II
“In the Memoir of Tennyson by his son, there will be a letter—only one—to myself,” said Whymper to me in 1897. “Except for the fact that it was one of the last, if indeed not the very last letter Tennyson penned, it doesn’t strike me as being important enough for inclusion. But it has a curious history. I had sent Tennyson a copy of one of my books, Travels among the Great Andes of the Equator. Here is his reply. I’ll read it to you:
‘Dear Sir,
‘Accept my thanks for your most interesting volume. I don’t think I have been higher than about 7000 feet, and so I look on your Chimborazos and Cotopaxis with all the greater veneration.
‘Yours very truly,
Tennyson.’
“Now you can hardly call that a characteristic or even a particularly interesting letter,” continued Whymper, “but the writing appears to have given the poet some trouble, for the present Lord Tennyson tells me that, after his father’s death, he found several drafts of it, I think he said six, in a blotting pad. It was, as I say, one of the last, if not the very last letter Tennyson ever wrote, and one of two things about it is true. Either his approaching end had so affected his powers that he found it difficult to frame even an ordinary letter of acknowledgment, or else, realising that his letters would one day inevitably be collected and printed, he was too fastidious an artist to let even a casual note of thanks come from his pen without striving to impart to it some touch of distinction and originality, some turn of a phrase which would give a hint of the power and the personality of the writer. What’s your solution of the problem?”
As I had no solution to offer, Whymper told me another story of Tennyson, which by this time may or may not—I do not know—have got into print.[B] But even if so—since I first heard it when it was quite new, and since stories of the sort get varied in the telling—there is some probability that Whymper’s version is the correct one. I set it down, as nearly as I can recollect, as he told it.
[B] Since this was written, I have told the story in a brief sketch of Whymper that was published in a monthly magazine.
At a garden party, a rather gushing young girl went up to the hostess and said: “Oh, is that really, as I’m told, Lord Tennyson sitting there by himself smoking on that rustic seat?” “Yes, my dear, that is he,” was the reply. “He occasionally does me the honour of calling to see me, and dropped in, not knowing that I was entertaining to-day.” “Oh, I should so like to meet him. Do introduce me,” said the girl. “My dear, Lord Tennyson hates to be bothered by strangers,” answered the hostess. “And one reason perhaps why he comes to see me is that he knows I never exploit him in that way.” “Oh, but I should love to be able to say I’ve met him,” persisted the other. “Well, say you have met him and leave it at that,” was the answer. “Here you are and there he is, so it won’t be altogether untrue. He won’t trouble to contradict it if he ever heard it, which is not likely, and I’m sure I shan’t.”
The girl, however, would take no refusal. Nothing would content her but actually meeting and speaking to Tennyson, so losing patience her hostess said: “Very well. If he is rude to you—as he can be to people who force themselves upon him—your blood be upon your own head. You can’t say I haven’t warned you. Come along.” “Lord Tennyson,” said the hostess when the two had walked together to the seat where the Laureate was smoking, “this is Miss B——, daughter of an old friend of mine, who is very, very anxious to have the honour of saying How-do-you-do to you.” “How-d’you-do?” responded Tennyson gruffly, and scarcely looking up.
Seating herself beside him the girl attempted awkwardly to carry on some sort of conversation, but, as all she got in reply was an occasional “Humph!” or else stony silence, she lost her nerve and began, schoolgirl-wise, to wriggle and fidget in her seat. Then the Great Man spoke. “You’re like the rest of them,” he grunted, “you’re laced too tightly. I can hear your stays creak.” Abashed and embarrassed the girl withdrew. Later in the afternoon Tennyson came behind her, and laying a hand on her shoulder, said kindly, “I was wrong just now, young lady. It wasn’t your stays I heard creaking, but my braces. They’re hitched up too tightly. Sorry.” And he lounged away.
The story may not be new and may not be true, but Whymper found huge enjoyment in the telling of it, possibly because he had himself the reputation of sharing Tennyson’s dislike to the intrusive stranger. To speak plainly indeed, Whymper could be very rude, as witness the following incident. He invited me once to accompany him to a lecture given by a great climber. Soon after we had entered the hall and before the lecture commenced, a man, whom Whymper told me later he was sure he had never set eyes on, bustled up to where we were sitting, and extending a hand said effusively:
“Oh, how-do-you-do, Mr. Whymper? You won’t remember me, but I had the pleasure of meeting you in Switzerland.”
“No, I certainly don’t remember having had the pleasure of meeting you,” was Whymper’s caustic reply. “And I assure you my memory is of the best.”
“Ah, I was afraid you wouldn’t remember me,” answered the other still unabashed. “It was at Zermatt. I knew your friend Leslie Stephen very well.”
“Possibly,” answered Whymper drily. “The question is whether my friend Mr. Leslie Stephen would be equally sure that he knew you.”