Arthur Hallam, a son of that Henry Hallam who is generally alluded2 to as “the historian”—although it would puzzle most of those airy, allusive3 folk to name offhand4 the historical works of which he was the author—would appear to have been in posse an Admirable Crichton. He composed poetry and wrote philosophical5 essays at a tender age, thought great and improving things, and had already begun to set up as something of a paragon6, when death rendered impossible the fulfilment of this early promise. There were at that time some terribly earnest young men, ready and willing—if not realty able—to set the world right. Prophets and seers abounded7 in 33that dark first half of the nineteenth century, when religion was at odds8 with the comparatively new era of steam and machinery9. Each one had a panacea10 for the ills of the age, and each had his own little band of devoted11 admirers, devoted on condition that he should in his turn spare a little admiration12 for those who hung upon his words and doings. Prigs and prodigies13 stalked the earth, preaching new gospels. They formed mutual14-admiration societies, wherein each protested how vastly endowed with all the virtues15 and all the intellect possible was the other; and before they had outgrown16 their legal definition of “infants” and had come of age and become technically17 men, were ready with criticisms and appreciations18 of Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare, and were laying down the laws of conduct in this life, with speculations19 upon what awaits us in the next. It was a morbid20, unhealthy generation; but at the same time, these sucking philosophers were not without the tradesman instinct, and zealously21 combined to advertise one another. Thus, the early Tennysonian circle at Cambridge was a Society of Mutual Encouragement, with its eyes well fixed23 on publicity24. How valuable were some of these early friendships may well be guessed from the one outstanding fact that it was Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton, one of this circle, who at an early date, when Tennyson himself was little more than a hopeful promise as a poet, procured25 by his influence with Sir Robert Peel, the then Prime Minister, a pension 34of ￡200 a year for his friend. It fortunately proved a wise selection; but in the case of Tennyson’s over-elaborate post-mortem praise of his friend Hallam, we have foisted26 upon us a very high estimate of one who, although engaged to the poet’s sister, Emily, and thus additionally endeared to him, had not yet proved himself beyond this narrow circle. He was, therefore, no fitting subject for the “rich shrine,” as Tennyson himself styled it, of “In Memoriam,” but should have been mourned privately27.
The connection of the Hallams with Clevedon was through the mother of Arthur. She was a daughter of Sir Abraham Elton, of Clevedon Court. Arthur Hallam died in Austria, and his body was brought to Clevedon for burial; hence the allusion28 in the poem, in that metre Tennyson fondly imagined himself had originated:
The Danube to the Severn gave
The darkened heart that beat no more:
They laid him by the pleasant shore,
And in the hearing of the wave.
There twice a day the Severn fills;
The salt sea-water passes by
And makes a silence in the hills.
The Wye is hushed nor moved along,
And hushed my deepest grief of all,
When filled with tears that cannot fall,
I brim with sorrow drowning song.
35The tide flows down, the wave again
And I can speak a little then.
Clevedon church was selected as the resting-place of Arthur Henry Hallam, “not only from the connection of kindred, but on account of its still and sequestered33 situation on a lone34 hill that overhangs the Bristol Channel.”
CLEVEDON.
Much has been altered at Clevedon since 1833, when that decision was made. The village has become a small town, of some six thousand inhabitants, and although the ancient parish church is still at the very fringe of modern boarding-house and lodging-house developments, yet no one could now have the hardihood to describe its position as “lone.”
All this, if you do but consider awhile, is entirely35 in keeping with the change of sentiment 36since that time when the poem was written. Everything is more material. We no longer examine our souls at frequent intervals36, to see how they are getting on—after the manner of children with garden plants. The practice is equally injurious to souls and to plants. Yes, even in this material age, among those who have not forgotten or denied their God there is a better spirit than that which characterises the “In Memoriam” period. The faith that is demanded of the Christian—the faith of little children—was not in these troubled folk. The assurance we have of Divine infinite goodness and mercy was not sufficient for them. They must needs enquire37 and speculate, and seek to reason out those things that are beyond research and scholarship. A great deal of mental arrogance38 is wrapped up in these semi-spiritual gropings and fumblings towards the light. You see the attitude of the consciously Superior Person therein, and all these troubles leave you cold and unsympathetic; and all the more so when it is borne in upon you that they were carefully pieced together and prepared for the market during a space of sixteen years.
The inevitable39 result of the piecemeal40 and laborious41 methods employed is that the belated poem lacks cohesion42, and although there are gems43 of thought and expression embedded44 in the mass of verbiage45, it must needs be confessed that “In Memoriam” is a sprawling46 and unwieldy tribute. The “rich shrine” erected47 has indeed 37a great deal of uninspired journeyman work, and is, in fact, not a little ruinous. It is safe to conclude that portions only of it will survive, while “Maud,” that line poem of passion, will endure so long as English verse is read.
To the present writer—if a personal note may be permitted—the tone and outlook of this long-sustained effort are alike depressing. This is not robust48 poetry, and for the already morbid-minded it is easily conceivable that it might even be disastrous49.
