Tennyson was a poet of the highest distinction, he was a Poet Laureate and an inspiration to others. The years 1840-1845 were in many ways the most challenging in Tennyson's life. He was separated from his wife; he had lost his money; he felt more nervously ill than ever, and he could not write. So severe was his nervous illness that his friends despaired of his life. "I have", he wrote, "drunk one of the most bitter draughts out of the cup of life, which go near to make men hate the world they move in. In 1843, he wrote to a friend " ... the perpetual panic and horror of the last two years had steeped my nerves in poison: now I am left a beggar but am or shall be shortly somewhat better off in nerves."

Tennyson was undertaking Hydropaths treatment, which includes no reading, no going near a fire, no coffee, a perpetual wet sheet and cold bath, and alternation from hot to cold. It did not work. In 1848 he went to a new doctor who gave him iron pills. It was commented "..this really great man thinks more about his bowels and nerves than about the laureate wreath he was born to inherit..". Many of his friends thought him a hypochondriac. He never received appropriate treatment for his condition and so experienced nervous illness through his life. Alfred Lord Tennyson was also a brilliant poet and writer of the first order, his works continue to live on and find meaning even today.

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