Tennyson's Maud as a Work of Art.

No WORK, published within the last twenty years, has been the subject of more contradictory opinions than the Maud of Tennyson. Some condemn it altogether; but the large majority admit the beauty of particular passages, while they profess to be unable to perceive the scope and design of the whole, and in fact deny the poem any meaning whatsoever as a poem. There are a few who recognize it as a grand work of art, the crowning effort of the greatest of the living masters of English poetry,-a poem of the times and for the times, which, far before any other production of our day, delineates the peculiarities of sentiment and action in modern society. There are a few who see in it something more than the narrative of a love-story, however beautiful, something more than invective against the evils of social life, however bitter; something rather of the passion, the restless longing and the morbid excitement peculiar to so many dispositions in an age like ours, some expression of those feelings, which oftentimes sadden the lives of one-sided men, glowing with ideal conceptions of what the condition of mankind should be, but sick at heart and despairing of the

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future, as they look upon it as it is. And from those of us, who believe it to be this, it is right to demand the reason of the faith that is in us; that we should defend the poem, not merely from the indolence of those who seek not to understand it, but likewise from the stupidity of those who cannot, and the obstinacy of those who will not see in it any meaning whatsoever; that we should make clear the plan upon which it was constructed, and the idea it was intended to convey; in fine, that we should prove the justice of its claim to being a work of art, consistent in its parts and complete in its execution.

In Maud there appear to be two totally distinct designs: and it is from the fact of not distinguishing the relation in which these stand to one another, that the confused notions many persons have of the poem take their rise. At the very commencement, we have lines written under the influence of feelings, excited to a diseased action, glorifying war and condemning peace and all the chicanery and crime which grow up along with and out of the arts of peace. Yet this design, with which the poem opens, with which it closes, is referred to but once or twice in the body of the work, which is taken up with the narration of a love-story and its developement of passion through all the stages of doubt, certainty and despair. How shall these two things, apparently so contradictory, be reconciled? Were the beginning and the end simply tacked on at the moment of publication, to flatter the passing feelings of a people engaged at that very time in a great struggle, or even to stir up those feelings more powerfully? An object so disgraceful as the former, or even so temporary as the latter, could be no inducement to an author whose reputation was already acquired, and who, for the sake of acquiring it, had never done anything unworthy of the high mission which in early life he had claimed for himself. The poem must be accepted as it stands. The introduction and the close are constituent parts of it, and by their relation to the general design is it to be judged.

The grand aim of Maud, then, is a glorification of war and a condemnation of peace. But of what kind of a war, and of what kind of a peace? Not of war in general, nor of the purposes for which it is usually carried on, least of all for its attendant circumstances of rapine, of carnage and of desolated homes. But of war in its results as an affective agent in the promotion of civil and religious liberty, as the demolisher of mighty despotism, as the fore-runner of a great

and glorious civilization. Nor was peace in itself, or in its ordinary fruits, condemned; but peace as causing that state of mind, which, wrapped up in a blind lust of gain, could bear insults with patience; could suffer violence and crime to do their work without one syllable of remonstrance; could look tamely on, whilst an iron tyranny was extending its power, and strengthening its barrier against the advance of a world. War is not so much a cause of the action of our evil passions as a consequence. The advocates of universal peace seem to forget upon what principles the government of mankind is carried on, and its improvement brought to pass. For, not alone by the pure influences of christianity, by the gradual amelioration of the social state, by appeals to all that is noble in the heart of man and censures of all that is base in the life of man; not alone by these is the progress of the race effected: but by the manifold agencies of suffering, by the conflict of human passions, and not the least in importance by that last resort to the might of arms. And the central idea of the poem is that those emotions which make earth hell, pride, envy, jealousy and the desire of revenge, would be turned from their lawless action in a period of peace, and find a safe and legitimate field for their manifestation in a great war; that the evil passions which, in ordinary times, spare not the sanctuary of home, nor the sanctity of private life, would be purified by fighting in a righteous cause; that the unholy feelings, which spend their force in acts of crime, in deeds of violence and bloodshed, would lose their sinfulness, when consecrated to just and noble purposes. For the illustration of this idea the story of Maud is told: and from the tale of that unhappy love; from the sorrow which it causes; from the life taken away in a private feud; from all the subsequent stages of horror, despair and madness to the revival of the spirit by the breaking out of a generous struggle in behalf of liberty and civilization; from all of these is read the blessing of that war, which would, in some measure, divert these feelings from their lawless action in a strife between man and man to the wider channel of a great conflict between right and wrong. True it is, that the sin and misery of years must be the painful price. True it is, that firesides must be desolated, and land devastated; that for a time all enterprise must be checked, and the action of life's machinery in its manifold forms must be clogged. But it would be but for a time; and from the prostration of the moment, the mind of the nation would rise up, strong by the consciousness of a great duty performed, ennobled

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by having neglected the sordid interests of the present for the developement and prosperity of the future.

