APPENDIX C

Larger Image

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN FRIENDS

[During the last twenty-five years of his life my father was probably, throughout the whole English-speaking race, the Englishman who was most widely known. Hence the letters addressed to him by strangers competed in number with those which, it is well known, add a needless weariness to the heavy task of governing a civilized state. This became a correspondence mainly of request or of reverence, although the voice of disappointment or of envy of what is ranked above oneself which lurks in common human nature may have occasionally been audible. My father’s experience here was that of Dr. Johnson and, doubtless, of many more men of commanding eminence; that of writers submitting their work for candid criticism, charging him with conceit if he suggested publication as unadvisable; if it were advised, and the book failed, with deception. Probably many of those who wrote thus soon repented of their eloquence; at any rate nothing of this nature will be here preserved. But of the ordinary type of strangers’ letters some specimens may be of interest. And although these few have been chosen mainly from the letters addressed to my father during his last fifteen years yet they will give a general impression of the vast quantity received.

I place first letters upon poetry submitted (or proposed for submission) to my father’s judgment.]

(1884)

I hope you will forgive the liberty I am taking in writing to you. I have heard a great deal about you, and I read a part of one of your poems, “The May Queen.” I have not had an opportunity to read the whole of it, but I like what I have seen very much.... I have triedto write some poems myself. I have enclosed one for you to see, which came into my mind while I was digging a ditch in my garden. I am only nine years old, and if I keep on trying some day I shall write a grand poem.

(1882)

Honoured Sir—It has been said: where a great apology is most needed, it is best to begin with the business at once.I never had the pleasure of seeing you, but it is enough for me to have had the pleasure of reading your heart in your works, “though they be but a part of your inward soul.” I am a lad scarcely seventeen summers old. In some of my leisure hours, particularly morning and evening ones, I penned a few thousand lines of small poems in fair metre,—so my simple-minded friend or two pronounce them in their partiality.... [He deprecates the suspicion that he is applying for money.] Will you allow me to forward to you through the post a few of my poems? And when your benevolent soul has given up time to read some of my verses (“the primrose fancies of a boy”), and should my productions be considered by you deserving of your good word, half the difficulty of finding a willing publisher will, I know, be removed.

Honoured Sir—It has been said: where a great apology is most needed, it is best to begin with the business at once.

I never had the pleasure of seeing you, but it is enough for me to have had the pleasure of reading your heart in your works, “though they be but a part of your inward soul.” I am a lad scarcely seventeen summers old. In some of my leisure hours, particularly morning and evening ones, I penned a few thousand lines of small poems in fair metre,—so my simple-minded friend or two pronounce them in their partiality.... [He deprecates the suspicion that he is applying for money.] Will you allow me to forward to you through the post a few of my poems? And when your benevolent soul has given up time to read some of my verses (“the primrose fancies of a boy”), and should my productions be considered by you deserving of your good word, half the difficulty of finding a willing publisher will, I know, be removed.

There is something truly felt and pathetic in the two following letters. The first is from a young poetess.

I hardly know how I have summoned up sufficient courage to address you, although I have long wished to do so! Studying that most touching of poems “Enoch Arden,” I felt somehow convinced that the heart that had inspired so much which is beautiful and touching, would also prompt a kind answer to me. Ever since I was a child (not so very long ago), writing was my only consolation and solace in moments of great grief or joy; writing—I shall not saypoetrybut rhyme.

(1881)

Dear Mr. Tennyson—I have heard and believed that great men are always the best hearted, and therefore hope you will kindly look at the enclosed and tell me if there is any hope that I may ever write anything worthy the name of poetry, and if those lines are anything but doggerel, I hope you will not think me as presumptuous as I do; something tells me you will be kind.

Now follow good average specimens.

(1890)

Dear and much-admired Lord Tennyson—The writer of this, an humble admirer of your Poetry,—an uneducated girl from the bogs ofIreland, has the audacity to send you her first effort in verse: whether it is poetry or not I leave you to decide, as I am entirely incapable of judging myself, as I am wholly ignorant of the art of versification, and indeed would never dream of attempting to write verse, only I was very anxious to succeed in prose writing....

(1882)

Will you kindly pardon my venturing to ask you to read some of my verses, and to tell me whether you consider me capable of ever writing poetry fit to be read? I have never had any desire to become a poet, but lately ideas have come into my head, once I seemed to see a line or two before my eyes, and in order to free myself from these fancies I wrote.

(1884)

Dear Sir—I remember your figure and attire at Shiplake Vicarage in Mrs. Franklyn Rawnsley’s house, 1852, thirty-two years ago. Does your memory travel back to a fine December morning when, the house full of guests for the christening of the latest blossom of the Rawnsley house, there drove up through the flooded meadows surrounding the low old vicarage, a cab with a young foreigner, a child of sixteen summers, all tremulous how she should be received, not speaking a word of English but her native German tongue, besides French, introduced by Miss Amélie Bodte, the authoress in Dresden, to teach music to Mrs. Rawnsley’s children? What a woeful feeling for the well-known counsellor’s daughter to be treated in a cool way as the engaged teacher of little children. However, there was an oasis in the desert. On the following morning Mrs. Rawnsley proposed to the assembled guests to take a walk in a neighbouring Squire’s park while she looked after some home duties, and a tall young gentleman with an enormous Tyrolese hat offered to walk with a solitary stranger. He spoke a little German and tried to divert the gloom of the young girl by crossing the lawn and breaking a belated rose she admired coming from snow-bound Saxony. They stopped at a turtle-dove house where he made the prettiest little German pun she never forgot hereafter, “Ich bin eine kleine Taube” (I am a little dove (deaf)?). And it began to rain, and he—it was you—took off the Spanish cloak gathered with narrow stitches on the throat, a black velvet collar falling over it, and wrapped it round the girl’s shoulders. The ladies of the company frowned, returning home, all told as with one voice to Mrs. Rawnsley what had happened during the walk, and she laughed and said to me in French, “My dear, you had all the honours as a German because you did not try for them, this is the Poet Laureate, and it displeases him that the ladies torment him for attentions.” And now do you remember, of course you know this girl was I. And the next day you read the “Ode to the Queen,” of which I did not understand a word, and you went away to the sea to meet your wifeand baby son, and I never saw you again. Now after thirty-two years undergoing purification in the crucible of humble life, I come to ask you to accept kindly the dedication of one of my compositions—a song. Your name is as illustrious here as in England, and my poor song will find more eager listeners with your name attached as a patron than otherwise.... “A turtle dove” could but bring an olive branch to a lone woman and gladden the heart of your Lordship’s most respectful admirer,Maria* * *

