Tennyson and His Friends Part 26

In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the sh.e.l.l Divides three-fold to show the fruit within.

He is never tired of reflecting in his poetry the physiology of flowers and trees and buds. The "living smoke" of the yew is twice commemorated in his poems. He tells us how the sunflower, "s.h.i.+ning fair,"

Rays round with flames her disk of seed;

observes on the blasts "that blow the poplars white"; and, to make a long story short--for the list of instances might be multiplied to hundreds--in his latest published "Idylls of the King," he thus dates an early hour in the night:

Nigh upon that hour When the lone hern forgets his melancholy, _Lets down his other leg_, and, stretching, dreams Of goodly supper in the distant pool.

When Tennyson and W. G. Ward walked together there was then a most curious contrast in their att.i.tude towards the Nature that surrounded them,--Tennyson noting every bird, every flower, every tree, as he pa.s.sed it, Ward buried in the conversation, and alive only to the great, broad effects in the surrounding country.

W. G. Ward was himself not only no poet, but almost barbarously indifferent to poetry, with some few exceptions. He was exceedingly frank with Tennyson, and plainly intimated to him that there was very little in his poetry that he understood or cared for. But this fact never impaired their friends.h.i.+p. Indeed, I think Tennyson enjoyed his almost eccentric candour in this and in other matters, and he used, in later years, to tell me stories which ill.u.s.trated it. Once when the question of persecution had been debated at the Metaphysical Society he remarked to my father, "You know you would try to get me put into prison if the Pope told you to."

"Your father would not say 'No,'" Tennyson said to me. "He only replied, 'The Pope would never tell me to do anything so foolish.'"

I think his intercourse with my father did a good deal to diminish a certain prejudice against Roman Catholicism; and his intimacy with my father's chaplain--Father Haythornthwaite, a man as opposed to the popular conception of a Jesuit as could well be imagined--told in the same direction. "When Haythornthwaite dies," Tennyson once said, "I shall write as his epitaph: 'Here lies Peter Haythornthwaite, Human by nature, Roman by fate!'"

W. G. Ward's own extreme frankness led Tennyson to remark to a friend: "The popular idea of Roman Catholics as Jesuitical and untruthful is contrary to my own experience. The most truthful man I ever met was an Ultramontane. He was grotesquely truthful."

Tennyson would sometimes retort in kind to my father's frank criticisms, and once, after vainly trying to decipher one of his letters, observed that the handwriting was "like walking-sticks gone mad," a curiously true description of my father's very peculiar characters.[64]

As with scenery, so with poetry; my father only took in broad effects and simple pathos, and would single out for special admiration such a poem as the "Children's Hospital," over which he shed many tears.

Tennyson soon accustomed himself to my father's indifference to his poetry in general. But he hoped that, at all events, his metaphysical poems would interest his neighbour, and sent him the MS. of "De Profundis" when he wrote it; but the reply was only an entreaty that he would put explanatory notes to it when it should be published. One exception, however, must be made in favour of "Becket," which Tennyson read aloud to Ward, who, greatly to his own surprise, admired it enthusiastically. "How do you like it?" Tennyson asked, and the reply was, "Very much, though I did not expect to like it at all. It is quite splendid. The development of character in Chancellor and Archbishop is wonderfully drawn. Where did you learn it all?"

I used to think there was a good deal that was alike between the intercourse of Tennyson with my father and his intercourse with my father's old friend, Dr. Jowett of Balliol. In both cases there was the same complete frankness--an unanswerable reply to those who gave it out that Tennyson best enjoyed the society of flatterers. Jowett, however, understood Tennyson's poetry far better than my father did. It was sometimes strange to see that impa.s.sive figure, so little given to emotion, so ready to snub in others any display of feeling, under the spell of the Poet's lines. I recollect once at Farringford listening with Jowett after dinner to Tennyson's reading of his "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington." It was a poem which his peculiar chant made most moving, and he read the concluding lines with special pathos:

Speak no more of his renown, Lay your earthly fancies down, And in the vast cathedral leave him; G.o.d accept him, Christ receive him.

Tennyson then turned to address some observation to Jowett, but no reply came, and we soon saw that the Master was unable to speak. The tears were streaming down his cheeks. I ventured to allude to this some time later in talking to Jowett, and he said, "What would you have? The two Englishmen for whom I have the deepest feeling of reverence are Tennyson and the great Duke of Wellington. And one of them was reading what he had himself written in admiration of the other!"

When my father died Tennyson visited his grave in company with Father Haythornthwaite, who spoke to me of the visit directly afterwards. A cross of fresh flowers had been placed on the grave until the monument should be erected. Tennyson quoted s.h.i.+rley's couplet:

Only the actions of the just Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.

And then, standing over the grave, he recited the whole of the beautiful poem from which these lines are taken. Tennyson's eldest son wrote to me at the same time:

His wonderful simplicity in faith and nature, together with his subtle and far-reaching grasp of intellect, make up a man never to be forgotten. My father and mother and myself will miss him more than I can say; I loved him somehow like an intimate college friend.

