SD2873. Emily Tennyson to Lionel Tennyson

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 357 (in part).

Farringford,

16 February 1867

My darling,

I should have written yesterday to have thanked you for your welcome letter …

She [Queen Victoria] inquired what was doing in poetry. Papa spoke of Browning and Swinburne and added, “But verse-writing is the commonest accomplishment in the world now, everyone writes them. I dare say Your Majesty does.” Upon which She said, “No, that I do not. For the life of me I never could make two lines meet.” …

Publication: The Letters of Emily Lady Tennyson, ed. James O. Hoge (University Park, Penn., 1974), pp. 208–209.

Manuscript: Tennyson Research Centre.

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