Half an hour later we joined them and we all went out for a walk. In the
garden Tennyson pointed out to us some blue flowering pea which had been
reared from seed found in the hand of a mummy. He stooped a little as he
walked; he was then eighty-two, but seemed strong and was very cheerful—
sometimes even merry. With us came his great Russian wolf-hound which
seemed devoted to him. We walked through the grounds and woods for some
three miles altogether, Hallam and Irving walking in front. As I walked
with Tennyson we had much conversation, every word of which comes back
to me. I was so fond of him and admired him so much that I could not, I
think, forget if I tried anything which he said. Amongst other things he
mentioned a little incident at Farringford, when in his own grounds an
effusive lady, a stranger, said at rather than to him, of course
alluding to the berries of the wild rose, then in profusion:
“What beautiful hips!”
“I’m so glad you admire ’em, ma’am!” he had answered, and he laughed
heartily at the memory. I mention this as an instance of his love of
humour. He had intense enjoyment of it.
He also mentioned an error made by the writer of _Tennyson Land_ of a
dog which in Demet Vale saved the child of an old local farmer.
“It’s a lie,” he said, “I invented it all; though there was such a
character when I was a boy. When he was dying he said:
“‘Th’ A’mighty couldn’t be so hard. An’ Squire would be so mad an’ a’!’”
He said it in broad Lincolnshire dialect such as he used in _The
Northern Farmer_. Tennyson was a natural character-actor; when he read
or spoke in dialect he conveyed in voice and manner a distinct
impression of an individual other than himself.
Then he told me some Irish anecdotes generally bearing on that quality
in the Irish nature which renders them unsatisfied. He suggested a
parody of a double row of shillelaghs working automatically on each side
“and then they would be unsatisfied!” At another time he spoke to me in
the same vein.
Then I told him some Irish dialect stories which were new to him and
which really seemed to give him pleasure. I told him also some of the
extravagant Orange toasts of former days whereat he laughed much. Then
turning to me he said:
“When we go in I want to read you something which I have just finished;
but you must not say anything about it yet!”
“All right!” I said, “of course I shall not. But why, may I ask, do you
wish it so?”
“Well, you see,” he said, “I have to be careful. If it is known that I
am writing on a particular subject I get a dozen poems on it the next
day. And then when mine comes out they say I plagiarised them!”
In the course of our conversation something cropped up which suggested a
line of one of his poems, _The Golden Year_, and I quoted it. “Go on!”
said Tennyson, who seemed to like to know that any one quoting him knew
more than the bare quotation. I happened to know that poem and went on
to the end of the lyrical portion. There I stopped:
“Go on!” he said again; so I spoke the narrative bit at the end,
supposed to be spoken by the writer:
“He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast
The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap
And buffet round the hills, from bluff to bluff.”
Tennyson listened attentively. When I spoke the last line he shook his
head and said:
“No!”
“Surely that is correct?” I said.
“No!” There was in this something which I did not understand, for I was
certain that I had given the words correctly. So I ventured to say:
“Of course one must not contradict an author about his own work; but I
am certain those are the words in my edition of the poem.” He answered
quickly:
“Oh, the words are all right—quite correct!”
“Then what is wrong?” For answer he said:
“Have you ever been on a Welsh mountain?”
“Yes! on Snowdon!”
“Did you hear them blast a slate-quarry?”
“Yes. In Wales, and also on Coniston in Lancashire.”
“And did you notice the sound?” I was altogether at fault and said:
“Won’t you tell me—explain to me. I really want to understand?”
Accordingly he spoke the last line; and further explanation was
unnecessary. The whole gist was in his pronunciation of the word “bluff”
twice repeated. He spoke the word with a sort of quick propulsive effort
as though throwing the word from his mouth.
“I thought any one would understand that!” he added.
It was the exact muffled sound which the exploding charge makes in the
curves of the steep valleys.
This is a good instance of Tennyson’s wonderful power of onomatopœia. To
him the sound had a sense of its own. I had another instance of it
before the day was over.
