30 August 1880 – 5 September 1880

Drove up to Tennyson's to dinner. H. and I., Aubrey de Vere, Dr. Bradley, Mrs. and Miss Bradley. A. T., Aubrey de Vere and I talk of poetry. T. and I agree on the odiousness of various readings inserted on a poet's page — and of critical notes. De Vere blames Ruskin for his recent remarks on Wordsworth, — ' a Westmorland peasant, etc' De V. wishes Wordsworth had written his magnum opus, of which the Prelude was the beginning. T. — ' His small things are the best. Even his " Tintern Abbey," fine as it is, should have been much compressed,' De V. — ' But if it pleased the artistic sense more, might it not appeal less to the sympathies ? ' T, — ' A great deal might be left out.' W. A. — ' One could turn the largest part of the Excursion into prose, very seldom altering a word, merely re-arranging. Here and there a line or a passage of poetry would be left, like a quotation. It is much easier to write bad blank verse than good prose.' T. — ' And it is much easier to write rhyme than good blank verse. I should not be sorry to lose any- thing from a poet which is not beautiful poetry. One plods over Wordsworth's long dreary plains of prose — one knows there's a mountain somewhere, and now and again you come to astonishing things. In old times, when copying was costly, Catullus, Horace, and the others gave only their best.' De V. — ' Wordsworth ought to have done great and perfect things, one fancies. He lived a poetic life, he devoted himself to poetry, — How was it ^ ' W. A. — ' For many years he never read any poetry but his own. His mind became monotonous.' De V. — ' I believe that is true. And he was con- tinually touching and altering, and sometimes injuring what he had written.' W. A. — ' His experience of real life was neither wide nor various. His material ran short.' De V. — ' And yet, if he gives us a good deal of dulness, might not the same be said of Homer and of Milton.?' T. (grunts) — ' No, no ! ' De V. — ' Well, I find a great deal of Homer very dull — and surely the last six books of Paradise Lost are much below the first six .? ' T — ' Possibly — but there's the charm of Milton's style. He invented his verse — just as much as Virgil invented his.' De V. — ' I read to Wordsworth your Of old sat Freedom on the heights, and — You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease, and he said, *' Fine poetry and very stately diction." ' T. said ' H'm ! ' contentedly. W. A. — ' Coleridge was more essentially a Poet than Wordsworth.' T. — ' I don't know that.' De V. — ' I think so. But how melancholy to think that all his finest poems were produced in one single year of his life. Then he went to Germany and took to Metaphysics — such a pity ! ' T. — ' But the man I count greater than them all — Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, every one of 'em — is Keats, who died at twenty-five — thousands of faults ! (twiddling the fingers of one hand in the air) — but he's wonderful ! ' De V. — ' He doesn't pall upon you ? ' T.— ' No.' De V. — ' Shelley used to be a great idol of yours.' T. — ' O yes. We lived near the most prosaic village in the world, a little beast ! where they had never heard of anything. One day we went there to meet my brother Frederick, who was coming back from somewhere, and as we were driving home he whispered, " I've got a poet who's much grander than Byron," and repeated one line — Waterfalls leap among wild islands green, which I thought delicious, ^ Alastor was the first poem of his I read. I said, " This is what I want ! " — and still I like it the best, though one can't tell how much these first loves are to be trusted. The Revolt of Islam is splendid but gives me a headache — it's fatiguing — all mountain tops and glories.' De V. agreed, and named as his favourites The Ode to the West Wind — Ode to Naples — (of which he recited some lines, and another piece). Tennyson quoted a passage from Shelley and said ' what can you do with a man who has such command of language ? But Keats was not wild and wilful, he had always an intention. At the same time he was daimonisch^ — he had a touch (he was a livery-stable keeper's son — I don't know where he got it from, unless from Heaven). Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. ' What can be lovelier ^ (He said the last two lines again.) I once saw it printed " In fairyland forlorn," which totally ruined it — one doesn't know why.' W. A. — ' " Fairyland " has been much used.' When I shook hands with him he said, ' Good-night, Statuette ! ' I laughed and said, ' I know what you mean.' (A little poem in my Songs, Ballads and Stories, a volume Hallam borrowed of me yesterday and which T. had not seen before.) T. — ' It's modest — and it may be quite true. No one can in the least tell who will survive.' We went out to the porch, T., Hallam, De Vere, Helen and I, with lantern — brilliant starry night. T. — ' Millions upon millions of suns.' W. A. — ' And Whewell argues that the earth is probably the only seat of conscious life. Suppose one looking from a distance at the Earth, a dot among other dots.' T. — ' That's just what I said at the time.' We parted, and H. and I followed our lantern-gleam on the heath and down the shady lane to Haslemere.