Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book

When we turn to Tennyson the comparison must proceed on different grounds, and takes us back to Coleridge's fine definition of inspiration, given half a century ago in his ‘Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit.’ ‘Whatever finds me,’ he wrote, ‘at a greater depth than usual, that is inspired.’ It is because Emerson in his way and Hawthorne in his way touch us at greater depths than Tennyson that their chance for immortality is stronger. Form is doubtless needed in the expression; but in Hawthorne there is no defect of form, and the frequent defects of this kind in Emerson are balanced by tones and cadences so noble that the exquisite lyre of Tennyson, taken at its best, has never reached them. I do not object to the details of treatment in Mr. Bryce's chapter, and it contains many admirable suggestions; but it seems to me that he might well preface it, in a second edition, by some such remark—addressed to some fancied personification