It is related by Miss Thackeray that the grandfather of Alfred Tennyson,
when that poet was young, asked him to write an elegy on his
grandmother, who had recently died, and when it was written gave him ten
shillings, with the remark, "There, that is the first money you have
ever earned by your poetry, and, take my word for it, it will be the
last." How little he foresaw at that time the fame and fortune which the
youth's poetry was to bring him, and the lasting honor he was to bestow
upon the family name! That name was already an honorable one, for the
Tennysons were an old family, and had good blood in their veins. The
home was the old rectory of Somersby, where George Clayton Tennyson,
LL.D., held sway in the old-time priestly fashion for a lifetime. He is
described as a man of strong character and high principle, full of
accomplishments, and gifted withal; a strikingly handsome man, with
impressive manners. Twelve children were given to his hands, of whom
Alfred was the third. The eldest, Frederick, and the second, Charles,
were both poets, and not without merit,--especially Charles, who
published a volume of sonnets, which gave great pleasure to so good a
judge as Coleridge; and the Laureate is himself very fond of his
brother's work.
The children led a very free and unconstrained life in that beautiful
part of Lincolnshire, and had a few friends to whom they attached
themselves for life. Arthur Hallam was Alfred's intimate, and later on
he became engaged to one of his sisters. Young Hallam's early death was
the first shadow upon their lives. But who would not willingly die at
twenty-three to be immortalized in such a poem as "In Memoriam"?
Of Arthur Hallam's own quality as a poet we get a pleasant glimpse in
the sonnet addressed to his betrothed when he began to teach her
Italian:--
"Lady, I bid thee to a sunny dome,
Ringing with echoes of Italian song;
Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong,
And all the pleasant place is like a home.
Hark, on the right, with full piano tone,
Old Dante's voice encircles all the air;
Hark yet again, like flute-tones mingling rare
Comes the keen sweetness of Petrarca's moan.
Pass thou the lintel freely; without fear
Feast on the music. I do better know thee
Than to suspect this pleasure thou dost owe me
Will wrong thy gentle spirit, or make less dear."
After Tennyson had made his first literary successes, and after the
family life at Somersby was broken up, we next hear of him through a
warm and life-long friend. Away back in 1844 Carlyle in one of his
letters to Emerson gives the following description of the then young and
rising poet. It is an authentic glimpse of the real man, as he then
appeared to one of the shrewdest and most critical of the men of that
day.
"Tennyson is now in town, and means to come and see me. Of this
latter result I shall be very glad: Alfred is one of the few
British or Foreign Figures (a not increasing number I think) who
are and remain beautiful to me,--a true human soul, or some
approximation thereto, to whom your own soul can say, Brother!
However, I doubt he will not come; he often skips me, in these
brief visits to Town; skips everybody indeed, being a man solitary
and sad, as certain men are, dwelling in an element of
gloom,--carrying a bit of Chaos about him, in short, which he is
manufacturing into Cosmos!
"Alfred is the son of a Lincolnshire Gentleman Farmer, I think;
indeed, you see in his verses that he is a native of 'moated
granges,' and green fat pastures, not of mountains and their
torrents and storms. He had his breeding at Cambridge, as if for
the Law or Church; being master of a small annuity, on his Father's
decease, he preferred clubbing, with his mother and some sisters,
to live unpromoted and write Poems. In this way he lives still, now
here, now there; the family always within reach of London, never in
it; he himself making rare and brief visits, lodging in some old
comrade's rooms. I think he must be under forty, not much under it.
One of the finest looking men in the world. A great shock of rough
dusty-dark hair; bright, laughing hazel eyes; massive aquiline
face, most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow-brown complexion,
almost Indian looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy;
smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical metallic,--fit for
loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between;
speech and speculation free and plenteous: I do not meet in these
decades such company over a pipe! We shall see what he will grow
to. He is often unwell; very chaotic--his way is through Chaos and
the Bottomless and Pathless; not handy for making out many miles
upon."
