Wlliam Allingham Diaries

William Allingham (1824–1889) was an Irish poet, diarist, and editor, best known for his lyrical poetry and his connections with the literary figures of the Victorian era. 

Allingham’s education was informal, though he was an avid reader from a young age. After his father’s death, he took up a job as a customs officer in Lymington to support himself, a position he held for much of his early career. However, his true passion was poetry, and he began writing and publishing verses in periodicals.

His literary career brought him into contact with some of the most prominent writers and artists of the time, including Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, particularly Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Rossetti illustrated Allingham's Day and Night Songs, and the two maintained a strong friendship. Allingham was also influenced by William Wordsworth and Robert Browning.

Marriage

In 1874, he married the artist Helen Paterson, later known as Helen Allingham, who became a well-regarded watercolorist, famous for her romanticised paintings of Victorian rural life. In 1874, 

Diaries

These were published posthumously in 1907  edited by his wife, and provide a rich and insightful account of Victorian literary and artistic life. 

Allingham was well-connected in the literary world, and his diaries record meetings with prominent writers such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, Robert Browning, and members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His observations offer intimate portrayals of these figures, providing details about their personalities, habits, and creative processes.

Allingham comments on social and political events of the Victorian era. There are passing references to Darwin and his theory of evolution (referred to as Darwinism), belief in God, and spiritualism which was then all the vogue. His comments capture the attitudes and concerns of the period, including debates on art, science. religion, and nationalism.

Death

On Sunday the 17th Nov 1889  it was evident that the end was very ear. When asked if he had any requests to make, he said ' No, my mind is at rest ' : then to his wife

'And so, to where I wait, come gently on." 

' I thank you (to Mr. Buckston Browne) — I thank
every one.'

After this he lay in a kind of trance, and died peace-fully about two o'clock in the afternoon of the next day, November the 18th.

Once that morning he said, ' I am seeing things that you know nothing of.'

The cremation, which was by his special wish, took place at Woking. A few friends and relations only were present. There was no service : Mr. F. G. Stephens, the oldest of the friends there gathered together, read aloud

 
Allingham's own Poet's Epitaph : —

Body to purifying flame,
Soul to the Great Deep whence it came.
Leaving a song on earth below,
An urn of ashes white as snow.

The urn was buried in the churchyard at Bally-shannon.

No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone,
Corpse-gazings, tears, black raiment, grave-yard grimness ;
Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness,
Yours still, you mine, remember all the best
Of our past moments, and forget the rest ;
And so, to where I wait, come gently on.

(from: "My Native Land" by Lydia Maria Child.)

Quotes

God

Thursday 14th Msy `1877: Thomas Carlisle - I know nothing whatever of God except what I find within myself - the feeling of the eternal difference between right and wrong.

Lincolnshire - Tennyson's birthplace

Preachers : ' Coom in your rags, coom in your filth, Jesus'll take ye, Jesus won't refuse ye.' 'Time has two ends, and the Law cooms down wi' a bang ! ' 'Glory’ a very favourite word.

Lincolnshire manners. ' One of my brothers met a man in the lane near our house and said in a friendly voice, "Good-night ! " to which the man replied, "Good night — and dom you ! " I asked a man one day, " Do you know what o'clock it is? " he answered, " Noa ! and I don't want to." '

Tennyson tells of old Lincolnshire farmer near his father's. He said to him one day civilly, Mr _____, so why don't you mend your fences? The old fellow stooped down and tied his shoelace carefully, then straightened himself and said, I've never mended a fence, and I never will.

Tennyson had a story of a Lincolnshire farmer who said, when he came out of church — ' burned for ever and for ever! I can't believe that : no constitution could stand it

Darwin - Russell Wallace - Spiritualism

Tennyson now took Barnes and me to his top room. Darwinism — ' Man from ape — would that really make any difference '.

Friday May 2. — Bright and mild. To Carlyle 3.15. We walk, Kensington Gardens. Carlyle. said, 'Here is May, poor May ! not forward with her work this time — Tyndall has not come near me lately ; I must touch him up. O yes, he's very fond of me — but perhaps he was vexed by an outburst of mine against Darwinism. I find no one who has the deep abhorrence of it that I have in my heart of hearts ! Science, falsely so called. Tyndall is Irish, but not an inaccurate Irishman. He is jocular, and not without a touch of blarney. Has Huxley (defender of Darwin) indigestion .? — lucky not to have had experience of it sooner. Huxley attacks Herbert Spencer, with many polite bows and recognitions.'