That talk was full of very interesting memories. Perhaps it was apropos
of the peas grown from the seed in the mummy hand, but Lazarus in his
tomb came on the _tapis_. This stanza of _In Memoriam_ had always been a
favourite of mine, and when I told him so, he said:
“Repeat it!” I did so, again feeling as if I were being weighed up. When
I had finished:
“He told it not; or something seal’d
The lips of that Evangelist:”
he turned to me and said:
“Do you know that when that was published they said I was scoffing.
But”—here both face and voice grew very very grave—“I did not mean to
scoff!”
When I told him of my wonder as to how any sane person could have taken
such an idea from such a faithful, tender, understanding poem he went on
to speak of faith and the need of faith. There was, speaking generally,
nothing strange or original to rest in my mind. But his finishing
sentence I shall never forget. Indeed had I forgotten for the time I
should have remembered it from what he said the last interview I had
with him just before his death:
“You know I don’t believe in an eternal hell, with an All-merciful God.
I believe in the All-merciful God! It would be better otherwise that men
should believe they are only ephemera!”
When we returned to the house we lunched, Lady Tennyson and Mrs. Hallam
Tennyson having joined us. Then we went up again to the study, and
Tennyson, taking from the table the book in which he had been writing,
read us the last-written poem, _The Churchwarden and the Curate_. He
read it in the Lincolnshire dialect, which is much simpler when heard
than read. The broadness of the vowels and their rustic prolongation,
rather than drawl, adds force and also humour. I shall never forget the
intense effect of the last lines of the tenth stanza. The shrewd worldly
wisdom—which was plain sincerity of understanding without cynicism:
“But niver not speäk plaain out, if tha wants to git forrards a bit,
But creeäp along the hedge-bottoms, an’ thou’ll be a Bishop yit.”
Tennyson was a strangely good reader. His voice was powerful and
vibrant, and had that quality of individualism which is so convincing.
You could not possibly mistake it for the voice of any one else. It was
a potent part of the man’s identity. In his reading there was a
wonderful sense of time. The lines seem to swing with an elastic step—
like a regiment marching.
In a little time after came his hour for midday rest; so we said
good-bye and left him. Irving and I went for a smoke to Hallam’s study,
where he produced his phonograph and adjusted a cylinder containing a
reading of his father’s. Colonel Gouraud had taken special pains to have
for the reception of Tennyson’s voice the most perfect appliance
possible, and the phonograph was one of peculiar excellence, without any
of that tinny sharpness which so often changes the intentioned sound.
The reading was that of Tennyson’s own poem, _The Charge of the Heavy
Brigade_. It was strange to hear the mechanical repetition whilst the
sound of the real voice, which we had so lately heard, was still ringing
in our ears. It was hard to believe that we were not listening to the
poet once again. The poem of Scarlett’s charge is one of special
excellence for phonographic recital, and also as an illustration of
Tennyson’s remarkable sense of time. One seems to hear the rhythmic
thunder of the horses’ hoofs as they ride to the attack. The ground
seems to shake, and the virile voice of the reader conveys in added
volume the desperate valour of the charge.
With Hallam we sat awhile and talked. Then we came away and drove to
Godalming, there to catch our train for London. The afternoon sun was
bright and warm, though the air was bracing; and even as we drove
through the beautiful scene Irving’s eyes closed and he took his
afternoon doze after his usual fashion.
I think this visit fanned afresh Irving’s wish to play _Becket_. I do
not know what he and Tennyson spoke of—he never happened to mention it
to me; but he began from thence to speak of the play at odd times.
