CHAPTER XI.--LAST CHAPTER.



"O, that Press will get hold of me now," Tennyson said when he knew
that his last hour was at hand. He had a horror of personal tattle,
as even his early poems declare -


"For now the Poet cannot die,
Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry."


But no "carrion-vulture" has waited


"To tear his heart before the crowd."


About Tennyson, doubtless, there is much anecdotage: most of the
anecdotes turn on his shyness, his really exaggerated hatred of
personal notoriety, and the odd and brusque things which he would say
when alarmed by effusive strangers. It has not seemed worth while to
repeat more than one or two of these legends, nor have I sought
outside the Biography by his son for more than the biographer chose