Where, far from noise of smoke and town,
I watch the twilight falling brown
All round a careless-ordered garden,
Close to the ridge of a noble down.
You'll have no scandal while you dine,
But honest talk and wholesome wine,
And only hear the magpie gossip
Garrulous, under a roof of pine.
For groves of pine on either hand.
To break the blasts of winter, stand,
And farther on, the hoary Channel
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand.
The house is by no means beautiful, but it is in the midst of such a network of peacefulest leafy lanes, the near-by surroundings are so grand, the "groves of pine" and the "careless-ordered garden" look so utterly fitted to be haunted by a poet's step and musings, the whole place must be so associated, so saturated with his reveries and fancies, so peopled with his creations, that it seems impossible any other spot could be home to him; and one feels a great pang of sadness that the only true master of Farringford should have felt himself driven to leave it, and to set up his household gods where he would be comparatively unknown and unhunted.
An un-famous person finds it however, a little difficult to sympathize with Tennyson's overpowering horror of the troublesomely affectionate curiosity of which he is the object. Even such extreme cases of hero-worship as that of the American who climbed the tree at Farringford to survey its master at his leisure, and that of the bevy of ladies at a London exhibition who, occupying a lounge before one of the special pictures of the season, and beholding Tennyson approach for a look, overwhelmed him with discomfiture by impressively ceding to him the entire sofa,—even these, and others of their kind, have a humorous side that might serve to qualify their impertinence and ill-breeding.
Neither Browning nor George Eliot is unknown by sight to the reading world of London: neither was Thackeray nor Dickens. Did either of these ever make outcry at the friendly if vulgar glances? Yet it is true that no one of them, save Dickens, has been so widely read, and it is probable that Browning, who looks like nothing so much as a hale, hearty business-man, oftenest escapes detection, while Tennyson's late photograph reproduces him so faithfully that he declares he can go nowhere without being known. Of the mischievous fidelity of the picture I am myself a witness, for having driven up one day to the Victoria station of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, by which Tennyson's new home is reached, and being busied with extricating from my purse the cabman's fare, my companion suddenly caught my arm, crying out, "Oh, S——, there's Tennyson!" The purse dropped in my lap: he was so near the cab I could have touched him, and of course he had heard the exclamation and knew why two ladies had so utterly forgotten their manners; but if he had also known that one of us had a certain shabby-through-use edition of all his earlier poems, which during a space of a dozen years had never been separated from her, traveling in a crowded trunk for even the shortest absences from home—that for months of that time she had been used to read therefrom to a precocious child who came every night in her night-gown to nestle in the reader's lap and listen to the music without which she declined to undertake the business of sleep,—I think the look bestowed upon the absorbed twain might well have been more amiable than the one which really fell upon them and blighted their innocent delight. It was all the photograph's fault, and, enthusiastic American sisters, be content with beholding the representation, for the original looks neither more patient, more gracious, nor more hopeful. So sensitive is he to looks which have in them any recognition, any stress, that a visitor at Farringford relates that, wandering about the cliffs and shores with his host, the latter would every now and then nervously cry out, "Come! let's walk on—I hear tourists!" and his companion, delaying a little, would be able to answer reassuringly, "Oh no: see! there's nothing in sight but a flock of sheep."
Perhaps I ought to confess that finding in one of the Farringford lanes a lovely little green gate opening into one of the "groves of pine," I did just try the latch. The door opened, and it looked all so still and shaded, whispery and ferny, so exactly as if Tennyson might any minute come pacing down between the tall trees, as if the "Talking Oak" was sure to stand just round a sun-lighted corner of the wood, that, incited thereto by a countrywoman of the poet's, who, herself a member of the guild, should know how poets' possessions may worthily be approached, I let my sacrilegious feet carry me a little way within that violated enclosure. But it was only a very tiny raid we made. We stood quietly for two or three minutes, just feeling the place, then scurried hastily away like two timorous hares; and as I have since lost a much prized little fern-leaf plucked within the enclosure, I think Mr. Tennyson should agree that this intrusive American has been quite severely enough punished, and that much ought to be forgiven one who has loved so much.
There really is one spot in England where "skies are blue and bright" uniformly, and, in the Undercliff, where no harsh winds come. And the whole island—with its smiling loveliness, its miniature sublimity, all its varying scenery, all its old landmarks, its rich story, its soft yet sparkling air, its dainty English culture, the sea that one never loses for long—is a honeymoon paradise. It can have been intended for nothing else. But it should be a pedestrian honeymoon. They should come to Ryde, leave all impedimenta to be sent forward to Ventnor by rail, and Madame in a serviceable walking-dress that need not be hideous, a sun-hat, with a strap holding her waterproof cloak, Monsieur with wraps, a bag containing the indispensable toilet necessaries, an umbrella and guide-book, should set gayly forth on their enchanted way. What a month in the romantic byways, over hill, down dale, in the old churches, churchyards, ivied ruins, through the ideal villages, resting amidst the heather on a down's summit, on the sands of a little scallop of a bay, stopping for food and sleep at the comfortable quaint inns or the sometimes "swell" hotels that are nowhere many miles asunder—seeing it, having it all together—the idyllic spot in the idyllic time!
And to American invalids it seems to me the Undercliff is far less known as a winter resort than it deserves to be. It is perfectly sheltered, yet has none of the dampness of Torquay and most of the other south-of-England health-resorts. And to invalids who speak no language save their own it must be infinitely pleasanter to abide where they hear their own tongue, where home comforts and home ways are joined to the other advantages they have come to seek. There is all the accessible beauty of walk and drive, ever-changing aspects of sea, shore, sky and crag, of which it would be difficult to tire, and a delicious languor in the mental atmosphere inexpressibly soothing to worn brain and nerves.
S. F. Hopkins.