I am sorry that I did not ask Tennyson to read or repeat to me some lines of his own.  Hardly any one perfectly understands a poem but the poet himself.  One naturally loves his own poem as no one else can.  It fits the mental mould in which it was cast, and it will not exactly fit any other.  For this reason I had rather listen to a poet reading his own verses than hear the best elocutionist that ever spouted recite them.  He may not have a good voice or enunciation, but he puts his heart and his inter-penetrative intelligence into every line, word, and syllable.  I should have liked to hear Tennyson read such lines as

  “Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere;”

and in spite of my good friend Matthew Arnold’s in terrorem, I should have liked to hear Macaulay read,

  “And Aulus the Dictator
    Stroked Auster’s raven mane,”

and other good mouthable lines, from the “Lays of Ancient Rome.”  Not less should I like to hear Mr. Arnold himself read the passage beginning,—­

  “In his cool hall with haggard eyes
    The Roman noble lay.”

The next day Mrs. Hallam Tennyson took A——­ in her pony cart to see Alum Bay, The Needles, and other objects of interest, while I wandered over the grounds with Tennyson.  After lunch his carriage called for us, and we were driven across the island, through beautiful scenery, to Ventnor, where we took the train to Ryde, and there the steamer to Portsmouth, from which two hours and a half of travel carried us to London.

* * * * *

My first visit to Cambridge was at the invitation of Mr. Gosse, who asked me to spend Sunday, the 13th of June, with him.  The rooms in Neville Court, Trinity College, occupied by Sir William Vernon Harcourt when lecturing at Cambridge, were placed at my disposal.  The room I slept in was imposing with the ensigns armorial of the Harcourts and others which ornamented its walls.  I had great delight in walking through the quadrangles, along the banks of the Cam, and beneath the beautiful trees which border it.  Mr. Gosse says that I stopped in the second court of Clare, and looked around and smiled as if I were bestowing my benediction.  He was mistaken:  I smiled as if I were receiving a benediction from my dear old grandmother; for Cambridge in New England is my mother town, and Harvard University in Cambridge is my Alma Mater.  She is the daughter of Cambridge in Old England, and my relationship is thus made clear.

Mr. Gosse introduced me to many of the younger and some of the older men of the university.  Among my visits was one never to be renewed and never to be forgotten.  It was to the Master of Trinity, the Reverend William Hepworth Thompson.  I hardly expected to have the privilege of meeting this very distinguished and greatly beloved personage, famous not alone for scholarship, or as the successor of Dr. Whewell in his high office, but also as having