APPENDIX C
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN FRIENDS
[During the last twenty-five years of his life my father was probably, throughout the whole English-speaking race, the Englishman who was most widely known. Hence the letters addressed to him by strangers competed in number with those which, it is well known, add a needless weariness to the heavy task of governing a civilized state. This became a correspondence mainly of request or of reverence, although the voice of disappointment or of envy of what is ranked above oneself which lurks in common human nature may have occasionally been audible. My father’s experience here was that of Dr. Johnson and, doubtless, of many more men of commanding eminence; that of writers submitting their work for candid criticism, charging him with conceit if he suggested publication as unadvisable; if it were advised, and the book failed, with deception. Probably many of those who wrote thus soon repented of their eloquence; at any rate nothing of this nature will be here preserved. But of the ordinary type of strangers’ letters some specimens may be of interest. And although these few have been chosen mainly from the letters addressed to my father during his last fifteen years yet they will give a general impression of the vast quantity received.
I place first letters upon poetry submitted (or proposed for submission) to my father’s judgment.]
(1884)
I hope you will forgive the liberty I am taking in writing to you. I have heard a great deal about you, and I read a part of one of your poems, “The May Queen.” I have not had an opportunity to read the whole of it, but I like what I have seen very much.... I have tried to write some poems myself. I have enclosed one for you to see, which came into my mind while I was digging a ditch in my garden. I am only nine years old, and if I keep on trying some day I shall write a grand poem.
(1882)
Honoured Sir—It has been said: where a great apology is most needed, it is best to begin with the business at once.
I never had the pleasure of seeing you, but it is enough for me to have had the pleasure of reading your heart in your works, “though they be but a part of your inward soul.” I am a lad scarcely seventeen summers old. In some of my leisure hours, particularly morning and evening ones, I penned a few thousand lines of small poems in fair metre,—so my simple-minded friend or two pronounce them in their partiality.... [He deprecates the suspicion that he is applying for money.] Will you allow me to forward to you through the post a few of my poems? And when your benevolent soul has given up time to read some of my verses (“the primrose fancies of a boy”), and should my productions be considered by you deserving of your good word, half the difficulty of finding a willing publisher will, I know, be removed.
There is something truly felt and pathetic in the two following letters. The first is from a young poetess.
I hardly know how I have summoned up sufficient courage to address you, although I have long wished to do so! Studying that most touching of poems “Enoch Arden,” I felt somehow convinced that the heart that had inspired so much which is beautiful and touching, would also prompt a kind answer to me. Ever since I was a child (not so very long ago), writing was my only consolation and solace in moments of great grief or joy; writing—I shall not say poetry but rhyme.
(1881)
Dear Mr. Tennyson—I have heard and believed that great men are always the best hearted, and therefore hope you will kindly look at the enclosed and tell me if there is any hope that I may ever write anything worthy the name of poetry, and if those lines are anything but doggerel, I hope you will not think me as presumptuous as I do; something tells me you will be kind.
Now follow good average specimens.
(1890)
Dear and much-admired Lord Tennyson—The writer of this, an humble admirer of your Poetry,—an uneducated girl from the bogs of Ireland, has the audacity to send you her first effort in verse: whether it is poetry or not I leave you to decide, as I am entirely incapable of judging myself, as I am wholly ignorant of the art of versification, and indeed would never dream of attempting to write verse, only I was very anxious to succeed in prose writing....
(1882)
Will you kindly pardon my venturing to ask you to read some of my verses, and to tell me whether you consider me capable of ever writing poetry fit to be read? I have never had any desire to become a poet, but lately ideas have come into my head, once I seemed to see a line or two before my eyes, and in order to free myself from these fancies I wrote.
