TENNYSON'S HOMES
Few poets have been so fortunate in their residences as was the great
Poet Laureate of the Victorian era in the two which he for many years
called his own. Selected in the first instance for their beauty and
their seclusion, they had other advantages which fitted them admirably
to a poet's temperament.
Farringford, at the western end of the Isle of Wight, was the first to
be acquired, being purchased in 1853; it was Tennyson's home for forty
years, and the house wherein most of his best-known works were written.
At the time when it came into his hands communication with the mainland
was of the most primitive description, and the poet and his wife had
to cross the Solent in a rowing-boat. So far removed was he from
intrusion there that he could indulge in what to him were favourite
pastimes--sweeping up the leaves, mowing the grass, gravelling the
walks, and digging the beds--without interruption. Many of the visitors
which railway and steamship facilities brought to the neighbourhood in
later years felt that he set the boundary within which no foot other
than his own and that of his friends should tread at an extreme limit.
Golfers over the Needles Links--persons who, perhaps, are prone to
consider that whatever is capable of being made into a course should be
so utilised--were wont to look with covetous eyes over a portion of the
downs that would have formed a much-needed addition to their course,
but over which no ball was allowed to be played. But the pertinacity of
the crowd, in endeavouring to get a sight of the Laureate, necessitated
an inexorable rule if the retreat was to be what it was intended,
namely, a place for work and for rest.
Mrs. Tennyson thus described "her wild house amongst the pine trees":--
The golden green of the trees, the burning splendour of Blackgang
Chine, and the red bank of the primeval river contrasted with the
turkis blue of the sea (that is our view from the drawing-room) make
altogether a miracle of beauty at sunset. We are glad that Farringford
is ours.
Although at times the weather can be cold and bleak enough in this
sheltered corner of the Isle of Wight, and
The scream of a madden'd beach
Dragged down by the wave
must oftentimes have "shocked the ear" in the Farringford house, the
climate is too relaxing an one for continued residence, and Tennyson's
second house, Aldworth, was well chosen as a contrast. Aubrey Vere thus
describes it:--
It lifted England's great poet to a height from which he could gaze on
a large portion of that English land which he loved so well, see it
basking in its most affluent beauty, and only bound by the inviolate
sea.
The house stands at an elevation of some six hundred feet above the
sea, on the spur of Blackdown, which is the highest ground in Sussex,
on a steep side towards the Weald, just where the greensand hills break
off. It is some two miles from Haslemere, and just within the Sussex
border.
Two of the drawings connected with these houses, which are reproduced
here, were painted before Tennyson's death, namely, in 1890.
The house at Farringford was drawn in the spring, when the lawn was
pied with daisies, and the Laureate required his heavy cloak to guard
him from the keenness of the April winds.
The kitchen-garden at Farringford, which somewhat belies its name, for
flowers encroach everywhere upon the vegetables, and the apple trees
rise amidst a parterre of blossom, was painted in its summer aspect,
when it was gay with pinks, stocks, rockets, larkspurs, delphiniums,
aubrietias, eschscholtzias, and big Oriental poppies. Tennyson visited
it almost daily to take the record of the rain-gauge and thermometer,
which can be descried in the drawing about half-way down the path.
The kitchen-garden at Aldworth opens up a very different prospect to
the banked-up background of trees at Farringford. Standing at a very
considerable elevation, it commands a magnificent view over the Weald
of Sussex. The spot is referred to in the poem "Roses on the Terrace"
in the volume entitled _Demeter_, thus--
This red flower, which on our terrace here,
Glows in the blue of fifty miles away;
as also in the lines--
Green Sussex fading into blue,
With one grey glimpse of sea.
It was this view that the dying poet longed to see once again on his
last morning when he cried, "I want the blinds up! I want to see the
sky and the light!"
The time of year when Mrs. Allingham painted it was October, and a wet
October too, for two umbrellas even could not keep her from getting wet
through.
It is rare for Mrs. Allingham to set her flowers so near the horizon as
in this case,--in fact I only remember having seen another instance of
it,--but no doubt the same feeling that appealed to the poet's eye, and
impelled him to pen the lines we have quoted, fascinated the artist's,
namely, the beautiful appearance of the varied hues of flowers against
a background of delicate blue.
October is the saddest time of year for the garden, but a basket full
of gleanings at that time is more cherished than one in the full
heyday of its magnificence. Here the apple tree has already shed most
of its leaves, the hollyhock stems are baring, and autumnal flowers,
in which yellow so much predominates, as, for instance, the great
marigold, the herbaceous sunflower, and the calliopsis, are much in
evidence. Nasturtiums and every free-growing creeper have long ere this
trailed their stems over the box edging, and made an untidiness which
forebodes their early destruction at the hands of the gardener. Of
sweet-scented flowers only a few peas and mignonette remain.
Mr. Allingham knew the Poet Laureate for many years, having at one time
lived at Lymington, which is the port of departure for the western end
of the Isle of Wight, and whence he often crossed to Farringford. The
artist's first meeting with Tennyson was soon after her marriage. He
and his son Hallam had come up to town, and had walked over from Mr.
James Knowles's house at Clapham, where they were staying, to Chelsea.
He invited Mrs. Allingham to Aldworth, an invitation which was accepted
shortly afterwards. The poet was very proud of the country which framed
his house, and during this visit he took her his special walks to
Blackdown, to Fir Tree Corner (whence there is a wide view over the
Weald towards the sea), and to a great favourite of his, the Foxes'
Hole, a lovely valley beyond his own grounds. Whilst on this last-named
ramble he suddenly turned round and chided the artist for "chattering
instead of looking at the view." During this visit he read to her a
part of his _Harold_, and the wonder of his voice and whole manner of
reading or chanting she will never forget.
