Aldworth was meant to be a small house, but somehow it grew to be a large one. The Tennysons' own design for it was followed in the main by Mr. (afterwards Sir James) Knowles. The winds and rains of the great height have weathered stone and slate until the house and the balustrade of its wide terrace seem to have stood there two centuries, rather than not yet half of one. The planting of the Italian cypresses along the edge of the terrace was the Poet's own particular fancy. It is strange that they should have grown so grandly on this exposed English hill-side. The darkness of their foliage, the severity of their lines, put an accent on the visionary beauty of the immense view which lies spread below and beyond them. There is the Sussex Weald, so far down that its hills and dales appear one plain, the range of the South Downs, rising yonder to Chanctonbury Ring, dropping nearer to a chalky gap which lets in the distant glitter of the sea. Hindhead, the Surrey ranges, Windsor Forest--the list grows too long of all that may be seen from Aldworth terrace, and from the heathy height above, whence seven counties are said to be visible. For my part, when looking from such heights, over the great everlasting marriage festivals of Earth and Sky, it is with difficulty, almost with reluctance, that I bring myself to connect them with the map. All things grow with a peculiar luxuriance on Black Down, and the immediate surroundings of the house were beautiful from the first, though the garden with its flowers and trees has added a beauty to those natural ones. The Sussex country was lonely forty years ago, and the Poet could pace his heathery ridge, brooding upon his verse, untroubled by any risk of human intrusion. My parents and their family came to know and love this new home as well as the old one at Freshwater, and although it represents a later stage of Tennyson's life, the interest of the house is almost as great. The fine Laurence portrait is there, besides the admirable Watts portrait of the Poet's wife, and that of his sons as boys. And many other pictures and things of interest and value have accumulated within its walls. In his old age a change, easily understood, came over the old Bard. He lost his shyness of "the crowd," and seemed thoroughly to enjoy his glimpses of London society. He never visited us at Oxford, but when my father succeeded Dean Stanley at Westminster, my parents once more enjoyed some delightful visits from him. He was there in company with his eldest son and his daughter-in-law, on the occasion of his taking his seat in the House of Peers. Then and at other times there were memorable meetings of great men--Gladstone and others--with the Poet, in the fitting frame of the ancient Deanery.