Alfred Gatty

“ He would therefore dismiss the phantom, Sorrow.
V.
He sometimes hesitates, as at something half sinful, when giving expression to his sadness; because words at best only partially declare what the Soul feels; just as outward Nature cannot fully reveal the inner life.
But “after all” words act like narcotics, and numb pain: so, as if putting on “weeds,” the garb of mourning, he will wrap himself over in words; though these, like coarse clothes on the body, give no more than an outline of his “large grief.” ”

“ And so, “in the long harmonious years” of death, some dim touch of earthly things may reach Hallam whilst ranging with his equals. If this should be allowed, “O turn thee round,” “resolve the doubt,” whether thou art conscious of a previous life, and listen to my guardian angel, who will tell thee all about us here.
XLV.
The child, still in its mother’s arms, has no consciousness of its own individual life and identity; and it is with its growth that it acquires a sense of separate and isolated being, independent of all around. ”

“ The sadness of his heart has fully returned, and the journey of life is dull and weary. The skies above and the prospect before him are no longer what they used to be, when Hallam was by. “The blowing season,” when plants are blossoming: the “herald melodies of spring,” when the birds proclaim that winter is past, give him no joy ”

“ And yet, if a trustworthy voice from the grave should testify, that there is no life beyond this world; even then he would endeavour to keep alive so sweet a thing as Love, during the brief span of mortal existence. ”

“ His own dim consciousness should teach him thus much, that Life will never be extinguished. Else all here is but dust and ashes. The earth, “this round of green,” and sun, “this orb of flame,” are but “fantastic beauty”—such as a wild Poet might invent, who has neither conscience nor aim.
[Pg 38] Even God can be nothing to the writer, if all around him is doomed to perish ”

“ Ay me, [30] the sorrow deepens down,
Whose muffled motions blindly drown
The bases of my life in tears.”
L.
He invokes Hallam’s spirit to be near him in his various moods of distress—when he is filled with nervous apprehensions, when faith seems gone, and Time to be [Pg 55] only “a maniac scattering dust,” and Life to be “a Fury slinging flame:” when men also appear to be no more than flies, that sting and weave their cells and die. ”

“ The Love, which became stronger in himself, after encountering Death at the departure of Hallam,
“Is comrade to the lesser faith
That sees the course of human things.”
This “lesser faith” attends to the events of time, and is not overborne by present confusions, but reaches, sustained by Love, to a last happy consummation. ”

“ He persistently dwells on Hallam’s capabilities. Sorrow may teach wisdom; but how much more sleeps with him, who would not only have guided the survivor, but served all public ends.
He thinks his friend might have become a leading statesman of the day—a pilot to weather the storm, when the greatest social agonies prevailed. ”

“ He cannot dismiss the memory of his loss, and calls Hallam “a soul of nobler tone,” superior to himself, who is feeling “like some poor girl” that has fixed her affections on a man of higher rank than her own. She compares her state with [Pg 65] his, and sighs over her own inferior circumstances, and repines at her humbler lot. The neighbours jeer at her disappointment, and she says
“How vain am I!
How should he love a thing so low?”
No doubt, the passing into a higher world gave Hallam a superior dignity in the Poet’s estimation. ”

“ Dare we indeed challenge the dead to inspect us? Have we “no inner vileness” that we would not have them discover? Would the Poet be lessened in Hallam’s esteem and affection, when “some hidden shame” was exposed? ”

“ His own affection for Hallam seems to personate the object of his attachment, and “sees himself in all he sees.” Just as the giant spectre, sometimes seen “on misty mountain-ground,” [70] is no more than the vast shadow of the spectator himself.
The Poem proceeds more intelligibly, by drawing a comparison which typifies his own humble relation to his exalted friend. He imagines some meek-hearted and affectionate wife loving and revering a husband, whose high intellect and pursuits exclude her from any real companionship. ”

“ The worth of the Bridegroom is acknowledged in this address:
“And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight
Of learning [90] lightly like a flower.”
The whole Poem is pleasant and jocund [Pg 148] and was meant to be a kind of Divina Commedia—ending cheerfully—but it scarcely harmonizes with the lofty solemnity of In Memoriam, whose Author might rejoice in the thought, that he would leave behind him a rich legacy of comfort to all future generations of mourners. ”

“ This Poem opens as if Hallam’s grave was in the churchyard, where grasses waved; but it was not so, he was buried inside Clevedon church.
The Poet imagines the reproofs, with which passers-by will visit him for his unrestrained grief. He would “make weakness [Pg 25] weak:” would parade his pain to court sympathy, and gain credit for constancy; and another says, that a display of private sorrow is quite inappropriate at times, when great political changes impend, and Science every month is evolving some new secret. ”

“ All that he can resolve is, to cherish every grain of love; and in doing so, there springs up the “happy thought,” that if his own nature has been elevated by intercourse with Hallam, why may not a like result have been reflected from himself on his friend? ”

