d of the scene is a
practical testimony. The old Father, a Widower for the last two
years, and very lonely and dispirited, seems getting feebler and
feebler: he was here yesterday: a pathetic kind of spectacle to
us. Alas, alas! But what can be said? I say Nothing; I have
written only one Note to Sterling: I feel it probable that I
shall never see him more,--nor his like again in this world. His
disease, as I have from of old construed it, is a burning of him
up by his own fire. The restless vehemence of the man,
struggling in all ways these many years to find a legitimate
outlet, and finding, except for transitory, unsatisfactory
coruscations, none, has undermined its Clay Prison in the weakest
point (which proves to be the lungs), and will make outlet
_there._ My poor Sterling! It is an old tragedy; and very
stern whenever it repeats itself of new.

Today I get answer about Alfred Tennyson: all is right on that
side. Moxon informs me that the Russell Books and Letter arrived
duly, and were duly forwarded and safely received; nay, farther,
that Tennyson is now in Town, and means to come and see me. Of
this latter result I shall be very glad: Alfred is one of the
few British or Foreign Figures (a not increasing number I think!)
who are and remain beautiful to me;--a true human soul, or some
authentic approximation thereto, to whom your own soul can say,
Brother!--However, I doubt he will not come; he often skips me,
in these brief visits to Town; skips everybody indeed; being a
man solitary and sad, as certain men are, dwelling in an element
of gloom,--carrying a bit of Chaos about him, in short, which he
is manufacturing into Cosmos!

Alfred is the son of a Lincolnshire Gentleman Farmer, I think;
indeed, you see in his verses that he is a native of "moated
granges," and green, fat pastures, not of mountains and their
torrents and storms. He had his breeding at Cambridge, as if for
the Law or Church; being master of a small annuity on his
Father's decease, he preferred clubbing with his Mother and some
Sisters, to live unpromoted and write Poems. In this way he
lives still, now here, now there; the family always within reach
of London, never in it; he himself making rare and brief visits,
lodging in some old comrade's rooms. I think he must be under
forty, not much under it. One of the finest-looking men in the
world. A great shock of rough dusty-dark hair; bright-laughing
hazel eyes;