Yet
he did use "the file," of which much is now written, especially for
the purpose of polishing away the sibilants, so common in our
language. In the nine years of silence which followed the little
book of 1833 his poems matured, and henceforth it is probable that he
altered his verses little, if we except the modifications in The
Princess. Many slight verbal touches were made, or old readings were
restored, but important changes, in the way of omission or addition,
became rare.
Of nature Tennyson was scrupulously observant till his very latest
days, eagerly noting, not only "effects," as a painter does, but
their causes, botanical or geological. Had man been scientific from
the beginning he would probably have evolved no poetry at all;
material things would not have been endowed by him with life and
passion; he would have told himself no stories of the origins of
stars and flowers, clouds and fire, winds and rainbows. Modern poets
have resented, like Keats and Wordsworth, the destruction of the old
prehistoric dreams by the geologist and by other scientific
characters. But it was part of Tennyson's poetic originality to see
the beautiful things of nature at once with the vision of early
poetic men, and of moderns accustomed to the microscope, telescope,
spectrum analysis, and so forth. Thus Tennyson received a double
delight from the sensible universe, and it is a double delight that
he communicates to his readers.
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