Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times,
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things;
Of ebb and flow and ever-during power;
And central peace subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation. Here you stand,
Adore and worship, when you know it not;
Pious beyond the intention of your thought;
Devout above the meaning of your will.
--_Wordsworth_
[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH]
Some one has told us that Heaven is not a place but a
condition of mind, and it is possible that he is right.
But if Heaven is a place, surely it is not unlike Grasmere. Such
loveliness of landscape--such sylvan stretches of crystal water--peace
and quiet and rest!
Great, green hills lift their heads to the skies, and all the old stone
walls and hedgerows are covered with trailing vines and blooming flowers.
The air is rich with song of birds, sweet with perfume, and the blossoms
gaily shower their petals on the passer-by. Overhead, white, billowy
clouds float lazily over their background of ethereal blue. Cool June
breezes fan the cheek. Distant knolls are dotted with flocks of sheep
whose bells tinkle dreamily; and drowsy hum of beetle makes the bass,
while lark song forms the air of the sweet symphony that Nature plays.
Such was Grasmere as I first saw it.
To love the plain, homely, common, simple things of earth, of these to
sing; to make the familiar beautiful and the commonplace enchanting; to
cause each bush to burn with the actual presence of the living God: this
is the poet's office. And if the poet lives near Grasmere, his task does
not seem difficult.
From Seventeen Hundred Ninety-nine to Eighteen Hundred Eight, Wordsworth
lived at Dove Cottage. Thanks to a few earnest souls, the place is now
secured to the people of England and the lovers of poetry wherever they
may be. A good old woman has charge of the cottage, and for a slight fee
shows you the house and garden and little orchard and objects of
interest, all the while talking: and you are glad, for, although
unlettered, she is reverent and honest. She was born here, and all she
knows is Wordsworth and the people and the things he loved. Is not this
enough?
Here Wordsworth lived before anything he wrote was published in book
form: here his best work was done, and here Dorothy--splendid,
sympathetic Dorothy---was inspiration, critic, friend. But who inspired
Dorothy? Coleridge perhaps more than all others, and we know somewhat of
their relationship as told in Dorothy's diary. There is a little
Wordsworth Library in Dove Cottage, and I sat at the window of "De
Quincey's room" and read for an hour. Says Dorothy:
"Sat until four o'clock reading dear Coleridge's letters."
"We paced the garden until moonrise at one o'clock--we three, brother,
Coleridge and I." "I read Spenser to him aloud and then we had a midnight
tea."
Here in this little, terraced garden, behind the stone cottage with its
low ceilings and wide window-seats and little, diamond panes, she in her
misery wrote:
"Oh, the pity of it all! Yet there is recompense; every sight reminds me
of Coleridge, dear, dear fellow; of our walks and talks by day and night;
of all the bright and witty, and sad sweet things of which we spoke and
read. I was melancholy and could not talk, and at last I eased my heart
by weeping."
Alas, too often there is competition between brother and sister, then
follow misunderstandings; but here the brotherly and sisterly love stands
out clear and strong after these hundred years have passed, and we
contemplate it with delight. Was ever woman more honestly and better
praised than Dorothy?
"The blessings of my later years
Were with me when I was a boy.
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,
And humble cares and gentle fears,
A heart! the fountain of sweet tears,
And love and thought and joy.
And she hath smiles to earth unknown,
Smiles that with motion of their own
Do spread and sink and rise;
That come and go with endless play,
And ever as they pass away
Are hidden in her eyes."
And so in a dozen or more poems, we see Dorothy reflected. She was the
steel on which he tried his flint. Everything he wrote was read to her,
then she read it alone, balancing the sentences in the delicate scales of
her womanly judgment. "Heart of my heart, is this well done?" When she
said, "This will do," it was no matter who said otherwise.
Back of the house on the rising hillside is the little garden. Hewn out
of the solid rock is "Dorothy's seat." There I rested while Mrs. Dixon
discoursed of poet lore, and told me of how, many times, Coleridge and
Dorothy had sat in the same seat and watched the stars.
Then I drank from "the well," which is more properly a spring; the stones
that curb it were placed in their present position by the hand that wrote
"The Prelude." Above the garden is the orchard, where the green linnet
still sings, for the birds never grow old.
There, too, are the circling swallows; and in a snug little alcove of the
cottage you can read "The Butterfly" from a first edition; and then you
can go sit in the orchard, white with blossoms, and see the butterflies
that suggested the poem. And if your eye is good you can discover down by
the lakeside the daffodils, and listen the while to the cuckoo call.