III
That season was a busy one, as we had taken off _Ravenswood_ and played
_répertoire_. That autumn there was a provincial tour. The 1891 season
saw _Henry VIII._ run from the beginning of the year. The long run, with
only six performances a week, gave some leisure for study; and Irving
once more took _Becket_ in hand. I think that again the character he was
playing had its influence on him. He was tuned to sacerdotalism; and the
robes of a churchman sat easy on him. There was a sufficient difference
between Wolsey—the chancellor who happened to be a cleric, and Becket—
who was cleric before all things—to obviate the danger of too exact a
repetition of character and situation. At all events Irving reasoned it
out in his usual quiet way, and did not speak till he was ready. It was
during the customary holiday in Holy Week in 1892 that he finally made
up his mind. I had been spending the vacation in Cornwall, at Boscastle,
a lovely spot which I had hit upon by accident. Incidentally I so fell
in love with the place and gave such a glowing account of it that
Irving, later on, spent two vacations at it. I came up to London on the
night of Good Friday in a blinding snowstorm, the ground white from the
Cornish sea to London. Irving had evidently been waiting, for as soon as
we met in the theatre about noon on Saturday he asked me if I could stop
and take supper in the theatre. I said I could, and he made the same
request to Loveday. After the play we had supper in the Beefsteak Room;
and when we had lit our cigars, he opened a great packet of foolscap and
took out _Becket_ as he had arranged it. He had taken two copies of the
book, and when he had marked the cuts in duplicate he had cut out neatly
all the deleted scenes and passages. He had used two copies as he had to
paste down the leaves on the sheets of foolscap. He had prepared the
play in this way so that any one reading it would not see as he went
along what had been cut out. Thus such a reader would be better able to
follow the action as it had been arranged, unprejudiced by obvious
alteration, and with a mind single of thought—for it would not be
following the deleted matter as well as that remaining. He knew also
that it would be more pleasant to Tennyson to read what he had written
without seeing a great mass cut out. _Becket_ as written is enormously
long; the adapted play is only about five-sevenths of the original
length. Before he began to read he said:
“I think I have got it at last!”
His reading was of its usual fine and enlightening quality; as he read
it the story became a fascination. There was no doubting how the part of
Becket appealed to him. He was greatly moved at some of the passages,
especially in the last act.
Loveday and I were delighted with the play. And when the reading was
finished, we, then and there, agreed that it should be the next play
produced after _King Lear_, which was then in hand, and which had been
arranged to come on in the autumn of that year.
We sat that night until four o’clock, talking over the play and the
music for it. Irving thought that Charles Villiers Stanford would be the
best man to do it. We quite agreed with him. When he saw that we were
taken with it, equally as himself, he became more expansive regarding
the play. He said it was a true “miracle” play—a holy theme; and that he
had felt already in studying it that it made him a better man.
Before we parted I had by his wish written to Hallam Tennyson at
Freshwater asking him if he could see me on business if I came down to
the Isle of Wight. I mentioned also Irving’s wish that it might be as
soon as possible.
Hallam Tennyson telegraphed up on Monday, after he had received my
letter, saying that I would be expected the next day, April 19—Easter
Tuesday, 1892.
In the meantime, I had read both the original play and the acting
version, and was fairly familiar with the latter.
XX
TENNYSON AND HIS PLAYS—III
I
I went down by the 10.30 train from Victoria and got to Freshwater about
four o’clock. Hallam was attending a meeting of the County Council but
came in about five. He and I went carefully over the suggested changes,
in whose wisdom he seemed to acquiesce. We arranged provisionally
royalties and such matters, as Irving had wished to acquire for a term
of years the whole rights of the play for both Britain and America. We
were absolutely at one on all points.
At a little before six he took me to see his father, who was lying on a
sofa in his study. The study was a fine room with big windows. Tennyson
was a little fretful at first, as he was ill with a really bad cold; but
he was very interested in my message and cheered up at once. At the
beginning I asked if he would allow Irving to alter _Becket_, so far as
cutting it as he thought necessary. He answered at once:
“Irving may do whatever he pleases with it!”
“In that case, Lord Tennyson,” said I, “Irving will do the play within a
year!”
He seemed greatly gratified, and for a long time we sat chatting over
the suggested changes, he turning the manuscript over and making a
running commentary as he went along. He knew well where the cuts were;
he knew every word of the play, and needed no reference to the fuller
text.
When he came to the end of the scene in Northampton Castle, I put before
him Irving’s suggestion that he should, if he thought well of it,
introduce a speech—or rather amplify the idea conveyed in the shout of
the kneeling crowd: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!”
In our discussion of the play on the night of the reading we had all
agreed that something was here wanting—something which would, from a
dramatic point of view, strengthen Becket’s position. If he could have
the heart of the people behind him it would manifestly give him a firmer
foothold in his struggle with the King. Naturally there was an opening
for an impassioned voicing of the old cry, “_Vox populi, vox Dei_.” When
I ventured to suggest this he said in a doubting way:
“But where am I to get such a speech?”
