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I have spoken lightly of Wordsworthians; and if we are to get Wordsworth recognized by the public and by the world, we must recommend him not in the spirit of a clique, but in the spirit of disinterested lovers of poetry. But I am a Wordsworthian myself. I can read with pleasure and edification Peter Bell, and the whole series of Ecclesiastical Sonnets, and the address to Mr.
No Wordsworthian has a tenderer affection for this pure and sage master than I, or is less really offended by his defects. But Wordsworth is something more than the pure and sage master of a small band of devoted followers, and we ought not to rest satisfied until he is seen to be what he is.
He had a taste for poetry, and a sentimental vein which manifested itself in verses of a Wordsworthian simplicity descriptive of his lady-love's charms. No wonder Marion fell in love with him, and renounced, without even a sigh of regret, her vision of a husband with lordly means. Sir Galahad had only his small means, which were not enough for a matrimonial venture.
However, we must not forget that the cultivated young man who penned these lines, and who was so susceptible to Wordsworthian influences, was also, as I said at the beginning of this memoir, one of the most subtle and secret poisoners of this or any age.
But in Wordsworth's case, at any rate, we cannot do him justice until we dismiss his formal philosophy. The Excursion abounds with philosophy and therefore the Excursion is to the Wordsworthian what it never can be to the disinterested lover of poetry, a satisfactory work. "Duty exists," says Wordsworth, in the Excursion; and then he proceeds thus
I find though they are much admired by the clergy of the better sort, and by certain religiously-disposed people, to whom thinking is distasteful or impossible. Because they cannot definitely believe, they fling themselves with all the more fervour upon these cloudy Wordsworthian phrases, and imagine they see something solid in the coloured fog.
But there is something more to be noted still. The poet had caught and was utilising the spirit of his time in two ways, one of them almost entirely new. That he constantly sang the subjective view of nature may be set down to the fact that he came after Wordsworth, though the fact that he sang it without the Wordsworthian dryness and dulness must be set down to his own credit.
I found Funchal open-hearted and open-handed as ever; and the pleasure of my stay was marred only by two considerations, both purely personal. Elysian fields and green countries do not agree with all temperaments. Many men are perfectly and causelessly miserable in the damp heats of Western India and the Brazil. We must in their case simply reverse the Wordsworthian dictum,
Sir Haco said afterward that when she spoke Scotch it was good and thorough, and when she spoke English it was Wordsworthian. Listening to her first words, and reminded of the solemn sententious way in which sergeant Barclay used to express himself, his face rose clear in his mind's eye, he saw it as it were reflected in his daughter's, and broke out with 'Eh, lassie, but ye're like yer father!
And the volume ended with a poem, which Wordsworth composed in 1798, in one day, during a tour with his sister to Tintern and Chepstow. The Lines written above Tintern Abbey have become, as it were, the locus classicus or consecrated formulary of the Wordsworthian faith. They say in brief what it is the work of the poet's biographer to say in detail.
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