Then in the orchard you can see not only "the daisy," but many of them,
and, if you wish, Mrs. Dixon will let you dig a bunch of the daisies to
take back to America; and if you do, I hope that yours will prosper as
have mine, and that Wordsworth's flowers, like Wordsworth's verse, will
gladden your heart when the blue sky of your life threatens to be
o'ercast with gray.
Here Southey came, and "Thalaber" was read aloud in this little garden.
Here, too, came Clarkson, the man with a fine feminine carelessness, as
Dorothy said. Charles Lloyd sat here and discoursed with William Calvert.
Sir George Beaumont forgot his title and rapped often at the quaint,
hinged door. An artist was Beaumont, but his best picture they say is not
equal to the lines that Wordsworth wrote about it. Sir George was not
only a gentleman according to law, but one in heart, for he was a friend,
kind, gentle and generous. With such a friend Wordsworth was rich indeed.
But perhaps the friends we have are only our other selves, and we get
what we deserve.
We must not forget the kindly face of Humphry Davy, whose gracious
playfulness was ever a charm to the Wordsworths. The safety-lamp was then
only an unspoken word, and perhaps few foresaw the sweetness and light
that these two men would yet give to earth.
Walter Scott and his wife came to Dove Cottage in Eighteen Hundred Five.
He did not bring his title, for it, like Humphry Davy's, was as yet
unpacked down in London town. They slept in the little cubby-hole of a
room in the upper southwest corner. One can imagine Dorothy taking Sir
Walter's shaving-water up to him in the morning; and the savory smell of
breakfast as Mistress Mary poured the tea, while England's future
laureate served the toast and eggs: Mr. Scott eating everything in sight
and talking a torrent the while about art and philosophy as he passed his
cup back, to the consternation of the hostess, whose frugal ways were
not used to such ravages of appetite. Of course she did not know that a
combined novelist and rhymster ate twice as much as a simple poet.
Afterwards Mrs. Scott tucked up her dress, putting on one of Dorothy's
aprons, and helped do the dishes.
Then Coleridge came over and they all climbed to the summit of Helm Crag.
Shy little De Quincey had read some of Wordsworth's poems, and knew from
their flavor that the man who penned them was a noble soul. He came to
Grasmere to call on him: he walked past Dove Cottage twice, but his heart
failed him and he went away unannounced. Later, he returned and found the
occupants as simple folks as himself.
Happiness was there and good society; few books, but fine culture; plain
living and high thinking.
Wordsworth lived at Rydal Mount for thirty-three years, yet the sweetest
flowers of his life blossomed at Dove Cottage. For difficulty, toil,
struggle, obscurity, poverty, mixed with aspiration and ambition---all
these were here. Success came later, but this is naught; for the
achievement is more than the public acknowledgment of the deed.
After Wordsworth moved away, De Quincey rented Dove Cottage and lived in
it for twenty-seven years. He acquired a library of more than five
thousand volumes, making bookshelves on four sides of the little rooms
from floor to ceiling. Some of these shelves still remain. Here he
turned night into day and dreamed the dreams of "The Opium-Eater."
And all these are some of the things that Mrs. Dixon told me on that
bright Summer day. What if I had heard them before! no difference. Dear
old lady, I salute you and at your feet I lay my gratitude for a day of
rare and quiet joy.
"Farewell, thou little nook of mountain ground,
Thou rocky corner in the lowest stair
Of that magnificent temple which does bound
One side of our whole vale with gardens rare,
Sweet garden-orchard, eminently fair,
The loveliest spot that man has ever found,
Farewell! We leave thee to Heaven's peaceful care,
Thee, and the Cottage which thou dost surround."
* * * * *
At places of pleasure and entertainment in the Far West,
are often found functionaries known as "bouncers." It is the duty of the
bouncer to give hints to objectionable visitors that their presence is
not desired. And inasmuch as there are many men who can never take a hint
without a kick, the bouncer is a person selected on account of his
peculiar fitness--psychic and otherwise--for the place. We all have
special talents, and these faculties should be used in a manner that will
help our fellowmen on their way.
My acquaintanceship with the bouncer has been only general, not
particular. Yet I have admired him from a distance, and the skill and
eclat that he sometimes shows in a professional way has often excited my
admiration.
In social usages, America borrows constantly from the mother country. But
like all borrowing it seems to be one-sided, for seldom, very, very
seldom, in point of etiquette and manners does England borrow from us.
Yet there are exceptions.
