Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: In subsequent visits to the laureate's homes at Hazlemere and the Isle of Wight I had the happiness of joining him in the two hours' walk which, rain or shine, he took daily. His tender interest in every " bud and flower and leaf " was charming. How many pretty legends he had about each! The cliffs, the sky, the sea, and shrubs, the very lumps of chalk underfoot—he had a word for them all. The things he read in Nature's book were full of the same kind of poetry as his own; and the " sunbeams of his cheerful spirit" flood all my memories of those delightful walks. Though nearer eighty than seventy, his step was so rapid, he moved so briskly, that it was with difficulty I kept up with him. The last twenty minutes of the two hours generally ended in a kind of trot. Weather never interrupted his exercise. He scorned an umbrella. With his long dark mantle and thick boots, he defied all storms. When his large-brimmed hat became heavy with water, he would stop and give it a great shake, saying: " How much better this is than to be huddled over the fire for fear of a little weather!" His great strength and general health were due, no doubt, to the time he spent so regularly in the open air. Another example of the wonderful TENNYSON LIKED A GOOD STORY 235 effects of systematic exercise is Madame Schumann, whose mind is as fresh as her complexion, and whose energy and vitality, for one of her years, are truly wonderful. I was delighted to hear Tennyson praise the works of my great favorite, Kit Marlowe. He believed that Shakespeare had him to thank for some of his inspiration. We spoke of many poets living and long since dead, and of all he had something appreciative to say. His conversation was often interspersed with illustrative stories, many of them comic. The number he had of the... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.