To this graphic description little need be added of the Tennyson of that
time. He was in the midst of his greatest literary successes, and just
beginning to reap some of the rewards of his labors. His fame increased
rapidly from that time forward, and his fortune with his fame. For many
years he has been a rich man, being a sharp and shrewd manager of his
worldly affairs. His investments have always proved to be paying ones;
and for a long time he has had whatever prices he named for his poems.
He has a beautiful place at Farringford, Isle of Wight, and another
country seat at Aldworth, in Surrey. He also owns a house in London,
although he spends very little time there. He kept up his visits to the
Carlyles during his occasional stays in the metropolis, until the death
of his old friends. He was very fond of Mrs. Carlyle, her sharp wit
amusing him, and her appreciation of his own work flattering him. She
gives occasional pleasant mention of him in her letters. Over his later
work Carlyle was not enthusiastic, although he retained his friendship
for the man. In 1867, after the death of his wife, he gives us his last
glimpse of the poet, which is as characteristic as the other:--
"We read at first Tennyson's 'Idyls,' with profound recognition of
the finely elaborated execution, and also of the inward perfection
of vacancy--and, to say truth, with considerable impatience at
being treated so very like infants though the lollipops were so
superlative. We gladly changed for one Emerson's 'English Traits;'
and read that with increasing and ever increasing satisfaction
every evening; blessing heaven that there were still books for
grown-up people too."
According to Carlyle, what Tennyson needed was a Task; and wanting that,
he almost lost his way among the will-o'-wisps. High art, in the eyes of
Carlyle, was but a poor "task" for a man like Tennyson. Upon this point
the world will not be likely to agree with him, nor in his judgment of
the wonderful "Idyls of the King." Although Tennyson, like Carlyle
himself, has written too far into the shadows of age, he will not be
judged by the labors of his old age, but by the matchless products of
his prime. These are surely a priceless possession for the readers of
the future, as well as for the men of his own time.
In the autobiography of Sir Henry Taylor we have this glimpse of the
poet, in a letter from Mrs. Cameron to that gentleman:--
"Alfred has grown, he says, much fonder of you since your last
visit here. He says he feels now he is beginning to know you and
not to feel afraid of you; and that he is beginning to get over
your extreme insolence to him when he was young and you were in
your meridian splendor and glory. So one reads your simplicity. He
was very violent with the girls on the subject of the rage for
autographs. He said he believed every crime and every vice in the
world was connected with the passion for autographs and anecdotes
and records; that the desiring anecdotes and acquaintance with the
lives of great men was treating them like pigs, to be ripped open
for the public; that he knew he himself should be ripped open like
a pig; that he thanked God Almighty with his whole heart and soul
that he knew nothing, and that the world knew nothing, of
Shakspeare but his writings."
All of which sounds not unlike what Carlyle himself might have said in
those days; and yet what personal revelations he made to the world
before his death!
The news that Lord Tennyson is writing his autobiography may be sent by
cable almost any day now, and the world will not receive it with any
great surprise, but with very great interest and pleasure. This dislike
of being lionized and overrun by celebrity hunters is probably one great
reason why the poet prefers the solitude of the country to a residence
in London. His servants and family guard him very securely from
unwelcome visitors in his country home. The injunctions against
disturbing him while at his work are so strong, that one day during the
life of Prince Albert that distinguished _attache_ of royalty was
refused admittance at the door. The poet formed a friendship with the
Prince, however, later in life, and is now an occasional visitor to the
Queen at Windsor. He is also a favorite with the Princess of Wales and
other members of the royal family. But even such august friends as these
do not draw him often from his solitude. Mr. Gladstone begs him in vain
for a visit, and his invitations to the houses of the great lords are of
course many and importunate; but of late he refuses them all. He says he
will never again voluntarily pass a week in London, and he is not more
fond of visits to country houses than to the city. Nor can we wonder
much at this. He has never been a society man, and now that he is old,
and growing somewhat feeble, the effort to conform to the demands of a
conventional life is harder than ever. He tried taking a house in London
and spending the season there, not many years ago, but wearied of it
very quickly, and gave up the idea forever. While in London at that
time he always appeared in public in the picturesque wide-awake hat of
the Italian bandit, and always, even in warm weather, wore a cloak. The
costume is very becoming, and the poet can afford to indulge his
individual tastes in the matter of dress; so everybody said how poetical
he looked, and, on the whole, his eccentricity was a success. He has
always had a great contempt for the conventionalities of dress, and many
laughable anecdotes have been told concerning his appearance at the Isle
of Wight. When young he was really handsome, though he always wore his
hair long, and looked as if he would be the better for a barber; but now
he is very gray and wizened, stoops badly, and shows that he has smoked,
as Carlyle said, infinite tobacco. Tennyson has always exercised a
judicious hospitality, but never overburdened himself with company. His
favorite time for guests is from Saturday until Monday, and those who
are so fortunate as to be invited enjoy very greatly the distinction.
