286 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



gave me the names of several of the yachts we 

 saw anchored there, and told me a good deal about 

 their o^vners. He said that the island was now a 

 favourite place of residence for men who had made 

 a name in the world, and he proceeded to speak 

 of several of these famous persons. I was a little 

 ashamed to find that they were nearly all unknown 

 to me. The greatest among them, judging from 

 his way of speaking of him, was the editor of a 

 sporting paper, who had built himself a house in the 

 neighbourhood of Osborne. 



I remarked that he had omitted all mention of 

 one of the great men who lived on the island — Alfred 

 Tennyson. " Who's he ? " said my interlocutor. " A 

 retired admiral ? No ! What has he done ? — does he 

 keep a yacht ? " 



I did not think he kept a yacht ; and he had not 

 done anything that I knew of except to write poetry : 

 he was the poet-laureate. 



" A poet I — I know nothing about poets," he said a 

 little curtly, and very soon afterwards walked off. 



It is one of our commonest delusions that the 

 balance in which we weigh our fellow-creatures, our 

 measure and perspective, are those in use by mankind 

 generally : very naturally it disgusted him to have 

 my poor little obscure poet — all poets were little ob- 

 scure people to his mind — brought into the dis- 

 tinguished company of sporting men who kept their 

 yachts in the Solent ! All that I could readily under- 