When the Allinghams came to live at Witley they were able to get to and
from Aldworth in an afternoon, and so were frequent visitors there. One
day in the autumn of 1881 Mrs. Allingham went over alone, owing to her
husband's absence, and after lunch the poet walked with her to Foxes'
Hole, where they sat on bundles of peasticks, she painting an old
cottage since pulled down, and he watching her. After a time he said
slowly, "I should like to do that. It does not look very difficult."
Years later he showed her some water-colour drawings he had made,
from imagination, of Mount Ida clad in dark fir groves, which were
undoubtedly very clever in their suggestiveness.
Lord Tennyson's Isle of Wight home Mrs. Allingham did not see until
after she returned to live in London, when Mr. Hallam Tennyson, in
conversing with her about her drawings, told her that if she would
come to the Isle of Wight he could show her some fine old cottages.
She accordingly went at the Easter of 1890 to Freshwater, when he was
as good as his word, and she at once began drawings of "The Dairy"
and the cottage "At Pound Green." Miss Kate Greenaway, who had come
to stay with her, also painted them. The next spring, and many springs
afterwards, Mrs. Allingham went to Freshwater, generally after the
Easter holidays.
During one of these stays she accompanied Birket Foster to Farringford,
and the poet asked the two artists to come for a walk with him. There
happened to be a boy of the party in a sailor costume with a bright
blue collar and a scarlet cap, and Birket Foster, who was at the moment
walking behind with Mrs. Allingham, said, "Why is that red and blue so
disagreeable?" Tennyson's quick ear caught something, and he turned
on them, setting his stick firmly in the ground, and asked Mr. Foster
to explain himself. "Well," Mr. Foster said, "I only know that the
effect of the contrast is to make cold water run down my spine." Mrs.
Allingham cordially agreed with Mr. Birket Foster, but Tennyson could
not feel the "cold water," although he saw their point, and said it
was doubtless with painters as with himself in poetry, namely, that
some combinations of sound gave intense pleasure, whilst others grated,
and he quoted certain lines as being so to him. On another occasion,
whilst walking with him at Freshwater, he said something which led
Mrs. Allingham to mention that she generally kept her drawings by her
for a long time, often for years, working on them now and again and
considering about figures and incidents for them,[14] upon which he
remarked that it was the same in the case of poems, and that he used
generally to keep his by him, often in print, for a considerable time
before publishing.
* * * * *
The following drawings have been sufficiently described in the text:--
[Illustration:
70. THE HOUSE, FARRINGFORD
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. John Mackinnon._
Painted 1890.]
[Illustration:
71. THE KITCHEN-GARDEN, FARRINGFORD
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mrs. Combe._
Painted 1894.]
[Illustration:
72. THE DAIRY, FARRINGFORD
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. Douglas Freshfield._
Painted 1890.]
[Illustration:
73. ONE OF LORD TENNYSON'S COTTAGES, FARRINGFORD
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. E. Marsh Simpson._
Painted 1900.]
[Illustration:
74. A GARDEN IN OCTOBER, ALDWORTH
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. F. Pennington._
Painted 1891.]
The next three water-colours find a place here, as having been painted
during visits to the Island.
[Illustration: 75.
75. HOOK HILL FARM, FRESHWATER
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Sir James Kitson, Bt., M.P._
Painted 1891.]
An old farmhouse on the other side of the Yar Valley to Farringford,
but one which Tennyson often made an object for a walk. It possessed
a fine yard and old thatch-covered barn, which, however, has passed
out of existence, but not before Mrs. Allingham had perpetuated it in
water-colour. This group of buildings has been painted by the artist
from every side, and at other seasons than that represented here, when
pear, apple, and lilac trees, primroses, and daisies vie with one
another in heralding the coming spring.
[Illustration:
76. AT POUND GREEN, FRESHWATER, ISLE OF WIGHT
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. Douglas Freshfield._
Painted about 1891.]
To the cottage-born child of to-day the name of the "Pound" has little
significance, but even in the writer's recollection it not only had a
fascination but a feeling almost akin to terror, being deemed, in very
truth, to be a prison for the dumb animals who generally, through no
fault of their own, were impounded there. Both it and its tenants too
were always suggestive of starvation. When (following, at some interval
of time, the village stocks) it passed out of use, the countryside, in
losing both, forgot a very cruel phase of life.
A child of to-day has, with all its education, not acquired many
amusements to replace that of teasing the tenants of the Pound on
the Green, so he never tires of pulling anything with the faintest
similitude to the cart which he will probably spend much of his later
life in driving. Here the youngster has evidently been making
stabling for his toy under a seat whose back is formed out of some
carved relic of an old sailing-ship that was probably wrecked at the
Needles, and whose remains the tide carried in to Freshwater Bay.
[Illustration:
77. A COTTAGE AT FRESHWATER GATE
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Sir Henry Irving._
Painted 1891.]
Tramps are usually few and far between in the Isle of Wight, for the
reason that the island does not rear many, and those from the mainland
do not care to cross the Solent lest, should they be tempted to
wrong-doing, there may be a difficulty in avoiding the arm of the law
or the confines of the island. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, to
find the only flaw in our title of _Happy England_ in such a locality.
But here it is, on this spring day, when apple, and pear, and primrose
blossoms make one
Bless His name
That He hath mantled the green earth with flowers.
We have the rift, making the discordant note, of want, in the person of
a woman, dragged down with the burden of four children, sending the
eldest to beg a crust at a house which cannot contain a superfluity of
the good things of this world.
A singular interest attaches to Mrs. Allingham's drawing of this
cottage. She had nearly completed it on a Saturday afternoon, and was
asked by a friend whether she would finish it next day. To this she
replied that she never sketched in public on Sunday. On Monday the
cottage was a heap of ruins, having been burnt down the previous night.