Maria* * *

(1890)

Now a Transatlantic poetess:

(After excuse asked for “presumption” she says:)

I have to thank you for some of the best thoughts and the purest pleasure I have ever derived from anything.I am an American girl nineteen years of age, and was named from the hero of “Aylmer’s Field.”I enclose some verses I have written. I would like exceedingly to hear your opinion of them and to know if they contain anything of promise.Leoline* * *

I have to thank you for some of the best thoughts and the purest pleasure I have ever derived from anything.

I am an American girl nineteen years of age, and was named from the hero of “Aylmer’s Field.”

I enclose some verses I have written. I would like exceedingly to hear your opinion of them and to know if they contain anything of promise.

Leoline* * *

(1877)

From America also we have one who modestly describes himself as “a mere Collegian, a youth to fortune and to fame unknown....”

I have during the past summer been engaged, to my great entertainment and instruction, in the perusal of your poetical works, reading many for the first time though of course familiar with a large number; having finished them, I could not refrain from expressing my admiration of your great genius in a few lines which I send herewith.O Tennyson, how great a soul is thine!Thy range of thought how variedand how vast...

O Tennyson, how great a soul is thine!Thy range of thought how variedand how vast...

(1862)

Will you accept the enclosed lines as a slight testimonial of the high admiration entertained for your exquisite genius, by a rhyming daughter of Columbia; whose poetic wings just fledging from a first unpublished vol. (commended by Wm. Cullen Bryant and Geo. Bancroft, Esqrs.) permit only a feeble fluttering around the base of that “Parnassus,” whose summit you have so brilliantly, and justly attained. * * *

(187-)

Then an “Agent for Stars” offers my father £20,000 if said Agent is permitted to arrange a tour for him in the United States.

(1884)

The following is another—we will not say, a less acceptable offering:

I send you by my good friend —— a dozen small parcels of smoking tobacco....We think it the best smoking tobacco in the world and I trust that you may find reason to agree with us. If it shall give you one moment’s pleasure in return for the countless hours of delight that you have given me, I shall count myself a happy mortal.

I send you by my good friend —— a dozen small parcels of smoking tobacco....

We think it the best smoking tobacco in the world and I trust that you may find reason to agree with us. If it shall give you one moment’s pleasure in return for the countless hours of delight that you have given me, I shall count myself a happy mortal.

(1890)

A gift certainly not less acceptable comes from a little girl:

My Lord—Pleaselet these flowers be in your room, anddowear the little bunch.—I remain, your true admirer, * * *

Now follows theGrande Arméeof natural, amiable, but remorseless autograph hunters. A miscellaneous group comes first.

(1890)

Honoured Lord—May I (an Australian maiden born 1870) hope to be pardoned for taking the liberty of writing to you—so distinguished a gentleman—to express my great admiration for your poems? It is my admiration that has emboldened me to venture so far ... etc. etc.Let me conclude with one request: namely to ask you to do me the very great honour to acknowledge this letter; so that I may be able to boast of, and dearly treasure, even a line from the Great Poet.

Let me conclude with one request: namely to ask you to do me the very great honour to acknowledge this letter; so that I may be able to boast of, and dearly treasure, even a line from the Great Poet.

(1890)

An obvious fisher for good things follows:

Sir—I hope that you will kindly excuse the liberty I take in requesting you to be so good as to inform me how the word “humble” should be pronounced:i.e.whether or not it is proper to aspirate the “h”?A reply at your kind convenience will inexpressibly oblige....

A reply at your kind convenience will inexpressibly oblige....

(1890)

Another ingenuously finds it needful to ask whether the word be pronouncedIdylls orEdylls.

(1891)

Dear Sir—A simple child (who writes from Holland), would feel extremely happy, would be in the seventh heaven, when she would be favoured with a mere line of the greatest poet of renown, Alfred Tennyson. Allow her, to offer you before, her sincere thanks for your autograph, with which she would feel the happiest child in the world.With kind regards, most honourable lord, yours respectfully.

With kind regards, most honourable lord, yours respectfully.

(1882)

A (German) collector of autographs, who has an autograph of Mr. Kinkel and Victor Hugo, the greatest living poets of Germany and France, only misses in his collection the autograph of the greatest living English poet. Therefore he requests you to give him an autograph of yours. May it only be your signature, it will find in my album a place of honour.

(1882)

To the prince of poets.Monsieur—Forgive me, I beseech you, the liberty I take in daring to write to you; but I wish to beg the greatest of favours.This favour, Monsieur, it is your signature.I am only a young Belgian girl, and I have no reason to proffer why you should thus distinguish me; but I feel you must love all girls, or you could not have written “Isabel” or “Lilian”; and you must be kind and good, or you would not have given them to the world.So, Monsieur, I humbly beg you send me the name we all venerate, traced by the hand that has guided the world with so much beauty, and make one more heart supremely happy.—One who loves you,* * *

To the prince of poets.

Monsieur—Forgive me, I beseech you, the liberty I take in daring to write to you; but I wish to beg the greatest of favours.

This favour, Monsieur, it is your signature.

I am only a young Belgian girl, and I have no reason to proffer why you should thus distinguish me; but I feel you must love all girls, or you could not have written “Isabel” or “Lilian”; and you must be kind and good, or you would not have given them to the world.

So, Monsieur, I humbly beg you send me the name we all venerate, traced by the hand that has guided the world with so much beauty, and make one more heart supremely happy.—One who loves you,

* * *

Three petitions, which touched my father, may here have place.

