had taken in himself and all Italian matters, and also to consult Ferguson about his leg. Stretching this out he said, “There's a campaign in me yet." When I asked if he returned thro' France he said he would never set foot on the soil of France again. I happened to make use of this expression, "That fatal debt of gratitude owed by Italy to Napoleon." "Gratitude," he said; "Hasn't he had his pay? his reward? If Napoleon were dead I should be glad, and if I were dead he would be glad." These are slight chroniclings, but I thought you would like to have them. He seemed especially taken with my two little boys. As to "sea-blue birds" &c. defendant states that he was walking one day in March by a deep-banked brook, and under the leafless bushes he saw the kingfisher flitting or fleeting underneath him, and there came into his head a fragment of an old Greek lyric poet, "ȧλɩπóρpupos elapos opvis," "The sea-purple or sea-shining bird φυρος of Spring," spoken of as the halcyon. Defendant cannot say whether the Greek halcyon be the same as the British kingfisher, but as he never saw the kingfisher on this particular brook before March, he concludes that in that country at least, they go down to the sea during the hard weather and come up again with the Spring, for what says old Belon: "Le Martinet-pescheur fait sa demeure En temps d'hiver au bord de l'océan, Et de poisson se repaist à toute heure." You see he puts "esté," which I suppose stands for all the warmer weather. Was not the last letter in The Field written by yourself? Ever, my dear Duke, with all kind things from myself and wife to the Duchess, Yours, A. TENNYSON. 1864] VISIT TO BRITTANY. 5 We are sorry not to have seen you at Farringford in the time of flowers; let us know when you can come. I hope the Queen is well and able to enjoy this fine. weather. Just before the publication of “Enoch Arden” we made a pilgrimage into Brittany, where we unearthed many wild "Enoch Arden" stories and ballads. The Breton sailors are fine, simple, religious fellows, many of whom join the Iceland fishery and the French navy. My mother wrote: There are many pleasant things in our pleasant journey to think of, not the least those weird stones1. Carnac owes much less to them than we expected: the Morbihan district interested us much more. Mont St Michel, the old churches, and the Bayeux tapestry, to say nothing of our drives about the country, were very interesting too. From Quimper to Morlaix is wild Wales in miniature. We did not see as much as we ought to have done of the Western and Northern coasts. We drove by a road near the coast, not on the coast, having foolishly omitted to get a good map in Paris, and not having been able to find one afterwards. The people we found very uncommunicative, and, as far as we could discover, totally ignorant of the past history of their country, and of the Arthur legends. We went to Lannion on purpose to see Keldthuen (where Arthur is said to have held his court) and Avalon: but Keldthuen we found a moated and not ancient chateau, and tho' our driver showed us Avalon, the sailors declared it was not Avalon. Nevertheless the hostess of the Hôtel de l'Europe at Lannion somehow discovered who my father was, and proclaimed everywhere that he was the poet of "notre grand roi Arthur." The joy of my father in heroism, whether of a past age or of the present, and his delight in celebrating it, are more than ever apparent throughout this volume of 1 The dolmens and cromlechs. 1864. He was especially happy when writing of his "Old Fisherman." In these "Idylls of the Hearth 1" he had worked at the same vein which he opened in his 1842 poems. Here he writes with as intimate a knowledge, but with greater power, on subjects from English life, the sailor, the farmer, the parson, the city lawyer, the squire, the country maiden, and the old woman who dreams of her past life in a restful old age. He said that, excepting the poems suggested by the simple, old-world classical subjects, he had mostly drawn his scenes in England, because he could not truly pourtray the atmosphere of foreign lands. He added that he thought Romola a mistake; because George Eliot had not been able to enter into the complex Italian life and character, however much she might have studied them in books. Sixty thousand copies of "Enoch Arden" were sold in a very short time, and after this he was not infrequently called "The Poet of the People,” a title which could not but be appreciated by one who wrote: Plowmen, shepherds have I found, and more than once, and still could find, Sons of God and kings of men in utter nobleness of mind. Indeed, judging by the countless letters from all conditions of men all over the world, and from the many translations into foreign languages, this volume — which contained, besides "Enoch Arden," "Aylmer's Field," "The Grandmother," "Sea Dreams," "The Northern Farmer," "Tithonus," "The Sailor Boy," "The Flower," the "Welcome to Alexandra" and the "Dedication". is, perhaps with the exception of "In Memoriam," the most popular of his works. 1 The first title in the proof-sheets of the "Enoch Arden" volume. |