As we sat we were sheltered by the Downs from the sea which thunders
night and day under one of the highest cliffs in England. I pointed out
towards the Downs and said:
“There it is! In the roar of the sea!” The idea was evidently already in
his mind; and when he sent up to Irving a few days later the new
material the mighty sound of the surge and the blast were in his words.
II
When Tennyson had run roughly through the altered play, he seemed much
better and brighter. He put the play aside and talked of other things.
In the course of conversation he mentioned the subject of anonymous
letters from which he had suffered. He said that one man had been
writing such to him for forty-two years. He also spoke of the
unscrupulous or careless way in which some writers for the press had
treated him. That even Sir Edwin Arnold had written an interview without
his knowledge or consent, and that it was full of lies—Tennyson never
hesitated to use the word when he felt it—such as: “‘Here I parted from
General Gordon!’ And that I had ‘sent a man on horseback after him.’
General Gordon was never in the place!” This subject both in general and
special he alluded to also at our last meeting in 1892; it seemed to
have taken a hold on his memory.
He also said:
“Irving paid me a great compliment when he said that I would have made a
fine actor!”
In the morning, Hallam and I walked in the garden before breakfast.
Farringford is an old feudal farm, and some of the trees are
magnificent—ilex, pine, cedar; primrose and wild parsley everywhere, and
underneath a great cedar a wilderness of trailing ivy. The garden gave
me the idea that all the wild growth had been protected by a loving
hand.
After breakfast Hallam and I walked in the beautiful wood behind the
house, where beyond the hedgerows and the little wood rose the great
bare rolling Down, at the back of which is a great sheer cliff five
hundred feet high. We sat in the summer-house where Tennyson had written
nearly all of _Enoch Arden_. It had been lined with wood, which Alfred
Tennyson himself had carved; but now the bare bricks were visible in
places. The egregious relic hunters had whittled away piecemeal the
carved wood. They had also smashed the windows, which Tennyson had
painted with sea-plants and dragons; and had carried off the pieces!
When we returned I was brought up to Tennyson’s room.
He was not feeling well. He sat in a great chair with the cut play on
his knee, one finger between the pages as though to mark a place. He had
been studying the alterations; and as he did not look happy, I feared
that there might be something not satisfactory with regard to some of
the cuts. Presently he said to me suddenly:
“Who is God, the Virgin?”
“Who is _what_?” I asked, bewildered as to his meaning; I feared I could
not have heard aright.
“God, the Virgin! That is what I want to know too. Here it is!”
“As he spoke he opened the play where his finger marked it. He handed it
to me and there to my astonishment I read:
“I do commend my soul to God, the Virgin....”
When Irving had been cutting the speech he had omitted to draw his
pencil through the last two words. The speech as written ran thus:
“I do commend my soul to God, the Virgin,
St. Denis of France, and St. Alphege of England,
And all the tutelary saints of Canterbury.”
In doing the scissors-work he had been guided by the pencil-marks, and
so had made the error.
The incident amused Tennyson very much, and put him in better spirits.
We went downstairs into what in the house is called the “ballroom,” a
great sunny room with the wall away from the light covered with a great
painting by Lear of a tropical scene intended for _Enoch Arden_. Here we
walked up and down for a long time, the old man leaning on my arm. He
told me that he had often thought of making a collection of the hundred
best stories.
“Tell me some of them?” I asked softly. Whereupon he told me quite a
number, all excellent. Such as the following:
“A noble at the Court of Louis XVI. was extremely like the King, who
on it being pointed out to him, sent for him and asked him:
“‘Was your mother ever at Court?’ Bowing low he replied:
“‘No, sire! But my father was!’”
Again:
“Colonel Jack Towers was a great crony of the Prince Regent. He was
with his regiment at Portsmouth on one occasion; and was in Command of
the Guard of Honour when the Prince was crossing to the Isle of Wight.
The Prince had not thought of his being there, and was surprised when
he saw him. After his usual manner he began to banter:
“‘Why, Jack, they tell me you are the biggest blackguard in
Portsmouth!’ To which the other replied, bowing low:
“‘I trust that your Royal Highness has not come down here to take away
my character!’”
