"One evening, probably about this time, I got him upon the subject
of great poets, who I thought might be admirable equally to us
both; but was rather mistaken, as I gradually found. Pope's partial
failure I was prepared for; less for the narrowish limits visible
in Milton and others. I tried him with Burns, of whom he had sung
tender recognition; but Burns also turned out to be a limited,
inferior creature, any genius he had a theme for one's pathos
rather; even Shakespeare himself had his blind sides, his
limitations. Gradually it became apparent to me that of
transcendent unlimited, there was to this critic probably but one
specimen known,--Wordsworth."
As regards eccentricities of dress, we will give but a single testimony.
William Jordan says:--
"On his visits to town the recluse of Rydal Mount was quite a
different creature. To me it was demonstrated, by his conduct under
every circumstance, that De Quincey had done him gross injustice in
the character he loosely threw upon him in public, namely, 'that he
was not generous or self-denying, . . . and that he was slovenly
and regardless in dress.' I must protest that there was no warrant
for this caricature; but on the contrary, that it bore no feature
of resemblance to the slight degree of eccentricity discoverable in
Cumberland, and was utterly contradicted by the life in London. In
the mixed society of the great Babylon, Mr. Wordsworth was facile
and courteous; dressed like a gentleman, and with his tall
commanding figure no mean type of the superior order, well-trained
by education, and accustomed to good manners. Shall I reveal that
he was often sportive, and could even go the length of strong
expressions, in the off-hand mirth of his observations and
criticisms?"
Wordsworth had the fondness of many poets for reading his poetry to his
friends, and even of reciting it like a schoolboy. When Emerson visited
him he was already an old man, and it struck the philosopher so oddly,
as he tells us in his "English Traits," to see "the old Wordsworth,
standing apart, and reciting to me in a garden walk, like a schoolboy
declaiming, that I at first was near to laugh; but recollecting myself,
that I had come thus far to see a poet, and he was chanting poems to me,
I saw that he was right and I was wrong, and gladly gave myself up to
hear."
Another story is told of his being in a large company, and seeing for
the first time a new novel by Scott, with a motto taken from his poems;
and of his going immediately and getting the poem, and reading it entire
to the assembled company, who were waiting for the reading of the new
novel.
Literary biography is full of such anecdotes as these, going to show his
absorption in himself, and his comparative indifference to the works of
others; but they prove at most only a trifling weakness in a great man's
character; such weaknesses being so common as to cause no surprise to
those familiar with the lives of men of genius. He was a strong man,
massive in his individuality, full of profound feeling and deep
spirituality, and dominated by a powerful will. He was no mere
sentimentalist and versifier, but a student at first hand of Nature and
all her mysteries,--a man whose profound meditations had pierced to the
centre of things, and who held great thoughts in keeping for a waiting
and expectant world. His outward life was full of proofs of the wide and
deep benevolence of his nature; and it was only shallow minds who dwelt
upon some petty defects of his character. The deep wisdom gained by
contemplation comes forth whenever he talks of childhood. This subject
always possesses inspiration for him, as when he says:--
"Our birth is but a sleep and forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,--
He sees it in his joy.
The youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
This conception of the nearness of the child to the unseen made all
children sacred in his eyes, and he always felt that he learned more
from them than he could teach them. He expresses this thought often, as
thus:--
"Oh dearest, dearest boy; my heart
For better lore would seldom yearn,
Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn."