* * *
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.