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The title I forget; but by its subject it was connected with political or social philosophy. And one eminent testimony to its merit I myself am able to allege, viz., Wordsworth's. Singular enough it seems, that he who read so very little of modern literature, in fact, next to nothing, should be the sole critic and reporter whom I have happened to meet upon Mrs. Lee's work.
The basis of knowledge necessary for the conception of intellectual duty could further be enlarged at school by the study in pure literature of the deeper experiences of the mind. A child of twelve might understand Carlyle's Essay on Burns if it were carefully read in class, and a good sixth form might learn much from Wordsworth's Prelude.
"But turn we," as Wordsworth says, "from these bold, bad men," the haunters of Social Science Congresses. And let us be on our guard, too, against the exhibitors and extollers of a "scientific system of thought" in Wordsworth's poetry. The poetry will never be seen aright while they thus exhibit it. The cause of its greatness is simple, and may be told quite simply.
The attachment of these statesmen to their hereditary estates, the heroic efforts which they would make to avoid parting with them, formed an impressive phenomenon in the little world a world at once of equality and of conservatism which was the scene of Wordsworth's childish years, and which remained his manhood's ideal.
No one doubts the accuracy of Wordsworth's account, in the Prelude of his early half-sensuous delight in mountain glory. It is impossible to define the influence of Nature, either on nations or individuals, or to say beforehand what selection from his varied surroundings a poet will for artistic purposes elect to make.
To disengage the poems which show his power, and to present them to the English-speaking public and to the world, is the object of this volume. I by no means say that it contains all which in Wordsworth's poems is interesting.
In The Prelude he compares himself to an æolian harp, which answers with harmony to every touch of the wind; and the figure is strikingly accurate, as well as interesting, for there is hardly a sight or a sound, from a violet to a mountain and from a bird note to the thunder of the cataract, that is not reflected in some beautiful way in Wordsworth's poetry.
Massive and original as Wordsworth's own genius was, it is almost impossible to exaggerate the effect, both in stimulus and guidance, of the influence of these two; for Dorothy Wordsworth was a woman of a million, and Coleridge, marvellous as were his own powers, was almost more marvellous in the unique Socratic character of his effect on those who possessed anything to work upon.
Yet it is less often from moods of self-control than from moods of self-abandonment that the fount of poetry springs; and herein it was that Wordsworth's especial felicity lay that there was no one feeling in him which the world had either repressed or tainted; that he had no joy which might not be the harmless joy of all; and that therefore it was when he was most unreservedly himself that he was most profoundly human.
It was, with "The Wedding," Wordsworth's favourite among the Last Essays. The brown suit.
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