Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892 -- Friends and associates
craftsman, the same devotion to science and the same power of close and
loving observation. Charles, however, lacked the fire and energy of
temperament which made Frederick's character remarkable and was to a great
extent shared by Alfred. With all Alfred's sensitiveness and shrinking
from society, he had little of that sympathetic and passionate interest in
the hopes and achievements of their age which drove the younger brother
ever more and more into public life.
[Illustration: CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER.]
Nothing quieter and less eventful than Charles Tennyson's life can well be
imagined. He was ordained in 1835 (three years after taking his degree)
and immediately obtained a Curacy at Tealby. In the same year he became
Vicar of Grasby, a small village in the Lincolnshire wolds between Caistor
and Brigg.
In the following year he married Louisa Sellwood, whose sister was to
become Alfred's wife, and from that time until just before his death on
April 25, 1879, his life, save for an occasional holiday and too frequent
lapses from health, knew little variation. Like all the Tennysons, Charles
was of a nervous temperament, and this condition often induced acute
suffering. So severe indeed was his struggle with this disorder and the
still more perilous condition which resulted from it that at one time,
soon after his marriage, he was compelled to leave his parish for some
months in search of strength. Throughout these trying interludes the
devotion of his wife, a woman of great humour and power of mind and
character, was of the utmost service to him. Indeed, his debt to her was
great at all times of his life. She would often act almost as a curate to
him in the straggling parish, tirelessly visiting and nursing the sick (a
duty which they both unflinchingly observed even in the epidemics of
small-pox which were then frequent), keeping all his accounts, both
personal and parochial, and even sometimes writing his sermons. The
devotion of the pair was remarkable, retaining a certain youthful ardour
to the end, and when Charles died his wife was carried to the grave within
a month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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