TENNYSON LIKED A GOOD STORY 235
effects of systematic exercise is Madame Schumann, whose mind is as fresh as her complexion, and whose energy and vitality, for one of her years, are truly wonderful. I was delighted to hear Tennyson praise the works of my great favorite, Kit Marlowe. He believed that Shakespeare had him to thank for some of his inspiration. We spoke of many poets living and long since dead, and of all he had something appreciative to say. His conversation was often interspersed with illustrative stories, many of them comic. The number he had of these was incredible. His friend James Russell Lowell, he said, had given him some good ones. Mr, Lowell prided himself on his quickness in seeing a point " Nothing," he once remarked to me, "enrages me so much as to have some one tell me a good story and then explain it. It is an open insult to my intelligence." I have never met any one more perfect with whom to exchange anecdotes than Tennyson. At one time I made it a practice to put down and remember the many good ones I heard, for the selfish pleasure of repeating them to him. His broad sympathies made him understand one in all moods, and brought to light one's truest and best meaning. He was not a faddist in any sense of the word;