PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
As most readers of a book are said to ignore the Preface, I will beg anyone who may intend to use this Commentary to read, for his own sake, the first two of the following paragraphs.
The stanzas beginning Strong Son of God, with which In Memoriam opens, are called in these pages the ‘Prologue’; the stanzas at the end, beginning O true and tried, the ‘Epilogue’; the 131 intervening pieces, ‘sections, or, where the word could not be misunderstood, ‘poems.’ The sections are referred to by Roman numerals, their lines by Arabic: thus ‘XL. 10’ means ‘section XL. line 10. I found it indispensable to refer usually to lines, not stanzas. In the case of the shorter sections this will give the reader no trouble, but he will find it convenient to number the lines of a few longer ones. I am sorry that in referring to many of Tennyson’s other poems I was unable to guide the reader to the passage in question, as the lines are not numbered.