Tennyson in those early years had what we cannot but think the great misfortune not to possess a local knowledge. He made a personal acquaintance with what was then the little village of Clevedon only when “In Memoriam” was completed, and was thus unfortunately unable to verify some of his most important descriptive details. He visited Clevedon only belatedly, and knew so little of the circumstances, although he publicly mourned his friend so keenly and at such length, that he was not quite sure where they had laid him. We observe him trying twice to place the grave, and failing:
’Tis well; ’tis something; we may stand
Where he in English earth is laid,
And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
Or else, he proceeds to say, if not in the churchyard, then in the chancel:
Where the kneeling hamlet drains
38Leaving aside that shockingly infelicitous52 alliterative expression, “the grapes of God,” intended to convey the meaning of “communion wine,” we know that neither in the churchyard nor in the chancel was the body of Arthur Hallam laid, but in the south transept. But he continues:
And in the chancel like a ghost,
making another bad shot. This, however, was remedied in later editions, in which “dark church” was substituted for “chancel.” But, since Clevedon church is not exceptionally dark, why not the word “transept,” which would be absolutely correct and certainly more poetic54 and less clumsy than “dark church”?
The white marble tablet to the memory of Arthur Hallam is fixed, with those to his father and others of the family, on the west wall of the little transept. Speaking of it, the poet says:
When on my bed the moonlight falls,
I know that in thy place of rest
By that broad water of the west,
There comes a glory on the walls:
Thy marble bright in dark appears,
As slowly steals a silver flame
Along the letters of thy name
And o’er the numbers of thy years.
It is the ghastly morbidness55 of this that at first arrests the reader’s attention, and a closer 39examination does not by any means impress him; for surely to describe a moonbeam as a “flame,” moonlight in fact, in appearance, and in the long history of poetic thought being notoriously cold and the very negation56 of heat, is a lapse57 from the rightness of things more characteristic of a poetaster seeking at any cost a rhyme to “name” than the mark of a great poet.
It has long been the fashion among those who shout with the biggest crowd to point scornfully at the critic who, discussing “In Memoriam” soon after it was published, wrote: “These touching58 lines evidently come from the full heart of the widow of a military man.” This has been termed “inept.” Now, if we turn to the dictionaries, we shall find the commonly received definition of that word to be “unfitting.” But was it, indeed, unfitting? The opinion of that critic did not actually fit the facts; but the morbid tone of the poem, and the singularly feminine ring of such phrases as “The man I held as half-divine,” “my Arthur,” and the like, seem to many a reader to be a perfect justification59 of the aptness of the critic’s views; and remind us that none other than Bulwer Lytton once referred to Tennyson as “school-miss Alfred.”
My Arthur, whom I shall not see
Till all my widowed race be run;
Dear as the mother to the son,
More than my brothers are to me.
There is the critic’s ample defence. To a 40healthily constituted mind, that verse is more than ordinarily revolting.
The humble61 little hilltop church of St. Andrew, anciently a fisherman’s chapel62, has many modern rivals in suburbanised Clevedon; but in it is centred all the ecclesiastical interest of the place. It is chiefly a Transitional-Norman building, with aisleless nave63 and chancel, north and south transepts, and central tower of Perpendicular64 date, but plain to severity. The pointed65 Transitional arch is the finest and most elaborate part of the building and is richly moulded. Hagioscopes command views from either transept into the chancel. Near the chancel arch is a curious miniature recumbent effigy66, two feet six inches in length, in the costume of the sixteenth century, representing a woman, of which no particulars are known. It is thought to be that of a dwarf67. The Hallam and Elton monumental tablets are on the walls of the south transept; of plain white marble, with characteristically bald monumental-mason’s lettering; the very ne plus ultra of the commonplace and matter-of-fact, and very trying indeed to hero-worshipping pilgrims. For ornament68 and display of mosaic69 and gilding70 the visitor should turn to the reredos, recently placed in the chancel. Whether he will delight in it, after the severity of the tablets, is a matter for individual prejudices; but he surely will not feel delighted by being approached by a caretaker with pencil and notebook and a request for a gift towards the restoration fund—which 41doubtless includes the cost of this theatrical71 reredos. It has come to this: that the Tennysonian association has been made the excuse and stalking-horse for badgering the visitor for sixpences. The wise visitor, whether he approves of elaborate restoration or not, will leave those who called the tune50 to pay the piper, and will further leave to the Elton family of Clevedon Court, who draw an excellent revenue from their property here, the duty and the pleasure of footing the bills that may yet be unsatisfied.
Clevedon Court lies away back on the direct Bristol road, over a mile distant from the church and the sea, and removed from the modern developments of the place, which at one and the same time have largely enriched its owners, the Elton family, and have rendered the neighbourhood less desirable as a residence to them. Ever, with each succeeding phase of Clevedon’s growth, the sweetly beautiful valley that runs up hither from the sea is further encroached upon by houses, until at the present time a few outlying blocks are within sight of the Court itself. The recently opened light railway also bids fair to be the prelude72 to further building-operations.
