Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1875-01-22
How TeDnyson Loot, and WORKS.

remimber distinctly the first time I
saw Tennyson--he was about fifty seven
then. Having been pointed out 10 me in
drawing room, could not believe him TO
be the laureate. His height was hidden by
a stoop; his once luxuriant locks were
scant; his lace was thin his eyes inlam-
Cd, and partially concealed by blue glasses.
His manner was nervous, uneasy, awk-
ward In the extreme; his voice querulous
and disagreeable in spite Of its depth. He
was almost burlesque Of the bard I had
imagined. II his nose had been painted
vermillion, and he had cotton umbrella
under his arm, he might have appeared
in opera boHfs as a satire upon what he
had been. ! believe he was then suffering
from i'll health az we'll as from one of the
unamiable moods to which he Is at times
subject. have met him since under more
favorable circumstances but shall never
forget my first impression Of him. The
thin hair, the blue glasses, the bent form,
the querulous tone: will stick to my
memory like importantly to book agent.
The author Of "Locksley Hall" has al
ways been more than n worker; he has
been tirelesJ toilcr over his manuscript,
spending hours, sometimes days, IL is said,
upon single Lines. Many Of his poems,
and parts Of his poems, have been entirely
unlike that which he sent to the printer.
His apparently easy, natural flow Of Lam
guage has been purchased with the utmost
pains. He has confessed sometimes that IL
is nm agony to write, and yet he takes pleas.
ure in the agony which gives him aided
fame. He never surrenders any intellect
usl task until he has satisfied the last de-
gree OF his fastidiousness. lie occasional
Ixr,v all l. -, e. L.. "a
ward changing, pruning, filling line after
line, word after word
Like all the irritable kind, he is variable
and moody, especially in composition. One
day he will do five times as much as an
other; sometimes he finds it impossible to
write. Generally, however, he works
steadily and regularly while he il at Far
ringford leaving his literary behind him,
when, as they say here, he comes up to
London. His habit is to shut him elf up
in his library; never permitting himself
to be disturbed under any circumstances.
Nevertheless, he is interrupted. and he
grows wild with nervous irritability. The
slightest interruption is sufficient to expel
the demon Of inspiration for the day, and
TO introduce the demon OF discord in his
stead.
The poets general mode Of writing is ex-
tremely slow. He builds his poems word
by word, just as brickmak ker makes n wall,
brick by brick, except that the poet takes
hundred times the trouble that the me
chanic does to arrange and cement his
words together. The song, "Come into the
garden, Maud" is reported TO have cost
him more thought and labor than any poem
OF the same length that he has ever COM
posed. have been told that he wrote Il
fifty times before it pleased him, and then
he spent nearly a month at it. "Locksley
Hall" is another marvel OF effort. He
wrote it in two days, and occupied the bet
ter part of six weeks for eight hours day,
in altering and polishing it, He used fire.
qucntly to work as long as that; Of late
years he rarely spends more than four
hours out of twenty in composition.
One OF his favorite poemsis 1.-THE Princess, I"
which he considers his best production, af-
ter "Idyls Of the King g"-EL.