Very well
then, I will dress for dinner. Have you read Jane Welsh Carlyle's
letters?"
MARGOT: "Yes, I have, and I think them excellent. It seems a
pity," I added, with the commonplace that is apt to overcome one
in a first conversation with a man of eminence, "that they were
ever married; with any one but each other, they might have been
perfectly happy."
TENNYSON: "I totally disagree with you. By any other arrangement
four people would have been unhappy instead of two."
After this I went up to my room. The hours kept at Aldworth were
peculiar; we dined early and after dinner the poet went to bed. At
ten o'clock he came downstairs and, if asked, would read his
poetry to the company till past midnight.
I dressed for dinner with great care that first night and, placing
myself next to him when he came down, I asked him to read out loud
to me.
TENNYSON: "What do you want me to read?"
MARGOT: "Maud."
TENNYSON: "That was the poem I was cursed for writing! When it
came out no word was bad enough for me! I was a blackguard, a
ruffian and an atheist! You will live to have as great a contempt
for literary critics and the public as I have, my child!"
While he was speaking, I found on the floor, among piles of books,
a small copy of Maud, a shilling volume, bound in blue paper. I
put it into his hands and, pulling the lamp nearer him, he began
to read.
There is only one man--a poet also--who reads as my host did; and
that is my beloved friend, Professor Gilbert Murray.
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