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Excerpt from In Memoriam

I have made no attempt to note all the slight verbal changes which the poet made in the successive editions of the poem. They are sixty-two in number, most of them insignificant, and have been many times collated. In this omission I feel that I am quite in accord with the wishes of the poet himself, of whom his son observes: He 'gave the people of his best, ' and he usually wished that his best should remain without variorum readings, 'the chips of the work-shop, ' as he called them. In only a few cases where the change is really significant, especially when the poet himself commented on it, have I departed from this rule and made a note of the change.

To former editions of In Memoriam and to many critics on both sides of the Atlantic every new editor must necessarily be indebted. Especially great is the debt which every student of Tennyson, the world over, owes to the beautiful memoir of the poet by his son. It is a treasure house of interesting and valuable information, and one of the most satisfactory biographies ever written. My obliga tions to this and to' various other books and magazine articles are duly acknowledged in the notes.

The preparation of this little volume has been a labor of love. Begun nearly ten years ago, and gone over year after year in connection with my classes in the literature of the nineteenth century, it has at last assumed a form which, it is hoped, may help a larger circle to appreciate one of the most beautiful as it is one of the most thoughtful and Inspiring poems of modern times. V. P. S.

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