MISS WORDSWORTH--LYRICAL BALLADS--SETTLEMENT AT GRASMERE.
From among many letters of Miss Wordsworth's to a beloved friend,
(Miss Jane Pollard, afterwards Mrs. Marshall, of Hallsteads), which
have been kindly placed at my disposal, I may without impropriety
quote a few passages which illustrate the character and the
affection of brother and sister alike. And first, in a letter
(Forncett, February 1792), comparing her brothers Christopher and
William, she says: "Christopher is steady and sincere in his
attachments. William has both these virtues in an eminent degree,
and a sort of violence of affection, if I may so term it, which
demonstrates itself every moment of the day, when the objects of his
affection are present with him, in a thousand almost imperceptible
attentions to their wishes, in a sort of restless watchfulness which
I know not how to describe, a tenderness that never sleeps, and at
the same time such a delicacy of manner as I have observed in few men."
And again (Forncett, June 1793), she writes to the same friend:
"I have strolled into a neighbouring meadow, where I am enjoying the
melody of birds, and the busy sounds of a fine summer's evening. But
oh! How imperfect is my pleasure whilst I am alone! Why are you not
seated with me? And my dear William, why is he not here also? I
could almost fancy that I see you both near me. I hear _you_ point
out a spot, where if we could erect a little cottage and call it our
own we should be the happiest of human beings. I see my brother
fired with the idea of leading his sister to such a retreat. Our
parlour is in a moment furnished, our garden is adorned by magic;
the roses and honeysuckles spring at our command; the wood behind
the house lifts its head, and furnishes us with a winter's shelter
and a summer's noonday shade. My dear friend, I trust that ere long
you will be without the aid of imagination, the companion of my walks,
and my dear William may be of our party.... He is now going upon a
tour in the west of England, with a gentleman who was formerly a
schoolfellow,--a man of fortune, who is to bear all the expenses of
the journey, and only requests the favour of William's company. He
is perfectly at liberty to quit this companion as soon as anything
more advantageous offers. But it is enough to say that I am likely
to have the happiness of introducing you to my beloved brother. You
must forgive me for talking so much of him; my affection hurries me
on, and makes me forget that you cannot be so much interested in the
subject as I am. You do not know him; you do not know how amiable he
is. Perhaps you reply, 'But I know how blinded you are.' Well, my
dearest. I plead guilty at once; I _must_ be blind; he cannot be so
pleasing as my fondness makes him. I am willing to allow that half
the virtues with which I fancy him endowed are the creation of my
love; but surely I may be excused! He was never tired of comforting
his sister; he never left her in anger; he always met her with joy;
he preferred her society to every other pleasure;--or rather, when
we were so happy as to be within each other's reach, he had no
pleasure when we were compelled to be divided. Do not then expect
too much from this brother of whom I have delighted so to talk to you.
In the first place, you must be with him more than once before he
will be perfectly easy in conversation. In the second place, his
person is not in his favour--at least I should think not; but I soon
ceased to discover this--nay, I almost thought that the opinion
which I had formed was erroneous. He is, however, certainly rather
plain; though otherwise has an extremely thoughtful countenance, but
when he speaks it is often lighted up by a smile which I think very
pleasing. But enough, he is my brother; why should I describe him? I
shall be launching again into panegyric."
The brother's language to his sister is equally affectionate.
"How much do I wish," he writes in 1793, "that each emotion of
pleasure or pain that visits your heart should excite a similar
pleasure or a similar pain within me, by that sympathy which will
almost identify us when we have stolen to our little cottage.... I
will write to my uncle, and tell him that I cannot think of going
anywhere before I have been with you. Whatever answer he gives me, I
certainly will make a point of once more mingling my transports with
yours. Alas! My dear sister, how soon must this happiness expire;
yet there are moments worth ages."
And again: in the same year he writes, "Oh, my dear, dear sister!
With what transport shall I again meet you! With what rapture shall
I again wear out the day in your sight!... I see you in a moment
running, or rather flying, to my arms."
Wordsworth was in all things fortunate, but in nothing more
fortunate than in this, that so unique a companion should have been
ready to devote herself to him with an affection wholly free from
egotism or jealousy, an affection that yearned only to satisfy his
subtlest needs, and to transfuse all that was best in herself into
his larger being. And indeed that fortunate admixture or influence,
whencesoever derived, which raised the race of Wordsworth to poetic
fame, was almost more dominant and conspicuous in Dorothy Wordsworth
than in the poet himself. "The shooting lights of her wild eyes"
reflected to the full the strain of imaginative emotion which was
mingled in the poet's nature with that spirit of steadfast and
conservative virtue which has already given to the family a Master of
Trinity, two Bishops, and other divines and scholars of weight and
consideration. In the poet himself the conservative and
ecclesiastical tendencies of his character became more and more
apparent as advancing years stiffened the movements of the mind. In
his sister the ardent element was less restrained; it showed itself
in a most innocent direction, but it brought with it a heavy
punishment. Her passion for nature and her affection for her brother
led her into mountain rambles which were beyond her strength, and
her last years were spent in a condition of physical and mental decay.
