* * * * *

It was at Cambridge he met Arthur Hallam--Arthur Hallam, immortal and
remembered alone for being the comrade and friend of Tennyson.

Alfred took his friend Arthur to his home in Lincolnshire one vacation,
and we know how Arthur became enamored of Tennyson's sister Emily, and
they were betrothed. Together, Tennyson and Hallam made a trip through
France and the Pyrenees.

Carlyle and Milburn, the blind preacher, once sat smoking in the little
arbor back of the house in Cheyne Row. They had been talking of Tennyson,
and after a long silence Carlyle knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and
with a grunt said: "Ha! Death is a great blessing--the joyousest blessing
of all! Without death there would ha' been no 'In Memoriam,' no Hallam,
and like enough no Tennyson!" It is futile to figure what would have
occurred had this or that not happened, since every act of life is a
sequence. But that Carlyle and many others believed that the death of
Hallam was the making of Tennyson, there is no doubt. Possibly his soul
needed just this particular amount of bruising in order to make it burst
into undying song--who knows! When Charles Kingsley was asked for the
secret of his exquisite sympathy and fine imagination, he paused a space,
and then answered--"I had a friend." The desire for friendship is strong
in every human heart. We crave the companionship of those who can
understand. The nostalgia of life presses, we sigh for "home," and long
for the presence of one who sympathizes with our aspirations, comprehends
our hopes and is able to partake of our joys. A thought is not our own
until we impart it to another, and the confessional seems a crying need of
every human soul.