As soon as I reached England, I found how right we were in supposing
there was elsewhere a greater range of interesting character among the
men, than with us. I do not find, indeed, any so valuable as three or
four among the most marked we have known; but many that are strongly
individual, and have a fund of hidden life.
In Westmoreland, I knew, and have since been seeing in London, a man,
such as would interest you a good deal; Mr. Atkinson. He is sometimes
called the "prince of the English mesmerisers;" and he has the fine
instinctive nature you may suppose from that. He is a man of about
thirty; in the fulness of his powers; tall, and finely formed, with
a head for Leonardo to paint; mild and composed, but powerful and
sagacious; he does not think, but perceives and acts. He is intimate
with artists, having studied architecture himself as a profession; but
has some fortune on which he lives. Sometimes stationary and acting
in the affairs of other men; sometimes wandering about the world and
learning; he seems bound by no tie, yet looks as if he had relatives
in every place.
I saw, also, a man,--an artist,--severe and antique in his spirit; he
seemed burdened by the sorrows of aspiration; yet very calm, as secure
in the justice of fate. What he does is bad, but full of a great
desire. His name is David Scott. I saw another,--a pupil of De la
Roche,--very handsome, and full of a voluptuous enjoyment of nature:
him I liked a little in a different way.
By far the most beauteous person I have seen is Joseph Mazzini. If you
ever see Saunders' "People's Journal," you can read articles by him
that will give you some notion of his mind, especially one on his
friends, headed "Italian Martyrs." He is one in whom holiness has
purified, but somewhat dwarfed the man.
* * * * *
Our visit to Mr. Wordsworth was fortunate. He is seventy-six; but his
is a florid, fair old age. He walked with us to all his haunts about
the house. Its situation is beautiful, and the "Rydalian Laurels" are
magnificent. Still, I saw abodes among the hills that I should have
preferred for Wordsworth; more wild and still more romantic. The fresh
and lovely Rydal Mount seems merely the retirement of a gentleman,
rather than the haunt of a poet. He showed his benignity of
disposition in several little things, especially in his attentions to
a young boy we had with us. This boy had left the circus, exhibiting
its feats of horsemanship, in Ambleside, "for that day only," at his
own desire to see Wordsworth; and I feared he would be dissatisfied,
as I know I should have been at his age, if, when called to see
a poet, I had found no Apollo flaming with youthful glory,
laurel-crowned, and lyre in hand; but, instead, a reverend old man
clothed in black, and walking with cautious step along the level
garden-path. However, he was not disappointed; and Wordsworth, in his
turn, seemed to feel and prize a congenial nature in this child.
Taking us into the house, he showed us the picture of his sister,
repeating with much expression some lines of hers, and those so famous
of his about her, beginning "Five years," &c.; also, his own picture,
by Inman, of whom he spoke with esteem. I had asked to see a picture
in that room, which has been described in one of the finest of his
later poems. A hundred times had I wished to see this picture, yet
when seen was not disappointed by it. The light was unfavorable, but
it had a light of its own,--
"whose mild gleam
Of beauty never ceases to enrich
The common light."
Mr. Wordsworth is fond of the hollyhock; a partiality scarcely
deserved by the flower, but which marks the simplicity of his tastes.
He had made a long avenue of them, of all colors, from the crimson
brown to rose, straw-color, and white, and pleased himself with having
made proselytes to a liking for them, among his neighbors.
I never have seen such magnificent fuchsias as at Ambleside, and there
was one to be seen in every cottage-yard. They are no longer here
under the shelter of the green-house, as with us, and as they used to
be in England. The plant, from its grace and finished elegance, being
a great favorite of mine, I should like to see it as frequently and of
as luxuriant growth at home, and asked their mode of culture, which
I here mark down for the benefit of all who may be interested. Make
a bed of bog-earth and sand; put down slips of the fuchsia, and give
them a great deal of water; this is all they need. People leave them
out here in winter, but perhaps they would not bear the cold of our
Januaries.
Mr. Wordsworth spoke with more liberality than we expected of the
recent measures about the Corn-laws, saying that "the principle
was certainly right, though whether existing interests had been as
carefully attended to as was right, he was not prepared to say," &c.
His neighbors were pleased to hear of his speaking thus mildly, and
hailed it as a sign that he was opening his mind to more light on
these subjects. They lament that his habits of seclusion keep him
ignorant of the real wants of England and the world. Living in this
region, which is cultivated by small proprietors, where there is
little poverty, vice, or misery, he hears not the voice which cries so
loudly from other parts of England, and will not be stilled by sweet,
poetic suasion, or philosophy, for it is the cry of men in the jaws of
destruction.
It was pleasant to find the reverence inspired by this great and pure
mind warmest near home. Our landlady, in heaping praises upon him,
added, constantly, "and Mrs. Wordsworth, too." "Do the people here,"
said I, "value Mr. Wordsworth most because he is a celebrated writer?"
"Truly, madam," said she, "I think it is because he is so kind a
neighbor."
"True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home."