The first (1884) consists of some twenty letters, in very creditable English and excellent hand-writing, each saying some handsome thing about the “May Queen,” which they had learned, and now criticized with amusingnaïveté, and asking for a line from Tennyson—signed with the children’s names, and dated from a German High School for girls:“who,” says their Mistress, “in the joy of their hearts tried to express their feeling of admiration in their imperfect knowledge of the English language.”

In the next a young girl from India, training in England with comrades apparently for Zenana work, thanks “Our dear aziz Sahib” for a copy of the Poems, and then proceeds, in neat round hand:

Oh how we wish we could see you even for one minute The Great and good Poet Laureate, whom everybody loves so much and we love you too dear sweet Sahib, we are going to learn that pretty Poetry “The May Queen” and several others out of that lovely Book. Will you please, dear Sahib, write out “The May Queen” and “The Dedication of the Idyols of the King,” with your own hand, we will keep it till the last day of our lives.

They then explain why the “Dedication” is asked for; “because we know how dearly Prince Albert loved you, and, also our beloved Queen Empress, and how you love them”: also how they long to go back “to our dear India,” and sing hymns, and nurse and dose “our own countrywomen in the Zenanas.”

Now good-bye our aziz (beloved) Sahib I am sending you some wild daisies and moss as you are so fond of flowers and everything beautiful in God’s world. May God give you a sweet smile every day, prays your little loving, Indian Friend,,* * *

* * *

This last explains itself:

Dear Mr. Tennyson—I am one of a large struggling family of girls and boys who have never yet been able to afford to give 9s. for that much-coveted green volume Tennyson’s “Poems,” so at last, the boys having failed to obtain it as a prize, and the girls as a birthday present, I, the boldest of the party, venture to ask if you would kindly bestow a copy on a nest full of young admirers.,* * *

* * *

He wrote his little Indian maid a pretty letter, and sent his poems to the “best girl.” And in many an instance, (requests for aid included) the correspondence bears witness to my father’s open-hearted kindliness and liberality. Hisbeggars, at any rate, were oftenchoosers.

The wish for an autograph, we may again reasonably suppose, was not absent from the minds of the following (and other analogous) writers. The first dates from Scotland:

(1878)

I take the great liberty in writing to you, in order to settle a dispute that has arisen amongst several parties, regarding the song written by Sir Walter Scott,Jock O’ Hazeldean. The words are as follows,And ye shall be his bride Lady;So comely to be seen.Does comely apply to the bride, or the bridegroom? As your opinion will be considered satisfactory to all, your reply will be considered a lasting favour.,* * *

And ye shall be his bride Lady;So comely to be seen.

Does comely apply to the bride, or the bridegroom? As your opinion will be considered satisfactory to all, your reply will be considered a lasting favour.,

* * *

(1883)

I am an enthusiastic reader and admirer of your works, and have read those which I like especially, over and over again, in particular “Maud,” which I consider to be surpassingly fresh and beautiful—there is a sort of fascination about the poem to me ... but I really cannot understand the meaning of the end of it.I should very much like to know whether it is intended to mean that Maud’s brother, “that curl’d Assyrian bull,” is slain by her lover: whether Maud is supposed to die of a broken heart, or does her lover come back, long after, presumably from the Russian war and marry her?

I should very much like to know whether it is intended to mean that Maud’s brother, “that curl’d Assyrian bull,” is slain by her lover: whether Maud is supposed to die of a broken heart, or does her lover come back, long after, presumably from the Russian war and marry her?

The remaining examples, in which respect is curiously blended with familiarity, are dated from the United States.

A lively boy of thirteen (1884) who loves “Nature and Poetry” shall here have precedence:

In the first place I wish to ask your pardon for bothering you with this letter, but I want to make a collection, or I mean get the autographs of 5 or 6 distinguished poets; and so I thought I would write and get yours if possible and then the minor ones may follow.I have read most of your poems, and like themvery muchindeed, etc. etc.(A biographical sketch follows, including a visit to England.) When we drove back from Stoke Pogis to Windsor we saw the deer in the Queen’s hunting grounds, and the tall, mighty oaks on each side of the road seemed to say, “This is an Earthly Paradise.”...If you would write a verse or two from some one of your poems and write your name under it, I should bevery muchobliged to you indeed.

I have read most of your poems, and like themvery muchindeed, etc. etc.

(A biographical sketch follows, including a visit to England.) When we drove back from Stoke Pogis to Windsor we saw the deer in the Queen’s hunting grounds, and the tall, mighty oaks on each side of the road seemed to say, “This is an Earthly Paradise.”...

If you would write a verse or two from some one of your poems and write your name under it, I should bevery muchobliged to you indeed.

(1885)

Forgive the intrusion of a stranger (says a lady). Long have I desired to have some one of the noble thoughts, I have so learned to love, in your own handwriting. I have felt a delicacy in asking this,but the wish is so earnest with me that I will venture this first and last request.... I crave some tangible proof that my “hero-worship” has some sympathetic, human foundation. Could I choose a couplet?... They spring to my memory in legions. The wild melody of “Blow, bugle, blow,” etc. etc. ... They have helped to make my life beautiful, earnest and true, and I am grateful for it all. If I might be once more your debtor it would be a real joy to me, but if itfeelslike a burden, do not give it another thought.

(1891)

... In behalf ofCharity Circle, a non-sectarian organization of the order of King’s Daughters, we are making a collection of autographs of prominent men and women to be used in a souvenir banner: which when finished will be sold and the proceeds devoted to charity work. We feel as if the banner will not be complete without Lord Tennyson’s autograph.

