no more than an additional
testimony to the fact that _she_ was happier.

She also was, I take it, in better health, for we had some most
delightful walks over the exceptionally beautiful country in the
neighbourhood of their house, to a greater extent than she would, I
think, have been capable of at Florence.

One day we made a most memorable excursion to visit Tennyson at Black
Down. It was the first time I had ever seen him. He walked with us
round his garden, and to a point finely overlooking the country below,
charmingly varied by cultivated land, meadow and woodland. It was
a magnificent day; but as I looked over the landscape I thought I
understood why the woods, which one looks down on from a similar
Italian height, are called _macchie_--stains, whereas our ordinarily
more picturesque language knows no such term and no such image. In
looking over a wide-spread Italian landscape one is struck by the
accuracy and picturesque truth of the image; but it needs the sun and
the light and the atmosphere of Italy to produce the contrast of light
and shade which justifies the phrase.

Our friends were evidently _personae gratae_ at the court of the
Laureate; and after our walk he gave us the exquisite treat of reading
to us the just completed manuscript of _Rizpah_. And how he read it!
Everybody thinks that he has been impressed by that wonderful poem to
the full extent of the effect that it is capable of producing. They
would be astonished at the increase of weird terror which thrills the
hearer of the poet's own recital of it.

He was very good-natured about it. It was explained to him by George
Eliot that I should not be able to enjoy the reading unless I were
close to him, so he placed me by his side. He detected me availing
myself of that position to use my good eyes as well as my bad ears,
and protested; but on my appeal _ad misrecordiam_, and assurance that
I should so enjoy the promised treat to infinitely greater effect, he
allowed me to look over his shoulder as he read. After _Rizpah_ he
read the _Northern Cobbler_ to us, also with wonderful effect. The
difference between reading the printed lines and hearing them so read
is truly that between looking on a black and white engraving and the
coloured picture from which it has been taken. Another thing also
struck me. The provincial dialect, which, when its peculiarities are
indicated by letters, looks so uncouth as to be sometimes almost
puzzling, seemed to