Tennyson and His Friends Part 30

_T._ "I am sorry that I am turned into a school-book at Harrow; the boys will say of me, 'That horrible Tennyson.' The cheapness of English cla.s.sics makes the plan acceptable to schoolmasters and parents."

He quoted with approval Byron's line--

Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so.

"He was quite right. I, too, was so overdosed with Horace as a boy, that I don't do him justice now I am old. I suppose Horace was the most popular poet that ever lived?"

Rough dissonant words in great poets were a trial to him; he declared that those horrid words, _Eingeweide_ and _Beschutzer_, are the ruin of Goethe's otherwise perfect lyrics.

_T._ "At Weimar the Grand d.u.c.h.ess sent an apology for not receiving me in person. After visiting Goethe's study, bedroom and sitting-room, I was shocked by the meanness of the streets, and the horrid smells in the town itself. I felt as tetchy and vexed as Macbeth with his 'out, out, brief candle,' a pa.s.sage so utterly misunderstood by Macready, who dropped his voice and gave the words a pathos that I _am quite sure_ was never intended."

_T._ "_The Tempest_ has been dreadfully damaged by scenes intercalated by some common stage-adapter. At one time of my life I thought the Sonnets greater than the Plays. Some of the n.o.blest things are in _Troilus and Cressida_."

Perseverance, dear my Lord, keeps honour bright, etc.

_T._ "Have you observed a solecism in Milton's _Penseroso_?

But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale, And _love_ the high embowed roof With antique pillars ma.s.sy proof, etc."

_T._ "I do not remember getting from your cousin Hartley Coleridge the Sonnet you speak of, still less can I account for its being in the Library in the South Kensington Museum."

This Sonnet is headed

SONNET TO ALFRED TENNYSON

_After meeting him for the first time_

Long have I known thee as thou art in song, And long enjoyed the perfume that exhales From thy pure soul, and odour sweet entails, And permanence on thoughts that float along The stream of life to join the pa.s.sive throng Of shades and echoes that are memory's being, Hearing we hear not, and we see not seeing If Pa.s.sion, Fancy, Faith, move not among The never frequent moments of reflection.

Long have I view'd thee in the chrystal sphere Of verse, that like the Beryl makes appear Visions of hope, begot of recollection.

Knowing thee now, a real earth-treading man Not less I love thee, and no more I can.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

_T._ "I liked Hartley Coleridge, 'Ma.s.sa' Hartley' as the rustics called him. He was a lovable little fellow. Once he said to me, 'Had I been Colonel Burns (the Poet's eldest son) I would have kicked Wordsworth for delivering that preachment.' On one occasion Hartley, who was very eccentric, was asked to dine with the family of a stiff Presbyterian clergyman residing in the Lake district. The guests, Trappist fashion, sat a long time in the drawing-room waiting for the announcement of dinner.

Not a word was uttered, and Hartley was bored to extinction. At last he suddenly jumped up from the sofa, kissed the clergyman's wife, and rushed out of the house. He was wonderfully eloquent, and, I fancy, resembled his father in that respect."

_T._ "I doubt that fine poem 'Kubla Khan' having been written in sleep; I have often imagined new poems in my sleep, but I couldn't remember them in the morning. Your uncle's words: 'Tennyson has no sense of rhythm and scansion,' have been constantly quoted against me. The truth is that in my youth I used no hyphens in writing composite words, and a reader might fancy that from this omission I had no knowledge of the length and measure of words and expressions."

_T._ "Burns was a great genius, but dreadfully coa.r.s.e sometimes. When he attempts to write in pure English, he breaks down utterly." He quoted many things of Burns's: "O my Luv's like a red, red rose," and "Gae fetch to me a pint o' wine," etc., with the greatest admiration, and "Mary Morison"

and "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon," etc. "They have utterly ruined the lilt of the last," he said, "when they added words for the musical setting."