(1891)

Beloved Sir—I feel awkward and abashed, as I thus come before you, who are so great, so honored, so crowned with earthly fame and glory; and, so worthy to be thus crowned, and known to fame: but, I know, that in the midst of all these honors, which might spoil one, of the common sort of souls; you are a poet,born,notmade; and therefore, you have the essential gift of the poet [sympathy] and can feel for the imprisoned soul, beating against the stifling walls of silence: and longing, fainting, to come forth into the glad sunshine, the sweet, fresh air ofutterance, so strangely withheld from it.... From [youth] till now, Beloved Sir, you have been my friend, my soother; the dear angel, whose kindly office it has been, ever and anon, to speakforme ... and thus to give me thesweet senseof having been led forth from prison for a while into the blessed light and freedom of utterance.I will never forget the relief afforded by those lines:My very heart faints and my soul grievesEtc. etc.

I will never forget the relief afforded by those lines:

My very heart faints and my soul grievesEtc. etc.

(1891)

A lady writes to the honored Poet-Laureate of England, and the beloved world-renowned verse-maker.

Knowing the value of even one verse and your autograph I write to you and make my request, which if granted will be beyond my anticipations. I want a dedicatory poem so much, but if I get only a line from you I should be happy. I always loved your poetry. Now please, do send me the coveted verse. I, a beggar-maid at the throne of poetry, kneel and beg of the monarch a crumb. Have you anygrandchildren? I wish I could get one of their photos for my book. Hoping you will act like the good king in the fairy kingdom and grant the request—I remain etc. etc.

(1885)

Dear Lady Tennyson—It is one of the glorious privileges of our government that the “first ladies of the land” may be courteously addressed without the formalities of an introduction, and why not the same rule in your country? Therefore, without the semblance of an apology, I request you will do me the honor to grant a small favor. I am engaged in collecting souvenirs from celebrated writers, and you being the wife of England’s Poet Laureate, I would prize beyond measure a contribution from you: ascrapof silk or velvet from one ofyour dresses, and also a scrap of one of your husband’sneckties.... There is no one who loves his works as myself ... he reaches further down into the human heart and touches its tender cords (sic) as no man has since the days of Shakespeare.... My husband, who has won an enviable reputation as a writer hopes soon to produce his work onThe Lives of English and American Poets. Hoping you will not refuse me, etc. etc.

A few miscellaneous oddities follow.

(1883)

Dear Sir—May I ask you as a favour where I could find a “wold,” to illustrate the following verse:Calm and deep peace on this high wold,And on these dews that drench the furze,And all the silvery gossamersThat twinkle into green and gold:(“In Memoriam,” XI.)which is the subject given this year for a painting (for the Gold Medal), to the Students of the Royal Academy of Arts?

Dear Sir—May I ask you as a favour where I could find a “wold,” to illustrate the following verse:

Calm and deep peace on this high wold,And on these dews that drench the furze,And all the silvery gossamersThat twinkle into green and gold:(“In Memoriam,” XI.)

which is the subject given this year for a painting (for the Gold Medal), to the Students of the Royal Academy of Arts?

(1840)

A young girl, writing from America, asks a natural question.

We have your book of poems, and I have read “Enoch Arden.” So I thought I would write and see if it is true. Was there a girl whose name was Anna Lee, and two boys named Enoch Arden and Philip Ray?I felt very sorry for Philip at first and afterward for Enoch, whenhe came home and found his wife had married Philip and he saw her children grown up, but could not go to see them....I have a pet rooster, and it is very cunning. I hold it and pet it and I love itlots.Well, I must close, hoping to hear from you soon, for I want to know if the story of Enoch is true.

I felt very sorry for Philip at first and afterward for Enoch, whenhe came home and found his wife had married Philip and he saw her children grown up, but could not go to see them....

I have a pet rooster, and it is very cunning. I hold it and pet it and I love itlots.

Well, I must close, hoping to hear from you soon, for I want to know if the story of Enoch is true.

(1891)

U.S.A. again supplies the followingnaïveté:

Dear Sir—I intrude a line on your notice, to ask a little favor.I am in my fourteenth year; am considered fairly advanced for my age, by older heads. Iwish your opinionof thebest line of booksfor me to read at leisure hours, aside from novels or fiction. I attend the high school, and on Saturdays, clerk in the store, of which my father is senior partner.P.S.—You will find five cents for return postage.2nd P.S.—My mother says you are not living, but I say to her, I believe she is mistaken; in other words, I am glad one time to differ with her.

Dear Sir—I intrude a line on your notice, to ask a little favor.

I am in my fourteenth year; am considered fairly advanced for my age, by older heads. Iwish your opinionof thebest line of booksfor me to read at leisure hours, aside from novels or fiction. I attend the high school, and on Saturdays, clerk in the store, of which my father is senior partner.

P.S.—You will find five cents for return postage.

2nd P.S.—My mother says you are not living, but I say to her, I believe she is mistaken; in other words, I am glad one time to differ with her.

(1888)

My dear Lord Tennyson—I once met you....You will think it strange indeed, my Lord, when I assure you that I am often supposed to be your noble self, once in Scarborough, often in Town at the great exhibitions and elsewhere. I wear a large Tyrolese felt hat.There is to be a grand summer party here, my Lord, gentlemen to appear in character, I having been requested to appear as “Lord Tennyson.”Could your Lordship kindly lend me any outer clothing, by Thursday morning at latest? a cloak, etc.? Then I should feel so thankful and fulfil the character better.

My dear Lord Tennyson—I once met you....

You will think it strange indeed, my Lord, when I assure you that I am often supposed to be your noble self, once in Scarborough, often in Town at the great exhibitions and elsewhere. I wear a large Tyrolese felt hat.

There is to be a grand summer party here, my Lord, gentlemen to appear in character, I having been requested to appear as “Lord Tennyson.”

Could your Lordship kindly lend me any outer clothing, by Thursday morning at latest? a cloak, etc.? Then I should feel so thankful and fulfil the character better.

America characteristically supplies the following:

Permit me to call your special attention to a pamphlet I mail you herewith, of an address to theNew Shakespere Society, containing the announcement of a momentous discovery which I have made in the “Shakespeare” plays.My unveiling therein of the allegory ofCymbelineis but a sample of what I have similarly discerned in the other dramas, and in which I find the same conclusions consistently to be reached.

My unveiling therein of the allegory ofCymbelineis but a sample of what I have similarly discerned in the other dramas, and in which I find the same conclusions consistently to be reached.

