by contest, purer by temptation, and more enduring by distress.[28] It
is owing to the constant presence of this thought, to his sensibility to
the refining influence of sorrow, that Wordsworth is the only poet who
will bear reading in times of distress. Other poets mock us by an
impossible optimism, or merely reflect the feelings which, however we
may play with them in times of cheerfulness, have now become an
intolerable burden. Wordsworth suggests the single topic which, so far
at least as this world is concerned, can really be called consolatory.
None of the ordinary commonplaces will serve, or serve at most as
indications of human sympathy. But there is some consolation in the
thought that even death may bind the survivors closer, and leave as a
legacy enduring motives to noble action. It is easy to say this; but
Wordsworth has the merit of feeling the truth in all its force, and
expressing it by the most forcible images. In one shape or another the
sentiment is embodied in most of his really powerful poetry. It is
intended, for example, to be the moral of the 'White Doe of Rylstone.'
There, as Wordsworth says, everything fails so far as its object is
external and unsubstantial; everything succeeds so far as it is moral
and spiritual. Success grows out of failure; and the mode in which it
grows is indicated by the lines which give the keynote of the poem.
Emily, the heroine, is to become a soul
By force of sorrows high
Uplifted to the purest sky
Of undisturbed serenity.
The 'White Doe' is one of those poems which make many readers inclined
to feel a certain tenderness for Jeffrey's dogged insensibility; and I
confess that I am not one of its warm admirers. The sentiment seems to
be unduly relaxed throughout; there is a want of sympathy with heroism
of the rough and active type, which is, after all, at least as worthy of
admiration as the more passive variety of the virtue; and the defect is
made more palpable by the position of the chief actors. These rough
borderers, who recall William of Deloraine and Dandie Dinmont, are
somehow out of their element when preaching the doctrines of quietism
and submission to circumstances. But, whatever our judgment of this
particular embodiment of Wordsworth's moral philosophy, the inculcation
of the same lesson gives force to many of his finest poems. It is
enough to mention the 'Leech-gatherer,' the 'Stanzas on Peele Castle,'
'Michael,' and, as expressing the inverse view of the futility of idle
grief, 'Laodamia,' where he has succeeded in combining his morality with
more than his ordinary beauty of poetical form. The teaching of all
these poems falls in with the doctrine already set forth. All moral
teaching, I have sometimes fancied, might be summed up in the one
formula, 'Waste not.' Every element of which our nature is composed may
be said to be good in its proper place; and therefore every vicious
habit springs out of the misapplication of forces which might be turned
to account by judicious training. The waste of sorrow is one of the most
lamentable forms of waste. Sorrow too often tends to produce bitterness
or effeminacy of character. But it may, if rightly used, serve only to
detach us from the lower motives, and give sanctity to the higher. That
is what Wordsworth sees with unequalled clearness, and he therefore sees
also the condition of profiting. The mind in which the most valuable
elements have been systematically strengthened by meditation, by
association of deep thought with the most universal presences, by
constant sympathy with the joys and sorrows of its fellows, will be
prepared to convert sorrow into a medicine instead of a poison. Sorrow
is deteriorating so far as it is selfish. The man who is occupied with
his own interests makes grief an excuse for effeminate indulgence in
self-pity. He becomes weaker and more fretful. The man who has learnt
habitually to think of himself as part of a greater whole, whose conduct
has been habitually directed to noble ends, is purified and strengthened
by the spiritual convulsion. His disappointment, or his loss of some
beloved object, makes him more anxious to fix the bases of his
happiness widely and deeply, and to be content with the consciousness of
honest work, instead of looking for what is called success.
But I must not take to preaching in the place of Wordsworth. The whole
theory is most nobly summed up in the grand lines already noticed on the
character of the Happy Warrior. There Wordsworth has explained in the
most forcible and direct language the mode in which a grand character
can be formed; how youthful impulses may change into manly purpose; how
pain and sorrow may be transmuted into new forces; how the mind may be
fixed upon lofty purposes; how the domestic affections--which give the
truest happiness--may also be the greatest source of strength to the man
who is
More brave for this, that he has much to lose;
and how, finally, he becomes indifferent to all petty ambition--
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause.
This is the Happy Warrior, this is he
Whom every man in arms should wish to be.
