24 July 1865 – 30 July 1865

To Farringford. After dinner T. spoke of boys catching butterflies. ' Why cut short their lives } — What are we ? We are the merest moths. Look at that hill ' (pointing to the one before the large window), ' it's four hundred millions of years old ; — think of that ! Let the moths have their little lives.' Speaking of the Colonies, he said, ' England ought to keep her colonies and draw them closer. She ought to have their representatives sitting in London, either in or in connection with the Imperial Parliament.' Tennyson is always well at sea. ' To own a ship, a large steam-yacht,' he said, ' and go round the world — that's my notion of glory.' Of the Norwegian waterfalls he said, ' I never was satisfied with water before. On the voyage out, stand- ing at the door of the deck cabin, I saw a moving hill of water pass the side of the ship. I got on the top of the cabin, and saw the sea like a mountainous country, all hill and valley, with foam for snow on the summits ; — the finest thing I ever saw.' Tennyson loathed the necessity, which he fancied himself under, of writing for money, ' The fine thing would be to have a good hereditary estate and a love of literature.' Of the expenses of land-owning he said, 'it costs ^100 an acre, and brings in nothing yet.' T. said he had read part of Carlyle's Frederick till he came to, ' they did not strive to build the lofty rhyme,' and then flung the book into a corner. He read some extracts in the Spectator about poetry, and referred to Carlyle's contemptuous way of speaking of poets, saying, ' We are all tadpoles in a pool, one a little larger or smaller than others ! ' How differently Goethe would have spoken of this minor poet : ' he was useful in his own time and degree.' — See MS. in ' Minor Poets.' ' I was at an hotel in Covent Garden, and went out one morning for a walk in the Piazza. A man met me, tolerably well - dressed but battered - looking. I never saw him before that I know of. He pulled off his hat and said, " Beg pardon, Mr. Tennyson, might I say a word to you.?" I stopped. "I've been drunk for three days and I want to make a solemn promise to you, Mr. Tennyson, that I won't do so any more." I said that was a good resolve, and I hoped he would keep it. He said, " I promise you I will, Mr. Tennyson," and added, " Might I shake your hand ? " I shook hands with him, and he thanked me and went on his way.'