Lord Tennyson's Mail

1895

Here is a curious freak of Lord Tennyson's imagination, based on fact: "Look at this pile, which, on my return from abroad, I find heaped on my table. I ought to have thanked you before for your generous lines, but look at the pile — some three feet high — and let that apologize for my silence — and believe me, tho' penny post maddened, yours ever, A. Tennyson." These words followed the drawing by Alfred Tennyson of a kind of pyramid in sections specifying the nature of the letters on his table: "Anonymous insolent letters," "letters from America, Australia, from monomaniacs, etc.," "letters asking explanation of particular passages," "begging letters of all kinds," "subscriptions asked for church building, schools, Baptist chapels, Wesleyans, etc.," "newspapers — gracious or malignant," "printed circulars of poems asked for subscription," "presentation copies of poems," "printed proof sheets of poems," "MS. poems," "letters for autographs," form the two sides of this curious and unique sketch.

People who pester a man of letters do not think of the vast aggregate made up of many single applications of various sorts. Each post used to bring to the house 50 or 60 letters. Mrs. Tennyson and Hallam Tennyson were far too much occupied with the task of wading through these piles of unsolicited correspondence. — Strand Magazine.