It is a beautiful highway that skirts Lake Windermere and follows up
through Ambleside. We get a glimpse of the old home of Harriet Martineau,
and "Fox Howe," the home of Matthew Arnold. Just before Rydal Water is
reached comes Rydal Road, running straight up the hillside, off from the
turnpike. Rydal Mount is the third house up on the left-hand side, I knew
the location, for I had read of it many times, and in my pocketbook I
carried a picture taken from an old "Frank Leslie's," showing the house.
My heart beat fast as I climbed the hill. To visit the old home of one
who was Poet Laureate of England is no small event in the life of a
book-lover. I was full of poetry and murmured lines from "The Excursion"
as I walked. Soon rare old Rydal Mount came in sight among the wealth of
green. I stopped and sighed. Yes, yes, Wordsworth lived here for
thirty-three years, and here he died; the spot whereon I then stood had
been pressed many times by his feet. I walked slowly, with uncovered
head, and approached the gate. It was locked. I fumbled at the latch; and
just as there came a prospect of its opening, a loud, deep, guttural
voice dashed over me like a wave:
"There--you! now, wot you want?"
The owner of this voice was not ten feet away, but he was standing up
close to the wall and I had not seen him. I was somewhat startled at
first. The man did not move. I stepped to one side to get a better view
of my interlocutor, and saw him to be a large, red man of perhaps fifty.
A handkerchief was knotted around his thick neck, and he held a heavy hoe
in his hand. A genuine beefeater he was, only he ate too much beef and
the ale he drank was evidently Extra XXX.
His scowl was so needlessly severe and his manner so belligerent that
I--thrice armed, knowing my cause was just--could not restrain a smile. I
touched my hat and said, "Ah, excuse me, Mr. Falstaff, you are the
bouncer?"
"Never mind wot I am, sir--'oo are you?"
"I am a great admirer of Wordsworth----"
"That's the way they all begins. Cawn't ye hadmire 'im on that side of
the wall as well as this?"
There is no use of wasting argument with a man of this stamp; besides
that, his question was to the point. But there are several ways of
overcoming one's adversary: I began feeling in my pocket for pence. My
enemy ceased glaring, stepped up to the locked gate as though he
half-wished to be friendly, and there was sorrow in his voice: "Don't
tempt me, sir; don't do ut! The Missus is peekin' out of the shutters at
us now."
"And do you never admit visitors, even to the grounds?"
"No, sir, never, God 'elp me! and there's many an honest bob I could turn
by ut, and no one 'urt. But I've lost my place twic't by ut. They took me
back though. The Guv'ner 'ud never forgive me again. 'It's three times
and out, Mister 'Opkins,' says 'ee, only last Whitsuntide."
"But visitors do come?"
"Yes, sir; but they never gets in. Mostly 'mer'cans; they don't know no
better, sir. They picks all the ivy orf the outside of the wall, and you
sees yourself there's no leaves on the lower branches of that tree. Then
they carries away so many pebbles from out there that I've to dump in a
fresh weelbarrel full o' gravel every week, sir, don't you know."
He thrust a pudgy, freckled hand through the bars of the gate to show
that he bore me no ill-will, and also, I suppose, to mollify my
disappointment. For although I had come too late to see the great poet
himself and had even failed to see the inside of his house, yet I had at
least been greeted at the gate by his proxy. I pressed the hand firmly,
pocketed a handful of gravel as a memento, then turned and went my way.
And all there is to tell about my visit to Rydal Mount is this interview
with the bouncer.
* * * * *
Wordsworth lived eighty years. His habitation, except for
short periods, was never more than a few miles from his birthplace. His
education was not extensive, his learning not profound. He lacked humor
and passion; in his character there was little personal magnetism, and in
his work there is small dramatic power.
He traveled more or less and knew humanity, but he did not know man. His
experience in so-called practical things was slight, his judgment not
accurate. So he lived--quietly, modestly, dreamily.
His dust rests in a country churchyard, the grave marked by a simple
slab. A gnarled, old yew-tree stands guard above the grass-grown mound.
The nearest railroad is fifteen miles away.
As a poet, Wordsworth stands in the front rank of the second class.
Shelley, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, far surpass him; and the
sweet singer of Michigan, even in uninspired moments, never "threw off"
anything worse than this:
"And he is lean and he is sick:
His body, dwindled and awry,
Rests upon ankles swollen and thick;
His legs are thin and dry.
One prop he has, and only one,
His wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him near the waterfall,
Upon the village common."
