Show TENNYSONS 10VE FOR CHILDREN He Would Play By the Hour to Amuse Them When Tennyson was a young man living at home he so attracted the children of his family that they would sit on his knee or olin about his feet while he told them stories of his own Invention He would make himself a Colossus of Rhodes for the boys the fun being to rush under the archway of his less without receiving a whack from his open hand The poet was devoted de-voted to his own children The mother not being strong enough to walk far was drawn in her garden carriage tjy her two boys Hallam anti Lionel while the father himself pushed from behind He would read to them vvpile they were sitting together on a bank In a field play football with them teach them to shoot with bow anti arrow and go with them flowerhunting In rainy weather father and boys stayed Indoors and played battledoor and shuttlecock a game of which Tennyson was particu larly fond One of their amusements was the blowing of soap bubbles and the poet father would become excited over the gorgeous colors and landscapes and the planets breaking off from their suns and the single star becoming a double star all of which he saw in the bubbles In the evenings he would help the boys to act scenes from a familiar play or superintend their charades writing amusing prologues to help out the entertainment Make the lives of children as beautiful as possible was one of the poets favorite sayings Another An-other was A truthful man generally has all the virtues and his chief anx iety was that the children should be strictly truthful He insisted that they should be courteous to the poor and his son records that the severest punishment pun-ishment he ever gave me though that was it must be confessed slight was for some want of respect to one of our servants In the later year of the poets life his grandchildren loved a romp with him and enjoyed their rides when he would fight them with newspapers or play patacake with them On one of his last walks when he had passed his 83rd year he met the village school children and pointed his stick at them barking like a dos to make them laugh |