On Saturday I went again to the Smiths3 at Haslemere. Mrs C.4
was (and is) away on the Continent (Mr C.5 too).
I had plenty of talk with Mr, Mrs, and Alys6 & Logan S.7 Logan desired me to
send his love to you he
is very friendly to you, Mr S. only moderately so & Mrs & A.S. not at all
as far as I can find out. Mrs C. I believe is in her heart friendly but "for reasons" she says nothing—this
matter is too loc_zs.00437.jpg delicate to write about even to you
but I will tell you all when we meet abt. 2d or 3d Sept.
When I returned to town today I found your letters & card of 24th, 26th
& 29th8 and a couple of letters from H.9 besides letters from home &c. I am well pleased
to see that you keep, if not fairly, at least not markedly worse and I hope to find you "right side up with care"
on my return about 2d Sept. (not a very long time now). I have the "Lip." and find
that the "Dinner Piece"10 comes out well—I think it as good an ad.
as we have had. But the main thing I want to talk about to you today is my
loc_zs.00438.jpg
visit yesterday to Lord Tennyson.11 I was (as I have said) at Mr S.s and he sent me
with a man & buggy to L. T.s place some 5 ms. away. I drove thro' one of the wildest
and most beautiful pieces of country (in a drizzling rain) that I have seen anywhere, hills, woods, brush, everywhere,
but with splendid English roads to drive on. Got to T.s place
(a fine almost stately mansion) a little before 4 P.M. got out, rang the bell—a footman opened the door,
I gave him your letter and my card & said "please give these to Lord Tennyson." He left me in the hall and disappeared
in the house—soon he came back and conducted me into a room on the ground floor to the left of the main hall—I went
in and sat down—in a few minutes a quite young looking and handsome man came in—he held out his hand to me and said
"good day to Dr B." I shook hands with him saying at same time "you are Hallam Tennyson?"12
He said he was and
loc_zs.00439.jpg we had a little talk—then after saying that "his father"
was sleeping—that he always lay down for a couple of hours in the afternoon & would not be up until 5 O'C. he asked
me if I would wait—I said certainly I would wait if he thought L. T. would see me. He said "I don't know, but I would like
you to wait" then he asked me if I would step in and see Lady T.13 I said I shd be very happy to do so.
He took me to the next room where L. T. was lying on a sofa—a very pale & delicate but a very spiritual, intellectual
& pleasing face. I sat down by her sofa and we talk
loc_zs.00440.jpg for a good half hour about
Canada & the Canadians—about the late sir John Macdonald,14 about Carlyle15 &
Mrs C.16 (she said they were not understood,
that Froude's book17 did them injustice—that they were plenty attached to one another &c. She said she had seen Mrs C.
once when some disparaging remark was made about C. burst into tears) and other things—then Hallam asked me to go with him upstairs
to see Mrs Tennyson18—I went (of course)—Mrs T. is a very young looking and almost beautiful woman with an air
of considerable distinction—she
loc_zs.00441.jpg received me in a half stately but very kind
manner and we had quite a little talk. (I had been at least half an hour with Lady T. and it was now nearly 5 O'C.)
A little before 5 Hallam asked me to go with him to Lord T.s room—I did so. I found L. T.
in a large room on the first floor (up one stair, as yours is) containing bookshelves and many books—he was sitting on a sofa
and as I went in did not see me so as to know who was there —in fact when I went up to him he thought I was Hallam—I spoke
to him and took his hand (which he thought strange thinking I was H.) however he soon realized who it was and there welcomed me. We then talked
with perfect unconstraint for an hour. T. is not much for compliments, very blunt and downright—he spoke of you with
much good feeling but my reception at the house, by the whole family, was a far greater compliment to you than a volume of soft phrases
would have been.
None of the Tennyson's I imagine (I had hardly any talk about L. of G. except with Hallam who spoke very freely and pleasantly loc_zs.00442.jpg
on the subject) have read you so as really to understand you or what you are after—but have read you enough to know in a more
or less vague way that you are a great force in this modern world. Had I been introduced to the Tennysons by the greatest prince in Europe
they could not have received me more courteously, nor had I been a near relative could they have shown me greater friendliness—all this
of course was for your sake since they did not know of me by name even. But
loc_zs.00443.jpg after all I fear I can give
you but a faint notion of the pleasure my visit was to me. The Smiths had said that T. was old and queer and that he certainly
would not see me—that perhaps H. would see me &c, &c, &c. So that I was totally unprepared
for the reception they gave me. And the Smith's seemed as much surprised as myself when I went back and told them about it. T.s
presence is imposing but does not make as strong an impression of great personality as I expected.
He is still handsome but so shortsighted that his eyes have little expression. He is not nearly
loc_zs.00444.jpg
so reserved, careful and dignified in conversation as I looked for—says (with somewhat rapid enunciation) whatever comes uppermost—said
(for instance) "there—I have caught you in an Americanism" and then pointed out the phrase. Said "I hate
that word 'awfully' they might as well say 'bloody' at once—they both mean the same". Then showing a lot of pictures
& busts of self and family (different members) done by Ward19—Millais20 &c. &c. he said: "The best of it is they never cost me
a penny—they were all done for nothing."
I am asked to go back to the Smith's but probably shall not as time is getting short. I sail 26th inst. & must leave London for the north about 20 or 21, Mr Costelloe is to be back in town tomorrow and then we see what is to be done about the meter.21 I have the Danish W. W. piece22 translated—am now at Knortz'23 have a lot of work to do yet—give Horace my love and show him this letter—tell him to keep it, I may want to see it again as I have no other record of the T. interview. Tell him it must not get out on any account, that would never do.
Best love to you dear Walt, R M BuckeCorrespondent:
Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).