He was fond of talking about great pictures and fine sculpture. Birket Foster joined us one day, and Tennyson asked him to define the word "picturesque," and to say why tumble-down cottages in the Isle of Wight were such favourite subjects with painters. B. F. answered that it was the breaking of the straight line. We talked of Frederick Walker, and B. F.

told us many stories of his wit and conscientiousness. "I mean to paint a picture," said he, "the key-note of which is to be onion-seed."

Primrose Day.--_T._ "All the floral displays for which we Isle of Wighters suffer are based on a mistaken version of the Queen's meaning, when she sent a wreath of primroses for Lord Beaconsfield's grave, inscribed with 'His favourite flower.' She meant Prince Albert's, not Lord Beaconsfield's partiality for the flower in question."

_T._ "I could imitate the hoot of an owl, and once practised successfully enough to attract one which flew in through my window. The bird soon made friends with me, would sit on my shoulder and kiss my face. My pet monkey became jealous, and one day pushed the owl off a board that I had had raised some feet from the ground. The owl was not hurt, but he died afterwards a Narcissus death from vanity. He fell into a tub of water contemplating his own beauty, and was drowned."

The Poet admired Carlyle's _French Revolution_, but he seemed surprised at my having read Carlyle's _Frederick the Great_; the length of it had been too much for him. I was vexed by the author's omission of an account of Sebastian Bach's famous interview with the king at Potsdam, and pressed on my old friend Sir George Grove to inquire the reasons of so strange an omission. He ascertained that Carlyle not only knew the fact, but the actual day and date of the occurrence. The omission, therefore, was really of malice aforethought. Quantz, the flute-player, has his appropriate niche in the monumental work, but the great Sebastian is out of it altogether; the tootler takes the cake and be hanged to him.

Great sailors and soldiers were very favourite subjects. The Poet had personally known well one naval officer who had served with Nelson.

_T._ "Among many odd letters I have received,[69] an American curate wrote to me that he made a sudden resolution one Sunday that he would read 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' instead of his ordinary sermon. An old Dorsetshire soldier who had fought at Balaclava, happened to be in the congregation, though the preacher was unaware of the fact. The verses had the happy result of the soldier giving up a bad, reckless life, and completely reforming. My poem was never meant to convey any spiritual lesson, but the very curious fact of the chance soldier and the parson's sudden resolution has often set me thinking."

_T._ "Twice, I am glad to say, I have been taken into battle; once by Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars; another officer wrote after a fight: 'I escaped with my life and my Tennyson.' I admire General Hamley, a good writer and accomplished soldier."

_T._ "When the Prince Regent explored the field of Waterloo with the Duke himself as guide, the Duke's horse plunged and threw his rider. The Prince remarked, 'I can now say what n.o.body else in the world can, that I saw the Duke of Wellington overthrown on the Field of Waterloo.' His Grace was not over pleased with the observation."

_T._ "Keats would have become one of the very greatest of all poets, had he lived. At the time of his death there was apparently no sign of exhaustion or having written himself out; his keen poetical instinct was in full process of development at the time. Each new effort was a steady advance on that which had gone before. With all Sh.e.l.ley's splendid imagery and colour, I find a sort of _tenuity_ in his poetry."

_T._ "'Locksley Hall' is thought by many to be an autobiographical sketch; it's nothing of the sort--not a word of my history in it. Read FitzGerald's _Euphranor_ and let me know what you think of it."

One day we talked of Winchester and the rather meagre list of great men educated there. I rejoiced in the college boasting of an _alumnus_ in Lord Seaton, the famous leader of the 52nd Regiment at Waterloo. "I remember,"

_T._ said, "addressing a coachman by whose side I was sitting as we drove in a coach through that place, and I asked him, 'What sort of a place is Winchester?' Answer: 'Debauched, sir, debauched, like all other Cathedral cities.'"

_T._ "I am inclined to agree with Swinburne's view of Mary Queen of Scots; she was brought up in a Court that studied the works of Brantome."