( 97 ) 
' liand and comforting the heart of her whose 
hnaband was reported sick unto death in distant 
Ceylon and not expected to reach home alive." 
Here Haidinge Cameron lays down his pen, and 
I tal<e np mine rgain with the remarlt I liat one 
reason for Mrs Cameron's immense admiration for 
Tennyson's cliaracter was that slie could see for 
lieistit how noble his nature was in its utter 
freedom from literary jealousy and frank delight 
in Lhe f;r('atness of other men; and in thiw parti- 
cular he and Browuinfj; ran each oilier close, for 
I shall never foiget how, wheti my moiher 
introduced Maud Tennyson ami myself lo Brown- 
ing (at our Oxford Masoriie fite) as Tennysoti s 
nieces, he seized our liauiis iti hi.s, and bursi ii.t i 
language- of 'liyhest prs-.i^<^ ds^'^|iest :i£f.'eriiii 
about his friend who vvi.s 'ie i ' hiioth'v 
all that friend's relations musi <_\., . lie tlear tu 
him too. owning was one of lhe many iamou'< 
men who sat successfully to Mrs Cameron, but 
she did not disdain sitters unknown to fame, 
if she thought they would make picturesque 
pictures. For instance, she was one day talking 
on an interesting subject with the friend who 
relates that she suddenly broke off the conver- 
sation, and rushing away at tull speed with ex- 
tended arms, called out, "Stop him, stop him; 
there goes Time." She succeeded in getting the' 
peasaut captured and after a very necessary wash- 
ing, the shirtless old man was dressed in her best 
shawls and duly photographed by her as "Time. ' 
She once saw her ideal of an ancient Egyptian 
■ descending into an Oxford kitchen and calling on 
her mistress, who was quite a stranger, persuaded 
her to spare her cook tor several days, in the course 
of which Mrs Canieron took a truly magnilieent 
photograph of this superb re-incarnation of the 
Greco-Egyptian type. A whole volume might be 
written about Mrs Cameron's own beautiful 
servants who frequently sat for their portraits. 
One of them, who had a saintly face, was known in 
Freshwater as "The Madonna," so frequently did 
she appear in photographs of the Holy Family 
taken by Mrs Cameron on the lines of the old 
masters. In the romantic marriage of another, 
brought about through the gentleman's seeing Mrs 
Cameron's photograph of her, the Tennysons 
were keenly interested, and she drove from church 
to Farringford in their carriage as a lovely bride, 
with her wealth of golden hair hanging down her 
back. 
Mrs Cameron is linked with the Simeons by 
her fine photograph of Sir John, and by the 
following passage, written by his daughter con- 
cerning Mrs Cameron. " The autumn and winter 
of 1871-72 my eldest brother [Sir Harrington 
Simeon] and I spent together at Freshwater. We 
rented Mrs Cameron's little house, which opens 
by a door of communication into the large hall of 
Dimbola, the house in which she lived. The 
evening we arrived she suddenly appeared in our 
drawiug room, saying ' When strangers take this 
h use, I keep the door between us locked — with 
friendi never ' ; and locked it never w,as. We 
lived almost as part of the family, and ic was a 
reiil CTijoyment to be in such close intiuificy with 
one of the most original and at the same time 
tender-hearted and geneious women I l.ave ever 
known." 
Coucerniusr Mrs Cameron's generosity I may 
ruly endorse Mrs Ward's commendation, and 
t 
sny that all hpr friends were quite afraid of ever 
admiring anyihing belonging to her, for the 
moment they did so she insisted on making a 
present of it to them there and then. 
Of her tenilei'-heartediiess I may .' dduce as 
proof that she did all she could to persuade my 
motlier to let her come and nuise me through 
a severe attack of typhoid fever. 
For the sake of the love Mrs Cameron Lore the 
Alfred Tennysons and my mother, when "Julia 
Margaret " went on her lasi j ourney to join her sons 
in Ceyloi,, she comcnen Ie I tou < aU tor n doulile 
portion of the love we had alrra ly bestowed upon 
tlicni, her bpaiitiiul an<l cliaii'iuii; sister S ira, and 
the liller>'. hii«l)aiid, Tholiy l'iin:-,ep. I't-nnyson 
Ii mI s;nye(! Will) \\::' I'rinscps yea,!_, l>efoie at their 
|i!ci •ir:- qi-..' y <nnM(i)K--d Li.nihju alioile, "Ivitile 
Hu.l!ani! !.iou-i:," loiif; sin^ii swrpt aw.iy by 'he 
advancing tide of bricks and moi tiu'. It, was a 
rambling house with a thatched porch opsning on 
to smooth green lawns where witty women and 
learned men held contest of intellect on summer 
Sunday afternoons, under Mrs Prinsep's skilled 
and gentle guidance. With them dwelt then Mr 
Watts, the famous painter, but though the Fresh- 
water home also was his as much as theirs, I 
will not dilate on his friendship with Tennyson, 
as I am confining myself, to writing of his Isle of 
Wight friends who are dead. 
Our way to the Priuseps' led in exactly the 
opposite direction to that which took us to tho 
Camerous. We first turned into the walled kifcli'',n- 
garden made beautiful nearly all the year rouud 
by the wealth of old-fashioned flower?, glorious in 
colouring and rich in fragrance that bordered its 
paths, and by the great rosemary bushes that 
Tennyson would rub through his fin,yers as he 
passed, quoting to me one day as he did so, tlc^ 
old folks' saying that "Where rosemary flourishes,' 
there the woman of the house bears rule," and 
adding, that if all women bore rule as his wife 
did, he could wish every garden in the land to 
be filled with rosemary. We generally went 
round to look up the horses and dogs, and often 
lingered in the farm yard to wateh the poultry. 
As an irate tuikey-cork charged down upon us 
in full sail, niy uncle exclaimed, " There, now. 
Agnes, don't you see what I meant yesterday 
afternoon, when I told you I could hear your 
proud wing-feathers grating along the ground! It 
was that bird I had in my mind." 
Passing between the well grown trees that had 
apparently once formed the avenue of approach 
to a former Farringford, the summer bieezes 
wafted to us the scent of the hedges ol sweet- 
brier from which the Pi inseps' Freshwater abode 
of " The Briei y " took its name. At " The Briery " 
Tennyson was ever the thrice welcome gufsr, and 
almost daily did he go for a chat with " Uncle 
Thoby," as we all called grand old rhoby Prinsep, 
who liad all lhe mien and manner befitting the 
post of Director of the East India Company, 
which he held so long. 
Though the eyesight had failed which had 
enabled \lr Prinsep when he first went to India 
to gain a prize for learning Persian in five mon hs 
yet his mind was full of vigour and he could con- 
verse by the hour with my uncle on polirics, 
literature, science or theology, for his ready gia-p 
of almost every imaginable subject was only less 
wonderful than his marvellous memory. 
