However, I soon learnt to enjoy Tennyson’s poetry, its finish, its delicacy, its moderation—I mean, the absence of all extravagance; yet there is but one of his books which has remained with me a treasure for life, his “In Memoriam.” To have expressed such deep, true, and original thought as is contained in each of these short poems in such perfect language, to say nothing of rhyme, was indeed a triumph. Tennyson was very kind to me, and took a warm interest in my work, particularly in my mythological studies. I well remember his being struck by a metaphor in my first Essay on Comparative Mythology, published in 1856, and his telling me so. I had said that the sun in his daily passage across the sky had ploughed a golden furrow through the human brain, whence sprang in ancient times the first germs of mythology, and afterwards the rich harvest of religious thought. “I don’t know,” he said, “whether the simile is quite correct, but I like it.” I was of course very proud that the great poet should have pondered on any sentence of mine, and still more that he should have approved of my theory of seeing in mythology a poetical interpretation of the great phenomena of nature. But it was difficult to have a long discussion with him. He was fond of uttering short and decisive sentences: his yes was yes indeed, and his no was no indeed. It was generally after dinner, when smoking his pipe and sipping his whiskey and water, that Tennyson began to thaw, and to take a more active part in conversation. People who have not known him then, have hardly known him at all. During the day he was often very silent and absorbed in his own thoughts, but in the evening he took an active part in the conversation of his friends. His pipe was almost indispensable to him, and I remember one time when I and several friends were staying at his house, the question of tobacco turned up. I confessed that for years I had been a perfect slave to tobacco, so that I could neither read nor write a line without smoking, but that at last I had rebelled against this slavery, and had entirely given up tobacco. Some of his friends taunted Tennyson that he could never give up tobacco. “Anybody can do that,” he said, “if he chooses to do it.” When his friends still continued to doubt and to tease him, “Well,” he said, “I shall give up smoking from to-night.” The very same evening I was told that he threw his pipes and his tobacco out of the window of his bedroom. The next day he was most charming, though somewhat self-righteous. The second day he became very moody and captious, the third day no one knew what to do with him. But after a disturbed night I was told that he got out of bed in the morning, went quietly into the garden, picked up one of his broken pipes, stuffed it with the remains of the tobacco scattered about, and then, having had a few puffs, came to breakfast, all right again. Nothing was said any more about giving up tobacco.