REMINISCENCES OF TENNYSON.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XVIII, 6 May 1899, Page 596

REMINISCENCES OF TENNYSON.

Of the winning of Emily Sellwood much will ever remain untold, wife and son preserving what is surely a wise reticence regarding a long period of trial in the closest relationship of the poet’s life. For Emily Sellwood and Alfred Tennyson had met in 1830, when she was seventeen and he tweny-one. Arthur Hallam, we aire told, was then staying at Somersby with the Tennysons, and asked Emily Sellwood to walk with him in the Fairy Wood. At a turn of the path they came upon Alfred, who at the sight of the slender, beautiful girl of seventeen, in her simple grey dress, suddenly said to her, ‘Are you a Dryad or an Oread wandering here?’ Once before their orbits had almost crossed, for in his boyhood Tennyson had taken music lessons from Mr Smalley, a well-known teacher in Horneastle; and there may still be seen the house where Emily Sellwood lived as a girl, with its attic windows looking down on the market stalls. Miss Emily Sellwood was the daughter of a solicitor at Horncastle, Mr Henry Sellwood, who came of a good old Berkshire stock. She was also nieee of the great Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin, who was Mrs Sellwood’s brother. It was in 1836 that tiie love of the two made itself mutually felt, when Louisa Sellwood married Charles Tennyson and Emily was her youngest sister’s bridesmaid. Tennyson narrates the incident in one of his sonnets. Before the ceremony Emily had been weeping, till her sister. smiling, chid her: No tears for me! A happy bridesmaid makes a happy bride.

But weary years had to come between ere the bridesmaid became the bride. An engagement v.as entered into; but Tennyson was not in a position to marry, and here it was that he faced the severest temptation of his life. Had he ehosen to publish then, he might have married; had he chosen to write prose articles for the reviews even, many an editor would have been pleased to add his name to his list of contributors. But Tennyson would not. In a smaller man such a resolve would have been intellectual coxcombry; in Tennyson it was the intuitive recognition of his high calling, the answer to the whisper that lingered in his ear from his dawn of life, steadfast obedience to the command from far, far away to follow the gleam. Great gifts had been given to him to use worthily, and he set his face against giving to the world what he considered immature work. How far Emily Sellwood upheld him in his determination we cannot know for certain, for the extracts from their correspondence published in their son’s ‘Memoir’ contain little that is personal; but of her loyalty to his decision we have abundant proof. Her family, however, viewed the matter from a different standpoint; it was hardly to be expected that the poet’s sense of consecration would be favourably regarded when it appeared to involve the sacrifice of his betrothed. And so. in IS4O, when the prospect of Tennyson making an income sufficient to support his wife—or, for that matter. any income at all—seemed to be ais remote as ever, the engagement was broken off by the lady’s relatives; and Miss Sellwood and Tennyson silently acquiesced. Ten ripening years pass-

ed, and it was in the spring of 1850 that Tennyson next met Miss Sellwood at Shiplake-on-the-Thames. Separation had only drawn the two closer together, and the way now seemed clearer. Tennyson had three hundred pounds in bank; Moxon, his publisher, advanced another three hundred pounds; aud Mr Sellwood found the household furniture. (t did not promise luxury, but it sufficed, and an early date was fixed for the wedding. In Shiplake Church, with its tower half-clothed with ivy, rich in painted glass windows and carved oak ornaments, on the 13th of June, 1850, Alfred and his betrothed were wed. The cake and the dresses arrived too late, and 'Tennyson used to remark that it was the nicest wedding he had ever bride's father, some of the Lushingbeen at. The only guests were the tons, and two or three other friends. It was at Tent Lodge, Coniston, that Carlyle first met Mrs Tennyson; and he was touched with her thoughtfulness in closing a window' on hearing him cough. When introduced he slowly scanned her from head to foot, and then gave her hand a hearty shake. To Mrs Carlyle he wrote: ‘Alfred looks really improved, 1 should say; cheerful in what he talks, and looking forward to a future less detached than the past has been. A good soul, find him where or how situated you may. Mrs Tennyson lights up bright, glittering blue eyes when you speak to her; has wit, has sense; and were it not that she seems so very delicate in health. I should augur well of Tennyson’s adventure.’ Carlyle was right. Of all the great literary men of the nineteenth century, not even excepting Robert Browning. Tennyson was most fortunate in his married life. ‘The fear of God,’ he said in after life, ‘came into my life before the altar when I wedded her.’ In all things his wife was his adviser. ‘I am proud of her intellect," he said. William Wordsworth died on April 23, 1850, and there were not a few candidates for the vacant poet-laure-ateship. The babel of tongues was great; but Tennyson w’as the popular ■favourite, and in the early winter came the offer of the appointment. The Queen had not forgotten the idyllic eharm of ‘The Miller’s Daughter.’ and Prince Albert’s admiration of Tn Memoriam’ was profound, Tennyson records that the night, before the offer reached him he dreamt that Prince Albert came and kissed him on the cheek. It is interesting to note that although the Queen and Prince Consort were well acquainted with Tennyson's work, some members of the Government were not. ‘We know nothing of this gentleman,’ wrote Lord Palmerston to Samuel Rogers. ‘Are his writings such as befit a laureate to the Queen?’ Tennyson’s acceptance was by no means a foregone conclusion. ‘I have no great passion for Courts,’ he said, ‘but a great love for privacy. It is, I believe, scarce £lOO a year, and my friend R. M. Milnes tells me that the price of the patent and Court-dress will sw'allow up all the first year’s income.’ He wrote two letters, one accepting and one refusing, remaining for a time undecided which to send.—From ‘Tennyson,’ by Evan J. Cuthbertson, published by W. and R. Chambers.