(1884)
Dear Sir—I remember your figure and attire at Shiplake Vicarage in Mrs. Franklyn Rawnsley’s house, 1852, thirty-two years ago. Does your memory travel back to a fine December morning when, the house full of guests for the christening of the latest blossom of the Rawnsley house, there drove up through the flooded meadows surrounding the low old vicarage, a cab with a young foreigner, a child of sixteen summers, all tremulous how she should be received, not speaking a word of English but her native German tongue, besides French, introduced by Miss Amélie Bodte, the authoress in Dresden, to teach music to Mrs. Rawnsley’s children? What a woeful feeling for the well-known counsellor’s daughter to be treated in a cool way as the engaged teacher of little children. However, there was an oasis in the desert. On the following morning Mrs. Rawnsley proposed to the assembled guests to take a walk in a neighbouring Squire’s park while she looked after some home duties, and a tall young gentleman with an enormous Tyrolese hat offered to walk with a solitary stranger. He spoke a little German and tried to divert the gloom of the young girl by crossing the lawn and breaking a belated rose she admired coming from snow-bound Saxony. They stopped at a turtle-dove house where he made the prettiest little German pun she never forgot hereafter, “Ich bin eine kleine Taube” (I am a little dove (deaf)?). And it began to rain, and he—it was you—took off the Spanish cloak gathered with narrow stitches on the throat, a black velvet collar falling over it, and wrapped it round the girl’s shoulders. The ladies of the company frowned, returning home, all told as with one voice to Mrs. Rawnsley what had happened during the walk, and she laughed and said to me in French, “My dear, you had all the honours as a German because you did not try for them, this is the Poet Laureate, and it displeases him that the ladies torment him for attentions.” And now do you remember, of course you know this girl was I. And the next day you read the “Ode to the Queen,” of which I did not understand a word, and you went away to the sea to meet your wife and baby son, and I never saw you again. Now after thirty-two years undergoing purification in the crucible of humble life, I come to ask you to accept kindly the dedication of one of my compositions—a song. Your name is as illustrious here as in England, and my poor song will find more eager listeners with your name attached as a patron than otherwise.... “A turtle dove” could but bring an olive branch to a lone woman and gladden the heart of your Lordship’s most respectful admirer,
Maria * * *
(1890)
Now a Transatlantic poetess:
(After excuse asked for “presumption” she says:)
I have to thank you for some of the best thoughts and the purest pleasure I have ever derived from anything.
I am an American girl nineteen years of age, and was named from the hero of “Aylmer’s Field.”
I enclose some verses I have written. I would like exceedingly to hear your opinion of them and to know if they contain anything of promise.
Leoline * * *
(1877)
From America also we have one who modestly describes himself as “a mere Collegian, a youth to fortune and to fame unknown....”
I have during the past summer been engaged, to my great entertainment and instruction, in the perusal of your poetical works, reading many for the first time though of course familiar with a large number; having finished them, I could not refrain from expressing my admiration of your great genius in a few lines which I send herewith.
O Tennyson, how great a soul is thine!
Thy range of thought how varied
and how vast...
(1862)
Will you accept the enclosed lines as a slight testimonial of the high admiration entertained for your exquisite genius, by a rhyming daughter of Columbia; whose poetic wings just fledging from a first unpublished vol. (commended by Wm. Cullen Bryant and Geo. Bancroft, Esqrs.) permit only a feeble fluttering around the base of that “Parnassus,” whose summit you have so brilliantly, and justly attained. * * *
(187-)
Then an “Agent for Stars” offers my father £20,000 if said Agent is permitted to arrange a tour for him in the United States.
(1884)
The following is another—we will not say, a less acceptable offering:
I send you by my good friend —— a dozen small parcels of smoking tobacco....
We think it the best smoking tobacco in the world and I trust that you may find reason to agree with us. If it shall give you one moment’s pleasure in return for the countless hours of delight that you have given me, I shall count myself a happy mortal.
(1890)
A gift certainly not less acceptable comes from a little girl:
My Lord—Please let these flowers be in your room, and do wear the little bunch.—I remain, your true admirer, * * *
Now follows the Grande Armée of natural, amiable, but remorseless autograph hunters. A miscellaneous group comes first.
(1890)
Honoured Lord—May I (an Australian maiden born 1870) hope to be pardoned for taking the liberty of writing to you—so distinguished a gentleman—to express my great admiration for your poems? It is my admiration that has emboldened me to venture so far ... etc. etc.
Let me conclude with one request: namely to ask you to do me the very great honour to acknowledge this letter; so that I may be able to boast of, and dearly treasure, even a line from the Great Poet.
(1890)
An obvious fisher for good things follows:
Sir—I hope that you will kindly excuse the liberty I take in requesting you to be so good as to inform me how the word “humble” should be pronounced: i.e. whether or not it is proper to aspirate the “h”?
A reply at your kind convenience will inexpressibly oblige....
(1890)
Another ingenuously finds it needful to ask whether the word be pronounced Idylls or Edylls.
(1891)
Dear Sir—A simple child (who writes from Holland), would feel extremely happy, would be in the seventh heaven, when she would be favoured with a mere line of the greatest poet of renown, Alfred Tennyson. Allow her, to offer you before, her sincere thanks for your autograph, with which she would feel the happiest child in the world.
With kind regards, most honourable lord, yours respectfully.
(1882)
A (German) collector of autographs, who has an autograph of Mr. Kinkel and Victor Hugo, the greatest living poets of Germany and France, only misses in his collection the autograph of the greatest living English poet. Therefore he requests you to give him an autograph of yours. May it only be your signature, it will find in my album a place of honour.
(1882)
To the prince of poets.
Monsieur—Forgive me, I beseech you, the liberty I take in daring to write to you; but I wish to beg the greatest of favours.
This favour, Monsieur, it is your signature.
I am only a young Belgian girl, and I have no reason to proffer why you should thus distinguish me; but I feel you must love all girls, or you could not have written “Isabel” or “Lilian”; and you must be kind and good, or you would not have given them to the world.
So, Monsieur, I humbly beg you send me the name we all venerate, traced by the hand that has guided the world with so much beauty, and make one more heart supremely happy.—One who loves you,
* * *
Three petitions, which touched my father, may here have place.
The first (1884) consists of some twenty letters, in very creditable English and excellent hand-writing, each saying some handsome thing about the “May Queen,” which they had learned, and now criticized with amusing naïveté, and asking for a line from Tennyson—signed with the children’s names, and dated from a German High School for girls: “who,” says their Mistress, “in the joy of their hearts tried to express their feeling of admiration in their imperfect knowledge of the English language.”
In the next a young girl from India, training in England with comrades apparently for Zenana work, thanks “Our dear aziz Sahib” for a copy of the Poems, and then proceeds, in neat round hand:
Oh how we wish we could see you even for one minute The Great and good Poet Laureate, whom everybody loves so much and we love you too dear sweet Sahib, we are going to learn that pretty Poetry “The May Queen” and several others out of that lovely Book. Will you please, dear Sahib, write out “The May Queen” and “The Dedication of the Idyols of the King,” with your own hand, we will keep it till the last day of our lives.
They then explain why the “Dedication” is asked for; “because we know how dearly Prince Albert loved you, and, also our beloved Queen Empress, and how you love them”: also how they long to go back “to our dear India,” and sing hymns, and nurse and dose “our own countrywomen in the Zenanas.”
Now good-bye our aziz (beloved) Sahib I am sending you some wild daisies and moss as you are so fond of flowers and everything beautiful in God’s world. May God give you a sweet smile every day, prays your little loving, Indian Friend,,
* * *
This last explains itself:
Dear Mr. Tennyson—I am one of a large struggling family of girls and boys who have never yet been able to afford to give 9s. for that much-coveted green volume Tennyson’s “Poems,” so at last, the boys having failed to obtain it as a prize, and the girls as a birthday present, I, the boldest of the party, venture to ask if you would kindly bestow a copy on a nest full of young admirers.,
* * *
He wrote his little Indian maid a pretty letter, and sent his poems to the “best girl.” And in many an instance, (requests for aid included) the correspondence bears witness to my father’s open-hearted kindliness and liberality. His beggars, at any rate, were often choosers.
The wish for an autograph, we may again reasonably suppose, was not absent from the minds of the following (and other analogous) writers. The first dates from Scotland:
(1878)
I take the great liberty in writing to you, in order to settle a dispute that has arisen amongst several parties, regarding the song written by Sir Walter Scott, Jock O’ Hazeldean. The words are as follows,
And ye shall be his bride Lady;
So comely to be seen.
Does comely apply to the bride, or the bridegroom? As your opinion will be considered satisfactory to all, your reply will be considered a lasting favour.,
* * *
(1883)
I am an enthusiastic reader and admirer of your works, and have read those which I like especially, over and over again, in particular “Maud,” which I consider to be surpassingly fresh and beautiful—there is a sort of fascination about the poem to me ... but I really cannot understand the meaning of the end of it.
I should very much like to know whether it is intended to mean that Maud’s brother, “that curl’d Assyrian bull,” is slain by her lover: whether Maud is supposed to die of a broken heart, or does her lover come back, long after, presumably from the Russian war and marry her?
The remaining examples, in which respect is curiously blended with familiarity, are dated from the United States.