The fair writer’s answers to objections and discourse on her discovery unhappily throw no light upon the subject. She proceeds:

I would add that it is singular to myself there should be so strong a prejudice against the acceptance of Bacon’s authorship of these dramas, investing them, as it does, with such additional interest both of a historical and an autobiographical kind, in the light of his concealment of it.The value of truth, and the interests of literature, constitute my apology for this intrusion upon your valuable time.

The value of truth, and the interests of literature, constitute my apology for this intrusion upon your valuable time.

[The acceptance of Bacon’s authorship of Shakespeare’s dramas and the attack on Shakespeare’s character made my father register his opinion thus:

Not only with no sense of shameOn common sense you tread,Not only ride your hobby lame,But make him kick the dead.Ed.]

(1882)

Right Honorable Sir—The editor of a Bohemian literary journal takes the liberty of applying, in a very delicate matter, to you the most renowned poet of the first literature in the world. Yet this liberty I draw from having a great belief in the generous character of the English nation.What I do venture to impress on your mind is this, that a poem of yours written on, and dedicated to the poor descendants of Bohemia’s happier ancestors, would as a mighty missionary go the round all over their fair country evoking everywhere loud echoes out of the graves of their heroes!

What I do venture to impress on your mind is this, that a poem of yours written on, and dedicated to the poor descendants of Bohemia’s happier ancestors, would as a mighty missionary go the round all over their fair country evoking everywhere loud echoes out of the graves of their heroes!

(1892)

The following is a letter from an hysterical Irishman:

Eminent Sir—I send you the inside poem to show you what the American people think of your lives of tyranny, and may the day come when your infernal land may be torn to a million pieces. Curse you for your highway robbery of Ireland, and then holding her down in such misery, and also for your cowardly war with Napoleon. You could fight him alone, could you? I wish that every Englishman was in the hottest place of hell—their bones made into gridirons to roast their hearts on. * * *

(1888-1892)

A French chemist, hearing that “Monsieur” suffers from gout, has a certain secret cure. If he could, he would come over to England, “et ... je vous guérirais complètement.”

He is assured that this remedy will rapidly make him rich. But it should be known beyond France.

On m’a dit que je pouvais trouver quelques-uns à l’étranger qui sauraient l’apprécier et le faire valoir que cela vaut une petite fortune pour moi; ne serai-je que pour l’humanité, je me tacherai de la vendre.Je vous le répète, Monsieur, c’est bien regrettable que je ne sois pas plus près de chez vous, car je vous soulagerois et, Monsieur, on peut se renseigner sur moi; je ne suis pas riche mais honnête et d’une bonne famille, et en faisant mon chimisterie je m’occupe un peu d’antiquités.

Je vous le répète, Monsieur, c’est bien regrettable que je ne sois pas plus près de chez vous, car je vous soulagerois et, Monsieur, on peut se renseigner sur moi; je ne suis pas riche mais honnête et d’une bonne famille, et en faisant mon chimisterie je m’occupe un peu d’antiquités.

Two of the latest letters amused my father much, one from Canada from a little boy who said that his mother liked cheeses, and he would like Tennyson to send him money to buy a good cheese: the other from an English artist who said that his speciality was drawing cows, but that he must have a cow of his own to live with and make proper studies of, would therefore Tennyson give him a cow?

TENNYSON’S ARTHURIAN POEM[119]

BySir James Knowles, K.C.V.O.

[This letter was written after a talk with my father, and no doubt Sir James Knowles has caught much of the meaning of “The Idylls of the King.” About this poem my father said to me, “My meaning was spiritual. I only took the legendary stories of the Round Table as illustrations. Arthur was allegorical to me. I intended him to represent the Ideal in the Soul of Man coming in contact with the warring elements of the flesh.”—Ed.]

The fine and wholesome moral breeze which always seems to blow about the higher realms of Art comes to us fresh as ever from this great poem, and more acceptably than ever just now. A constant worship of Purity, and a constant reprobation of Impurity as the rock on which the noble projects of the “blameless king” are wrecked, appear throughout upon the surface of the story.

But besides this, there doubtless does run through it all a sort of under-tone of symbolism, which, while it never interferes with the clearmelodyof the poem, or perverts it into that most tedious of riddles, a formal allegory, gives a profoundharmonyto its music and a prophetic strain to its intention most worthy of a great spiritual Bard.

King Arthur, as he has always been treated by Tennyson, stands obviously for no mere individual prince or hero, but for the “King within us”—our highest nature, by whatsoever name it may be called—conscience; spirit; the moral soul; the religious sense; the noble resolve. His story and adventures become the story of the battle and pre-eminence of the soul and of the perpetual warfare between the spirit and the flesh.

For so exalting him there is abundant warrant in thelanguage of many old compilers, by whom “all human perfection was collected in Arthur”; as where, for instance, one says,—“The old world knows not his peer, nor will the future show us his equal,—he alone towers over all other kings, better than the past ones, and greater than those that are to be”; or another, “In short, God has not made, since Adam was, the man more perfect than Arthur.”

How and why Arthur ever grew to so ideal a height we need not now inquire, it is sufficient here to note the fact, and that Tennyson is archæologically justified thereby in making him the type of the soul on earth, from its mysterious coming to its mysterious and deathless going.

In the “Idylls of the King,” the soul comes first before us as a conqueror in a waste and desert land groaning under mere brute power. Its history before then is dark with doubt and mystery, and the questions about its origin and authority form the main subject of the introductory poem.

Many, themselves the basest, hold it to be base-born, and rage against its rule:

And since his ways are sweet,And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man;And there be those who deem him more than man,And dream he dropt from heaven.