But at the time of which we are now speaking there was, perhaps, no
one in the world who could have been to the poet such a companion as
his sister became. She had not, of course, his grasp of mind or his
poetic power; but her sensitiveness to nature was quite as keen as
his, and her disposition resembled his "with sunshine added to
daylight."
Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field,
Could they have known her, would have loved; methought
Her very presence such a sweetness breathed,
That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills,
And everything she looked on, should have had
An intimation how she bore herself
Towards them, and to all creatures.
Her journal of a tour in Scotland, and her description of a week on
Ullswater, affixed to Wordsworth's _Guide to the Lakes_,--diaries
not written for publication but merely to communicate her own
delight to intimate friends at a distance,--are surely indescribably
attractive in their naive and tender feeling, combined with a
delicacy of insight into natural beauty which was almost a new thing
in the history of the world. If we compare, for instance, any of her
descriptions of the Lakes with Southey's, we see the difference
between mere literary skill, which can now be rivalled in many
quarters, and that sympathetic intuition which comes of love alone.
Even if we compare her with Gray, whose short notice of Cumberland
bears on every page the stamp of a true poet, we are struck by the
way in which Miss Wordsworth's tenderness for all living things
gives character and pathos to her landscapes, and evokes from the
wildest solitude some note that thrills the heart.
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.
The cottage life in her brother's company which we have seen Miss
Wordsworth picturing to herself with girlish ardour, was destined to
be realized no long time afterwards, thanks to the unlooked-for
outcome of another friendship. If the poet's sister was his first
admirer, Kaisley Calvert may fairly claim the second place. Calvert
was the son of the steward of the Duke of Norfolk, who possessed
large estates in Cumberland. He attached himself to Wordsworth, and
in 1793 and 1794 the friends were much together. Calvert was then
attacked by consumption, and Wordsworth, nursed him with patient care.
It was found at his death that he had left his friend a legacy of 900£.
"The act," says Wordsworth, "was done entirely from a confidence on
his part that I had powers and attainments--which might be of use to
mankind. Upon the interest of the 900£--400£ being laid out in
annuity--with 200£ deducted from the principal, and 100£ a
legacy to my sister, and 100£ more which the _Lyrical Ballads_ have
brought me, my sister and I contrived to live seven years, nearly
eight."
Trusting in this small capital, and with nothing to look to in the
future except the uncertain prospect of the payment of Lord
Lonsdale's debt to the family, Wordsworth settled with his sister at
Racedown, near Crewkerne, in Dorsetshire, in the autumn of 1795, the
choice of this locality being apparently determined by the offer of a
cottage on easy terms. Here, in the first home which he had possessed,
Wordsworth's steady devotion to poetry began. He had already,
in 1792 [2], published two little poems, the _Evening Walk_: and
_Descriptive Sketches_, which Miss Wordsworth, (to whom the _Evening
Walk_ was addressed) criticises with candour--in a letter to the same
friend (Forncett, February 1792):--
[Footnote 2: The _Memoirs_ say in 1793, but the following
MS. letter of 1792 speaks of them as already published.]
"The scenes which he describes have been viewed with a poet's eye,
and are portrayed with a poet's pencil; and the poems contain, many
passages exquisitely beautiful; but they also contain many faults,
the chief of which are obscurity and a too frequent use of some
particular expressions and uncommon words; for instance, _moveless_,
which he applies in a sense, if not new, at least different from, its
ordinary one. By 'moveless,' when applied to the swan, he means that
sort of motion which is smooth without agitation; it is a very
beautiful epithet, but ought to have been cautiously used. The word
_viewless_ also is introduced far too often. I regret exceedingly
that he did not submit the works to the inspection of some friend
before their publication, and he also joins with me in this regret."
These poems show a careful and minute observation of nature, but
their versification--still reminding us of the imitators of Pope--
has little originality or charm. They attracted the admiration of
Coleridge, but had no further success.
