( 95 ) 
instance Miss Weld describes the Laxareate's 
morning walk with her :— 
My uncle donned his large, soft felt hat, and 
we passed out of the breakfast-room on to the 
broad lawn, across wliicli Tennyson strode witli 
rapid steps into the winding shrubbery path 
that had been bordered all through the spring with 
primroses of many hues, self-sown for tlie most 
part. Opening the little wicket-gate to which the 
path led, we passed into the bowery lane aad 
turned down it to the left towards Fresliwai.er 
Bay, if our first halting-place was to l)e ihe 
picturesque ivy. clad " Diuibola," garlanded to its 
very roof with roses, where dwelt that unique 
personalty Julia Margaret Cameron, who seemed 
to be all the famous women of the French salons 
of the 18th century rolled into one, with an added 
charm of her own beside. As Sir Jolin Simeon and 
his eldest daughter were Tennyson's dearest man 
and girl friends of the Isle of Wight circle so was 
Mrs Cameron, whose nature was fully as noble a 
one as theirs, his dearest woman friend ; almost 
the only woman outside his relations whom he 
called by her Christian name and who called him 
in turn by his. She was a woman of earnest piety 
and rare intellectual powers, and especially was 
she the very incarnation of friendship } no trouble 
was ever too great for her to take to serve or 
give pleasure to the many she folded to her 
motherly heart, and when with Mrs Cameron she 
made each feel that he or she was the only 
being in the whole universe for whom this Queen 
of Friends lived. This rare power was only 
attained by an utter and exhausting s^acrifice of 
self — a sacrifice which, while it undoubtedly 
shortened Mrs Cameron's life, made it infinitely 
better worth living. However busy she might be, 
if her business was one which could possibly be 
postponed, she would put it aside if a friend came 
to her for advice in difficulty, or congratulation 
in ioy, or solace in sorrow. There was no looking 
past that friend to something or somebody else 
beyond, but an absolute concentration of mind on 
to each personal detail, however minute, that 
might be related. A boundless enthusiasm and 
an unquenchable optimism enabled her to see and 
seize upon the best side of people and force them 
to act up to it, and influence the world for good 
to a degree of which they had not hitherto 
thought themselves capable. 
She refused to be bound by any of the artificia- 
lities of modern society life and her complete 
freedom from affectation wiis a great refreshment to 
Tennyson, and even made him bear patiently the 
many scoldings she gave him for refusing to waste 
(as he considered) the precious hours of lovely 
summer mornings in sitting to her for his photo- 
graph. Unfortunately for my uncle she had dis- 
covered what an immense source of pleasure to 
her friends her photographs of him were; and still 
more unfortunately from his point of view she 
had made the further discovery that tliis pleasure 
was greatly enhanced when the said photoT^raplis 
were signed with the poet's own autogsiipli. The 
more he signed the more she wanted him to sign; 
and 1 have really pitied my uncle when she has 
come flying up to Farringford with such a huLre 
sheaf of her photograohs of him tha: she lias had 
to hire a carriage to bring them, and has plamiied 
them down before him, with a selection of uew 
pens so tiiat he might not have the excuse of 
not having a pea handy to sign them with. 
-Some of Mrs Cameron's photographs of Tennyson 
were as successful as were those of her husband, 
who used to look very patriarchal in his purple 
caftan, over which flowed his long snowy locks 
and beard. H^i had done much active and im. 
portant work in India, but now led a reposeful 
existence, absorbed in the classics, of which he 
had such a thoiough mastery that Tennyson 
loved to discuss them with him. 
The Camerous' sons being about the same age 
as the young Alfred Tennysons were their constant 
companions, and such was the intimacy between 
the^wo families liinh an introduction' frorn Mrs 
Cameron was generally an open sesame to the 
charoicd circle of Farringford, I remember 
witnessing this with a young girl who was paying 
a short visit to Dimbola, and happened to be 
looking out of an upper window with Mrs 
Cameron at the viewof the sea which it commanded 
when the latter espied a tall figure, in a flowing 
mantle like cloak, approaching with rapid strides^ 
and smiling up to her. Instantly she flew out 
into the garden v/ith both her arms outstretched 
to meet and greet her honoured guests to whom 
she proudly exhibited the good results she was 
getting from that last negative of him which 
occupied a large printing frame on the lawn. 
Tennyson, who remembered what long sittings it 
iuvolved shrugged his shoulders at her sugges- 
tions of a new pose, in which she declared "she 
could make a quite Rembrandt like picture of 
hiro. that very morning on which the strongly 
actinic rays of the spring sunshine would be snre 
to bring out the very best eflFects of light ; ad 
shade. Tennyson was not to be moved" by her 
pleadings eagerly emphasised by gesticulations 
with those expressive hands of hers, deeply stained 
by the chemicals in which she was continually 
soaking them for she did every part of the process 
herself, even to the making of those wet plates of 
the messiness of which modern photographers 
with tbe dry plate have so little idea. 
She next urged that if the wayward poet would 
insist on preferring a walk in the sunshine to 
tuaking the far better use of it by letting ic immor- 
talise her through him to future ages, he would at 
all events congratulate her on a capital illustration 
to one of his poems she had found in a young 
lady visitor to Freshwater, She picked up a 
second printing-frame from the lawn, and releasing 
the catch disclosed the face of the girl who had 
been leaning with her out of the window, which 
Tennyson pronounced to be that of a winsome 
maiden, but not exactly his conception of the 
particular character to which Mrs Cameron has 
fitted her. " Well, if you won't sit to me today, 
you must take that girl for a walk," said Julia 
Margaret in the imperative mood tone, and the 
poet, glad to grant her a small favour after refusing 
her a large one, consented at once, and the 
rjaiden was beckoned up to at the window out of 
which she was still leaning. She blushed with awe 
and shyness as her hostess dragged her forward, 
and told her she was to put on hai hat quickly 
fur a walk with one whom she had liitherto 
regarded as a being to lie almost worshipped for 
his genius. Before the walk was half over, her 
fear of him had vanished, but her reverence was 
intensified. She was amazed at the vast depth 
of his learning; amaze I too, at the way he 
managed to aiake subjects she had hitherto 
thou-ht far too abstruse aud difficult for her 
quite easy of comprehension. 
