"O, that Press will get hold of me now," Tennyson said when he knew that his last hour was at hand. He had a horror of personal tattle, as even his early poems declare -"For now the Poet cannot die, Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry."But no "carrion-vulture" has waited "To tear his heart before the crowd."About Tennyson, doubtless, there is much anecdotage: most of the anecdotes turn on his shyness, his really exaggerated hatred of personal notoriety, and the odd and brusque things which he would say when alarmed by effusive strangers. It has not seemed worth while to repeat more than one or two of these legends, nor have I sought outside the Biography by his son for more than the biographer chose to tell. The readers who are least interested in poetry are most interested in tattle about the poet. It is the privilege of genius to retain the freshness and simplicity, with some of the foibles, of the child. When Tennyson read his poems aloud he was apt to be moved by them, and to express frankly his approbation where he thought it deserved. Only very rudimentary psychologists recognised conceit in this freedom; and only the same set of persons mistook shyness for arrogance. Effusiveness of praise or curiosity in a stranger is apt to produce bluntness of reply in a Briton. "Don't talk d-d nonsense, sir," said the Duke of Wellington to the gushing person who piloted him, in his old age, across Piccadilly. Of Tennyson Mr Palgrave says, "I have known him silenced, almost frozen, before the eager unintentional eyes of a girl of fifteen. And under the stress of this nervous impulse compelled to contradict his inner self (especially when under the terror of leonisation . . . ), he was doubtless at times betrayed into an abrupt phrase, a cold unsympathetic exterior; a moment's 'defect of the rose.'" Had he not been sensitive in all things, he would have been less of a poet. The chief criticism directed against his mode of life is that he WASsensitive and reserved, but he could and did make himself pleasant in the society of les pauvres d'esprit. Curiosity alarmed him, and drove him into his shell: strangers who met him in that mood carried away false impressions, which developed into myths. As the Master of Balliol has recorded, despite his shyness "he was extremely hospitable, often inviting not only his friends, but the friends of his friends, and giving them a hearty welcome. For underneath a sensitive exterior he was thoroughly genial if he was understood."In these points he was unlike his great contemporary, Browning; for instance, Tennyson never (I think) was the Master's guest at Balliol, mingling, like Browning, with the undergraduates, to whom the Master's hospitality was freely extended. Yet, where he was familiar, Tennyson was a gay companion, not shunning jest or even paradox. "As Dr Johnson says, every man may be judged of by his laughter": but no Boswell has chronicled the laughters of Tennyson.
"He never, or hardly ever, made puns or witticisms" (though one pun, at least, endures in tradition), "but always lived in an attitude of humour." Mr Jowett writes (and no description of the poet is better than his) -If I were to describe his outward appearance, I should say that he was certainly unlike any one else whom I ever saw. A glance at some of Watts' portraits of him will give, better than any description which can be expressed in words, a conception of his noble mien and look. He was a magnificent man, who stood before you in his native refinement and strength. The unconventionality of his manners was in keeping with the originality of his figure. He would sometimes say nothing, or a word or two only, to the stranger who approached him, out of shyness. He would sometimes come into the drawing-room reading a book. At other times, especially to ladies, he was singularly gracious and benevolent. He would talk about the accidents of his own life with an extraordinary freedom, as at the moment they appeared to present themselves to his mind, the days of his boyhood that were passed at Somersby, and the old school of manners which he came across in his own neighbourhood: the days of the "apostles" at Cambridge: the years which he spent in London; the evenings enjoyed at the Cock Tavern, and elsewhere, when he saw another side of life, not without a kindly and humorous sense of the ridiculous in his fellow-creatures. His repertory of stories was perfectly inexhaustible; they were often about slight matters that would scarcely bear repetition, but were told with such lifelike reality, that they convulsed his hearers with laughter. Like most story-tellers, he often repeated his favourites; but, like children, his audience liked hearing them again and again, and he enjoyed telling them. It might be said of him that he told more stories than any one, but was by no means the regular story-teller. In the commonest conversation he showed himself a man of genius.
To this description may be added another by Mr F. T. Palgrave:-Every one will have seen men, distinguished in some line of work, whose conversation (to take the old figure) either "smelt too strongly of the lamp," or lay quite apart from their art or craft.