Jove may nod, but when he makes a move it counts.
Yet the influence of Wordsworth upon the thought and feeling of the world
has been very great. He himself said, "The young will read my poems and
be better for their truth." Many of his lines pass as current coin: "The
child is father of the man," "The light that never was on land nor sea,"
"Not too bright and good for human nature's daily food," "Thoughts that
do lie too deep for tears," "The mighty stream of tendency," and many
others. "Plain living and high thinking" is generally given to Emerson,
but he discovered it in Wordsworth, and recognizing it as his own he took
it. In a certain book of quotations, "The still sad music of humanity" is
given to Shakespeare; but to equalize matters we sometimes attribute to
Wordsworth "The Old Oaken Bucket."
The men who win are those who correct an abuse. Wordsworth's work was a
protest--mild yet firm--against the bombastic and artificial school of
the Eighteenth Century. Before his day the "timber" used by poets
consisted of angels, devils, ghosts, gods; onslaught, tourneys, jousts,
tempests of hate and torrents of wrath, always of course with a very
beautiful and very susceptible young lady just around the corner. The
women in those days were always young and ever beautiful, but seldom wise
and not often good. The men were saints or else "bad," generally bad.
Like the cats of Kilkenny, they fought on slight cause.
Our young man at Hawkshead School saw this: it pleased him not, and he
made a list of the things on which he would write poems. This list
includes: sunset, moonrise, starlight, mist, brooks, shells, stones,
butterflies, moths, swallows, linnets, thrushes, wagoners, babies, bark
of trees, leaves, nests, fishes, rushes, leeches, cobwebs, clouds, deer,
music, shade, swans, crags and snow. He kept his vow and "went it one
better," for among his verses I find the following titles: "Lines Left
Upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree," "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern
Abbey," "To a Wounded Butterfly," "To Dora's Portrait," "To the Cuckoo,"
"On Seeing a Needlebook Made in the Shape of a Harp," etc.
Wordsworth's service to humanity consists in the fact that he has shown
us old truth in a new light, and has made plain the close relationship
that exists between physical nature and the soul of man. Is this much or
little? I think it is much. When we realize that we are a part of all
that we see, or hear, or feel, we are not lonely. But to feel a sense of
separation is to feel the chill of death.
Wordsworth taught that the earth is the universal Mother and that the
life of the flower has its source in the same universal life from whence
ours is derived. To know this truth is to feel a tenderness, a
kindliness, a spirit of fraternalism, toward every manifestation of this
universal life. No attempt was made to say the last word, only a wish to
express the truth that the spirit of God is manifest on every hand.
Now this is a very simple philosophy. No far-reaching, syllogistic logic
is required to prove it; no miracle, nor special dispensation is needed;
you just feel that it is so, that's all, and it gives you peace.
Children, foolish folks, old men, whose sands of life are nearly run,
comprehend it. But heaven bless you! you can't prove any such
foolishness. Jeffrey saw the ridiculousness of these assumptions and so
he declared, "This will never do," and for twenty years "The Edinburgh
Review" never ceased to fling off fleers and jeers--and to criticize and
scoff. That a great periodical, rich and influential, in the city which
was the very center of learning, should go so much out of its way to
attack a quiet countryman living in a four-roomed cottage, away off in
the hills of Cumberland, seems a little queer.
Then, this countryman did not seek to found a kingdom, nor to
revolutionize society, nor did he force upon the world his pattypan
rhymes about linnets, and larks, and daffodils. Far from it: he was very
modest--diffident, in fact--and his song was quite in the minor key, but
still the chain-shot and bombs of literary warfare were sent hissing in
his direction.
There is a little story about a certain general who figured as
division-commander in the War of Secession: this warrior had his
headquarters, for a time, in a typical Southern home in the Tennessee
Mountains. The house had a large fireplace and chimney; in this chimney,
swallows had nests. One day, as the great man was busy at his maps,
working out a plan of campaign against the enemy, the swallows made quite
an uproar. Perhaps some of the eggs were hatching; anyway, the birds were
needlessly noisy in their domestic affairs, and it disturbed the great
man--he grew nervous. He called his adjutant. "Sir," said the mighty
warrior, "dislodge those damn pests in the chimney, without delay."
Two soldiers were ordered to climb the roof and dislodge the enemy. Yet
the swallows were not dislodged, for the soldiers could not reach them.
So Jeffrey's tirades were unavailing, and Wordsworth was not dislodged.
"He might as well try to crush Skiddaw," said Southey.