08Jul1871, Lord Tennyson: Rat-Taily Hair

THE COPPICE, July 8th, 1871.
—I partook of no less than 3 teas : Sir J. Lefevre's, Auntie P.'s at Downing Street, and Charlotte Spencer's to Ly. Superintendents. At Downing Street I was introduced to Tennyson, a dirty man with opium-glazed eyes and rat-taily hair hanging down his back. He asked if Papa still translated, and when I said his only original compositions were comic, said he had never seen them. It tickled me, the notion of "The Tale of the Sewers," "Gongenbühl, Gig-and-Buhl," etc. in print. He rhapsodized about various waterfalls. At Spencer House a lovely sight was the Faerie Queen receiving the good dowdies with all her gracious bright courtesy.