I was mighty proud when I learned how to
prepare his daily pipe for him. It was a long churchwarden, and he liked
the stem to be steeped in a solution of sal volatile, or something of
that kind, so that it did not stick to his lips. But he and all the
others seemed to me very old. There were my young knights waiting for
me; and jumping gates, climbing trees, and running paper-chases are
pleasant when one is young.
It was not to inattentive ears that Tennyson read his poems. His reading
was most impressive, but I think he read Browning's "Ride from Ghent to
Aix" better than anything of his own, except, perhaps, "The Northern
Farmer." He used to preserve the monotonous rhythm of the galloping
horses in Browning's poem, and made the words come out sharply like
hoofs upon a road. It was a little comic until one got used to it, but
that fault lay in the ear of the hearer. It was the right way and the
fine way to read this particular poem, and I have never forgotten it.
In after years I met Tennyson again, when with Henry Irving I acted in
two of his plays at the Lyceum. When I come to those plays, I shall have
more to say of him. Gladstone, too, came into my later life. Browning I
saw once or twice at dinner-parties, but knew him no better than in this
early period, when I was Nelly Watts, and heedless of the greatness of
great men.
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