In support of this theory, we have other proof besides the direct language of the commencement and conclusion. Almost the only allusion to war in the body of the work is in Part X, and in that place its introduction can be explained upon no other ground than that the design of the poem is what has been above stated. For the hero of the story, from bitter abuse of the new-made lord, in whom his jealous heart sees at once a rival, suddenly turns to a fierce invective against some nameless huckster who had been preaching down the little army of England. There is no apparent connection between the two verses. To a superficial reader the speaker seems to jump from one subject to the other, without bridging the chasm by which they are separated. But the transition finds an easy explanation, in truth, its only explanation, in the momentary glimpse the narrator gets of the tumult of his own feelings-in the sudden conviction, entering his mind, that no war, however terrible or sorrow-laden in its immediate effects, could be productive of so much evil and sin as the unchecked rule of the passions which were just agitating his own soul.

The grand idea of the work is thus evident. But points of no less importance still remain to be considered. How has the outline of the poem been filled up? Are the principal characters true to nature? Do we feel that we are in the society of living beings, or merely of beautiful but unreal creations of the imagination? Upon the reply to these questions, far more than upon the unity of idea running through it, must Maud stand or fall as a work of art? To answer them satisfactorily, will require an analysis of the principal characters, with an inquiry into the truth of their feelings and actions; and for the purpose of doing this, we will give, in a prose translation, the main details of the story which, in itself, is exceedingly simple, not to say meager.

The father of Maud, and the father of him who is the narrator throughout the poem, had been engaged years before in business together, and during that time, with the intention of uniting their family still more closely, betrothed to one another their children, yet in their infancy. In a great speculation, in which they both were interested, the former succeeds in cheating and ruining his partner, who retires from the wreck of his private affairs, a disappointed heart-broken man. Maddened by his misfortunes, he be

comes despairing, and is finally found dead under circumstances which justify the suspicion that he has purposely flung away his life. Meanwhile, the father of Maud goes abroad with his family, and the hero of the story loses all sight of her to whom in early life he had been affianced, until the time at which the poem opens. As she returns to her early home, he catches a glimpse of her face, and the tumult of his feelings gives the lie to the cold and spleenful criticism which his lips at first pronounce upon her beauty. He meets her, and mistaking the blush of surprise which overspreads her face at his unexpected greeting for the fire of a foolish pride,' his natural dejection and distrust of others are rendered still deeper. Again they meet, and from that moment springs up a mutual love, which is to be to both a cause of untold happiness and misery. The brother of Maud looks with scorn upon him and his pretensions, endeavors to advance the interests of a new-made lord who has become a suitor for the hand of his sister, and finally gives a grand political dinner, to which the neighborhood are invited, except him who relates the story. But he is not to be disappointed in seeing Maud arrayed in all her splendor; after the guests have retired, she is to come to the garden-gate, and at that place show herself to her waiting lover. There, at their meeting, they are interrupted by the enraged brother, who gives the lie to his sister's lover, and in the end strikes him in the face. All the fierce passions of the latter are at once aroused, and a duel is the consequence in which the former is slain. The unhappy murderer is forced to flee to save his life. In a foreign land, far away from her whom he adores, yet of whose misery he has been the unhappy cause, his mind at first oppressed by remorse and unavailing sorrow, soon sinks into hopeless gloom, and finally into raving insanity. But from this state he is awakened: the image of the dead Maud appears to him in dreams, bids him lay aside the unrest of his soul, and lightens his despair by pointing to the struggle that was arising in defense of the right. And with a glowing panegyric upon the war, in which the allies were at that time engaged, the poem concludes.

Such is a brief outline, made out from various remarks scattered up and down the work. It is at once evident that the chief interest of the story does not center so much about Maud as about him who tells it. It is in portraying the thoughts and feelings which find expression in the words and conduct of the latter, that the author shows his knowledge of human nature, and about their delineation