He asked
the briefest blessing possible, and, sitting at the ultra end of the
table, I heard nothing further from him till he officiated as briefly
before the cloth was withdrawn. Mrs. M------ talked about Tennyson, with
whom her husband was at the University, and whom he continues to know
intimately. She says that he considers Maud his best poem. He now lives
in the Isle of Wight, spending all the year round there, and has recently
bought the place on which he resides. She was of opinion that he would
have been gratified by my calling on him, which I had wished to do, while
we were at Southampton; but this is a liberty which I should hardly
venture upon with a shy man like Tennyson,--more especially as he might
perhaps suspect me of doing it on the score of my own literary character.
But I should like much to see him Mr. Tom Taylor, during dinner, made
some fun for the benefit of the ladies on either side of him. I liked
him very well this evening.
When the ladies had not long withdrawn, and after the wine had once gone
round, I asked Mr. Heywood to make my apologies to Mrs. Heywood, and took
leave; all London lying betwixt me and the London Bridge station, where I
was to take the rail homeward. At the station I found Mr. Bennoch, who
had been dining with the Lord Mayor to meet Sir William Williams, and we
railed to Greenwich, and reached home by midnight. Mr. and Mrs. Bennoch
have set out on their Continental journey to-day,--leaving us, for a
little space, in possession of what will be more like a home than
anything that we shall hereafter find in England.
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