My friend, delighted though he was by my grudging acceptance
of his major premise, refused to allow that In Memoriam was in any sense composed around the theme of A. H. H. Here again, he said, one had the elegy upon the poet's own lost youth. There was the tea-urn upon the lawn at Somersby and the lime walk at Trinity. The most that Tennyson could find to say about Hallam was that he possessed highly developed frontal lobes, that he would have made an excellent brother-in-law, and that he would have had a successful parliamentary career. The only deep feel- ing which inspires In Memoriam is selfish resentment at the fact that he, Alfred Tennyson, had been deprived at an important moment of his literary career of a most con- venient supporter. " Be near me," he quoted acidly, " when my light is low." I felt obliged to confess that this particular quatrain did contain the very essence of Tennyson's inspira- tion. " But he really loved Hallam," I pleaded and went on to quote the lines about Wimpole Street. Only a very unselfish emotion could have made a gifted poet write those lines. " But in any case," my friend concluded, " King, Clough and Hallam were very dull young men."
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