One hundred years ago
A CORRESPONDENT of the Athenaeum repeats the old and rather absurd story that in the allusion to his "Pilot" in Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar", the poet referred either to his deceased son, Lionel, or to his deceased friend, Arthur Hallam. We have the Present Lord Tennyson's authority for saying that the story is old, and that his father constantly repudiated it; and °nee, when too much plagued, asked what they thought he used a capital 'P' for?" The idea, too, that the word "dark", in "after that the dark", is agnostic, is absurd. The allusion is to the valley of the shadow of death". "Crossing the Bar" appears to have caught a fresh hold on the sympathies of Londoners, a leaflet with it, under a rough portrait of Tennyson, being sold Iii the streets in thousands for a penny.
The Spectator 22 October 1892
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