among his later works. These last are perfectly marvellous in
their fidelity and humorous photographic realism. That the poet of
“Œnone,” “The Lotus-eaters,” and the Arthur cycle should have done
these also is wonderful. The humor of them is delightful, and the
rough homely diction perfect. One wishes indeed that the “dramatic
fragments” collected by Lamb, like gold-dust out of the rather dreary
sand-expanse of Elizabethan playwrights, were so little fragmentary
as these. Tennyson’s short dramatic poems are quintessential; in a
brief glimpse he contrives to reveal the whole man or woman. You
would know the old “Northern Farmer,” with his reproach to “God
Amoighty” for not “letting him aloan,” and the odious farmer of the
new style, with his “Proputty! Proputty!” wherever you met them.
But “Dora,” the “Grand-mother,” “Lady Clare,” “Edward Gray,” “Lord
of Burleigh,” had long since proved that Tennyson had more than
one style at command; that he was master not only of a flamboyant,
a Corinthian, but also of a sweet, simple, limpid English, worthy of
Goldsmith or Cowper at their best.
Reverting, however, to the question of Tennyson’s ability to fathom
the darker recesses of our nature, what shall be said of the “Vision
of Sin?” For myself I can only avow that, whenever I read it, I feel as
if some horrible gray fungus of the grave were growing over my
heart, and over all the world around me. As for passion, I know few
more profoundly passionate poems than “Love and Duty.” It paints
with glowing concentrated power the conflict of duty with yearning
passionate love, stronger than death. The “Sisters,” and “Fatima,”
too, are fiercely passionate, as also is “Maud.” I should be surprised
to hear that a lover could read “Maud,” and not feel the spring and
mid-noon of passionate affection in it to the very core of him, so
profoundly felt and gloriously expressed is it by the poet. Much of its
power, again, is derived from that peculiarly Tennysonian ability to
make Nature herself reflect, redouble, and interpret the human
feeling. That is the power also of such supreme lyrics as “Break,
break!” and “In the Valley of Cauterets;” of such chaste and
consummate rendering of a noble woman’s self-sacrifice as “Godiva,”
wherein “shameless gargoyles” stare, but “the still air scarcely
breathes for fear;” and likewise of “Come into the garden, Maud,” an
invocation that palpitates with rapture of young love, in which the
sweet choir of flowers bear their part, and sing antiphony. The same
feeling pervades the delicious passage commencing, “Is that
enchanted moon?” and “Go not, happy day.” All this may be what Mr.
Ruskin condemns as “pathetic” fallacy, but it is inevitable and right.
For “in our life doth nature live, ours is her wedding garment, ours
her shroud.” The same Divine Spirit pervades man and nature; she,
like ourselves, has her transient moods, as well as her tranquil
immovable deeps. In her, too, is a passing as well as an eternal,
while we apprehend either according to our own capacity, together
with the emotional bias that dominates us at the moment. The vital
and permanent in us holds the vital and permanent in her, while the
temporary in us mirrors the transitory in her. I cannot think indeed
that the more troubled and jarring moods of disharmony and fury
are touched with quite the same degree of mastery in “Maud” as are
the sunnier and happier. Tennyson hitherto had basked by
preference in the brighter regions of his art, and the turbid Byronic
vein appeared rather unexpectedly in him. The tame, sleek, daintily-
feeding gourmêts of criticism yelped indeed their displeasure at
these “hysterics,” as they termed the “Sturm und Drang” elements
that appeared in “Maud,” especially since the poet dared
appropriately to body these forth in somewhat harsh, abrupt
language, and irregular metres. Such elements, in truth, hardly
seemed so congenial to him as to Byron or Hugo. Yet they were
welcome, as proving that our chief poet was not altogether
irresponsive to the terrible social problems around him, to the
corruptions, and ever-festering vices of the body politic, to the
doubt, denial, and grim symptoms of upheaval at his very doors. For
on the whole some of us had felt that the Poet-Laureate was almost
too well contented with the general framework of things, with the
prescriptive rights of long-unchallenged rule, and hoar comfortable
custom, especially in England, as though these were in very deed
divine, and no subterranean thunder were ever heard, even in this
favored isle, threatening Church and State, and the very fabric of
society. But the temper of his class and time spoke through him. Did
not all men rejoice greatly when Prince Albert opened the Exhibition
of 1851; when Cobden and the Manchester school won the battle of
free-trade; when steam-engines and the electric telegraph were
invented; when Wordsworth’s “glorious time” came, and the Revised
Code passed into law; when science first told her enchanting fairy
tales? Yet the Millennium tarries, and there is an exceeding “bitter
cry.”