A few years later Tennyson published the memorial lines in the volume called _Demeter and other Poems_, which show how closely his observant mind had taken in the character of his friend:

Farewell, whose living like I shall not find, Whose Faith and Work were bells of full accord, My friend, the most unworldly of mankind, Most generous of all Ultramontanes, Ward, How subtle at tierce and quart of mind with mind, How loyal in the following of thy Lord!

[Ill.u.s.tration: HORATIO TENNYSON.]

Freshwater was in those days seething with intellectual life. The Poet was, of course, its centre, and that remarkable woman, Mrs. Cameron, was stage-manager of what was for us young people a great drama. For Tennyson was still writing the "Idylls of the King," which had so greatly moved the whole country, and we felt that we were in the making of history. There were many in Freshwater who were keenly alive to their privilege. Even among the permanent residents in the neighbourhood there were not a few who were worthy of remark, and Farringford was very hospitable and often added to their number some of the most interesting people in England. Mrs.

Cameron herself was one of the well-known Miss Pattles, a sister of the late Lady Somers and Lady Dalrymple. She was a great wit and a most original and unconventional woman, with an enthusiasm for genius and for art. Her large artistic photographs are a permanent record of the remarkable people who congregated from time to time round the Poet's home in the island. They include Carlyle, Ruskin, Tyndall, Darwin, Lord Dufferin, Palgrave, D. G. Rossetti, Holman Hunt, Lecky, Aubrey de Vere, Sir Henry Taylor, Hersch.e.l.l, Longfellow, Auberon, Herbert, Pollock, Allingham, and many another. Among other residents I would name the Rev.

Christopher Bowen, a man of very unusual ability, though he never had enough ambition to become famous. His sons--Lord Justice Bowen and Mr.

Edward Bowen of Harrow--are better known. Then there were the Poet's two remarkable brothers, Horatio and Arthur Tennyson, and two fine old admirals, Sir Graham Hamond and Admiral Crozier. Then again from 1874 onwards we had at the Briary G. F. Watts, and Mrs. Cameron's sister, Mrs.

Prinsep and her husband, with Mr. Val Prinsep as an occasional guest. A little earlier Sir John Simeon was still living at Swainston, and was one of Tennyson's most intimate friends. Again, Mrs. Grosvenor Hood and Mrs.

Brotherton were both people for whom literature and art counted for much.

The large group of people who came to Freshwater in the summer for the sole reason that Tennyson's writings and himself were among the greatest things in their lives, sometimes formed an almost unique society. Several figures are especially prominent in my memory. One great friend of the Tennysons' was Sir Richard Jebb--intensely shy and intensely refined--with whom, I may add, by the way, my first meeting at Haslemere was unpromising. I got into the Tennysons' large old-fas.h.i.+oned brougham to drive to Aldworth on a dark night, and laid rough hands on what I took to be a heap of rugs in the corner. I received in return a mild remonstrance from the fellow-guest, of whose coat-collar I found myself possessed!

Jowett and Sir Alfred Lyall I often met at the Tennysons' and elsewhere.

Each was in his way memorable, and congenial to the Poet's taste, which was fastidious owing to his very simplicity, to his love of reality and dislike of affectation. The singular charm--both in person and in conversation--of Samuel Henry Butcher, another great friend, stands out vividly from the past. In addition to his brilliant gifts and acquirements he was endowed in a remarkable degree with that justice of mind which Tennyson so greatly prized. One used to feel for how much this counted in the Poet's mind when he talked of the "wisdom" of his old friend, James Spedding. Henry Irving I once saw at Aldworth, though never at Farringford, and it was curious to meet at close quarters one with whom I had had for years the stranger's intimacy which one has with a favourite actor. But Irving was never an intimate friend of Tennyson's, nor among the typical figures of his circle. To my mind the friend of Tennyson's whose saintliness most completely had his sympathy was Aubrey de Vere, of whom Sarah Coleridge said that he had more entirely a poet's nature even than her own father, or any other of the great poets she had known. Aubrey de Vere's simplicity and deep piety were as remarkable as his keen perception and close knowledge on the subject which most interested Tennyson himself. I wish I had seen more of the intercourse of two men whose friends.h.i.+p was almost lifelong, and showed Tennyson at his very best in conversation.

Speaking generally, it was a society in which good breeding, literary taste, general information, and personal distinction counted for much more than worldly or official _status_. I think that we young people looked upon a government official of average endowment as rather an outsider.

Genius was all in all for us--officialdom and conventionality in general were unpopular in Freshwater.

Indeed, how could conventionality obtain a footing in a society in which Mrs. Cameron and Tennyson were the central figures? I recall Mrs. Cameron pressing my father's hand to her heart, and addressing him as "Squire Ward." I recall her, during her celebrated private theatricals at Dimbola, when a distinguished audience t.i.ttered at some stage misadventure which occurred during a tragic scene, mounting a chair and insisting loudly and with angry gesticulation, "You must not laugh; you must cry." I recall her bringing Tennyson to my father's house while she was photographing representatives for the characters in the "Idylls of the King," and calling out directly she saw Cardinal Vaughan (to whom she was a perfect stranger), "Alfred, I have found Sir Lancelot." Tennyson's reply was, "I want a face well worn with evil pa.s.sion."

