United States or Eritrea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Tennysons had lost their first child at his birth: perhaps he is remembered in The Grandmother, "the babe had fought for his life." In August 1852 the present Lord Tennyson was born, and Mr Maurice was asked to be godfather.
Give him an Ode of Horace, or a scrap from the Greek Anthology, and he would recite it with great inflation of spirits; but he did not think very much of "your Keatses, and your Tennysons, and the whole Hasheesh crazy lot," as he called the dreamily sensuous idealists who belong to the same century that brought in ether and chloroform.
She bought it and the proprietor retired from the field. He said with cold dignity, that cook books were somewhat out of their line, but he would order it if she desired it. She said, no, never mind. Then she fell to conning the titles again, finding a delight in the inspection of the Hawthornes, the Longfellows, the Tennysons, and other favorites of her idle hours.
But of himself he says, in words of striking contrast, "My nervous energy is pretty nearly spent for to-day, so I must come to a stop. I have leave till November, and by that time I hope I shall be strong again for another good spell of work." After a happy three weeks in England, he went abroad again, and spent some time with his friends the Tennysons in Auvergne and among the Pyrenees.
Hallam's lack of perspective is further demonstrated by his patient efforts to explain who the various Tennysons were. In my boyhood days I thought there was but one Tennyson. On reading Hallam's book, however, one would think there were dozens of them.
The folk-lore of Lincolnshire, of which examples have been published, does seem to have a peculiar poetry of its own, but it was rather the humorous than the poetical aspect of the country-people that Tennyson appears to have known. In brief, we have nothing to inform us as to how genius came into that generation of Tennysons which was born between 1807 and 1819.
Her family was not so high in rank as the Tennysons, because the Tennysons belonged to the gentry. But she was intelligent, amiable, fairly good-looking, and being the daughter of a clergyman, had beyond doubt a knowledge of clerical needs; so it was thought she would make a good wife for the newly appointed incumbent of Somersby.
You hear a rough tear of paper, and you look around to see the managing editor adding to the responsibilities of his chip-basket. What a way that is to treat incipient Tennysons and Longfellows! Next to the poetic effusions tumble out treatises on "constitutional law" heavy enough to break the basket.
Such a group appeared at Balliol in Matthew Arnold's time, and rather later, at various colleges, in the dawn of Pre-Raphaelitism. The Tennysons Alfred, Frederick, and Charles were members of such a set. Charles Buller's, like Hallam's, was to be an "unfulfilled renown."
At Witley, in Surrey, they lived a quiet life, seeing only a few friends like the Tennysons, the Du Mauriers, and Sir Henry and Lady Holland. Both were growing older, and Mr. Lewes was in very poor health. Finally, after a ten days' illness, he died, Nov. 28, 1878. To George Eliot this loss was immeasurable. She needed his help and his affection.
Word Of The Day