21 November 1887 – 27 November 1887

Indigestion continually, tedious nights. If I only knew for certain what to eat and drink !

H., G., and I to Hasle- mere by 4.7 train and walk to Valewood by Mason's fields, farm, locked gate, old walnut. Three Counties' Bridge, Valewood ponds and hills impressive in the dusk. House — drawing-room, Mrs. Mangles, Dafi'arn, Mrs. DafFarn, Daphne. Chat, tea.

Fine — some sunshine. H. and I by 12.45 ^° Haslemere and walk up Blackdown. Shooting heard. Beaters in lane, eating bread and cheese. H. lunches among the heather. Then stables, no one ; man cutting furze. Hallam hails us from upper window. His room — he smokes — chat. He and Audrey have just been at Cambridge to see CEdipus acted, and took Mary Anderson with them ; she drilled the young fellows — was surprised at the poorness of their legs ; thought that but for the great power of Sophocles the play would be intolerable ; was disgusted with the bloody eyes ; all thought them horrible. Then about four to Tennyson's room ; find him sitting at window in a red woollen cape, of fisherman's shape, reading. Contrary to reports — looking well and cheerful. He gives Helen The Brook^ illustrated ; asks if she will illustrate Locksley Hall for Macmillan, but she excuses herself — is out of practice, and does not know Lincolnshire. Tennyson praises the picturesqueness of the great fens, and the sun rising over the eastern sea. I say I can tell them the right man for kn scenery — Macbeth. T. says the drawings in the little book don't show the Brook he thought of — it was partly an abstract, but mainly from one in the country where he was born. ' Have you seen Darwin s Life ? ' T. — 'No, I hate biographies.' Darwin — his dicta on religion — once cared for poetry, etc. T. was reading Elaine, a Play in five Acts, founded on his Idyll. He said, ' I am told this has been played for many nights in America. The language is partly mine, partly not. It came this morning from New York.' ' Have you got any money out of it .? ' * Money — no ! ' He went out on the lawn for his half-hour's after- noon walk, I with him. We talked of Darwin — of human nature — of the difficulties of the period of puberty and following years. He spoke with praise of Paul Janet. I hardly recollected about him. T. said, ' Why, I remember reading Paul Janet to you in the New Forest.' ' The only tolerable view of this life,' he said, ' is as the vestibule to a better.' In parting Tennyson held my wife's hand and said, ' I am very glad to have seen you again. Perhaps you'll never see me again till I'm dead.' Then tome — ' Do you know what old Mrs. Procter said to me the other day ^ I said to her, " I'm seventy-eight and you're eighty-seven, and perhaps we shall never meet again till we're dead," and she answered, " You young fellows mustn't be insolent to your seniors ! " ' We walked away, agreeing that he appeared well and cheerful, and so down the lane in a misty moon- light and to Haslemere station.