Carlyle. spoke of Darwinism. ' I don't care three ha'pence for the Darwinian Theory.' By and by he said, ' It is impossible to believe otherwise than that this world is the work of an Intelligent Mind, The Power which has formed us — He (or It — if that appears to any one more suitable) has known how to put into the human soul an ineradicable love of justice and truth. The best bit for me in Kant is that saying of his, " Two things strike me dumb with astonishment — the Starry Heavens and the Sense of Right and Wrong in the Human Soul."

William. Allingham. — 'It might be taken as a foreshadowing of Darwinism — the origin of man in an amphibious lepidosyren.'

August 11. — To Freshwater ; engage bedroom over little shop, and to the Darwins. Dr. Hooker in lower room writing away at his Address ; going to put ' Peter Bell's ' primrose into it and wants the exact words. Upstairs Mrs. Darwin, Miss D. and Mr. Charles Darwin himself, — tall, yellow, sickly, very quiet. He has his meals at his own times, sees people or not as he chooses, has invalid's privileges in full, a great help to a studious man.

Charles Darwin expected, but comes not. Has been himself called ' The Missing Link.' Luncheon. Then T. and I walk into croquet -ground, talking of Christianity.

February 22. — Drove with Carlyle. — Darwin and Haeckel. C. : ' For Darwin personally I have great respect ; but all that of " Origin of Species," etc., is of little interest to me. What we desire to know is, who is the Maker? and what is to come to us when we have shuffled off this mortal coil. Whoever looks into himself must be aware that at the centre of things is a mysterious Demiurgus — who is God, and who cannot in the least be adequately spoken of in any human words.'

Friday, November 6. — Fine, walked from Sandhills to Aldworth, through Haslemere, muddy roads, yellow russet woods. The Bucktons there, T. and Mr. B. on Natural History. T. asks ' How can Evolution account for the ant : 'Mr. B. says the theory presents many difficulties. He is studying the English cicadae. We go to hall door to see the B.'s off, then Tennyson and I take a short walk. He asks me to stay the night, and I accept.

I told him about Alfred Wallace, (Worked in the tropics & came up with the theory of evolution independently of Darwin) whom we visited last Saturday, and Spiritualism. Wallace a thorough-going believer — but has had no experiences himself. Also, he never visualises his thoughts. I suggested that to such a man the mere visualising power of some other minds might appear supernatural, he having nothing like it in his experience.

At luncheon, talk about the tropic woods : Wallace said you would find one kind of tree in flower for about a week, and at another time another kind of tree in flower for a short time, but you might come again and again and find no flowers at all ; there were never in the Tropics such masses of floral colour as in an English Spring.

To the Study. Wallace gave details of table-rapping, table-prancing, and so forth, his own experiences and other people's. He never doubts any statement whatever in favour of ' Spiritualism,' and has an answer to every objection. ' Maskelyne and Cooke do wonderful things.' — * Yes, partly by the help of mediumship.'

(Discussion on Spiritualism and table rapping)

Wallacw said it was absurd to suppose that Matter could move itself. I ventured to remark that Matter, so far as we can penetrate, does move itself, indeed is perpetually in motion. He rejoined that in table rapping, etc. The phenomena were manifestly governed by an intelligences like our own. The means of communication between the unseen world and ours were few and difficult.

Here, Tennyson said, “A great ocean, pressing round us on every side and only leaking in by a few chinks, which Wallace took no notice. But went on to describe instances of Spirit writing on slates by Slade and others.

I fear my tone all through was hardly respectful to the spirits.

Somehow or other a sudden digression was made to politics, and W. came out with a strong opinion of the worthlessness of the House of Lords and the absurdity of the hereditary principle.

Tennyson referred with praise to Wallace book Tropical Nature and remarked, You have said something very bold about matter. I think matter more mysterious than spirit. I can conceive in a way what spirit is, but not matter.

Wallace. — ' I conceive Matter not as a substance at all, but as points of energy^ and that if these were withdrawn Matter would disappear.'

Wallace— ' So far from a material atom being indestructible, I believe that all the Matter in existence might be immediately destroyed by the withdrawal of the sustaining Force.'

Tennyson said. Is a very strange thing that according to Wallace, none of the spirits that communicate with men ever mentioned God or Christ.

I said I always felt that The Diety was infinitely above us. Another step will bring us no nearer.

Tennyson. Wallace says the system he believes in is a far finer than Christianity. It is Eternal Progress. I've always felt that there must be somewhere, someone who knows, that is God. But I am in hopes that I shall find something human in Him too.

Then we talked a little about Darwin, B. saying that, whatever his merits as investigator, his philosophy was of little or no importance.

I told him of our neighbour Alfred Wallace, and how he had arrived, as it were, at the opposite goal from Darwin in what are called ' Supernatural questions ' ; Darwin at last believing almost nothing, Wallace almost anything