Stop, stop, my dear Lord Tennyson! Whither away so fast? Why turn your back churlishly upon me?--why spoil dignity by hastening your steps?--why hide that venerable and honoured head in a hermit's cowl of distrust for all human kind? I am not the "ubiquitous interviewer"; I do not want a lock of your hair or your autograph, for the autograph I have in your own letters, and certainly you cannot spare any hair just now. Fear me not, then, O great but crusty Poet; my silver domino conceals the features of a friend; I will do no more than render you distant but most absolute homage. I would not pry into your garden solitudes at Haslemere--no, not for the '_World_.' I would not force my way into your little kingdom at Freshwater for anything an enterprising editor might offer me; for I love you as all England loves you, and the utmost I can wish is that you would be friends with both me and England. What have we done to you, my dear Lord--peer of the realm and Peer of Poets--that you should disdain us, every one, and take so much precaution to avoid our company? Have we not, as it were, fallen at your feet in worship?--marked you out in our hearts and histories as the greatest poet of the Victorian Era, and taken pride in the splendour of your fame? Despise us not, noble Singer of sweet idylls, for remember we have never despised _you_. In our troubles and losses we have dropped soft tears over "In Memoriam"; in our loves and hopes we have wandered among the woods and fields, singing in thought the songs of "Maud" and "The Princess"; in our dreamy moods we have pored over "The Lotus-Eaters," "The Palace of Art," "Tithonus," or "Ænone"; in our passionate moments we have felt all the scorn and burning sorrow pent up in "Locksley Hall." You are the divine melodist who has set our deep-hidden English romance and sentiment to most tenderly expressed music; we are grateful, and we have shown our gratitude. We have given you such fond hearing as few poets ever win; we have lodged you in fair domains, and guarded you as a precious jewel of the realm. What can we do more to satisfy you? Is there any grander guerdon for a poet's labour than the whole English-speaking people's honour? And that you have; and yet you manifest a soured discontent that sadly misfits your calling. What is it all about? You do not want to be looked at--"stared at" is your own way of expressing it--you do not wish to be spoken to--you desire to ignore those who most reverence you, and you treat with ill-mannered, "touch-me-not" disdain the very people whose faithful admiration gives you all the good things of this life which you enjoy. Oh, petulant Poet-peer! Do no memories of the great dead bards (greater in genius than yourself, but less fortunate in their reward) sometimes flit like ghosts across the horizon of your dreams? Of Chatterton, self-slain through biting poverty; of Keats, dying before he reached his prime, while on the very verge of the promised land of Fame; of Byron, self-exiled, his splendid muse embittered by private woes; of Shelley, piteously drowned before he had time to measure his own vast intellectual forces?--while you, my good Lord, fostered by a nation's love and recognition, have experienced no such cutting cruelties at the hand of destiny. Perhaps, indeed, you have been too fortunate, and continuous prosperity has made you careless and over-easily satisfied with the lightest trifle of verse that suggests itself to your fancy. But if you are careless, you need not be crusty. The British Public has been likened unto an Ass by many, but to my thinking it is more like a dog--an honest, good-natured dog who never bites except under the severest and most repeated provocation. As a dog it has fawned at your footstool, looked up in your eyes affectionately and wagged its tail persistently--have you no other response to such fidelity save a kick or a blow? Oh, fie on such ill-humour--such uncalled-for cantankerousness! Why should you seek to be "protected" from those who would fain do you honour? We should all like to see you sometimes, in society, at theatre or opera, at flower-show and harmless festival; we should like to say to one another on beholding you, "There is our Laureate--our grand old Tennyson, one of the glories of England!" We should not harm you by our affection. We have no design upon your life, save to pray that it may be guarded and prolonged.