At Racedown Wordsworth finished _Guilt and Sorrow_, a poem gloomy in
tone and written mainly in his period of depression and unrest,--and
wrote a tragedy called _The Borderers_, of which only a few lines
show any promise of future excellence. He then wrote _The Ruined
Cottage_, now incorporated in the Fist Book of the _Excursion_. This
poem, on a subject thoroughly suited to his powers, was his first
work of merit; and Coleridge, who visited the quiet household in June
1797, pronounces this poem "superior, I hesitate not to aver, to
anything in our language which in any way resembles it." In July
1797 the Wordsworths removed to Alfoxden, a large house in
Somersetshire, near Netherstowey, where Coleridge was at that time
living. Here Wordsworth added to his income by taking as pupil a
young boy, the hero of the trifling poem _Anecdote for Fathers_, a
son of Mr. Basil Montagu; and here he composed many of his smaller
pieces. He has described the origin of the _Ancient Mariner_ and the
_Lyrical Ballads_ in a well-known passage, part of which I must
here repeat:--
"In the autumn of 1797, Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself started
from Alfoxden pretty late in the afternoon, with a view to visit
Linton, and the Valley of Stones near to it; and as our united funds
were very small, we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by
writing a poem, to be sent to the _New Monthly Magazine_. In the
course of this walk was planned the poem of the _Ancient Mariner_,
founded on a dream, as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend Mr.
Cruikshank. Much the greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge's
invention; but certain parts I suggested; for example, some crime
was to be committed which was to bring upon the Old Navigator, as
Coleridge afterwards delighted to call him, the spectral persecution,
as a consequence of that crime and his own wanderings. I had been
reading in Shelvocke's _Voyages_, a day or two before, that, while
doubling Cape Horn they frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude,
the largest sort of sea-fowl, some extending their wings twelve or
thirteen feet, 'Suppose,' said I, 'you represent him as having
killed one of these birds on entering the South Sea, and that the
tutelary spirits of these regions take upon them to avenge the crime.
The incident was thought fit for the purpose, and adopted accordingly.
I also suggested the navigation of the ship by the dead man, but do
not recollect that I had anything more to do with the scheme of the
poem. We began the composition together, on that to me memorable
evening, I furnished two or three lines at the beginning of the poem,
in particular--"
And listened like a three years' child;
The Mariner had his will.
"As we endeavoured to proceed conjointly our respective manners
proved so widely different, that it would have been quite
presumptuous in me to do anything but separate from an undertaking
upon which I could only have been a clog. The _Ancient Mariner_ grew
and grew, till it became too important for our first object, which
was limited to our expectation of five pounds; and we began to think
of a volume, which was to consist, as Mr. Coleridge has told the
world, of poems chiefly on supernatural subjects, taken from common
life, but looked at, as much as might be, through an imaginative
medium."
The volume of _Lyrical Ballads_, whose first beginnings have here
been traced, was published in the autumn of 1798, by Mr. Cottle, at
Bristol. This volume contained several poems--which have been justly
blamed for triviality,--as _The Thorn, Goody Blake, The Idiot Boy_;
several in which, as in _Simon Lee_, triviality is mingled with much
real pathos; and some, as _Expostulation and Reply_ and _The Tables
Turned_, which are of the very essence of Wordsworth's nature. It is
hardly too much to say, that if these two last-named poems--to the
careless eye so slight and trifling--were all that had remained from
Wordsworth's hand, they would have "spoken to the comprehending" of
a new individuality, as distinct and unmistakeable in its way as
that which Sappho has left engraven on the world for ever in words
even fewer than these. 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.
As soon as this volume was published Wordsworth and his sister
sailed for Hamburg, in the hope that their imperfect acquaintance
with the German language might be improved by the heroic remedy of a
winter at Goslar. But at Goslar they do not seem to have made any
acquaintances, and their self-improvement consisted mainly in
reading German books to themselves. The four months spent at Goslar,
however, were the very bloom of Wordsworth's poetic career. Through
none of his poems has the peculiar loveliness of English scenery and
English girlhood shone more delicately than through those which came
to him as he paced the frozen gardens of that desolate city. Here it
was that he wrote _Lucy Gray_, and _Ruth_, and _Nutting_, and the
_Poet's Epitaph_, and other poems known now to most men as
possessing in its full fragrance his especial charm. And here it was
that the memory of some emotion prompted the lines on _Lucy_. Of the
history of that emotion he has told us nothing; I forbear, therefore,
to inquire concerning it, or even to speculate. That it was to the
poet's honour I do not doubt; but who ever learned such secrets
rightly? Or who should wish to learn? It is best to leave the
sanctuary of all hearts inviolate, and to respect the reserve not
only of the living but of the dead. Of these poems, almost alone,
Wordsworth in his autobiographical notes has said nothing whatever.
One of them he suppressed for years, and printed only in a later
volume. One can, indeed, well imagine that there may be poems which
a man may be willing to give to the world only in the hope that their
pathos will be, as it were, protected by its own intensity, and that
those who are worthiest to comprehend will he least disposed to
discuss them.
