I I thank you for your kind thought of me. value the photograph much, and I wish that I could see not only this sun-picture, excellent as I am told it is, but also the living original. May he still live and flourish for many years to be. The coming year should give new life to every American who has breathed a breath of that soul which inspired the great founders of the American Constitution, whose work you are to celebrate. Truly, the mother country, pondering on this, may feel that how much soever the daughter owes to her, she, the mother, has, nevertheless, something to learn from the daughter. Especially I would note the care taken to guard a noble constitution from rash and unwise innovators. I am always yours, TENNYSON. 1888. At Easter Miss Mary Anderson was with us again and he read to her, whom he admired much, and held to be "the flower of girlhood," "The Leper's Bride," just finished. In June we showed her parts of the New Forest, notably Mark Ash and the Queen's Bower, because she wished to perform "The Foresters," as well as "The Cup." She reminds me that, when she had asked my father some years ago whether she should in The Winter's Tale play the parts of both " Hermione" and "Perdita,' or whether this would be too much against stage tradition, he had urged her to undertake the double part, quoting as to "Perdita" the words, "The majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother1." And then he burst forth: "Thank God, the time is past for 1 The Winter's Tale, Act v. Sc. 2. the Press to make or mar a poem, play, or artist. Few original things are well received at first. People must grow accustomed to what is out of the common, before adopting it. Your idea if carried out, as you feel it, will be well received generally, and before long." "You probably do not know," Miss Anderson adds, "what a great comfort and help your father was to his friends by his wisdom and decision1." In August my father and I visited Chichester and Kingly Vale, where is a grove of yews which Mr Lear had sketched for " Oriana"; and we wandered far by the side of the Lavant, and among the beech-feathered coombs in the Downs. Leaning over a gate and looking over the woods he repeated his "Vastness," and "Far, far away," without hesitating for a moment. One day he went off by himself to see an old labourer of ninety, and came back saying, "He tells me that he is waiting for death and is quite ready. What a sin it would be if anyone were to disturb that old man's faith!" To Aldworth, in the early autumn, came for the last time our old friend Mr G. S. Venables, who with a highly cultivated intellect, a clear judgment, great strength of character, and a somewhat haughty bearing, had a deeply tender heart and was loved by children. 1 Mrs de Navarro (Miss Anderson) writes in her Memories: "I had the happiness of joining him in the two hours' walk which, rain or shine, he took daily. His tender interest in every 'bud and flower and leaf' was charming. How many pretty legends he had about each! The cliffs, the sky, the sea, and shrubs, the very lumps of chalk under foot, he had a word for them all. The things he read in Nature's book were full of the same kind of poetry as his own; and the 'sunbeams of his cheerful spirit' flood all my memories of those delightful walks. Though nearer 80 than 70, his step was so rapid, he moved so briskly, that it was with difficulty I kept up with him. The last twenty minutes of the two hours generally ended in a kind of trot. Weather never interrupted his exercise. He scorned an umbrella. With his long dark mantle and thick boots, he defied all storms. When his large-brimmed hat became heavy with water, he would stop and give it a great shake, saying, 'How much better this is than to be huddled over the fire for fear of a little weather!' His great strength and general health were due, no doubt, to the time he spent so regularly in the open air." CHAPTER XIX. MY FATHER'S ILLNESS, 1888: AND CRUISE IN The following notes were written by desire of my father's doctors, who said that it was important to know not only the state of his physical health, but also something of what was occupying his mind. Aldworth. On September 9th my father walked with Sir Alfred Lyall, and expressed great interest in Sir Alfred's conviction of the possibility of a religious revival in India. After the walk he complained that his knee hurt him. This was the commencement of his bad attack of rheumatic gout this winter, brought on chiefly by walking in the rain and storm, and getting drenched. As our friend Sir James Paget was away from London on his holiday, we telegraphed for Sir Prescott Hewitt, who came at once, and was most kind and wise in his treatment. The doctors who attended my father were surprised at the simplicity