Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892 -- Friends and associates
so much find a difficulty in apprehending demonstrations, as a want of
interest, and a consequent inability to retain them in his memory. A
little more practice in the strict logic of geometry, a little more
familiarity with the physical laws of the universe, and the phenomena
to which they relate, would possibly have repressed the tendency to
vague and mystical speculations which he was too fond of indulging. In
the philosophy of the human mind, he was in no danger of the
materializing theories of some ancient and modern schools; but in
shunning this extreme, he might sometimes forget that, in the honest
pursuit of truth, we can shut our eyes to no real phenomena, and that
the physiology of man must always enter into any valid scheme of his
psychology.
The comparative inferiority which he might show in the usual trials of
knowledge, sprung in a great measure from the want of a prompt and
accurate memory. It was the faculty wherein he shone the least,
according to ordinary observation; though his very extensive reach of
literature, and his rapidity in acquiring languages, sufficed to prove
that it was capable of being largely exercised. He could remember
anything, as a friend observed to the Editor, that was associated with
an idea. But he seemed, at least after he reached manhood, to want
almost wholly the power, so common with inferior understandings, of
retaining, with regularity and exactness, a number of unimportant
uninteresting particulars. It would have been nearly impossible to
make him recollect for three days the date of the battle of Marathon,
or the names in order of the Athenian months. Nor could he repeat
poetry, much as he loved it, with the correctness often found in young
men. It is not improbable, that a more steady discipline in early life
would have strengthened this faculty, or that he might have supplied
its deficiency by some technical devices; but where the higher powers
of intellect were so extraordinarily manifested, it would have been
preposterous to complain of what may perhaps have been a necessary
consequence of their amplitude, or at least a natural result of their
exercise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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