Among his favorite guests is Henry Irving. A few years before his death
Garibaldi paid the poet a visit, which was much enjoyed by both. Years
ago, when the poet was more in London than now, a little knot of
literary friends had a standing engagement to dine together once a
month, and the parties were almost the ideal of unconventional
friendliness. Among the number were Carlyle, Cunningham, Mill,
Thackeray, Forster, Stirling, Landor, and Macready. Here the
conversation was of the best, Carlyle always coming out strong, and all
the rest content to listen. However, Carlyle, unlike many great
conversers, never monopolized the conversation. It was always dialogue
and not monologue with Carlyle in any mixed company, though he would
discourse at length to one or two visitors. Tennyson, like many men of
letters, loves to talk about his own work, and is very fond of reading
his poems to his friends. This is, of course, very delightful to those
friends, if the reading be not too prolonged, although he is said to
chant them in rather a disagreeable manner. He is a great egotist, and
does not like to listen to other people when they talk about themselves.
We are told that Charles Sumner once paid him a visit, and bored him
very much by a long talk upon American affairs in which Tennyson took no
interest. When Sumner finally made a sufficient pause, Tennyson changed
the subject by inquiring if his visitor had ever read "The Princess."
Sumner replied that it was one of his favorite poems, whereupon Tennyson
handed him the book and asked him to read. Sumner began, but was soon
stopped by Tennyson, who wished to show him how a passage should be
read. He went on reading aloud in his high nasal voice, until Sumner
grew very weary, but did not dare to move for fear of being thought
unappreciative. On and on read the poet, page after page, never making a
moment's pause or giving Sumner any chance to escape, until he had read
the whole poem. It is said that Sumner never dared pay him another
visit. Being a decided egotist himself, it was painfully hard for the
distinguished American to subordinate himself for so long a time, and
his friends amused themselves very much at the idea.
Tennyson undoubtedly has a high opinion of his work; but he does not go
quite to the length of Wordsworth in such self-admiration, as Wordsworth
would read no poetry but his own, while Tennyson is a generous admirer
of the work of fellow-poets.
Tennyson's married life has been one of the happiest on record. He
addresses his wife in these lines:--
"Dear, near, and true--no truer Time himself
Can prove you, though he make you evermore
Dearer and nearer."
One cannot think, when he witnesses the devotion of the poet to his
wife, that he ever regrets the "Amy shallow-hearted," the "Amy mine no
more," of his youth; and the reader certainly cannot regret her, if it
is really to her that we owe "Locksley Hall." Mrs. Tennyson has been
something of an invalid, and the poet and his sons, Hallam and Lionel,
may often be seen wheeling her on the lawn at Farringford. Of the house
at Farringford Miss Thackeray, who is an old friend of the family, as
was her father before her, tells us:--
"The house itself seemed like a charmed palace, with green walls
without and speaking walls within. There hung Dante with his solemn
nose and wreath; Italy gleamed over the doorways; friends' faces
lined the way; books filled the shelves, and a glow of crimson was
everywhere; the great oriel window in the drawing-room was full of
green and golden leaves, of the sound of birds, and of the distant
sea."