23 August 1880 – 29 August 1880

Hallam calls. Helen and I walk up to Aldworth. Find A. T. on seat at end of lower terrace, reading a large type New Testament. We sit beside him. Tennyson shows me a paper by Mr. Crookes (Roy, Soc.) on 'Four Kinds of Matter,' Solid, Liquid, Gaseous, and another which is imperceptible to the senses (sometimes called ' Ether '). Molecules and atoms. T. said (or something like this) — ' I believe we never see Matter : what we count the material world is only an appearance.' Huxley's question, ' Has a frog a Soul } ' W. A. — ' I should first ask, " What do you mean by Soul } " But Huxley says questions about " Soul " and " the Future " don't interest him.' T. — ' Then, surely, that shows defect in him ! Tyndall's metaphysics are very shaky, I think. They don't see that they are destroying their country. ' Old Sedgwick told me he visited Laplace in his last days and the old Astronomer said to him — " You are an Englishman, suff'er me to say to you a word or two on politics. Never emancipate the Catholics, and never tamper with your glorious constitution." ' Tennyson dislikes our quitting Afghanistan — ' the want of continuity in our policy is the curse of our country ; I believe Parliaments will be its ruin. We might have ruled the Afghans and made them good subjects, like the Sikhs.' I said England had no business in Afghanistan. Lord Beaconsfield's policy was disapproved by Lord Lawrence, Lord Northbrook, and a majority of the Council of India. T. stuck to his own views. I told him, ' you always declare England to be right, whatever she does.' T. — ' I think she's often shockingly wrong. In this case it's unsafe to draw back.' Speaking of the Irish agitator who said, ' I think their cattle will not much prosper,' — a speech followed by the maiming of many animals, — he exclaimed, ' How I hate that man — Ireland's a dreadful country ! I heartily wish it was in the middle of the Atlantic' ' Below the surface ? ' I asked. ' No, no, a thousand miles away from England. I like the Irish — I admit the charm of their manners — but they're a fearful nuisance.' ' Very troublesome,' I admitted, ' but there's some truth in the popular Irish notion that nothing can be got from England except by agitation.' T. is a constant novel reader. ' What I dislike is beginning a new novel. I should like to have a novel to read in a million volumes, to last me my life.'