of his bedroom. The room contained plain Chippendale, and oak chairs, an old oak table and wardrobe, a couch, and a brass bedstead with white dimity curtains, and a little table for his candles, since he read much at night. There were books lying about everywhere; and three or four good pictures hung on the walls-a forest pool, the interior of Chartres cathedral, the creek of Bosham (described in "Becket") whence Harold set sail for Normandy, Mrs Greville as his Queen Mary, and a Bartolozzi print of children dancing - the gift of Mrs G. F. Watts. During the day he lay on his sofa near the south window of his study, and told us that, looking out on the great landscape, he had wonderful thoughts about God and the Universe, and felt as if looking into the other world. He liked my mother to be in the room with him even when he slept. Strange dreams came to him of fir woods and cliffs and temples. One night he thought that he was bound to visit all the ironclads in Her Majesty's fleet. Another night he dreamt that he was Pope of the world, and that his shoulders were weighted down by all its sins and all its miseries. He had two bad relapses. The first day he came downstairs he talked with us about Job, which he thought one of the greatest of books. He asked for St John, the 'little children, love one another' passage, and the Sermon on the Mount. Among others he read or had read to him at this time the following books and essays: Leaf's edition of the Iliad; the Iphigenia in Aulis, expressing "wonder at its modernness"; Matthew Arnold on Tolstoi; Fiske's Destiny of Man; Gibbon's History, especially praising the Fall of Constantinople; Keats' poems; Wordsworth's "Recluse." Of this last he said: "I like the passages which have been published before, such as that about the dance of the flock of birds, driven by a thoughtless impulse. The poem is rambling, with fine lines, for instance: He often looked at his Virgil, more than ever delighting in what he called "that splendid end of the second Georgic." He was marvellously patient, and his humorous view of his own helpless condition helped him through some weary hours. At the crisis of his illness he made an epigram about himself, and on the pain killing the devil that was born in him eighty years back. The doctors, fearing another relapse, ordered his removal in an invalid carriage to Farringford. He remarked on his journey to the doctor in attendance, who was generalizing about humanity: "You see a great deal of mankind, but it is mankind sick - the devil a saint would be! do you therefore think you know mankind?" Farringford. To both Dr Dabbs and Dr Hollis he generally talked politics. Some of his chance sayings are recorded below: 1888] CHANCE SAYINGS. "I am afraid patriotism is very rare." 349 "The love of country, which makes a man defend his landmark, that we all have, and the Anglo-Saxon more than most other races: but the patriotism that declines to link itself with the small fry of the passing hour for political advantage - that is rare, I say." "The Duke of Wellington had both kinds of patriotism." 66 Carlyle said of the Duke's speeches that they had effect because he kept hitting the nail on the head, repeating the same thing over and over again." "It is the authors, more than the diplomats, who make nations love one another." "To decry one original poet in order to magnify another is like despising an oak-tree because you prefer a beech, and almost as sensible." "Every agitator should be made to prove his means of livelihood." "True progress is gradation." "Nihilism in Russia will never be laid at rest until an Emperor comes, bold enough to trust the people and chance the hatred of the nobles. He may be assassinated, but he will be the saviour of Russia. The Russians do not ask for much. Their men of thought, who are their men of action in domestic politics, ask for a graduated scale of liberty. Their moderation must have struck you." "We ought not to show our Arsenals and Dockyards to the world, as we do. Want of confidence is hateful among members of a family, but want of confidence is necessary among nations." "In a war we English do not listen to argument until we are victorious." "In foreign affairs Palmerston saw further than he is ever credited with seeing." 'Education, as we call education, would have spoilt John Bright." He said that there are many boys who would be far better equipped for their life's work if they learnt modern languages, or had a scientific training, instead of spending so many years on Greek and Latin: but that these ought to be made to study the old stories of heroism, and the masterpieces of ancient literature in good translations, if they had not time to read them in the original. "Yet," he added, "the benefit of most translations |