MY WORLD
"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed out-worn--
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
--_Wordsworth_.
I have heard many times that this is one of the best of Wordsworth's
many sonnets, and in the matter of sonnets, I find myself compelled
to depend upon others for my opinions. I'm sorry that such is the
case, for I'd rather not deal in second-hand judgments if I could
help it. About the most this sonnet can do for me is to make me
wonder what my world is. I suppose that the size of my world is the
measure of myself, and that in my schoolmastering I am simply trying
to enlarge the world of my pupils. I saw a gang-plough the other day
that is drawn by a motor, and that set me to thinking of ploughs in
general and their evolution; and, by tracing the plough backward, I
saw that the original one must have been the forefinger of some
cave-dweller.
When his forefinger got sore, he got a forked stick and used that
instead; then he got a larger one and used both hands; then a still
larger one, and used oxen as the motive power; and then he fitted
handles to it, and other parts till he finally produced a plough.
But the principle has not been changed, and the gang-plough is but a
multifold forefinger. It is great fun to loose the tether of the
mind and let it go racing along, in and out, till it runs to earth
the original plough. Whether the solution is the correct one makes
but little difference. If friend Brown cannot disprove my theory, I
am on safe ground, and have my fun whether he accepts or rejects my
findings.
This is one way of enlarging one's world, I take it, and if this sort
of thing is a part of the process of education, I am in favor of it,
and wish I knew how to set my boys and girls going on such
excursions. I wish I might have gone to school to Agassiz just to
get my eyes opened. If I had, I'd probably assign to my pupils such
subjects as the evolution of a snowflake, the travels of a sunbeam,
the mechanism of a bird's wing, the history of a dewdrop, the changes
in a blade of grass, and the evolution of a grain of sand. If I
could only take them away from books for a month or so, they'd
probably be able to read the books to better advantage when they came
back. I'd like to take them on a walking trip over the Alps and
through rural England and Scotland for a few weeks.
If they could only gather broom, heather, shamrock, and edelweiss,
they would be able to see clover, alfalfa, arbutus, and mignonette
when they came back home. If they could see black robins in Wales
and Germany, the robin redbreast here at home would surely be thought
worthy of notice. If they could see stalactites and stalagmites in
Luray Cave, their world would then include these formations. One of
my boys was a member of an exploring expedition in the Andes, and one
night they were encamped near a glacier. This glacier protruded into
a lake, and on that particular night the end of that river of ice
broke off and thus formed an iceberg. The glacier was nearly a mile
wide, and when the end broke off the sound was such as to make the
loudest thunder seem a whisper by comparison. It was a rare
experience for this young fellow to be around where icebergs are
made, and vicariously I shared his experience.
I want to know the price of eggs, bacon, and coffee, but I need not
go into camp on the price-list. Having purchased my bacon and eggs,
I like to move along to where my friend is sitting, and hear him tell
of his experiences with glaciers and icebergs, and so become
inoculated with the world-enlarging virus. Or, if he comes in to
share my bacon and eggs, these mundane delights lose none of their
flavor by being garnished with conversation on Andean themes. I'm
glad to have my friend push that greatest of monuments, "The Christ
of the Andes," over into my world. I arise from the table feeling
that I have had full value for the money I expended for eggs and
bacon.
I'd like to have in my world a liberal sprinkling of stars, for when
I am looking at stars I get away from sordid things, for a time, and
get my soul renovated. I think St. Paul must have been associating
with starry space just before he wrote the last two verses of that
eighth chapter of Romans. I can't see how he could have written such
mighty thoughts if he had been dwelling upon clothes or symptoms.
The reading of a patent-medicine circular is not specially conducive
to thoughts of infinity. So I like, in my meditations, to take trips
from star to star, and from planet to planet. I like to wonder
whether these planets were rightly named--whether Venus is as
beautiful as the name implies, and whether the Martians are really
disciples of the warlike Mars. I like to drift along upon the canals
on the planet Mars, with heroic Martians plying the oars. I have
great fun on such spatial excursions, and am glad that I ever annexed
these planets to my world. I can take these stellar companions with
me to my potato-patch, and they help the day along.
I want pictures in my world, too, and statues; for they show me the
hearts of the artists, and that is a sort of baptism. Sometimes I
grow a bit impatient to see how slowly some work of mine proceeds.
Then I think of Ghiberti, who worked for forty-two years on the
bronze doors of the Baptistry there in Florence, which Michael Angelo
declared to be worthy of paradise. Then I reflect that it was worth
a lifetime of work to win the praise of such as Angelo. This
reflection calms me, and I plod on more serenely, glad of the fact
that I can count Ghiberti and the bronze doors as a part of my world.
When I can have Titian, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del
Sarto, Raphael, and Rosa Bonheur around, I feel that I have good
company and must be on my good behavior. If Corot, Reynolds,
Leighton, Watts, and Landseer should be banished from my world I'd
feel that I had suffered a great loss. I like to hobnob with such
folks as these, both for my own pleasure and also for the reputation
I gain through such associations.
I must have people in my world, also, or it wouldn't be much of a
world. And I must be careful in my selection of people, if I am to
achieve any distinction as a world builder. I just can't leave
Cordelia out, for she helps to make my world luminous. But she must
have companions; so I shall select Antigone, Evangeline, Miranda,
Mary, and Martha if she can spare the time. Among the male
contingent I shall want Job, Erasmus, Petrarch, Dante, Goethe,
Shakespeare, Milton, and Burns. I want men and women in whose
presence I must stand uncovered to preserve my self-respect. I want
big people, wise people, and dynamic people in my world, people who
will teach me how to work and how to live.
If I can get my world made and peopled to my liking, I shall refute
Mr. Wordsworth's statement that the world is too much with us. If I
can have the right sort of folks about me, they will see to it that I
do not waste my powers, for I shall be compelled to use my powers in
order to avert expulsion from their good company. If I get my world
built to suit me, I shall have no occasion to imitate the poet's
plaint. I suspect there is no better fun in life than in building a
world of one's own.