The autobiographical notes on his own works above alluded to were
dictated by the poet to his friend Miss Isabella Fenwick, at her
urgent request, in 1843, and preserve many interesting particulars
as to the circumstances under which each poem was composed. They are
to be found printed entire among Wordsworth's prose works, and I
shall therefore cite them only occasionally. Of _Lucy Gray_, for
instance, he says,--"It was founded on a circumstance told me by my
sister, of a little girl who, not far from Halifax, in Yorkshire,
was bewildered in a snowstorm. Her footsteps were tracked by her
parents to the middle of the lock of a canal, and no other vestige
of her, backward or forward, could be traced. The body, however, was
found in the canal. The way in which the incident was treated, and
the spiritualizing of the character, might furnish hints for
contrasting the imaginative influences which I have endeavoured to
throw over common life, with Crabbe's matter-of-fact style of
handling subjects of the same kind."
And of the _Lines written in Germany_, 1798-9,--
"A bitter winter it was when these verses were composed by the side
of my sister, in our lodgings, at a draper's house, in the romantic
imperial town of Goslar, on the edge of the Hartz forest. So severe
was the cold of this winter, that when we passed out of the parlour
warmed by the stove our cheeks were struck by the air as by cold iron.
I slept in a room over a passage that was not ceiled. The people of
the house used to say, rather unfeelingly, that they expected I
should be frozen to death some night; but with the protection of a
pelisse lined with fur, and a dog's-skin bonnet, such as was worn by
the peasants, I walked daily on the ramparts or on a sort of public
ground or garden, in which was a pond. Here I had no companion but a
kingfisher, a beautiful creature that used to glance by me. I
consequently became much attached to it. During these walks I
composed _The Poet's Epitaph_."
Seldom has there been a more impressive instance of the contrast,
familiar to biographers, between the apparent insignificance and the
real importance of their hero in undistinguished youth. To any one
considering Wordsworth as he then was,--a rough and somewhat
stubborn young man, who, in nearly thirty years of life, had seemed
alternately to idle without grace and to study without advantage,--
it might well have seemed incredible that he could have anything new
or valuable to communicate to mankind. Where had been his experience?
Or where was the indication of that wealth of sensuous emotion which
in such a nature as Keats' seems almost to dispense with experience
and to give novelty by giving vividness to such passions as are
known to all? If Wordsworth were to impress mankind it must be, one
might have thought, by travelling out of himself altogether--by
revealing some such energy of imagination as can create a world of
romance and adventure in the shyest heart. But this was not so to be.
Already Wordsworth's minor poems had dealt almost entirely with his
own feelings, and with the objects actually before his eyes; and it
was at Goslar that he planned, and on the day of his quitting Goslar
that he began, a much longer poem, whose subject was to be still
more intimately personal, being the development of his own mind. This
poem, dedicated to Coleridge, and written in the form of a
confidence bestowed on an intimate friend, was finished in 1805, but
was not published till after the poet's death. Mrs. Wordsworth then
named it _The Prelude_, indicating thus the relation which it bears
to the _Excursion_--or rather, to the projected poem of the _Recluse_,
of which the _Excursion_ was to form only the Second out of three
Divisions. One Book of the First Division of the _Recluse_ was
written, but is yet unpublished; the Third Division was never even
begun, and "the materials," we are told, "of which it would have
been formed have been incorporated, for the most part, in the
author's other publications." Nor need this change of plan be
regretted: didactic poems admit easily of mutilation; and all that
can be called plot in this series of works is contained in the
_Prelude_, in which we see Wordsworth arriving at those convictions
which in the _Excursion_ he pauses to expound.
It would be too much to say that Wordsworth has been wholly
successful in the attempt--for such the _Prelude_ virtually is--to
write an epic poem on his own education. Such a poem must almost
necessarily appear tedious and egoistic, and Wordsworth's manner has
not tact enough to prevent these defects from being felt to the full.
On the contrary, in his constant desire frugally to extract, as it
were, its full teaching from the minutest event which has befallen
him, he supplements the self-complacency of the autobiographer with
the conscientious exactness of the moralist, and is apt to insist on
trifles such as lodge in the corners of every man's memory, as if
they were unique lessons vouchsafed to himself alone.
Yet it follows from this very temper of mind that there is scarcely
any autobiography which we can read with such implicit confidence as
the _Prelude_. In the case of this, as of so many of Wordsworth's
productions, our first dissatisfaction at the form which the poem
assumes yields to a recognition of its fitness to express precisely
what the poet intends. Nor are there many men who, in recounting the
story of their own lives, could combine a candour so absolute with
so much of dignity--who could treat their personal history so
impartially as a means of conveying lessons of general truth--or who,
while chronicling such small things, could remain so great. The
_Prelude_ is a book of good augury for human nature. We feel in
reading it as if the stock of mankind were sound. The soul seems
going on from strength to strength by the mere development of her
inborn power. And the scene with which the poem at once opens and
concludes--the return to the Lake country as to a permanent and
satisfying home--places the poet at last amid his true surroundings,
and leaves us to contemplate him as completed by a harmony without
him, which he of all men most needed to evoke the harmony within.