Of those who recognize its claim, some, as the hoary chamberlain, accept it on the word of wizards who have written all about it in a sacred book which, doubtless, some day will become intelligible. Others, as Ulfius, and Brastias, standing for commonplace men with commonplace views, are satisfied to think the soul comes as the body does, or not to think at all about it. Others, again, as Bedivere, with warmer hearts, feel there is mystery, where to the careless all is plain, yet seek among the dark ways of excessive natural passion for the key, and drift towards the scandalous accordingly. Then comes the simple touching tenderness of the woman’s discovery of conscience and its influence given by Queen Bellicent in the story of her childhood; and this, again, is supplemented and contrasted by the doctrine of the wise men and philosophers put into Merlin’s mouth. His “riddling triplets” anger the woman, but are a wonderful summary of the way, part-earnest, part-ironical, and all-pathetic, in which great wit confronts the problem of the soul.

The inscrutableness of its origin being thus signified, we see next the recognition of its supremacy, and its first act of kinghood,—the inspiration of the best and bravest near it with a common enthusiasm for Right. The founding of the Order of the Round Table coincides with the solemn crowning of the soul. Conscience, acknowledged and throned as king, binds at once all the best of human powers together into one brotherhood, and that brotherhood to itself by vows so strait and high,

That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, someWere pale as at the passing of a ghost,Some flush’d, and others dazed, as one who wakesHalf-blinded at the coming of a light.

At that supreme coronation-moment, the Spirit is surrounded and cheered on by all the powers and influences which can ever help it—earthly servants and allies and heavenly powers and tokens—the knights, to signify the strength of the body; Merlin, to signify the strength of intellect; the Lady of the Lake, who stands for the Church, and gives the soul its sharpest and most splendid earthly weapon; and, above all, three fair and mystic Queens, “tall, with bright sweet faces,” robed in the living colours sacred to love and faith and hope, which flow upon them from the image of our Lord above. These, surely, stand for those immortal virtues which only will abide “when all that seems shall suffer shock,” and leaning upon which alone, the soul, when all else falls from it, shall go towards the golden gates of the new and brighter morning.

As the first and introductory idyll thus seems to indicate the coming and the recognition of the soul, so the ensuing idylls of the “Round Table” show how its influence fares—waxes or wanes—in the great battle of life. Through all of these we see the body and its passions gain continually greater sway, till in the end the Spirit’s earthly work is thwarted and defeated by the flesh. Its immortality alone remains to it, and, with this, a deathless hope.

From the story of “Geraint and Enid,” where the first gust of poisoning passion bows for a time with base suspicion, yet passes, and leaves pure a great and simple heart, we are led through “Merlin and Vivien,” where, early in the storm, we see great wit and genius succumb,—and through “Lancelot and Elaine,” where the piteous early death of innocence and hope results from it,—to “The Holy Grail,” where we find religionitself under the stress of it, and despite the earnest efforts of the soul, blown into mere fantastic shapes of superstition. It would be difficult to find a nobler and manlier apology for pure and sane and practical religion, fit for mighty men, than the verdict of the King at the end of this wonderful poem.

In “Pelleas and Ettarre” the storm of corruption culminates, whirling the sweet waters of young love and faith (the very life-spring of the world) out from their proper channels, sweeping them into mist, and casting them in hail upon the land. A scarcely-concealed harlot here rides splendid to the Court, and is crowned Queen of Beauty in the lists; the lust of the flesh is all but paramount. Then comes in “Guinevere” the final lightning stroke, and all the fabric of the earthly life falls smitten into dust, leaving to the soul a broken heart for company, and a conviction that if in this world only it had hope, it were of all things most miserable.

Thus ends the “Round Table,” and the story of the life-long labour of the soul....

There remains but the passing of the soul “from the great deep to the great deep,” and this is the subject of the closing idyll. Here the “last dim, weird battle,” fought out in densest mist, stands for a picture of all human death, and paints its awfulness and confusion. The soul alone, enduring beyond the end wherein all else is swallowed up, sees the mist clear at last, and finds those three crowned virtues, “abiding” true and fast, and waiting to convey it to its rest. Character, upheld and formed by these, is the immortal outcome of mortal life. They wail with it awhile in sympathy for the failure of its earthly plans; but at the very last of all are heard to change their sorrow into songs of joy, and departing, “vanish into light.”

Such or such like seems to be the high significance and under-meaning of this noble poem,—a meaning worthy of the exquisite expression which conveys it and of the wealth of beauty and imagery which enfolds it.

But nothing is more remarkable than the way in which so much symbolic truth is given without the slightest forcing of the current of the narrative itself. Indeed, so subtle are the touches, and so consummately refined the art employed, that quite possibly many readers may hold there is no parable at all intended. It is most interesting, for instance, to note thethread of realism which is preserved throughout, and which, whether intentionally or not, serves the double purpose of entirely screening any such symbolic under-meaning from all who do not care to seek it, and also of accounting naturally for all the supernatural adventures and beliefs recorded in the story itself.

Thus, in “The Holy Grail,” the various apparitions of the mystic vessel are explicable by passing meteors or sudden lightning flashes seen in a season of great tempests and thunderstorms—first acting on the hysterical exaltation of an enthusiastic nun, and then, by contagion from her faith, upon the imaginations of a few kindred natures.

Again, in the “Coming of Arthur,” the marvellous story of his birth, as told by Bleys, might simply have been founded on a shipwreck when the sea was phosphorescent, and when all hands suddenly perished, save one infant who was washed ashore.

Or, again, in the same poem, the three mystic Queens at the Coronation—who become, in one sense, so all-important in their meaning—derive their import in the eyes of Bellicent simply from the accident of coloured beams of light falling upon them from a stained-glass window.

May I, in conclusion say how happily characteristic of their English author, and their English theme, seems to me the manner in which these “Idylls of the King” have become a complete poem? It brings to mind the method of our old cathedral-builders. Round some early shrine, too precious to be moved, were gathered bit by bit a nave and aisles, then rich side chapels, then the great image-crowded portals, then a more noble chancel, then, perhaps, the towers, all in fulfilment of some general plan made long ago, but each produced and added as occasion urged or natural opportunity arose. As such buildings always seem rather to havegrownthan beenconstructed, and have the wealth of interest, and beauty, and variety which makes Canterbury Cathedral, for instance, far more poetical than St. Paul’s—so with these “Idylls.” Bit by bit the poem and its sacred purport have grown continually more and more connected and impressive. Had Tennyson sat down in early youth to write the symbolic epic of King Arthur which he then projected, his “Morte d’Arthur” is enough to show how fine a work might have resulted. But, for once, at any rate, the interposing critics did art good service, for theydeferred till the experience of life had given him, as it were, many lives, a poem which could not have been produced without wide acquaintanceship with the world and human nature. We should never otherwise have had the parable “full of voices” which we now fortunately possess.