Again:
“Silly Billy—the sobriquet of the Duke of Gloucester—said to a friend:
“‘You are as near a fool as you can be!’ He too bowed as he answered:
“‘Far be it from me to contradict your Royal Highness!’”
III
That evening at dinner Tennyson was, though far from well in health,
exceedingly bright in his talk. To me he seemed to love an argument and
supported his side with an intellectual vigour and quickness which were
delightful. He was full of insight into Irish character. He asked me if
I had read his poem, _The Voyage of Maeldune_; and when I told him I had
not yet read it he described it and repeated verses. How the Irish had
sailed to island after island, finding in turn all they had longed for,
from fighting to luscious fruit, but were never satisfied and came back,
fewer in numbers, to their own island. In the drawing-room he said to
me, as if the idea had struck him, I daresay from something I said:
“Are you Irish?” When I told him I was he said very sweetly:
“You must forgive me. If I had known that I would not have said anything
that seemed to belittle Ireland.”
He went to bed early after his usual custom.
That evening in the course of conversation the name of John Fiske the
historian, and sometime a professor of Yale University, came up. To my
great pleasure, for Fiske had been a close friend of mine for nearly ten
years, Tennyson spoke of him in the most enthusiastic way. He asked me
if I knew his work. And when I replied that I knew well not only the
work but the man, he answered:
“You know him! Then when you next meet him will you tell John Fiske from
me that I thank him—thank him most heartily and truly—for all the
pleasure and profit his work has been to me!”
“I shall write to him to-morrow!” I said. “I know it will be a delight
to him to have such a message from you!”
“No!” said Tennyson, “Don’t write! Wait till you see him, and then tell
him—direct from me through you—how much I feel indebted to him!”
I did not meet John Fiske till 1895. When the message was delivered it
was from the dead.
IV
On the next morning I saw Tennyson again in his bedroom after early
breakfast. He looked very unwell, and was in low spirits. Indeed he
seemed too dispirited to light his pipe, which he held ready in his
hand. He said that he had not yet got the lines he wanted: “The Voice of
the People is the Voice of God”—or: “The Voice of the People is the
Voice of England!” I think that he had been over the altered text again
and that some of the cutting had worried him. Before I came away after
saying good-bye he said suddenly, as if he had all at once made up his
mind to speak:
“I suppose he couldn’t spare me Walter Map?”
Walter Map was a favourite character of his in the original _Becket_. He
it is who represents scholarly humour in the play.
When I told Irving about this he was much touched, and said that he
would go over the play again, and would, if he possibly could see his
way to it, retain the character. He spent many days over it; but at last
came to the conclusion that it would not do.
At this last meeting—at that visit—when I asked Tennyson what composer
he would wish to do the music for his play he said:
“Villiers Stanford!” He and Irving had independently chosen the same
man. How this belief was justified is known to all who have heard the
fine _Becket_ music.
V
On September 25 the same year, 1892, my wife and I spent the day with
Lord and Lady Tennyson at Aldworth. We were to have gone a week earlier,
but as Tennyson was not well the visit was postponed. We left Waterloo
by the 8.45 train. At the station we were joined by Walter Leaf, the
Homer scholar, who had been at Cambridge with Hallam. We had met him at
Lionel Tennyson’s years before. The day was dull but the country looked
very lovely; still full of green, though the leaves were here and there
beginning to turn. The Indian vines were scarlet. A carriage was waiting
and we drove to Aldworth, meeting Mrs. Tennyson on her way to church. On
Blackdown Common the leaves were browner than in the valley, and there
was a sense of autumn in the air; but round the house, where it was
sheltered, green still reigned alone. Far below us the plain was a sea
of green, with dark lines of trees and hedgerows like waves. In the
distance the fields were wreathed with a dark film—a sapphire mystery.
We sat awhile with Lady Tennyson, who was in the drawing-room on a sofa
away from the light. She had long been an invalid. She was perhaps the
most sweet and saintly woman I ever met, and had a wonderful memory. She
had been helper and secretary to her husband in early days, trying to
save him all the labour she could; and she told us of the enormous
correspondence of even that early time. Presently Hallam took us all up
to his father, who was in his study overhead.