Page:Tennyson - Walter Irving (1873).djvu/23

 no one can be found who ever heard men who spake like these men. Men are drawn to books as men to men. There must be some common sentiment which draws the one to the other, a common link which unites heart with heart. It may be the delineation of the like features of our character, the description of the same feelings which have agitated our own hearts, the representation of our own forms of thought, and secret and most dearly cherished aspirations and hopes which makes a firm friend out of the pages of a book. But no such friend can be made out of the pages of Mr Tennyson. In the Idylls of the King, for instance, there is only one pregnant passage which all men would allow was gathered from wide-spread observation. And yet in the Dunciad the same truism may be found almost word for word as it stands in the Idylls of the King. Then again, the personality of Mr Tennyson's characters is so poorly defined that no one can form a proper or a satisfactory likeness of them. And when this is the case it is needless to remark that the interest of the reader can neither be gained nor sustained. Mr Tennyson has evidently got it into his head that kings and knights are superior beings; and therefore he has invented a style of corresponding thought which suits, in his imagination, the lofty mindedness of his great men. Their stature is great, and so the thoughts of ordinary human beings are not suited for them. They must utter great things and do great things. They must not be moved by a mean idea or vulgar desire. At every hazard their grave dignity must be maintained else the multitude would not believe in their greatness. It must never be told how poor a thing a king may be, how frivolous, sordid, and revengeful, like the most abject of his subjects. The result of this is that Mr Tennyson's characters have no character. Sir Galahad might say what Arthur says