The Part of All — Tennyson Mug

A mug featuring Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "I am a part of all that I have met." from Ulysses (1833). Literary objects by Quoteiac.

Start your morning with the line Tennyson put in Ulysses's mouth — the one that reframes every place you've been as something you still carry.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses" (1842)

"I am a part of all that I have met;"

Tennyson wrote this at 24, the morning after learning his best friend had died. He needed a reason to keep going and he wrote one: nothing you've met is lost. Every person, every place, every book — absorbed, accumulated, carried forward. The semicolon is original; the sentence goes on, but this is where it stops you.

This is the mug for the person who starts the day with an awareness of what they're made of. Lefties see it. Righties see it. The accumulation doesn't pick sides.

The Design

The full line — semicolon included, as Tennyson wrote it — runs both sides of the mug, a gold rule separating the quote from the attribution below. The line doesn't end, and the mug doesn't let it.

Also on the The Part of All Tee and The Part of All Journal.

Your Morning Inventory

• The full line — semicolon included — wraps the mug the way the past wraps a life: completely
• 15 oz black glossy ceramic — two-sided print
• Dishwasher safe; microwave safe

Who It's For

The traveler. The reader. The person who understands that the people they've known, the books they've read, the places they've been — they're not memories. They're materials.

Start the day knowing what you're made of.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in Plain English

• Lived: 1809–1892, England
• Queen Victoria called him her favorite living poet and elevated him to Baron Tennyson in 1850
• "Ulysses" is a dramatic monologue — Tennyson speaking as an aging king who still refuses to stop, written at 24 when he needed to believe the same thing
• His friend Hallam's death also produced In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850) — written over 17 years, one of the longest elegies in English
• Recited at funerals, carried by explorers, quoted by people who couldn't explain why it held them