THE END

Printed byR. & R. Clark, Limited,Edinburgh.

Footnotes:

[1]Henry Sellwood.

[2]Sister of Sir John Franklin.

[3][Extractfrom aLetterfrom myMotherto Mrs.Granville Bradley, April 23, 1873.

“To think of your having been among our Aldworth giants (the monuments in Aldworth Church)! Pibworth belonged to my grandmother, a Rowland from Wales. I am glad you did not go there, for all the grand pine grove, which backed it, was cut down as soon as it was bought, some years ago, by some London man, and I hear it has sunk into a mere commonplace house. The little estate, in which were the ruins of Beche Castle, was ours. The tombs are those of the ‘de la Beches.’ Their pedigree was said to have been taken down to show to Queen Elizabeth—when she came to look at the old yew tree, the remains of which, I hope, still exist—and never to have been replaced, so that no more is known of the giants than that they were ‘de la Beches.’ Neither do we know if they were really our ancestors, as they have been reported to be, or whether the report came from our having owned the remains of the castle.”—Ed.]

[4]Rev. Drummond Rawnsley.

[5]This is written of the Lincolnshire coast.

[6]This taken from what he saw from the cliffs over Scratchell’s Bay near the Needles in the Isle of Wight.

[7]Afterwards married to Judge Alan Ker, Chief Justice of Jamaica.

[8]At Mablethorpe there was no post at all, and Alfred tells how he was indebted to the muffin man for communication with the outer world.

[9]His wife.

[10]Mother of Lady Boyne.

[11][The unpublished letters from Frederick Tennyson, quoted throughout the chapter, were written either to my father, or to my father’s friend, Mary Brotherton, the novelist. The lives of my uncles Frederick and Charles were so much interwoven with the lives of some of my father’s friends that I have ventured to insert this account of them here. Moreover, these two brothers represent “the two extremes of the Tennyson temperament, the mean and perfection of which is found in Alfred.”—Ed.]

[12]Unpublished letter to Alfred Tennyson.

[13]Alfred was always telling his brother that Spiritualism was a subject well worthy of examination, but not to be swallowed whole. He had a great admiration for certain passages in Swedenborg’s writings.

[14]Alfred used to say of the Sonnets that many of them had all the tenderness of the Greek epigram, while a few were among the finest in our language.

[15]The other three were Franklin, Harry, and Tom.

[16]She often used to sing to us “Elaine’s song” which she had set to music.

[17][My father was devoted to Henry Lushington, and pronounced him to be the best critic he had ever known. To him he dedicated “In Memoriam.”—Ed.]

[18]There are also the fine “beardless bust” by Tennyson’s friend, Thomas Woolner, R.A., and the earliest “beardless portrait” of him by his sister-in-law, Mrs. Weld.

[19]This was a misunderstanding on the part of FitzGerald.

[20]This account of the talk in the Woodbridge garden has been taken from a letter to me from the present Lord Tennyson.

[21]Sophocles,Ajax, 674-5.

[22]This old French paraphrase of Horace,Odes, I. xi., FitzGerald was very fond of, and quotes more than once in his letters.

[23]Of theConversations with Eckermann, he said, “almost as repeatedly to be read as Boswell’sJohnson—a German Johnson—and (as with Boswell) more interesting to me in Eckermann’s Diary than in all his own famous works.”—Letters to Mrs. Kemble.

[24][Some of these sayings appeared in my Memoir of my father.—Ed.]

[25]SeeTennyson: a Memoir, by his Son, p. 373.

[26]SeeTennyson: a Memoir, by his Son, p. 352.

[27]“I suppose the worship of wonder, such as I have heard grown-up children tell of at first sight of the Alps.”—Euphranor, by E. F. G.

[28]Arthur Hallam, Harry Lushington, and Sir John Simeon.

[29]“The Death of Œnone.”

[30][“Ulysses,” the title of a number of essays by W. G. Palgrave, brother of my father’s devoted friend Francis T. Palgrave.—Ed.]

[31]1888.

[32]Garibaldi said to me, alluding to his barren island, “I wish I had your trees.”

[33]The tale of Nejd.

[34]The Philippines.

[35]In Dominica.

[36]The Shadow of the Lord. Certain obscure markings on a rock in Siam, which express the image of Buddha to the Buddhist more or less distinctly according to his faith and his moral worth.

[37]The footstep of the Lord on another rock.

[38]The monastery of Sumelas.

[39]Anatolian Spectre stories.

[40]The Three Cities.

[41]Travels in Egypt.

[42]Lionel Tennyson.

[43]In Bologna.

[44]They say, for the fact is doubtful.

[45]Demeter and Persephone.

[46][This Home was founded at the suggestion of my father, for he and Gordon had discussed the desirability of founding training camps all over England for the training of poor boys as soldiers or emigrants, Gordon saying to him, “You are the man to found them.”—Ed.]

[47]One of Tennyson’s friends asked a cabman at Freshwater, “Whose house is that?” Cabman: “It belongs to one Tennyson.” Friend: “He is a great man, you know?” Cabman: “He a great man! he only keeps one man-servant, and he don’t sleep in the house!”

[48]Now grown into one hundred and fifty acres.

[49]He used to protest against the misuse of words of mighty content as mere expletives, contrasting “God made Himself an awful rose of dawn,” and the colloquial “young-ladyism,” as he called it, of “awfully jolly.” (See theMemoir.)

