TENNYSON'S " IN MEMORIAM."
[To THE EDITOR OF Tan "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—In his review of Mr. Bradley's Commentary on Tennyson's "In Memoriam" (Spectator, September 7th) your reviewer, quoting the lines from the opening of the ninety- seventh elegy-
" He finds on misty mountain ground His own vast shadow glory-crown'd"— appears to consider that " mountain " and " glory-crown'd " have reference to heaven. Are not the lines, however, simply a description of the natural phenomenon known as the Spectre of the Brocken ? Abbe Gorreb (quoted in Mr. Whymper's " Scrambles Amongst the Alps") described this apparition as seen by him from the Matter- horn : " Le nuage etait tres dense du cote de Valtour- nanche, c'etait serein en Suisse ; nous now; vimes au milieu d'un cercle aux couleurs de l'arc-en-ciel ; ce mirage nous formait a tons une conronne an milieu de laquelle nous voyions notre ombre,"—an account that seems almost to para- phrase Tennyson. The meaning, of course, would be that the poet's affection finds resemblances even in the most un-
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