I suspect that perhaps this time is one that will
furnish a very beautiful anthology. There are many people alive who
have written perhaps half a dozen exquisite lyrics, when the spring
and the soaring thought and the vision and the beautiful word all
suddenly conspired together. But there is no great, wide, large,
tender heart at work. No, I won't even say that; but is there any
great spirit who has all that and a supreme word-power as well? I
believe that there is more poetry, more love of beauty, more
emotion in the world than ever; and a great many men and women are
living their poetry who just can't write it or sing it."
"A perverse generation seeking after a sign," he said rather
grimly, "and there is no sign forthcoming except the old sign, that
has been there for centuries! I don't care," he added, "about the
sign of the thing. It is the quality that I want; and these new
poets of whom I have been speaking have got the quality. That is
all I ask for."
"No," I said, "I want a great deal more than that! Browning gave us
the sense of the human heart, bewildered by all the new knowledge,
and yet passionately desiring. Tennyson--"
"Poor old Tennyson!" he said.
"That is very ungracious," I said. "You are as perverse as I was
about Byron when the old banker quoted him with tears. I was going
to say, and I will say it, that Tennyson, with all his faults, was
a great lord of music; and he put into words the fine, homely
domestic emotion of the race--the poetry of labour, order, and
peace.
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