To be concerned so early with such hypotheses,
and to face, in poetry, the religious or irreligious inferences which
may be drawn from them, decidedly constitutes part of the poetic
originality of Tennyson. His attitude, as a poet, towards religious
doubt is only so far not original, as it is part of the general
reaction from the freethinking of the eighteenth century. Men had
then been freethinkers avec delices. It was a joyous thing to be an
atheist, or something very like one; at all events, it was glorious
to be "emancipated." Many still find it glorious, as we read in the
tone of Mr Huxley, when he triumphs and tramples over pious dukes and
bishops. Shelley said that a certain schoolgirl "would make a dear
little atheist." But by 1828-1830 men were less joyous in their
escape from all that had hitherto consoled and fortified humanity.
Long before he dreamed of In Memoriam, in the Poems chiefly Lyrical
of 1830 Tennyson had written -
"'Yet,' said I, in my morn of youth,
The unsunn'd freshness of my strength,
When I went forth in quest of truth,
'It is man's privilege to doubt.' . . .
Ay me! I fear
All may not doubt, but everywhere
Some must clasp Idols. Yet, my God,
Whom call I Idol? Let Thy dove
Shadow me over, and my sins
Be unremember'd, and Thy love
Enlighten me. Oh teach me yet
Somewhat before the heavy clod
Weighs on me, and the busy fret
Of that sharp-headed worm begins
In the gross blackness underneath.
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