“ The Poet leaves the praises of his friend [Pg 80] unexpressed, because no words can duly convey them; and the greatness thus unrecorded must be guessed, by the measure of the survivor’s grief.
Indeed, he does not care
“in these fading days
To raise a cry that lasts not long,
And round thee with the breeze of song,
To stir a little dust [50] of praise.”
The world only applauds accomplished success, and does not care for what might have been done, had opportunity been given. It is therefore sufficient that silence should guard Hallam’s [Pg 81] fame here ”

“ He esteems high purposes after what is unattained, as exhibited in Hallam’s shortened life, more than a complete fulfilment of lesser duties by the “lords of doom,” who rule in our social system, and are those that have free will, but less intellect. ”

“ They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
The merry, merry bells of Yule.”
Yule is Christmas, a jubilee which brings glad tidings of great joy to all people.
XXIX.
Having such “compelling cause to grieve” over the decease of Hallam,
“as daily vexes household peace”—
for death is ever invading some [Pg 32] home—how can they venture to keep Christmas Eve as usual? He is absent, who when amongst them was so eminently social. But it must be done. “Use and wont,” “old sisters of a day gone by,” still demand what has been customary. “They too will die,” and new habits succeed. ”

“ It is Christmas Eve, but the holly outside their new home shall stand ungathered. He deprecates repeating their old observances of this season in a new place. He thinks of his father’s grave “under other snows” than those he looks on; and how the violet will blow there, “but we are gone.”
What was done in the old home cannot be repeated in the new habitation,
“For change of place, like growth of time,
Has broke the bond of dying use.” [75]
[Pg 116] He would have this Christmas Eve kept with reverent solemnity: no joyous forms retained from which the spirit has gone ”

“ There are no striking features in this expanse of soft undulations, but you feel a consciousness that the sea is not far off, and that the scenery is well adapted for fine cloud and sunset effects. The air seems to have a bracing tone, and the several equally small churches around, tell of thin populations, and a general condition of rustic simplicity and peace. ”

“ Hesper and Phosphor are simply the one planet Venus, which according to its position with the sun, becomes the morning or evening star.
So the Poet sings,
[Pg 133] “Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name
For what is one, the first, the last,
Thou, like my present and my past,
Thy place is changed; thou art the same.”
Hallam has only been removed: he is not altered into something else—“not lost, but gone before.” No—the writer is rather referring to himself: and as his own “present” and “past” are so different; the latter, with a bright prospect, may be likened to the morning star, Phosphor ”

“ At a subsequent visit to Simon’s house in Bethany, where both Lazarus and Mary were present, Mary’s eyes, looking alternately at her brother who had been restored to life, and at our Lord who had revived him, are “homes of silent prayer;” and one strong affection overpowers every other sentiment, when her “ardent gaze” turns from the face of Lazarus, “and rests upon the Life”—Christ, the author and giver of life. ”

“ When any one has survived the allotted age of man, there is a long past to remember, and a short future to expect; and it is the period of youth which is then found most clearly recorded on the tablets of the brain—the days, probably, of school and college, and the first establishment of a self-made home. ”

“ A more touching and tender address to the dead was never uttered than this Poem expresses, a more pure and ennobling affection was never described. Sorrow is lost in the more exalted sentiment of their certain reunion, and in the strength derived from a consciousness of the worthiness of their past friendship. ”

“ When one that loves but knows not, reaps
A truth from one that loves and knows?”
There are no pleasures so sweet, as the imbibings of instruction from the lips of those who are both superior and dear to us.
It is evident that Hallam’s translation in death, had exalted his friend’s estimation of him whilst living, for see the Poet’s note at the end of Poem xcvii. ”

“ But “I woo your love,” he seems to say to his future brother-in-law, for he holds it wrong
“to mourn for any over much:”
still, so deep is his attachment to Hallam, that he calls himself
“the divided half of such
A friendship as had master’d Time;”
their intimacy would be eternal; and he imagines some sort of intercourse still carried on betwixt them, which he describes [Pg 92] in language that has much of the spirit and character of Dante. ”

“ When a great mind, at once so speculative and so untrammelled, runs over the whole field of thought, and comes to the conviction that the hope of the Christian is the one sure prospect beyond the grave; this imparts to the mourner a consolation, to which nothing earthly can compare.
My own interest in this great Poem has been farther enhanced by the fact that I and mine, long years ago, enjoyed friendly intercourse with the Poet at Freshwater ”

“ Clevedon Church, which is dedicated to St. Andrew, is quaint and picturesque in appearance, but not architecturally beautiful. It is an irregular structure, which has evidently been added to at various times, the chancel being the original fisherman’s church, and it has a solid square tower. Within the sanctuary is the Hallam vault, on which the organ now stands. Two cliffs, known as Church Hill and Wains Hill, rounded and grass-grown, that rise on either side, seem to guard and shelter it, with its surrounding churchyard that holds the quiet dead. ”