PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MY FATHER. 513 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON, BY MY DEAR HALLAM, Were it not that even details, which would be trivial when they concern ordinary men, may well be of lasting interest when they concern one of the immortals I should reluctantly attempt to add anything to the many personal characteristics which you have so well indicated in your memorial pages. But having enjoyed your father's friendship for forty years I may be allowed on your invitation to say a few words about him. The first words I heard him utter remain indelibly impressed upon my memory. On being introduced to him at an evening party in the house of Lord John Russell, I said, perhaps with some emotion, "I am so glad to know you." Not in the tone or voice of a mere conventional reply, but in the accents of sincere humility he answered, "You won't find much in me-after all." The effect which these words produced upon me at the moment was deepened every time I saw him. Your father was a man of the noblest humility I have ever known. It was not that he was unconscious of his own powers. It was not that he was indifferent to the appreciation of them by others. But it was that he was far more continually conscious of the limitations upon them in face of those problems of the universe with which, in thought, he was habitually dealing. In his inner spirit he seemed to me to be always feeling his own later words : "But what am I? An infant crying in the night: In close connection with this frame of mind was the profound reverence of his character. In speculation he was often bold — in a sense he was sometimes even daring. But he was always reverent, hating all levity or flippancy in thought or language about divine things. He was full of a kind of awful wonder, — of a silent worship. His direct theological utterances were few. But he said enough to show that he clung to the divine truths of the "creed of creeds." Although perfectly tolerant as regarded the doubts and difficulties of his time, he was impatient of any rough or contemptuous treatment of the great Christian verities, and sometimes indignantly rebuked it. Both his reverence and his humility were revolted by disdain. On one of the last occasions on 33 T. II. which I ever walked with him in his garden at Aldworth, it had been a wet day and all the grass and shrubs were dripping with rain. We were walking in single file to avoid brushing the drop-laden boughs, when after something had been said in our conversation which brought up this subject, he suddenly stopped, turned round, confronted me, and said "I hate scorn" with an emphasis which showed how deep-seated in his nature that hatred was. We must all remember how finely this sentiment is expressed in the description of Modred in "Guinevere." The absolute truthfulness of your father was a striking feature in his character. We are too apt to think of this as common, and so it is, up to a conventional standard which is determined by the public opinion of society from time to time. But in its highest manifestations, as they were seen in him, I always think that truthfulness is one of the rarest of human attributes. The degrees are innumerable in which truth is more or less compromised in the usages of society, in the pursuit of politics, and of business, as well as in controversy of all kinds. Your father's nature was in all things so simple and sincere that it made him sometimes abrupt and apparently rough in manner. I recollect an amusing instance of this which occurred many years ago. At that time it was rather usual in a certain literary circle to give breakfasts in London at which very often there were most agreeable parties gathered together from all directions of the compass. Macaulay, Bishop Wilberforce, Lord Mahon, and Monckton Milnes were among the hosts whose breakfasts were most agreeable. I and my wife did our best occasionally to follow their example. On one occasion we had invited an excellent selection of friends to whom we were ambitious enough to hope that we might add the illustrious poet. He was then often with us, reading the proof-sheets of the "Idylls," and on one of these occasions the Duchess, who was an intense admirer, ventured to approach the subject, saying, "We have got so and so, and so and so, and so and so to breakfast with us next Wednesday morning at ten a.m. Do you think, Mr Tennyson, that you could be persuaded to join our party?" Your father's reply left no room for further negotiations. It was simple and effective. "I should hate it, Duchess." The inexhaustible fountains of tenderness opened in his poetry, and which "In Memoriam " more especially revealed, could hardly have been suspected from his manner. In his deeper feelings he was intensely reserved. I was therefore all the more gratified and surprised by an indication of personal friendship which was granted to me very near the close of his life. I was to return to London next morning from a visit to Aldworth. Your mother had been at dinner and had bidden us good night as usual. When, about an hour later, your father took me up to his smoking-room, as was also usual with him, we were surprised to find BY THE DUKE OF ARGYLL. 