My own intercourse with the Poet was chiefly after my father's death in 1882. Tennyson was then an old man who had pa.s.sed his threescore years and ten. His deeply serious mind brooded constantly on the prospect for the future, and the meaning of human life, which was, for him, nearly over.

There is much of autobiography in some of the poems of those years which he discussed with me. I have elsewhere[65] described his impressive a.n.a.lysis of the "De Profundis." I will here set down the substance of his comments on two other poems dealing with his deep problems of human life, the "Ancient Sage" and "Vastness." "The Ancient Sage" is in form dramatic, and the personality of the two interlocutors is a very important element in it viewed as a work of art. An aged seer of high, ascetic life, a thousand years before the birth of Christ, holds intercourse with a younger man:

that loved and honour'd him, and yet Was no disciple, richly garb'd, but worn From wasteful living...

The younger man has set down his reflections on the philosophy of life in a set of verses which the Ancient Sage reads, making his comments as the reading proceeds. There seems to be a deep connection between the personal characteristics of the two men--their habits and modes of living--and their respective views. The younger man is wearied with satiety, impatient for immediate pleasure:

Yet wine and laughter, friends! and set The lamps alight, and call For golden music, and forget The darkness of the pall.

He is dismayed by the first appearance of difficulty and pain in the world, as he had been satisfied for a time with the immediate pleasures within his reach. He is unable to steady the nerve of his brain (so to speak), and trace the riddle of pain and trouble in the universe to its ultimate solution. In thought, as in conduct, he is filled and swayed by the immediate inclination and the first impression, without self-restraint and without the habits of concentrated reflection which go hand in hand with self-restraint. Failing, in consequence, to have any steady view of his own soul or of the spiritual life within, he is impressed, probably by experience, with this one truth, that uncontrolled self-indulgence leads to regret and pain; and he is consequently pessimistic in his ultimate view of things. The absence of spiritual light makes him see only the immediate pain and failure in the universe. He has no patience to look beyond or to reflect if there be not an underlying and greater purpose which temporary failure in small things may further, as the death of one cell in the human organism is but the preparation for its replacement by another, and a part of the body's natural development. It is a dissipated character and a dissipated mind. The intangible beauty of moral virtue finds nothing in the character capable of a.s.similating it; the spiritual truth of G.o.ds existence and the spiritual purpose of the universe elude the mind.

In marked contrast stands forth the "Ancient Sage." He has no taste for the dissipations of the town:

I am wearied of our city, son, and go To spend my one last year among the hills.

His gospel is a gospel of _self-restraint_ and long-suffering, of action for high ends.

Let be thy wail and help thy fellow-men, And make thy gold thy va.s.sal, not thy king, And fling free alms into the beggar's bowl, And send the day into the darken'd heart; Nor list for guerdon in the voice of men, A dying echo from a falling wall:

Nor roll thy viands on a luscious tongue, Nor drown thyself with flies in honied wine.

And more--think well! Do-well will follow thought.

And the patience and self-control which enable him to work for great purposes and spiritual aims, characterize also his thought. "Things are not what they seem," he holds. The first view is ever incomplete, though he who has not patience of thought will not get beyond the first view.

That concentration and that purity of manners which keep the spiritual soul and self undimmed, and preserve the moral voice within articulate, are indispensable if we are to understand anything beyond the most superficial phenomena about us. The keynote is struck in the very first words which the Seer speaks:

This wealth of waters might but seem to draw From yon dark cave, but, son, the source is higher, Yon summit half-a-league in air--and higher, The cloud that hides it--higher still, the heavens Whereby the cloud was moulded, and whereout The cloud descended. Force is from the heights.

"_Force is from the heights_" is the thought which underlies the Sage's interpretation of all that perplexes the younger man. We cannot fully understand what is beyond and above us, but if we are wise we shall steadily look upwards, and enough light will eventually be gained for our guidance. "Lucerna pedibus meis verb.u.m tuum." As G.o.d's law is enough to guide our footsteps, though we cannot hope to understand His full counsel, so the light by which the spiritual world is disclosed is sufficient for those who look for it, though its disclosure is only gradual and partial.

If we are said not to know what we cannot submit in its entirety to scientific tests, we can never know anything worth knowing. If, again, we are to disbelieve in the spiritual world because it is filled with mystery, what are we to say of the mysteries which face us in this earth--inexplicable yet undeniable? The conception of G.o.d is not more mysterious than the thought that a grain of sand may be divided a million times, and yet be no nearer its ultimate division than it is now. Time and s.p.a.ce are full of mystery. A man under chloroform has been known to pa.s.s many hours of sensation in a few minutes. Time is made an objective measure of things, and yet its phenomena are so subjective that Kant conceived it to have no real existence. When the younger man complains that "the Nameless Power or Powers that rule were never heard nor seen,"

the Sage thus replies: