FURTHER INFLUENCE.
Before alluding to the affliction which for many years darkened the
later life of Miss Wordsworth, and gathering together some of the
remaining threads of her history, it is fitting that something further
should be said in relation to her sustained influence upon her brother
and her devotion to him, although it is with a feeling of how impossible
it is adequately to do this, or that the fruit of her dominant presence
should ever be fully known.
Those who know Wordsworth, and who, recognising his commanding place in
literature, have had their sympathies enlarged, their eyes opened to
discern in Nature and Providence their boundless sources of satisfaction
and delight--whose hearts have been expanded by his high and holy
teaching--will be ready to recognise all the spiritual aids by which he
was himself inspired. It would be unjust to others, who held high sway
over his heart, to say that everything was due to his sister. At the
same time it is manifest that she bore no insignificant part, and during
his early life the largely predominant part in that work, and thus was
to a great extent instrumental in introducing the new evangel of song
by which the century's literature has been uplifted. The elevating
presence of such a woman, in the delightful and close relationship of
sister, was to a man of Wordsworth's character, itself an inspiration.
If it be good to learn to look on Nature with a reverential eye, seeing
therein the Creation of God brought near, then to this poet, as Nature's
high priest and interpreter is due the gratitude of generations.
As the close companion and stimulator of this great poet during the
years of preparation and discipline, who "first couched his eye to the
sense of beauty," we owe it indirectly to Miss Wordsworth that Nature
has become to us so much more than she was to our forefathers, has been
revealed in a clearer and brighter light; that she speaks to us in a new
language, calling us away from the lower cares of life, and uplifting us
to a higher soul-inbreathing and restoring atmosphere of repose; thus
begetting a dignity of soul and making us capable of higher good, of
nobler endeavour, of capacities for enjoyment before unknown--keener,
more satisfying, and enduring.
Probably few natures are capable of receiving the more subtle
impressions of beauty in such a way as was that of Wordsworth, and fewer
still meet with the responsive soul able to touch them to the finest
issues. His boyhood's mind had been impregnated with thought, and his
young heart bounded with delight amid the beauties of earth. His sister
came, and together they seemed to possess the earth. His powers of
perception were intensified and rarified. The solitudes of Nature became
their home, their hearts grew still amidst its loveliness: the solemn
night breathed a benediction. They loved
"The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills."
Shall we not say that, viewed in this way, the earth becomes almost as
an ante-chamber of Heaven, subduing, and awe-inspiring, leading us to
"Move along its shades,
In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand
Touch--for there is a spirit in the woods."
"What a life there is in trees," said Miss Wordsworth; and her own life
was one not only helping to reveal the living speech of the mute world,
not only finding life where it is by the duller eye unseen, and by the
dull sense unfelt, but helping to show what a noble thing all life may
be made.
It must not be supposed that in what may seem to have been a complete
abandonment to the worship of her brother and of Nature Miss Wordsworth
had no heart for others, no room for human sympathy. She was, on the
contrary, during their early years at Grasmere especially, widely known
and beloved; her ready ear was always open to the tale of sorrow, and
her helping hand ready to aid. It was after the commencement of her long
and tedious illness that Wordsworth said of her he did not believe her
tenderness of heart was ever exceeded by any of God's creatures, that
her loving kindness had no bounds. The following lines written by Mrs.
Fletcher, when 82 years of age, after reading Miss Wordsworth's
Grasmere journal, are very appropriate:--
"If in thine inmost soul there chance to dwell
Aught of the poetry of human life,
Take thou this book, and with a humble heart
Follow these pilgrims in their joyous walk;
And mark their high commission--not to domes
Of pomp baronial, or gay fashion's haunts,
Where worldlings gather; but to rural homes,
To cottages and hearths, where kindness dwelt,
They bent their way; and not a gentle breeze
Inhaled in all their wanderings, not a flower,
Blooming by hedge-wayside, or mountain rill,
But lent its inspiration, scent, and sound,
Deepening the inward music of their hearts.
_She_ touched the chord, and he gave forth its tone;
Without her he had idly gazed and dreamed,
In fancy's region of celestial things;
But she--by sympathy disclosed the might,
That slumbered in his soul, and drew it thence,
In richest numbers of subduing power,
To soften, harmonise, and soothe mankind;
Nor less to elevate, and point the way
To truth Divine--not with polemic skill,
He sought from Nature and the human heart,
That sacred wisdom from the fount of God."
It has been well said that with a masculine power of mind Miss
Wordsworth "had every womanly virtue, and presented with those splendid
gifts such a rare combination, that even the enthusiastic strains in
which her brother sang her praises borrowed no aid from his poetic
imagination. It was she who in childhood moderated the sternness of his
moody temper, and she carried on the work which she had begun. His chief
delight had been in scenes which were distinguished by terror and
grandeur, and she taught him the beauty of the simplest products and
mildest graces of Nature; while she was softening _his_ mind she was
elevating _herself_; and out of this interchange of gifts grew an
absolute harmony of thought and feeling." What was originally harsh in
Wordsworth was toned by the womanly sweetness of his sister, and his
spirit softened by her habitual delicacy of thought and act. Not only
so, but with a devotion (I will not say self-sacrifice, for it was none)
as rare as it is noble, she simply dedicated to him her life and
service, living in and for him. She read for him, saw for him, and heard
for him; found subjects for his reflection, and was always at hand--his
willing scribe. Rejecting for herself all thoughts of love and marriage,
she gave to him and his her mature life as willingly and cheerfully as
when he was alone and unfriended, she had done her bright girlhood. With
a mental capacity and literary skill, which would have enabled her to
carve out for herself an independent reputation and position of no mean
order, she preferred to sink herself, and her future, in that of her
brother, with whom she has thus become, for all time, so indelibly
associated. And he was grateful, and returned her devotedness with a
love, tender, and almost reverential. One other allusion to her in his
poems should be given. It may be thought that his praise of her is
exaggerated; but none so well as he himself knew the extent of his
obligation to her--and he was not one to bestow praise for the sake only
of poetic effect. Writing in the "Prelude," he says:--
"Child of my parents! Sister of my soul!
Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere
Poured out for all the early tenderness
Which I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most true
That later seasons owed to thee no less;
For, spite of thy sweet influence, and the touch
Of kindred hands that opened out the springs
Of genial thought in childhood, and in spite
Of all that, unassisted, I had marked
In life, or Nature, of those charms minute,
That win their way into the heart by stealth;
Still, to the very going out of youth,
I too exclusively esteemed _that_ love,
And sought _that_ beauty, which, as Milton sings,
Hath terror in it. But thou didst soften down
This over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend!
My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood
In her original self too confident,
Retained too long a countenance severe;
A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds
Familiar, and a favourite of the stars:
But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers,
Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze,
And teach the little birds to build their nests
And warble in its chambers. At a time
When Nature, destined to remain so long
Foremost in my affections, had fallen back
Into a second place, pleased to become
A handmaid to a nobler than herself,
When every day brought with it some new sense
Of exquisite regard for common things;
And all the earth was budding with these gifts
Of more refined humanity; thy breath,
Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler spring,
That went before my steps."
It has, by some, been stated, in the way of objection, that Wordsworth
was not a Christian poet, that he looked too exclusively to Nature as
his inspirer and guide, and sought from her the consolation which
Christianity alone can afford. His friend and admirer, Professor Wilson,
states that all his poetry, published previously to the "Excursion," is
but the "Religion of the Woods"; and that though in that poem there is a
high religion brought forward, it is not the religion of Christianity.
But it must be admitted that although a large proportion of the poetry
of Wordsworth does not contain any specific Christian teaching, yet it
breathes the spirit of devotion and of Christian charity. Some of the
earlier poems, especially the lines composed at Tintern Abbey, have been
referred to as evidence, that at the shrine of Nature alone Wordsworth,
in his earlier, and presumably wiser, years worshipped. As this subject
has been more than once exhaustively dealt with, it is not now necessary
to do more than mention it. It should be remembered, that the same pen
which wrote what have been styled the pantheistic poems, also wrote the
Ecclesiastical Sonnets, the Ninth Evening Voluntary, and the
Thanksgiving Odes. What is much more needed by the heart of mankind than
specific Christian doctrine, is the high and holy teaching with which
the works of Wordsworth abound. His work was most conscientious, ever
done under the "eye that hath kept watch o'er man's mortality." If
lessons of endurance and fortitude under the ills and privations of
life, and faith in the future, are needed, we have them taught us in
such poems as that containing the story of the poor leech gatherer; if
storms of passion and suffering are to be allayed, we are reminded of
"the sure relief of prayer," and the advice given to the Solitary to aid
in the restoration of a lost trust and hope:
"One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists--one only: an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, however
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power;
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.
--The darts of anguish _fix_ not where the seat
Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified
By acquiescence in the Will supreme
For time and for eternity; by faith,
Faith absolute in God, including hope,
And the defence that lies in boundless love
Of His perfections; that habitual dread
Of aught unworthily conceived, endured
Impatiently, ill done, or left undone,
To the dishonour of His holy name.
Soul of our Souls, and safeguard of the world!
Sustain, thou only canst, the sick of heart;
Restore their languid spirits, and recall
Their lost affections unto Thee and Thine!"
If Wordsworth and his sister in their early life seem to have too
exclusively glorified Nature, it cannot with any shadow of reason be
said that they were at any period devoid of that faith and trust in the
Creator through which we receive Nature's most beneficent lessons. It
is, indeed, noticeable that during their Scottish tour no difference
seems to have been made in the days of the week--that their Sundays were
spent in travel. Such a thing is certainly to be regretted, which in
after years probably no one would have been more ready than they to
acknowledge. Thus the last entry in that journal--one made after an
interval of many years--we find as follows: October 4th, 1832.--"I find
that this tour was both begun and ended on a Sunday. I am sorry that it
should have been so, though I hope and trust that our thoughts and
feelings were not seldom as pious and serious as if we had duly attended
a place devoted to public worship. My sentiments have undergone a great
change since 1803 respecting the absolute necessity of keeping the
Sabbath by a regular attendance at church.--D. W." It cannot be doubted
that the feeling which dictated those words marks a distinct advance. I
doubt not that Miss Wordsworth was able to worship the Creator as
devoutly on the green slope of a sun-crowned mountain or in the solemn
woods, murmuring their eternal mysterious secrets, as in the public
assembly of saints. And such would be in accord with the glow of
youthful life with which she bounded to greet Nature's subtle
influences. But a longer experience brought its inevitable sobering
tendencies, accompanied by the longing for a closer approach towards the
Infinite which is felt by all searching and great souls. Wordsworth
could truly say, in view of his work, that it was a consolation to him
to feel that he had never written a line which he could wish to blot. To
this happy and rare result his sister contributed. Remembering the
exalted character of that work, there is no other conclusion than that
she had no mean part in a work, the issues of which were beneficial not
only for time--adding to the sweet influences and graces of life--but
will be far-reaching as eternity.
In illustration of Miss Wordsworth's own literary style, I take the
liberty to insert in later chapters a few poems which have been deemed
worthy to have a place with those of her brother, as well as a journal
of a tour on Ullswater. What most in her journals arrests the attention
is her unusual quickness and minuteness of observation, combined with a
graceful and poetic diction. With her ardent love of Nature, nothing
seems to have escaped her notice; and all the varying shades of beauty
in earth and sky, which, to the observant eye and loving heart, invest
with such a glory this old world, were duly appreciated. Describing a
birch tree, she says: "As we went along we were stopped at once, at a
distance of, perhaps, fifty yards from our favourite birch tree. It was
yielding to a gust of wind, with all its tender twigs; the sun shone
upon it, and it glanced in the wind like a flying sunshiny shower. It
was a tree in shape, with stem and branches; but it was like a spirit of
water." Noticing a number of daffodils near Ullswater, she writes: "When
we were in the woods below Gowbarrow Park we saw a few daffodils close
to the water side. As we went along there were more and yet more; and at
last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw there was a long belt of
them along the shore. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew
among the mossy stones about them. Some rested their heads on these
stones as on a pillow; the rest tossed, and reeled, and danced, and
seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, they looked so gay and
glancing." These daffodils suggested to her brother one of the most
beautiful of his short poems, that which has been previously quoted,
commencing
"I wandered lonely as a cloud."
Of this description of Miss Wordsworth Mr. Lockhart says: "Few poets
ever lived who could have written a description so simple and original,
so vivid and picturesque. Her words are scenes, and something more."
Miss Wordsworth was for many years a great correspondent, and it is to
be regretted that more of her letters have not been given to the world.
From those quoted in this volume it will be seen that they exhibit the
same fluent, graceful, and animated style which characterised all her
productions.
"I have seen
That reverent form bowed down with age and pain,
And rankling malady. Yet not for this
Ceased she to praise her Maker, or withdraw
Her trust in Him, her faith, and humble hope;
So meekly had she learnt to bear her cross--
For she had studied patience in the school
Of Christ; much comfort she had thence derived,
And was a follower of the NAZARENE."
LAMB.
"So fails, so languishes, grows dim and dies.
All that the world is proud of."