That was, so to speak, a “Timesly” sentiment; the riflemen hastened to form, and the young aristocrats led them to slaughter, and the poet laureate had to come forward again to glorify the British national habit of blundering. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” was so popular in its day that it was printed on picture post cards; every school child learned the duty of the lower classes under the Tory system-- Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to question why, Theirs but to do and die. Bear in mind that the factory system was now in full flower, and little children ten and twelve years old were slaving all night in cotton mills, or dragging heavy cars in the depths of coal mines. English manufacturers and landlords were taxing the lower classes to such a condition that today, when you see them pouring out for their holidays upon Hampstead Heath, they seem not human beings, but some lower species, shambling and deformed. Once in a while a gleam of this horror breaks into Tennyson’s verse; but even then the message is reactionary--an English gentleman is scolding at commercialism because it destroys the good old country life. But for the most part the Victorian way of dealing with uncomfortable things was to hush them up. Poetry must select pure and sweet subjects; poetry must be polite, it must use big words and preserve the home comforts. It is our duty to believe what is proper, even when it is obviously not true. I have referred to Tennyson’s long agony on the subject of immortality. The deepest experience of his life was the death of his friend, Arthur Hallam, a man who apparently knew how to think, and to drive the dreamy poet to work. It is puzzling to us that a grown man should be so taken aback by death; it would seem to be a common enough phenomenon to be noted and prepared for. But Tennyson was struck down mentally and spiritually, and his sufferings make clear to us that he did not really believe his creed. Men who are seriously convinced of heaven don’t mind waiting a few years to join their loved ones; but Tennyson was never really sure that he would see Arthur Hallam again, and he spent seventeen years brooding over this problem, and putting his broodings into “In Memoriam.”