When he came to the end of the scene in Northampton Castle, I put before him Irving’s suggestion that he should, if he thought well of it, introduce a speech—or rather amplify the idea conveyed in the shout of the kneeling crowd: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” In our discussion of the play on the night of the reading we had all agreed that something was here wanting—something which would, from a dramatic point of view, strengthen Becket’s position. If he could have the heart of the people behind him it would manifestly give him a firmer foothold in his struggle with the King. Naturally there was an opening for an impassioned voicing of the old cry, “Vox populi, vox Dei.” When I ventured to suggest this he said in a doubting way:
“But where am I to get such a speech?”
As we sat we were sheltered by the Downs from the sea which thunders night and day under one of the highest cliffs in England. I pointed out towards the Downs and said:
“There it is! In the roar of the sea!” The idea was evidently already in his mind; and when he sent up to Irving a few days later the new material the mighty sound of the surge and the blast were in his words.
II
When Tennyson had run roughly through the altered play, he seemed much better and brighter. He put the play aside and talked of other things. In the course of conversation he mentioned the subject of anonymous letters from which he had suffered. He said that one man had been writing such to him for forty-two years. He also spoke of the unscrupulous or careless way in which some writers for the press had treated him. That even Sir Edwin Arnold had written an interview without his knowledge or consent, and that it was full of lies—Tennyson never hesitated to use the word when he felt it—such as: “‘Here I parted from General Gordon!’ And that I had ‘sent a man on horseback after him.’ General Gordon was never in the place!” This subject both in general and special he alluded to also at our last meeting in 1892; it seemed to have taken a hold on his memory.
He also said:
“Irving paid me a great compliment when he said that I would have made a fine actor!”
In the morning, Hallam and I walked in the garden before breakfast. Farringford is an old feudal farm, and some of the trees are magnificent—ilex, pine, cedar; primrose and wild parsley everywhere, and underneath a great cedar a wilderness of trailing ivy. The garden gave me the idea that all the wild growth had been protected by a loving hand.
After breakfast Hallam and I walked in the beautiful wood behind the house, where beyond the hedgerows and the little wood rose the great bare rolling Down, at the back of which is a great sheer cliff five hundred feet high. We sat in the summer-house where Tennyson had written nearly all of Enoch Arden. It had been lined with wood, which Alfred Tennyson himself had carved; but now the bare bricks were visible in places. The egregious relic hunters had whittled away piecemeal the carved wood. They had also smashed the windows, which Tennyson had painted with sea-plants and dragons; and had carried off the pieces! When we returned I was brought up to Tennyson’s room.