A lively boy of thirteen (1884) who loves “Nature and Poetry” shall here have precedence:
In the first place I wish to ask your pardon for bothering you with this letter, but I want to make a collection, or I mean get the autographs of 5 or 6 distinguished poets; and so I thought I would write and get yours if possible and then the minor ones may follow.
I have read most of your poems, and like them very much indeed, etc. etc.
(A biographical sketch follows, including a visit to England.) When we drove back from Stoke Pogis to Windsor we saw the deer in the Queen’s hunting grounds, and the tall, mighty oaks on each side of the road seemed to say, “This is an Earthly Paradise.”...
If you would write a verse or two from some one of your poems and write your name under it, I should be very much obliged to you indeed.
(1885)
Forgive the intrusion of a stranger (says a lady). Long have I desired to have some one of the noble thoughts, I have so learned to love, in your own handwriting. I have felt a delicacy in asking this, but the wish is so earnest with me that I will venture this first and last request.... I crave some tangible proof that my “hero-worship” has some sympathetic, human foundation. Could I choose a couplet?... They spring to my memory in legions. The wild melody of “Blow, bugle, blow,” etc. etc. ... They have helped to make my life beautiful, earnest and true, and I am grateful for it all. If I might be once more your debtor it would be a real joy to me, but if it feels like a burden, do not give it another thought.
(1891)
... In behalf of Charity Circle, a non-sectarian organization of the order of King’s Daughters, we are making a collection of autographs of prominent men and women to be used in a souvenir banner: which when finished will be sold and the proceeds devoted to charity work. We feel as if the banner will not be complete without Lord Tennyson’s autograph.
(1891)
Beloved Sir—I feel awkward and abashed, as I thus come before you, who are so great, so honored, so crowned with earthly fame and glory; and, so worthy to be thus crowned, and known to fame: but, I know, that in the midst of all these honors, which might spoil one, of the common sort of souls; you are a poet, born, not made; and therefore, you have the essential gift of the poet [sympathy] and can feel for the imprisoned soul, beating against the stifling walls of silence: and longing, fainting, to come forth into the glad sunshine, the sweet, fresh air of utterance, so strangely withheld from it.... From [youth] till now, Beloved Sir, you have been my friend, my soother; the dear angel, whose kindly office it has been, ever and anon, to speak for me ... and thus to give me the sweet sense of having been led forth from prison for a while into the blessed light and freedom of utterance.
I will never forget the relief afforded by those lines:
My very heart faints and my soul grieves
Etc. etc.
(1891)
A lady writes to the honored Poet-Laureate of England, and the beloved world-renowned verse-maker.
Knowing the value of even one verse and your autograph I write to you and make my request, which if granted will be beyond my anticipations. I want a dedicatory poem so much, but if I get only a line from you I should be happy. I always loved your poetry. Now please, do send me the coveted verse. I, a beggar-maid at the throne of poetry, kneel and beg of the monarch a crumb. Have you any grandchildren? I wish I could get one of their photos for my book. Hoping you will act like the good king in the fairy kingdom and grant the request—I remain etc. etc.
(1885)
Dear Lady Tennyson—It is one of the glorious privileges of our government that the “first ladies of the land” may be courteously addressed without the formalities of an introduction, and why not the same rule in your country? Therefore, without the semblance of an apology, I request you will do me the honor to grant a small favor. I am engaged in collecting souvenirs from celebrated writers, and you being the wife of England’s Poet Laureate, I would prize beyond measure a contribution from you: a scrap of silk or velvet from one of your dresses, and also a scrap of one of your husband’s neckties.... There is no one who loves his works as myself ... he reaches further down into the human heart and touches its tender cords (sic) as no man has since the days of Shakespeare.... My husband, who has won an enviable reputation as a writer hopes soon to produce his work on The Lives of English and American Poets. Hoping you will not refuse me, etc. etc.
A few miscellaneous oddities follow.
(1883)
Dear Sir—May I ask you as a favour where I could find a “wold,” to illustrate the following verse:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze,
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
(“In Memoriam,” XI.)
which is the subject given this year for a painting (for the Gold Medal), to the Students of the Royal Academy of Arts?
(1840)
A young girl, writing from America, asks a natural question.
We have your book of poems, and I have read “Enoch Arden.” So I thought I would write and see if it is true. Was there a girl whose name was Anna Lee, and two boys named Enoch Arden and Philip Ray?
