eeding not the heart'--and complains of their
indifference to the movements of their own age and to the needs of their
pupils. For, despite the ferment which was spreading in the realms of
theology, of politics, and of natural science, the Dons still taught
their classics in the dry pedantic manner of the past, and refused to
face the problems of the nineteenth century. For Tennyson, whose mind
was already capacious and deep, these problems had a constant
attraction, and he had to fall back upon solitary musings and on talks
with Hallam and other friends. Partly perhaps because he missed the more
rigorous training of the schools, we have to wait another ten years
before we see marks of his deeper thinking in his work. He was but
groping and feeling his way. In the 'Poems, chiefly Lyrical' which he
produced in 1830, rich images abound, play of fancy and beauty of
expression; but there are few signs of the power of thought which he was
to show in later volumes.

After three years thus spent, by no means unfruitfully, though it was
only by his prize poem of 'Timbuctoo' that he won public honours, he was
called away from Cambridge by family troubles and returned to Somersby
in February 1831. His father had broken down in health, and a month
later he died, suddenly and peacefully, in his arm-chair. After the
rector's death an arrangement was made that the family should continue
to inhabit the Rectory; and Tennyson, who was now his mother's chief
help and stay, settled down to a studious life at home, varied by
occasional visits to London. The habit of seclusion was already forming.
He was much given to solitary walking and to spending his evening in an
attic reading by himself. But this was not due to moroseness or
selfishness, as we can see from his intercourse with family and friends.
He would willingly give hours to reading aloud to his mother, or sit
listening happily while his sisters played music. From this time indeed
he seems to have taken his father's place in the home; and with Hallam
and other friends he continued on the same affectionate terms. He had
not Dickens's buoyant temper and love of company, nor did he indulge in
the splenetic outbursts of Carlyle. He could, when it was needed, find
time to fulfil the humblest duties and then return with contentment to
his solitude. But his thoughts seemed naturally to lift him above the
level of others, and he was most truly himself when he was alone. Apart
from his eye