“To tear his heart before the crowd.”
About Tennyson, doubtless, there is much anecdotage: most of the
anecdotes turn on his shyness, his really exaggerated hatred of personal
notoriety, and the odd and brusque things which he would say when alarmed
by effusive strangers. It has not seemed worth while to repeat more than
one or two of these legends, nor have I sought outside the Biography by
his son for more than the biographer chose to tell. The readers who are
least interested in poetry are most interested in tattle about the poet.
It is the privilege of genius to retain the freshness and simplicity,
with some of the foibles, of the child. When Tennyson read his poems
aloud he was apt to be moved by them, and to express frankly his
approbation where he thought it deserved. Only very rudimentary
psychologists recognised conceit in this freedom; and only the same set
of persons mistook shyness for arrogance. Effusiveness of praise or
curiosity in a stranger is apt to produce bluntness of reply in a Briton.
“Don’t talk d—d nonsense, sir,” said the Duke of Wellington to the
gushing person who piloted him, in his old age, across Piccadilly. Of
Tennyson Mr Palgrave says, “I have known him silenced, almost frozen,
before the eager unintentional eyes of a girl of fifteen. And under the
stress of this nervous impulse compelled to contradict his inner self
(especially when under the terror of leonisation . . . ), he was
doubtless at times betrayed into an abrupt phrase, a cold unsympathetic
exterior; a moment’s ‘defect of the rose.’” Had he not been sensitive in
all things, he would have been less of a poet. The chief criticism
directed against his mode of life is that he _was_ sensitive and
reserved, but he could and did make himself pleasant in the society of
_les pauvres d’esprit_. Curiosity alarmed him, and drove him into his
shell: strangers who met him in that mood carried away false impressions,
which developed into myths. As the Master of Balliol has recorded,
despite his shyness “he was extremely hospitable, often inviting not only
his friends, but the friends of his friends, and giving them a hearty
welcome. For underneath a sensitive exterior he was thoroughly genial if
he was understood.” In these points he was unlike his great
contemporary, Browning; for instance, Tennyson never (I think) was the
Master’s guest at Balliol, mingling, like Browning, with the
undergraduates, to whom the Master’s hospitality was freely extended.
Yet, where he was familiar, Tennyson was a gay companion, not shunning
jest or even paradox. “As Dr Johnson says, every man may be judged of by
his laughter”: but no Boswell has chronicled the laughters of Tennyson.
“He never, or hardly ever, made puns or witticisms” (though one pun, at
least, endures in tradition), “but always lived in an attitude of
humour.” Mr Jowett writes (and no description of the poet is better than
his)—
If I were to describe his outward appearance, I should say that he
was certainly unlike any one else whom I ever saw. A glance at some
of Watts’ portraits of him will give, better than any description
which can be expressed in words, a conception of his noble mien and
look. He was a magnificent man, who stood before you in his native
refinement and strength. The unconventionality of his manners was in
keeping with the originality of his figure. He would sometimes say
nothing, or a word or two only, to the stranger who approached him,
out of shyness. He would sometimes come into the drawing-room
reading a book. At other times, especially to ladies, he was
singularly gracious and benevolent. He would talk about the
accidents of his own life with an extraordinary freedom, as at the
moment they appeared to present themselves to his mind, the days of
his boyhood that were passed at Somersby, and the old school of
manners which he came across in his own neighbourhood: the days of
the “apostles” at Cambridge: the years which he spent in London; the
evenings enjoyed at the Cock Tavern, and elsewhere, when he saw
another side of life, not without a kindly and humorous sense of the
ridiculous in his fellow-creatures. His repertory of stories was
perfectly inexhaustible; they were often about slight matters that
would scarcely bear repetition, but were told with such lifelike
reality, that they convulsed his hearers with laughter. Like most
story-tellers, he often repeated his favourites; but, like children,
his audience liked hearing them again and again, and he enjoyed
telling them. It might be said of him that he told more stories than
any one, but was by no means the regular story-teller. In the
commonest conversation he showed himself a man of genius.