I felt very sorry for Philip at first and afterward for Enoch, when he came home and found his wife had married Philip and he saw her children grown up, but could not go to see them....
I have a pet rooster, and it is very cunning. I hold it and pet it and I love it lots.
Well, I must close, hoping to hear from you soon, for I want to know if the story of Enoch is true.
(1891)
U.S.A. again supplies the following naïveté:
Dear Sir—I intrude a line on your notice, to ask a little favor.
I am in my fourteenth year; am considered fairly advanced for my age, by older heads. I wish your opinion of the best line of books for me to read at leisure hours, aside from novels or fiction. I attend the high school, and on Saturdays, clerk in the store, of which my father is senior partner.
P.S.—You will find five cents for return postage.
2nd P.S.—My mother says you are not living, but I say to her, I believe she is mistaken; in other words, I am glad one time to differ with her.
(1888)
My dear Lord Tennyson—I once met you....
You will think it strange indeed, my Lord, when I assure you that I am often supposed to be your noble self, once in Scarborough, often in Town at the great exhibitions and elsewhere. I wear a large Tyrolese felt hat.
There is to be a grand summer party here, my Lord, gentlemen to appear in character, I having been requested to appear as “Lord Tennyson.”
Could your Lordship kindly lend me any outer clothing, by Thursday morning at latest? a cloak, etc.? Then I should feel so thankful and fulfil the character better.
America characteristically supplies the following:
Permit me to call your special attention to a pamphlet I mail you herewith, of an address to the New Shakespere Society, containing the announcement of a momentous discovery which I have made in the “Shakespeare” plays.
My unveiling therein of the allegory of Cymbeline is but a sample of what I have similarly discerned in the other dramas, and in which I find the same conclusions consistently to be reached.
The fair writer’s answers to objections and discourse on her discovery unhappily throw no light upon the subject. She proceeds:
I would add that it is singular to myself there should be so strong a prejudice against the acceptance of Bacon’s authorship of these dramas, investing them, as it does, with such additional interest both of a historical and an autobiographical kind, in the light of his concealment of it.
The value of truth, and the interests of literature, constitute my apology for this intrusion upon your valuable time.
[The acceptance of Bacon’s authorship of Shakespeare’s dramas and the attack on Shakespeare’s character made my father register his opinion thus:
Not only with no sense of shame
On common sense you tread,
Not only ride your hobby lame,
But make him kick the dead. Ed.]
(1882)
Right Honorable Sir—The editor of a Bohemian literary journal takes the liberty of applying, in a very delicate matter, to you the most renowned poet of the first literature in the world. Yet this liberty I draw from having a great belief in the generous character of the English nation.
What I do venture to impress on your mind is this, that a poem of yours written on, and dedicated to the poor descendants of Bohemia’s happier ancestors, would as a mighty missionary go the round all over their fair country evoking everywhere loud echoes out of the graves of their heroes!
(1892)
The following is a letter from an hysterical Irishman:
Eminent Sir—I send you the inside poem to show you what the American people think of your lives of tyranny, and may the day come when your infernal land may be torn to a million pieces. Curse you for your highway robbery of Ireland, and then holding her down in such misery, and also for your cowardly war with Napoleon. You could fight him alone, could you? I wish that every Englishman was in the hottest place of hell—their bones made into gridirons to roast their hearts on. * * *
(1888-1892)
A French chemist, hearing that “Monsieur” suffers from gout, has a certain secret cure. If he could, he would come over to England, “et ... je vous guérirais complètement.”
He is assured that this remedy will rapidly make him rich. But it should be known beyond France.
On m’a dit que je pouvais trouver quelques-uns à l’étranger qui sauraient l’apprécier et le faire valoir que cela vaut une petite fortune pour moi; ne serai-je que pour l’humanité, je me tacherai de la vendre.
Je vous le répète, Monsieur, c’est bien regrettable que je ne sois pas plus près de chez vous, car je vous soulagerois et, Monsieur, on peut se renseigner sur moi; je ne suis pas riche mais honnête et d’une bonne famille, et en faisant mon chimisterie je m’occupe un peu d’antiquités.
Two of the latest letters amused my father much, one from Canada from a little boy who said that his mother liked cheeses, and he would like Tennyson to send him money to buy a good cheese: the other from an English artist who said that his speciality was drawing cows, but that he must have a cow of his own to live with and make proper studies of, would therefore Tennyson give him a cow?