practised the one and wore the other. However, petulances like the
verse on the greater ape are rare in In Memoriam. To declare that "I
would not stay" in life if science proves us to be "cunning casts in
clay," is beneath the courage of the Stoical philosophy.

Theologically, the poem represents the struggle with doubts and hopes
and fears, which had been with Tennyson from his boyhood, as is
proved by the volume of 1830. But the doubts had exerted, probably,
but little influence on his happiness till the sudden stroke of loss
made life for a time seem almost unbearable unless the doubts were
solved. They WERE solved, or stoically set aside, in the Ulysses,
written in the freshness of grief, with the conclusion that we must
be


"Strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."


But the gnawing of grief till it becomes a physical pain, the fever
fits of sorrow, the aching desiderium, bring back in many guises the
old questions. These require new attempts at answers, and are
answered, "the sad mechanic exercise" of verse allaying the pain.
This is the genesis of In Memoriam, not originally written for
publication but produced at last as a monument to friendship, and as
a book of consolation.

No books of consolation can console except by sympathy; and in In
Memoriam sympathy and relief have been found, and will be found, by
many. Another, we feel, has trodden our dark and stony path, has