HOW TO GET STRONG
So he came honestly by a strong body; and he had it, as his good old age well proved. For in Professor J. S. Blackie, His Sayings and Doings (p. 291), occurs the following passage: "In a letter written to his sister, in 1864, describing a visit to Alfred Tennyson, at Farringford, he says: 'He is a big, strong-built fellow, dark and sallow, more like a Spanish captain of privateers, or an Italian brigand, than like a hilarious John Bull, blushing with health and activity and port wine; with a grand Ionian head and Herculean shoulders. In manners he is plain, simple, natural, and rather quiet. He is no match for me in play of tongue; and I presume a hundred small wits from town would dominate over him in this way; but what he says is significant, and he gives you an impression of thorough honesty, thoughtfulness, and truthfulness. He has the common faults of the poetic temperament; that is, he is apt to be moody, and sometimes makes himself miserable with odious trifles which a practical man would skip over.'"
And here is Carlyle on his personal appearance: "Tennyson is one of the finest-looking men in the world; a great shock of rough, dusty, dark hair; bright, laughing, hazel eyes; massive aquiline face; most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow, brown complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes cynically loose, free, and easy; smokes infinite tobacco; his voice is musical metallic—fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may be between speech and speculation free and plenteous. I did not meet in these last decades such company over a pipe."—Review of Reviews, December, 1892.
