Authors and Friends Part 22

was not a legend to him alone, but a vision of the Holy Grail toward which he aspired.

It were easy, indeed it is a temptation, to record every detail, stamped as they all are on the memory after several visits at Farringford and at Aldworth; but the beautiful paper printed only a few years ago by Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie, now given to the world in a volume, where Tennyson stands as one of "The Light-Bearers,"

would make any repet.i.tion of the history of his family life worse than unnecessary. Mrs. Ritchie's friendship with the members of that household, and her familiarity with the houses and scenery which surrounded them, have given her the opportunity to do what her genius has executed.

Summer was again here, with a touch of autumn in the air--this autumn in which we write--when we last saw Lord Tennyson at Aldworth. He was already unwell and suffering from a cold. He sat, however, on his couch, which was drawn across the great window, where he could look off, when he turned his head, and see the broad green valley and the hills beyond, or, near at hand, could watch the terrace and his own trees, and catch a glimpse of the garden.

The great frame had lost its look of giant strength; the hands were thinner; but the habit of his mind and spirit was the same. Again we heard the voice; again we felt the uplift of his presence. He was aware that he was not to stay here much longer, and when we bent over him to say good-by, we knew and he knew it was indeed "farewell." He was surrounded with deep love and tenderness and the delightful presence of his little grandchildren, and when, shortly after, his weakness increased, he doubtless heard the words sounding in his mind:--

"Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages,

Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages."

He asked for "Cymbeline" that he might carry the n.o.ble lines clearly in remembrance. Later the moon shone full into the room, and in that dim splendor, and to the music of the autumn wind, his spirit pa.s.sed.

EMILY, LADY TENNYSON

When I first saw Lady Tennyson she was in the prime of life. Her two sons, boys of eight and ten years of age perhaps, were by her side.

Farringford was at that time almost the same beautiful solitude the lovers had found it years before, when it was first their home.

Occasionally a curious sight-seer, or a poet-worshiper, had been known to stray across the grounds or to climb a tree in order to view the green retired spot; but as a rule Tennyson could still wander unwatched and unseen through the garden, over the downs, and stand alone on the sh.o.r.e of the great sea.

It was already afternoon when we arrived dusty and travel-stained at the hospitable door, which was wide open, shaded by vines, showing the interior dark and cool. Mrs. Tennyson, in her habitual and simple costume of a long gray dress and lace kerchief over her head, met us with her true and customary cordiality, leading us to the low drawing- room, where a large oriel window opening on the lawn and the half- life-size statue of Wordsworth were the two points which caught my attention as we entered. Her step as she preceded us was long and free. Something in her bearing and trailing dress, perhaps, gave her a mediaeval aspect which suited with the house. The latter, I have been told, was formerly a baronial holding, and the fair Enid and the young Elaine appeared to be at one with her own childhood. They were no longer centuries apart from the slender fair-haired lady who now lay on a couch by our side,--they were a portion of her own existence, of a nature obedient to tradition, obedient to home, obedient to love.

The world has made large advance, and the sound of the wheels of progress were not unheard in the lady's room at Farringford. She was ready to sympathize with every form of emanc.i.p.ation; but for herself, her poet's life was her life, and his necessity was her great opportunity.

I recall Mrs. Browning once saying to me, "Ah, Tennyson is too much indulged. His wife is too much his second self; she does not criticise enough." But Tennyson was not a second Browning. The delicate framework of his imagination, filled in by elemental harmonies, was not to be carelessly touched. She understood his work and his nature, and he stood firm where he had early planted himself by her side in worshiping affection and devotion. "Alfred carried the sheets of his new poem up to London," she said one day, "and showed them to Mr.

Monckton Milnes, who persuaded him to leave out one of the best lines; but I persuaded him to replace it when he came home. It is a mistake in general for him to listen to the suggestions of others about his poems."

All this was long ago, and the finger of memory has left faint tracings for me to follow; but I recall her figure at dinner as she sat in her soft white muslin dress, tied with blue, at that time hardly whiter than her face or bluer than her eyes, and how the boys stood sometimes one on either side of her in their black velvet dresses, like Millais' picture of the princes in the tower, and sometimes helped to serve the guests. By and by we adjourned to another room, where there was a fire and a shining dark table with fruit and wine after her own picturesque fashion, and where later the poet read to us, while she, being always delicate in health, took her accustomed couch. I remember the quaint apartment for the night, on different levels, and the faded tapestry,--recalling "the faded mantle and the faded veil," her tender personal care, and her friendly good- night, the silence, the sweetness, and the calm.

She sometimes joined our out-door expeditions, but could not walk with us. For years she used a wheeled chair, as Mrs. Ritchie has charmingly described in her truthful and sympathetic sketch of the life at Aldworth. I only a.s.sociated her with the interior, where her influence was perfect.

The social atmosphere of Farringford, which depended upon its mistress, was warm and simple. A pleasant company of neighbors and friends was gathered when "Maud" was read aloud to us, a wide group, grateful and appreciative, and one to which he liked to read.

After this the mists of time close over! I can recall her again in the gray dress and kerchief following our footsteps to the door. I can see her graceful movement of the head as she waved her adieux; I can see the poet's dusky figure standing by her side, and that is all.

Sometimes she lives confusedly to the world of imagination as the Abbess at Almesbury; and sometimes, as one who knew her has said, she was like the first of the three queens, "the tallest of them all, and fairest," who bore away the body of Arthur. She was no less than these, being a living inspiration at the heart of the poet's every-day life.

It would seem to be upon another visit that we were talking in the drawing-room about Browning. "We should like to see him oftener," she said, "he is delightful company, but we cannot get him to come here; we are too quiet for him!"

I found food for thought in this little speech when I remembered the fatuous talk at dinner-tables where I had sometimes met Browning, and thought of Tennyson's great talk and the lofty serenity of his lady's presence.

My last interview with Lady Tennyson was scarcely two months before Tennyson's death. The great grief of their life in the loss of their son Lionel had fallen upon them meanwhile. They were then at Aldworth, which, although a house of their own building, was far more mediaeval in appearance than Farringford. She was alone, and still on the couch in the large drawing-room, and there she spoke with the same youth of heart, the same deep tenderness, the same simple affection which had never failed through years of intercourse. When she rose to say farewell and to follow me as far as possible, she stepped with the same spirited sweep I had first seen.

The happiness of welcoming her lovely face, which wore to those who knew her an indescribable heavenliness, is mine no more; but the memory cannot be effaced of one lady who held the traditions of high womanhood safe above the possible deteriorations of human existence.