Now it so chanced that this very line had been especially praised by two other fine critics, D. G. Rossetti and William Morris, to whom the sonnet had been read in manuscript. Tennyson’s criticism was that there were too many sibilants in the line, and that although, other things being equal, ‘scents’ might be more accurate than ‘scent,’ this was a case where the claims of music ought to be dominant over other claims. The present Lord Tennyson took the same view, and I am sure they were right, and that Mr. Watts-Dunton was right, in finally adopting ‘scent’ in place of ‘scents.’
Mr. Watts-Dunton has always contended that Tennyson’s sensibility to criticism was the result, not of imperious egotism, but of a kind of morbid modesty. Tennyson used to say that “to whatsoever exalted position a poet might reach, he was not ‘born to the purple,’ and that if the poet’s mind was especially plastic he could never shake off the reminiscence of the time when he was nobody.”
On a certain occasion Tennyson took Mr. Watts-Dunton into the summer-house at Aldworth to read to him ‘Becket,’ then in manuscript. Although another visitor, whom he esteemed very highly, both as a poet and an old friend, was staying there, Tennyson said that he should prefer to read the play to Mr. Watts-Dunton alone. And this no doubt was because he desired an absolute freedom of criticism. Freedom of criticism we may be sure he got, for of all men Mr. Watts-Dunton is the most outspoken on the subject of the poet’s art. The entire morning was absorbed in the reading; and, says Mr. Watts-Dunton, ‘the remarks upon poetic and dramatic art that fell from Tennyson would have made the fortune of any critic.’
On the subject of what has been called Tennyson’s gaucherie and rudeness to women I have seen Mr. Watts-Dunton wax very indignant. ‘There was to me,’ he said, ‘the greatest charm in what is called Tennyson’s bluntness. I would there were a leaven of Tennyson’s single-mindedness in the society of the present day.’
One anecdote concerning what is stigmatized as Tennyson’s rudeness to women shows how entirely the man was misunderstood. Mrs. Oliphant has stated that Tennyson, in his own house, after listening in silence to an interchange of amiable compliments between herself and Mrs. Tennyson, said abruptly, ‘What liars you women are!’ ‘I seem to hear,’ said Mr. Watts-Dunton, ‘Tennyson utter the exclamation—utter it in that tone of humourous playfulness, followed by that loud guffaw, which neutralized the rudeness as entirely as Douglas Jerrold’s laugh neutralized the sting of his satire. For such an incident to be cited as instance of Tennyson’s rudeness to women is ludicrous. When I knew him I was, if possible, a more obscure literary man than I now am, and he treated me with exactly the same manly respect that he treated the most illustrious people. I did not feel that I had any claim to such treatment, for he was, beyond doubt, the greatest literary figure in the world of that time. There seems unfortunately to be an impulse of detraction, which springs up after a period of laudation.’
The only thing I have heard Mr. Watts-Dunton say in the way of stricture upon Tennyson’s work was that, considering his enormous powers as a poet, he seemed deficient in the gift of inventing a story:—“The stanzas beginning, ‘O, that ’twere possible’—the nucleus of ‘Maud’—appeared originally in ‘The Tribute.’ They were the finest lines that Tennyson ever wrote—right away the finest. They suggested some superb story of passion and mystery; and every reader was compelled to make his own guess as to what the story could possibly be. In an evil moment some friend suggested that Tennyson should amplify this glorious lyric into a story. A person with more of the endowment of the inventor than Tennyson might perhaps have invented an adequate story—might perhaps have invented a dozen adequate stories; but he could not have invented a worse story than the one used by Tennyson in the writing of his monodrama. But think of the poetic riches poured into it!”
I remember a peculiarly subtle criticism that Mr. Watts-Dunton once made in regard to ‘The Princess.’ “Shakspeare,” he said, “is the only poet who has been able to put sincere writing into a story the plot of which is fanciful. The extremely insincere story of ‘The Princess’ is filled with such noble passages of sincere poetry as ‘Tears, idle tears,’ ‘Home they brought her warrior dead,’ etc., passages which unfortunately lose two-thirds of their power through the insincere setting.”
Not very long before Tennyson died, the editor of the ‘Magazine of Art’ invited Mr. Watts-Dunton to write an article upon the portraits of Tennyson. Mr. Watts-Dunton consulted the poet upon this project, and he agreed, promising to aid in the selection of the portraits. The result was two of the most interesting essays upon Tennyson that have ever been written—in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that without a knowledge of these articles no student of Tennyson can be properly equipped. It is tantalizing that they have never been reprinted. Tennyson died before their appearance, and this, of course, added to the general interest felt in them.
After Tennyson’s death Mr. Watts-Dunton wrote two penetrating essays upon Tennyson in the ‘Nineteenth Century,’ one of them being his reminiscences of Tennyson as the poet and the man, and the other a study of him as a nature-poet in reference to evolution. It will be a great pity if these essays too are not reprinted. Mr. Knowles, the editor, also included Mr. Watts-Dunton among the friends of Tennyson who were invited to write memorial verses on his death for the ‘Nineteenth Century.’ To this series Mr. Watts-Dunton contributed the following sonnet, which is one of the several poems upon Tennyson not published in ‘The Coming of Love’ volume, which, I may note in passing, contains ‘What the Silent Voices Said,’ the fine ‘sonnet sequence’ commemorating the burial of Tennyson:—
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
‘The crowd in the abbey was very great.’
Morning Newspaper.
I saw no crowd: yet did these eyes behold
What others saw not—his lov’d face sublime
Beneath that pall of death in deathless prime
Of Tennyson’s long day that grows not old;
And, as I gazed, my grief seemed over-bold;
And, ‘Who art thou,’ the music seemed to chime,
‘To mourn that King of song whose throne is Time?’
Who loves a god should be of godlike mould.Then spake my heart, rebuking Sorrow’s shame:
‘So great he was, striving in simple strife
With Art alone to lend all beauty life—
So true to Truth he was, whatever came—
So fierce against the false when lies were rife—
That love o’erleapt the golden fence of Fame.’