The following letter from Lady Tennyson to Millais will show how the proposition was received:
"DEAR MR. MILLAIS,--Alfred was in the New Forest when your kind letter came, or it would have been answered yesterday, though I am sorry to have to answer the thing is impossible. Poems do not come to him so, and if they did not _come_, you are, I flatter myself, too much his friend to wish to find them there or anywhere.
"May I ask you to do him the favour to decline the offer as you will best know how to do with all courtesy.
"Accept Alfred's thanks for your kind invitation and for what you say about the portrait.
"Believe me, "Yours truly, "EMILY TENNYSON."
This letter was accompanied by the following note from Millais:
"MY DEAR DALZIEL,--I enclose Mrs. Tennyson's answer to my note. I said that not to bother him, if he couldn't say 'Yes,' to write himself. It is just what I expected; however, we have lost nothing by the attempt. I should have thought it easy enough to write a few lines to each, as I should find it easy enough to illustrate anything. I am sorry to have kept you so long for the two fellows seated on the gate.[17] Cut it with all your might.
Ultimately the matter was placed in the hands of Tom Taylor, the dramatic author, who was at that time art critic to the _Times_, as well as a liberal contributor to _Punch_, of which journal he subsequently became editor. He wrote:
"8 RICHMOND TERRACE, "WHITEHALL, S.W. "_June 5_.
"DEAR SIRS,--I have just received the proofs. I have thought much over the subject of poems to Birket Foster's drawings, and I think that I would do what you wish on certain conditions.
"1st.--That I might call in aid my wife's verses, it being understood that she will do one here and there. I may say that she is homely born and bred, and that her verses would be above the mark of my own, as far as I can judge. She has written much, both words for music and music, before her marriage, as Miss Laura Barker, and her music is of a very high order. I merely write this that you may understand I am not forcing a novice on you. I wish her to be associated with me in the work, from a belief that the union of her with me will increase its value to the public.