515 your mother lying on the sofa there. Your father expressed his astonishment and said, "My dear, you ought to have gone to bed long ago." Her kind reply was, "Oh, I wished to say good-bye to the Duke again as he leaves us to-morrow morning." At that moment you entered the room and at once carried your mother off. Your father, somewhat moved as I thought, occupied himself with putting fresh coals on the fire. Then, turning to me, he said in a deep and solemn voice, without mentioning your mother's name, "It is a tender, spiritual face, is it not?" A better description, so full of truth and of poetry, could not be given of your mother's beautiful countenance, which I had so long known and had so often admired. These are the words I have interwoven into the last verse of the Elegy1 written on your father's death, and which your mother was so good as to accept with some kind expressions of appreciation which have been a great pleasure to me. Although I was a younger man than your father by a good many years, I am old enough to remember the first shining of his light above the horizon, and I have seen its steady culmination in a perfect day. Very few men of the generation whose tastes have been formed on the older poets, and who had, for the most part, resisted even the popularity of Wordsworth, could easily appreciate your father's earlier poetry. It involved not only new rhythms, but also entirely new moods and tendencies of thought. Among those who stood absolutely aloof was Lord Macaulay. I had the happiness of being the medium of introduction through which he was at last subdued. When your father entrusted me with the proof-sheets of "Guinevere" I took them to Macaulay who was my next door neighbour for some years before his death. I left the poem with him, telling him I would return next day to hear his opinion. I found him absolutely subdued, and I was much amused and interested in the few vain attempts he made even to qualify his admiration. He was, by natural disposition, highly critical. Himself a master in English prose composition, and the writer of some very beautiful bits of poetry, he could not easily surrender at discretion before an author whom he had hitherto regarded as at best the writer of some pretty lyrics. It was therefore with delight, but also with some surprise, that I heard him accost me at once, in a deeply impressed voice, with exclamations of unfeigned and reverent admiration. "Oh, it is very beautiful- very beautiful indeed," he repeated several times. Then, more moved than he was quite willing to confess, he tried to recover himself by making some critical reservations. "There is of course — " he would begin by saying, — or, "It is to be noticed however," or some such phrase repeated several times, but always broken off by a simple - 1 Burdens of Belief, and other Poems (J. Murray). renewal of "Oh, it is very beautiful — very beautiful indeed — most touching." I confess I left him with a sense of your father's complete triumph over a very competent judge, - premonitory (as I felt assured) of his conquest over the living world and over the generations that are to come. It was somewhere about the same time that I heard, and took a subordinate part in, a very interesting discussion in my own house on the question how far it is possible for any generation whatever to predict, with even tolerable security, how far any poet, however popular in his own time, would maintain at all a corresponding place in the estimate of future ages. The interlocutors in the discussion were old Lord Aberdeen, Mr Gladstone, Sir George Cornwall Lewis, and Lord Clarendon. The result seemed to be a general agreement that such a foreseeing is impossible. I venture to doubt the impossibility although fully admitting the many untraceable elements of deception. In your father's case I rest my assured confidence in his immortality on two strong foundations: first, the mass, variety and elevation of thought in his poetry; and, secondly, the extraordinary perfection of form by which it is distinguished. It seems to me that for example "In Memoriam " can never die until our existing world has passed away. Sorrow is always at home here. And sorrow has never had such a voice to express all its moods whether terrible or tender. Again, your father's blank verse is as peculiar as it is magnificent. Not even the stately march of Elizabethan English in its golden time, can overpass it in sweetness or in strength. In its description of Nature in all her aspects, it is quite incomparable, -as for example, in "The Gardener's Daughter," or in the description of the thunderstorm in "Vivien." But I must not run on into an essay on so large a subject as his poetry. I am speaking now only of what I conceive to be a few of the elements in it which may well give us an assurance of its immortality. To have been numbered amongst his personal friends I esteem as one of the greatest honors of my life. Yours affectionately, ARGYLL. EPILOGUE. (Unpublished.) Speak to me from the stormy sky! Speak to me, let me hear or see! Alas, my life is frail and weak : Seest thou my faults and wilt not speak? They are not want of love for thee. |