But in “Maud,” as indeed before in that fine sonorous chaunt,
“Locksley Hall,” and later in “Aylmer’s Field,” the poet’s emphasis of
appreciation is certainly reserved for the heroes, men who have
inherited a strain of gloom, or ancestral disharmony moral and
physical, within whom the morbific social humors break forth
inevitably into plague-spots; the injustice and irony of circumstance
lash them into revolt, wrath, and madness. Mr. R. H. Hutton, a critic
who often writes with ability, but who seems to find a little difficulty
in stepping outside the circle of his perhaps rather rigid
misconceptions and predilections, makes the surely somewhat
strange remark that “‘Maud’ was written to reprobate hysterics.” But
I fear—nay, I hope and believe—that we cannot credit the poet with
any such virtuous or didactic intention in the present instance,
though of course the pregnant lines beginning “Of old sat Freedom
on the heights,” the royal verses, the recent play so forcibly objected
to by Lord Queensberry, together with various allusions to the “red
fool-fury of the Seine,” and “blind hysterics of the Celt,” do indicate a
very Conservative and law-abiding attitude. But other lines prove
that after all what he mostly deprecates is “the falsehood of
extremes,” the blind and hasty plunge into measures of mere
destruction; for he praises the statesmen who “take occasion by the
hand,” and make “the bounds of freedom wider yet,” and even
gracefully anticipates “the golden year.”
The same principle on which I have throughout insisted as the key
to most of Tennyson’s best poetry is the key also to the moving tale
“Enoch Arden,” where the tropical island around the solitary
shipwrecked mariner is gorgeously depicted, the picture being as
full-Venetian, and resplendent in color, as those of the “Day-Dream”
and “Arabian Nights.” But the conclusion of the tale is profoundly
moving and pathetic, and relates a noble act of self-renouncement.
Parts of “Aylmer’s Field,” too, are powerful.
And now we come to the “Idylls,” around which no little critical
controversy has raged. It has been charged against them that they
are more picturesque, scenic, and daintily-wrought than human in
their interest. But though assuredly the poet’s love for the
picturesque is in this noble epic—for epic the Idylls in their
completed state may be accounted—amply indulged, I think it is
seldom to the detriment of the human interest, and the remark I
made about one of them, the “Morte d’Arthur,” really applies to all.
The Arthur cycle is not historical, as “Harold” or “Queen Mary” is,
where the style is often simple almost to baldness; the whole of it
belongs to the reign of myth, legend, fairy story, and parable.
Ornament, image, and picture are as much appropriate here as in
Spenser’s “Fairy Queen,” of which indeed Tennyson’s poem often
reminds me. But “the light that never was on sea or land, the
consecration and the poet’s dream,” are a new revelation, made
peculiarly in modern poetry, of true spiritual insight. And this not
only throws fresh illuminating light into nature, but deepens also and
enlarges our comprehension of man. If nature be known for a
symbol and embodiment of the soul’s life, by means of their
analogies in nature the human heart and mind may be more
profoundly understood; while human emotions win a double
clearness, or an added sorrow, from their fellowship and association
with outward scenes. Nature can only be fathomed through her
consanguinity with our own desires, aspirations, and fears, while
these again become defined and articulate by means of her related
appearances. A poet, then, who is sensitive to such analogies
confers a two-fold benefit upon us.
I cannot at all assent to the criticism passed upon the Idylls by Mr.
John Morley, who has indeed, as it appears to me, somewhat
imperilled his critical reputation by the observation that they are
“such little pictures as might adorn a lady’s school.” When we think
of “Guinevere,” “Vivien,” the “Holy Grail,” the “Passing of Arthur,” this
dictum seems to lack point and penetration. Indeed, had it
proceeded only from some rhyming criticaster, alternating with the
feeble puncture of his sting the worrying iteration of his own doleful
drone, it might have been passed over as simply an impertinence.2
But while the poem is in part purely a fairy romance tinctured with
humanity, Tennyson has certainly intended to treat the subject in
part also as a grave spiritual parable. Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot,
Elaine, Galahad, Vivien, are types, gracious or hateful. My own
feeling, therefore, would rather be that there is too much human
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