Meanwhile, the grounds of the Court remain as beautiful as ever, ascending73 to a long and lofty ridge22, heavily wooded. The Court itself, of which the interior is not generally shown, stands prominently facing the park wall and the road, only a few yards away, and is quite easily to be seen. It is a long, low mansion74, a singular 42mass of Gothic gables, chimneys, and terraces, dating originally from the early years of the fourteenth century, when it was built by the De Clyvedons. Court and estates passed with an heiress by marriage to one Thomas Hogshaw, thence in the same manner to the Lovell family, and from them to the Wakes, whose arms and allusive motto, “Wake and Pray,” are to be found in parts of the house altered by them about 1570. The Wake family sold their possessions at Clevedon to Digby, Earl of Bristol; and finally the executors of the third Earl sold them to the Elton family in the time of Queen Anne.
Great destruction was caused to the west front of the Court by the fire that broke out in November 1882, but the damage has been so skilfully75 repaired that, to any save the closest inspection76, the building retains the aspect it had long presented. The chief feature of the principal front, of fourteenth-century date, is the entrance-porch, with portcullis, and room over. Here, midway along the irregular front, is a very large square window, filled with curiously77 diapered tracery. Thackeray, who often visited here, as a friend of the Rev60. William H. Brookfield and his wife, Jane Octavia, sister of Sir Charles Elton, then owner of Clevedon Court, has left a somewhat striking pencil sketch78 of the building, viewed from this point. The house is the original of “Castlewood,” in his novel, “Esmond.”
CLEVEDON COURT.
Clevedon Court was largely rearranged in the time of Queen Elizabeth, in accordance with the 43ideas of comfort then prevailing79, considerably80 in advance of those that ruled when it was originally built, in the reign81 of Edward the Second. But it was left to the remarkable82 people who ruled when the nineteenth century was yet young to further modernise83 the ancient residence, and they perpetrated strange things: painting and graining interior stonework to resemble oak, and the like atrocities84; the highest ambition of builders and decorators in that era of shame being to treat honest materials as though they were not to be shown for what they really were, and to make them masquerade as something else. No one ever was deceived by the plaster of that age, pretending to be stone; and stone that was given two coats of paint and tickled85 with a grainer’s comb, and then finished off with varnish86, never yet made convincing oak, any more than “marbled” wall-papers looked or felt like real marble; but those were then conventional treatments, 44and were followed and honoured all over the land.
At the same time, the ancient oak roof of the hall of Clevedon Court was hidden behind a plaster ceiling.
But the house is not sought out only for its antiquity87, or for the beauty of its situation, or even for its Thackeray associations. After all, does any considerable section of the public really care for Thackeray landmarks88? Writers of literary gossip, of prefaces to new editions, may affect to think so, but, in fact, Thackeray does not command that intimate sympathy which Dickens enjoys. Sentiment does not attach itself to the satirist89, who, in the odd moments when he, too, sentimentalises, is apt to be suspected, quite wrongly, of insincerity. It is for its Tennyson associations that Clevedon Court is sought by most tourists.
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1
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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allusive
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| adj.暗示的；引用典故的 | |
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4
offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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5
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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paragon
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| n.模范，典型 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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10
panacea
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| n.万灵药；治百病的灵药 | |
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11
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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12
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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13
prodigies
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| n.奇才，天才（尤指神童）( prodigy的名词复数 ) | |
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14
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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17
technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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18
appreciations
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| n.欣赏( appreciation的名词复数 )；感激；评定；（尤指土地或财产的）增值 | |
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19
speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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20
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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21
zealously
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| adv.热心地；热情地；积极地；狂热地 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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24
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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25
procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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26
foisted
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| 强迫接受，把…强加于( foist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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29
hushes
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| n.安静，寂静( hush的名词复数 ) | |
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30
babbling
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| n.胡说，婴儿发出的咿哑声adj.胡说的v.喋喋不休( babble的现在分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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32
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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sequestered
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| adj.扣押的；隐退的；幽静的；偏僻的v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的过去式和过去分词 )；扣押 | |
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34
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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37
enquire
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| v.打听，询问；调查，查问 | |
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38
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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40
piecemeal
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| adj.零碎的；n.片，块；adv.逐渐地；v.弄成碎块 | |
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41
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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cohesion
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| n.团结，凝结力 | |
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gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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verbiage
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| n.冗词；冗长 | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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47
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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51
chalice
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| n.圣餐杯；金杯毒酒 | |
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52
infelicitous
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| adj.不适当的 | |
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glimmers
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| n.微光，闪光( glimmer的名词复数 )v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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morbidness
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| （精神的）病态 | |
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negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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61
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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64
perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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66
effigy
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| n.肖像 | |
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67
dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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70
gilding
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| n.贴金箔，镀金 | |
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71
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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72
prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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73
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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74
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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75
skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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76
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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77
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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78
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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79
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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80
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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81
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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82
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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83
modernise
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| vt.使现代化 | |
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84
atrocities
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| n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪 | |
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85
tickled
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| （使）发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）愉快，逗乐 | |
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86
varnish
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| n.清漆；v.上清漆；粉饰 | |
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87
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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88
landmarks
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| n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址） | |
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89
satirist
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| n.讽刺诗作者，讽刺家，爱挖苦别人的人 | |
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