“It’s a lie,” he said, “I invented it all; though there was such a character when I was a boy. When he was dying he said:
“‘Th’ A’mighty couldn’t be so hard. An’ Squire would be so mad an’ a’!’” He said it in broad Lincolnshire dialect such as he used in The Northern Farmer. Tennyson was a natural character-actor; when he read or spoke in dialect he conveyed in voice and manner a distinct impression of an individual other than himself.
Then he told me some Irish anecdotes generally bearing on that quality in the Irish nature which renders them unsatisfied. He suggested a parody of a double row of shillelaghs working automatically on each side “and then they would be unsatisfied!” At another time he spoke to me in the same vein.
Then I told him some Irish dialect stories which were new to him and which really seemed to give him pleasure. I told him also some of the extravagant Orange toasts of former days whereat he laughed much. Then turning to me he said:
“When we go in I want to read you something which I have just finished; but you must not say anything about it yet!”
“All right!” I said, “of course I shall not. But why, may I ask, do you wish it so?”
“Well, you see,” he said, “I have to be careful. If it is known that I am writing on a particular subject I get a dozen poems on it the next day. And then when mine comes out they say I plagiarised them!”
In the course of our conversation something cropped up which suggested a line of one of his poems, The Golden Year, and I quoted it. “Go on!” said Tennyson, who seemed to like to know that any one quoting him knew more than the bare quotation. I happened to know that poem and went on to the end of the lyrical portion. There I stopped:
“Go on!” he said again; so I spoke the narrative bit at the end, supposed to be spoken by the writer:
“He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast