With trembling fingers did we weave

Section introductions from Alfred Gatty, <i>A Key to Lord Tennyson's “In Memoriam”</i>, 4th ed. (George Bell &amp; Sons, 1900; Project Gutenberg #36637). Line notes credited “[Tennyson]” are Tennyson's own notes; “[Hallam Tennyson]” marks a note that is wholly his son and editor's own explanatory bracket, not the poet's own words; “[Emily Tennyson]” marks the few notes signed by his wife. All three are from <i>The Works of Tennyson, Annotated by the Author</i>, ed. Hallam, Lord Tennyson, vol. 3 (Macmillan, 1908; Internet Archive worksoftennysona03tennuoft). Line notes credited “[Bradley]” are A. C. Bradley's, from <i>A Commentary on Tennyson's In Memoriam</i> (Macmillan, 1910; Internet Archive commentaryontenn00braduoft). All these number sections by the final, 131-section text, not the site's own 1850 numbering: from final XL to LVIII subtract one section number, from LX on subtract two, to reach the site's; the site prints the 129-section first edition of 1850 (see the work's own blurb), so two of the final text's numbered sections have no home here and are skipped.

1. Stanza 2 the hall was the dining- room at Somersby which my father [the Rev. G. C. Tennyson] built [Tennyson]
2. Stanza 2, line 4 ' one mute Shadow ': surely the dead friend, not Death. Contrast the Epilogue, 85-88. See Introduction, pp. 41-43. [Bradley]
3. Stanza 4, line 1 ' echo-like': explained by the next lines. [Bradley]
4. Stanza 4, line 2 The poet audaciously, for the sake of the sound, uses the two forms 'sung' and 'sang' in successive lines. [Bradley]
5. Stanza 4, line 4 See p. 20. [Bradley]
6. Stanza 7, line 1 Rapt from the fickle and the frail. [Cf. The Ring-.
   
   No sudden heaven, nor sudden hell, for man, But thro' the Will of One who knows and
   
   rules —
   
   And utter knowledge is but utter love — ^Eonian Evolution, swift or slow,
   
   Thro' all the Spheres — an ever opening height, An ever lessening earth. Cf. Memoir, ii. 365. — ED.] Rapt, taken. [Tennyson]
7. Stanza 7, line 1 ' The soul, freed from instability and weakness, un- changed in essence, but with strengthened powers, passes from embodiment to embodiment upon world after world.'
   
   'seraphic flame': cf. Milton's 'flaming seraph' (P.L.,V. 875), and 'bright seraphim in burning row' (At a Solemn Music}. For the collocation of ' rapt ' with ' seraphic flame ' cf. Pope's 'rapt seraph that adores and burns,' Essay on Man, i. 278. Cf. XLI. 1-4.
   
   ' veil.' Cf. Sir John Oldcastle, 'He veil'd Himself in flesh.*
   
   The idea that the soul passes through life after life appears elsewhere in Tennyson (e.g. in the Two Voices and in De Profuitdis). Here we have the additional ideas that in each life it is embodied, and that the successive embodiments are on different worlds. Cf. LXXXII. 5, 6, LXXIII. I,
   
   So many worlds, so much to do,
   
   and in The Ring the lines which Tennyson 'would quote as giving his own belief that " the after-life is one of pro- gress " ' (Memoir, II. 365):
   
   No sudden heaven, nor sudden hell, for man, But thro' the Will of One who knows and rules—
   
   And utter knowledge is but utter love —
   
   Ionian Evolution, swift or slow,
   
   Thro5 all the Spheres — an ever opening height,
   
   An ever lessening earth.
   
   In In Memoriam, the poet is content at last to leave these matters undefined. [Bradley]
8. Stanza 8 when Hope was born. [My father often said: " The cardinal point of Christianity is the life after death." — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
9. Stanza 8, line 4 'Hope': the hope of immortality, born with Christ? 'He said to Bishop Lightfoot: " The cardinal point of Christianity is the Life after Death" (2 Tim., ch. I.).' Memoir, i. 321. [Bradley]