[50]And, though I knew him to the end of his days, that interval never seemed to lengthen. [Among Mr. Dakyns’s rough notes I find the Greek phrase ἀεὶ παῖς, with an emphatic reference to “The Wanderer.” I know he thought the spirit of him “who loves the world from end to end and wanders on from home to home” was really Tennyson’s own.—F. M. S.]

[51]SeeMemoir, ii. 400.

[52][I think that this riddle was originally made by Franklin Lushington.—Ed.]

[53]SeeMemoir, ii. 288.

[54]ii. 284 foll., 293, “Some Criticism on Poets and Poetry”;ib.420 foll., “Last Talks”: that wonderful chapter.

[55]See “Poets and Critics,” one of his last poems.

[56]Solaciolum, “poor dear, some solace”;turgiduli ... ocelli(see below), “her poor dear swollen eyes.”

[57]Miselle, epithet of the dead like our “poor” So-and-so.

[58]Robinson Ellis notes, “The rhythm of the line and the continueda-sound well represent the eternity of the sleep that knows no waking,” and that is just the effect that Tennyson’s reading gave with infinite pathos; and then the sudden passionate change,da mi basia——

[59]An old experiment, being written in 1859, finished in 1860. He himself only called it “a far-off echo of theAttisof Catullus.”

[60]See Carlyle,Fr. Rev.(Part I. Bk. v. c. ix), for the cry of the mob. And for Béranger, cf.Memoir, ii. 422.

[61]Compare Merlin’s song, “From the great deep to the great deep he goes.”

[62]Some commentators insist that Tennyson was born on August 5 because the date looks like 5th in the Register of his birth. He used to say, “All I can state is that my mother always kept my birthday on August 6, and I suppose she knew.”

[63]I can confirm this last statement from more than one talk with him. He would note the perfection of the metre. The second line affords an instance of the delicacy of his ear. We were speaking of the undoubtedly correct reading:

The lowing herdwindslowly o’er the lea,

not, as is so often printed,winds. I forget his exact comment, but the point of it was that the double s, windsslowly, would have been to his ear most displeasing.

Again, speaking of the line,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

he observed how seldom Gray seemed satisfied with this inversion of the accusative and the nominative, and how he himself endeavoured, as a rule, to avoid it.—H. M. B.

[64]My own writing he compared to “the limbs of a flea.”

[65]InProblems and Persons(Longmans), Appendix A.

[66]Nineteenth Century, January 1893.

[67]Sunday, October 27, 1872.—I asked A. T. at Aldworth what he thought he had done most perfect. He said, “Nothing,” only fragments of things that he could think at all so—such as “Come down, O Maid,” written on his first visit to Switzerland, and “Tears, idle Tears.”

He told me he meant to write the siege of Delhi, an ode in rhyme, but was refused the papers.

[68][“Until absorbed into the Divine.”—Ed.]

[69]See Appendix C.

[70]See Translation by Frederick Tennyson, p. 56.

[71]Some extracts from the paper on Tennyson inStudies and Memoriesare included in this chapter by kind permission of Messrs. Constable & Co.

[72][First published as a preface toTennyson as a Student and Poet of Naturein 1910, and republished here by the kind permission of Sir Norman Lockyer and Messrs. Macmillan.—Ed.]

[73]See the fine Parsee Hymn to the Sun (written by Tennyson when he was 82) at the end of “Akbar’s Dream”:

IOnce again thou flamest heavenward, once again we see thee rise.Every morning is thy birthday gladdening human hearts and eyes.Every morning here we greet it, bowing lowly down before thee,Thee the Godlike, thee the changeless in thine ever-changing skies.IIShadow-maker, shadow-slayer, arrowing light from clime to clime,Hear thy myriad laureates hail thee monarch in their woodland rhyme.Warble bird, and open flower, and, men, below the dome of azureKneel adoring Him the Timeless in the flame that measures Time!

[74][SeeTennyson: a Memoir, p. 259. “It is impossible,” he said, “to imagine that the Almighty will ask you, when you come before Him in the next life, what your particular form of creed was: but the question will rather be ‘Have you been true to yourself, and given in My Name a cup of cold water to one of these little ones?’” Yet he felt that religion could never be founded on mere moral philosophy; that there were no means of impressing upon children systematic ethics apart from religion; and that the highest religion and morality would only come home to the people in the noble, simple thoughts and facts of a Scripture like ours.—Ed.]

[75][He added, “TheSon of Man is the most tremendous title possible.”—Ed.]

[76]From Tennyson’s last published sonnet, “Doubt and Prayer.”

[77][Toward the end of his life he would say, “My most passionate desire is to have a clearer vision of God.”—Ed.]

[78][The eldest daughter of Sir John Simeon, who was my father’s most intimate friend in later life—a tall, broad-shouldered, genial, generous, warm-hearted, highly gifted, and thoroughly noble country gentleman; in face like the portrait of Sir Thomas Wyatt, by Holbein.—Ed.]

[79]This MS. was given back to Tennyson at his request after Sir John Simeon’s death, and after Tennyson’s death presented by his son and Catherine, Lady Simeon, to the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

[80]He afterwards built a larger study for himself, “looking into the heart of the wood,” as he said.

[81]“In the Garden at Swainston.”

[82]Tennyson said to her, “Perhaps your babe will remember all these lights and this splendour in future days, as if it were the memory of another life.”

[83]From “The Death of Œnone and other Poems,” afterwards published 1892.

[84]First published 1909, by Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd., 1s. net., and kindly corrected by the author for republication here.

[85]Now Lady Ritchie.

[86]οὐρανόθεν τε ὑπερράγη ἄσπετος αἰθήρ.

[87]See note by Tennyson in the “Eversley Edition” of the poems: “I made this simile from a stream (in North Wales), and it is different, tho’ like Theocritus,Idyllxxii. 48 ff.:

ἐν δὲ μύες στερεοῖσι βραχίοσιν ἄκρον ὑπ᾽ ὦμονἔστασαν, ἠΰτε πέτροι ὁλοίτροχοι, .οὕστε κυλίνδωνχειμάρρους ποταμὸς μεγάλαις περιέξεσε δίναις.”

Back to Index Next