Tuesday 28th, 1826.
Dear Rawnsley—In your not having come to see me for so many months, when you have little or nothing to do but warm your shins over the fire while I, unfortunately, am frozen or rather suffocated with Greek and Latin, I consider myself as not only slighted but spifflicated. You deserve that I should take no notice of your letter whatever, but I will comply with your invitation partly to be introduced to the agreeable and clever lady, but more especially to have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Rawnsley, whom, you may rest assured, I value considerably more than I do you. Mrs. T. is obliged by your invitation, but the weather is too damp and hazy, Mr. Noah,—so I remain your patriarchship’s neglected servant,
G. C. Tennyson.
This letter was addressed to the Rev. T. H. Rawnsley, Halton Parsonage. The next was addressed to Halton Palace, and runs thus:
Somersby, Monday.
Dear Rawnsley—We three shall have great pleasure in dining with you to-morrow. We hope, also, that Mr. and Mrs. Clarke and yourselves will favour us with their and your company to dinner during their stay. I like them very much, and shall be very happy to know more of them.—Very truly yours,
G. C. Tennyson.
P.S.—How the devil do you expect that people are to get up at seven o’clock in the morning to answer your notes? However, I have not kept your Ganymede waiting.
The friendship between the families, which was further cemented when the Rector’s son Drummond married Kate Franklin, whose cousin, Emily Sellwood, afterwards became the Poet’s wife, has been maintained for three generations. Alfred shared his father’s opinion of Halton, and often wrote both to the Rector and his wife. In one letter to her, after pleading a low state of health and spirits as his reason for not joining her party at Halton, he says: “At the same time, believe me it is not without considerable uneasiness that I absent myself from a house where I visit with greater pleasure than at any other in the country, if indeed I may be said to visit any other.”
After leaving Somersby, he wrote on Jan. 28, 1838, from High Beech, Epping Forest: