The road to Keswick bristles with history. Coleridge, Wordsworth and
Southey tramped it many a time, and since their day, thousands of literary
pilgrims have come this way. That two poets-laureate should have come from
this beautiful corner of the earth of course is interesting, but the honor
of being poet-laureate to the King is a shifting honor, depending upon the
poet. No title can ever really honor a man, although a man may honor a
title, and no King by taking thought can add a cubit to a subject's
stature. The man is what he is. Southey succeeded the poet Pye, who was
laureate before him.
A weaker nature than mine might here succumb to temptation and play
pleasant philological pranks concerning the poet Pye, but I am above all
that. Pye was a good man, and if I could remember any of the lines he
wrote, I would here introduce them; but this is doubtless unnecessary, for
the gentle reader can recall to suit.
White Pigeon claimed that Pye was greater than Southey, and she further
said that Tennyson's reputation suffered by consenting to act as successor
to this line of men in whom felicity and insight were the exception. The
tierce of Canary was no pay for acting as successor to Pye, but Southey
jumped at the Canary and slipped his last vestige of radicalism quickly.
"Oh, what a funny little church," exclaimed Myrtle; "can't we stop and go
in?"
It is a curious little building--that church at Wythburn.
It looks like a little girl's playhouse, that might have belonged to her
great-great-grandmother.
Opposite this lovely little church is a tavern, where a lovely barmaid in
white apron and lovely collar and cuffs stood in the doorway, ready to
serve the thirsty. The red-coated driver pulled in on the tavern side, and
men in neckerchiefs, hobnailed shoes, blue woolen stockings and
knee-breeches made fussy haste to water the horses. Old Brick-Dusty
climbed down to see a man in the tavern, and the Michigan contingent and
Colonel Littlejourneys slid down the other side and went into Wythburn
Church. There isn't another church in England so peculiar and so
interesting. A pew is marked sacred to Wordsworth, and one also to Harriet
Martineau, who I did not know before ever went to church. The silver
service was the gift of Southey, and is inscribed with his name and crest.
Southey was a vestryman of Wythburn Church for many years, and sometimes
read the service there. I stood in the pulpit where Southey stood, and so
did White Pigeon, and I reminded her that she would never be allowed
there on Sunday, for Deity is most easily approached and influenced by
men, as all theologians know and have ever stoutly held. One of the busy
hostlers came in, pulling his forelock, and apologizing, in a voice full
of cobwebs, said that the coach was ready to start. We did the proper
thing, and also as much for the red-coated driver, who, in spite of great
dignity, we saw was open to reward for well-doing. It was a great mistake,
though, to "cross his palm," for he began a lecture on the Cumberland
Kings, that lasted until we got to Thirlmere, where he stopped at the
Pumping-Station, and told us how the city of Manchester got its
water-supply from here. To him all things were equally interesting. He was
still deep in the fight between Manchester aldermen and the 'Ouse of
Commons when we reached Castle Rigg. The Vale of Keswick opened before us.
We implored the well-informed driver to stop, and then we got down and
begged him to go on without us.
Seated there on the bankside we viewed the beautiful scene of lake, valley
and village stretching out so peacefully before us, all framed in the dark
towering hills. Even Grace forgot to say, "How lovely!" but sat there,
chin in hand, rapt and speechless.
Down in that valley, just a little to one side of the village, Southey
lived for over forty years, and all the visitors he really liked he took
to Castle Rigg, to show them as he said, "the kingdoms of the earth." It
was a view of which he never tired. Coleridge came up this way first, and
took lodgings with a Mr. Johnson, who owned Greta Hall. It is not on
record that Coleridge paid any rent, but he was so charmed with the
location that he induced Southey to come and visit him. Southey came and
liked it so well that he remained. He performed here a life-task that
staggers one to contemplate: fifty volumes or more of closely set type are
shown you at the Keswick Museum, duly labeled, "The Works of Southey,"
Charles Lamb's "Works" were the East India ledgers, but he wrote one
little book of Essays that are still sweet and fresh as
wood-violets--essays written hot from the heart, often in tears; written
because he could not help it, or to please Mary--he did not know which.
No man ever divided his time up more systematically than Southey. He
produced political and theological essays, histories, poems, diatribes,
apologies and criticisms, and worked as men work in the Carnegie
Consolidated Steel Works.
Robert Southey was the precocious son of a Bristol linen-draper. Being
rather delicate, his parents did not set him to work in a drygoods-store,
but gave him the benefit of Oxford. The thing that brought him first into
prominence was an article he wrote for "The Flaggellant," a college paper,
wherein he ridiculed the idea of a devil. Now the powers did not like
that--the creed called for a "personal devil," and they wanted one. They
summoned young Southey before them to account for speaking disrespectfully
of the devil. The youth was found guilty and expelled.
He was a reckless young man, but recklessness is its own check--in fact,
all things in life are self-regulating, everything is limited. Southey's
secret marriage with Edith Fricker tamed him. Nothing tames men like
marriage; and when babies came, and Coleridge went to Germany, leaving
Mrs. Coleridge and young Hartley in his charge, Southey realized he was
dealing with a condition, not a theory. Then soon he had the widowed Mrs.
Lovell with her brood on his hands, and his old dream of pantisocracy was
realized, only not just as he expected.
Too much can not be said for the patience and unflinching fidelity shown
by Southey in shouldering the burdens that Fate sent him.
"Any man can succeed with three good women to help him!" said White
Pigeon.
"True," said I, "and next in importance to the person who originates a
good thing is the one who quotes it." Men weighted with responsibilities
fight for the established order. Southey's pension and his steady income
came from the men in power, and he made it his business not to offend
them. Southey was a scholar; he associated with educated people; and once
he complained because he could not get acquainted with workingmen--they
shut up like clams on his approach. Of course they did, for we are simple
and sincere only with our own.
Learned, scholarly and cultured men are to be pitied, for they are ever
the butt, byword and prey of the untaught, who are often the knowing. As
success came to Southey he lost the sense of values, that is to say, the
sense of humor. He attacked Byron with great severity, and Byron's reply
was the dedication of Don Juan, "To the illustrious Poet-Laureate, Robert
Southey, LL.D." It was as if the play of "Sappho" were dedicated to the
Reverend Doctor Parkhurst.
Southey came out with a card declaring he had given Lord Byron no
permission to dedicate any of his detestable works to him. Byron replied,
acknowledging all this, but saying he had a right to honor the name of
Southey, if he chose, just the same. No taint of excess or folly marks the
name of Southey; his life was filled with good work and kind deeds. His
name is honored by a monument in the village of Keswick, and in
Crosthwaite Church is another monument to his memory, the inscription
being written by Wordsworth.
* * * * *
Were Heaven a place, I still politely maintain, it would probably be
located in the Lake District of England.
Every man of genius the world has ever produced has come from a little
belt of land in the North Temperate Zone. Snow and cold, rock and
mountain, danger and difficulty--these are the conditions required to make
men. The heaven of which I can conceive is a place with plenty of oxygen,
sunshine and water. In a mountainous country water runs (I hope no one
will dispute this) and winds blow, and running water and air in motion are
always pure.
When I have no thoughts worth recording I take a walk, and the elements,
which seem to carry soul, fill me to the brim.
The Tropics may have much to offer in way of soft, luxurious creature
comforts. But the Tropics supply sundry and divers discomforts as well,
and really offer too much; for with the flowers, vines, fruits and
never-ending foliage go mosquitoes, tarantulas, and snakes that wiggle and
sometimes bite.
The climate of Cumberland does not overpower one--the air is of a quality
that urges you on to think and do.
By no reach of imagination can one conjure forth anything more beautiful
in Nature than is to be realized in vicinity of Keswick; and no home
thereabouts surpasses Greta Hall in charm of location and quiet, simple
beauty.
Greta Hall is a rambling pile, constructed partly of stone and partly of
wood, evolved rather than built, for evidently the work was done by many
hands, and stretched over a century or more of time. Vines and flowers,
fruits and shrubbery, stone walls covered close by creeping bellflowers
where birds chirrup and cheep and play hide-and-seek the livelong day--all
these are there. The house is situated on a little wooded plateau that
overlooks the lake, and back of it the solemn and everlasting hills stand
guard. There are no such mountains here as one sees in Switzerland,
overpowering, vast, awful in their majesty; but just green-topped,
self-sufficient and friendly hills that invite you to lift up your eyes
and be strong.
Visitors are welcome to the grounds at Greta Hall at all times, and the
kind old gardener who showed us about gathered us bouquets of mignonette,
rue and thyme, and gave us the history of a wonderful pear-tree that had
turned into a vine and now covers one whole side of a stable thirty feet
long. Even a tree will lose its individuality if it is not allowed to
assert its nature and care for itself. That particular pear-tree, we were
told, sprang from a slip planted by Shelley when he once came here on a
visit to Southey; and we were further told that the year Shelley was
drowned, the leaves of this tree turned pale and withered, and only by
patient, loving nursing on the part of our old gardener's father was its
life saved. The residence was closed the day we were there, in dread
anticipation of Cook tourists with designs on the shrubbery, we had reason
to believe, but we lingered around the grounds, listened to the soothing,
rippling lullaby of the Greta, watched the strutting peacocks, and ate
bread-and-milk, under the trees, out of big bowls supplied us by the old
gardener for the most modest of considerations.
Southey never really mixed in the wealth of beauty that covers this
beautiful corner of earth. He was learned and profound, and he took
himself and the Church and the State seriously. He felt himself a part of
an indestructible institution, whereas man and all his works are no more
peculiar, no more wonderful than an ant-hill--and last only a day longer.
He never realized that he was a part of the great whole that made up
mountain, lake, globe, wooded glen and tireless river. He differentiated.
He considered himself a man, an educated man, and therefore a little
better, and a little above, and a little outside of it all--otherwise how
could he have withered at the top at the early age of sixty-seven?
This question White Pigeon asked as we sat in the dim quiet of Crosthwaite
Church, down in the village. I did not attempt to reply--people do not ask
questions expecting, necessarily, to have them answered. We ask questions
in order to clarify our own minds.
The warning blast of the coach-horn was heard, and we went out into the
sunshine. I bade my three friends good-by (first placing my autograph on
Grace's and Myrtle's fans), and they climbed to the top of the coach. I
sat on the stone wall and watched them until they disappeared around the
bend of the road, waving handkerchiefs. That night I made my way over to
Penreith on the way to Carlisle. It had been a day brimming with thought
and feeling, and beauty expressed and unexpressed, and the kindness of
kind friends who understand. That night as I dozed off into deep, calm
sleep I said to myself: "They were great men, those Lake Poets, and the
world is better because they lived. But there will come other men and they
will be greater than those gone--the best is yet to be."