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Alfred Tennyson by Andrew Lang
page 20 of 219 (09%)
So much, then, of the poet that was to be and of the philosopher
existed in the little volume of the undergraduate. In The Mystic we
notice a phrase, two words long, which was later to be made familiar,
"Daughters of time, divinely tall," reproduced in the picture of
Helen:-


"A daughter of the Gods, divinely tall,
And most divinely fair."


The reflective pieces are certainly of more interest now (though they
seem to have satisfied the poet less) than the gallery of airy fairy
Lilians, Adelines, Rosalinds, and Eleanores:-


"Daughters of dreams and of stories,"


like


"Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores,
Felise, and Yolande, and Juliette."


Cambridge, which he was soon to leave, did not satisfy the poet.
Oxford did not satisfy Gibbon, or later, Shelley; and young men of
genius are not, in fact, usually content with universities which,
perhaps, are doing their best, but are neither governed nor populated
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