The first volume of Forster's Dickens has been read to me of a night, making me love him, up to 30 years of age at any rate; till then, quite unspoilt, even by his American triumphs, and full of good humour, generosity, and energy. I wonder if Alfred remembers dining at his house with Thackeray and me, me taken there, quite unaffected, and seeming to wish any one to show off rather than himself. In the evening we had a round game at cards and mulled claret. Does A. T. remember? I have had my yearly letter from Carlyle, who writes of himself as better than last year. He sends me a Mormon Newspaper, with a very sensible sermon in it from the life of Brigham Young, as also the account of a visit to a gentleman of Utah with eleven wives and near forty children, all of whom were very happy together. I am just going to send the paper to Archdeacon Allen to show him how they manage these things over the Atlantic. About Omar I must say that _all_ the changes made in the last copy are not to be attributed to my own perverseness; the same thought being constantly repeated with directions, whether by Omar or others, in the 500 quatrains going under his name. I had not eyes, nor indeed any further appetite, to refer to the Original, or even to the French Translation; but altered about the "Dawn of Nothing" as A. T. pointed out its likeness to his better property.[19] I really didn't, and don't, think it matters what changes are made in that Immortal Work which is to last about five years longer. I believe it is the strong-minded American ladies who have chiefly taken it up; but they will soon have something wickeder to digest, I dare say. I am going to write out for Alfred a few lines from a _Finnish_ Poem which I find quoted in Lowell's "Among my Books"--which I think a good Book. But I must let my eyes rest now. In September 1876 a lucky chance brought Tennyson and himself face to face again after twenty years. The Poet was travelling with his son, and together they visited him at Woodbridge. They found him, as Tennyson describes, in his garden at Little Grange. He was delighted to see them, and specially pleased with the son's relation and attitude to his father. Together he and Tennyson walked about the garden and talked as of old. When Tennyson complained of the multitude of poems which were sent him, Old Fitz recommended him to imitate Charles Lamb and throw them into his neighbour's cucumber frames. Tennyson noticed a number of small sunflowers, with a bee half-dying--probably from the wet season--on each, "Like warriors dying on their shields, Fitz," he said. He reverted, of course, to his favourite Crabbe, and told the story of how Crabbe (when he was a chaplain in the country) felt an irresistible longing to see the sea, mounted a horse suddenly, rode thirty miles to the coast, saw it, and rode back comforted.