We may now see what ethical theory underlies Wordsworth's teaching of
the transformation of instinct into reason. We must start from the
postulate that there is in fact a Divine order in the universe; and that
conformity to this order produces beauty as embodied in the external
world, and is the condition of virtue as regulating our character. It is
by obedience to the 'stern lawgiver,' Duty, that flowers gain their
fragrance, and that 'the most ancient heavens' preserve their freshness
and strength. But this postulate does not seek for justification in
abstract metaphysical reasoning. The 'Intimations of Immortality' are
precisely imitations, not intellectual intuitions. They are vague and
emotional, not distinct and logical. They are a feeling of harmony, not
a perception of innate ideas. And, on the other hand, our instincts are
not a mere chaotic mass of passions, to be gratified without considering
their place and function in a certain definite scheme. They have been
implanted by the Divine hand, and the harmony which we feel corresponds
to a real order. To justify them we must appeal to experience, but to
experience interrogated by a certain definite procedure. Acting upon the
assumption that the Divine order exists, we shall come to recognise it,
though we could not deduce it by an _à priori_ method.
The instrument, in fact, finds itself originally tuned by its Maker, and
may preserve its original condition by careful obedience to the stern
teaching of life. The buoyancy common to all youthful and healthy
natures then changes into a deeper and more solemn mood. The great
primary emotions retain the original impulse, but increase their volume.
Grief and disappointment are transmuted into tenderness, sympathy, and
endurance. The reason, as it develops, regulates, without weakening, the
primitive instincts. All the greatest, and therefore most common, sights
of nature are indelibly associated with 'admiration, hope, and love;'
and all increase of knowledge and power is regarded as a means for
furthering the gratification of our nobler emotions. Under the opposite
treatment, the character loses its freshness, and we regard the early
happiness as an illusion. The old emotions dry up at their source. Grief
produces fretfulness, misanthropy, or effeminacy. Power is wasted on
petty ends and frivolous excitement, and knowledge becomes barren and
pedantic. In this way the postulate justifies itself by producing the
noblest type of character. When the 'moral being' is thus built up, its
instincts become its convictions, we recognise the true voice of nature,
and distinguish it from the echo of our passions. Thus we come to know
how the Divine order and the laws by which the character is harmonised
are the laws of morality.
To possible objections it might be answered by Wordsworth that this mode
of assuming in order to prove is the normal method of philosophy. 'You
must love him,' as he says of the poet,
Ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.
The doctrine corresponds to the _crede ut intelligas_ of the divine; or
to the philosophic theory that we must start from the knowledge already
constructed within us by instincts which have not yet learnt to reason.
And, finally, if a persistent reasoner should ask why--even admitting
the facts--the higher type should be preferred to the lower, Wordsworth
may ask, Why is bodily health preferable to disease? If a man likes weak
lungs and a bad digestion, reason cannot convince him of his error. The
physician has done enough when he has pointed out the sanitary laws
obedience to which generates strength, long life, and power of
enjoyment. The moralist is in the same position when he has shown how
certain habits conduce to the development of a type superior to its
rivals in all the faculties which imply permanent peace of mind and
power of resisting the shocks of the world without disintegration. Much
undoubtedly remains to be said. Wordsworth's teaching, profound and
admirable as it may be, has not the potency to silence the scepticism
which has gathered strength since his day, and assailed fundamental--or
what to him seemed fundamental--tenets of his system. No one can yet
say what transformation may pass upon the thoughts and emotions for
which he found utterance in speaking of the Divinity and sanctity of
nature. Some people vehemently maintain that the words will be emptied
of all meaning if the old theological conceptions to which he was so
firmly attached should disappear with the development of new modes of
thought. Nature, as regarded by the light of modern science, will be the
name of a cruel and wasteful, or at least of a purely neutral and
indifferent power, or perhaps as merely an equivalent for the
Unknowable, to which the conditions of our intellect prevent us from
ever attaching any intelligible predicate. Others would say that in
whatever terms we choose to speak of the mysterious darkness which
surrounds our little island of comparative light, the emotion generated
in a thoughtful mind by the contemplation of the universe will remain
unaltered or strengthen with clearer knowledge; and that we shall
express ourselves in a new dialect without altering the essence of our
thought. The emotions to which Wordsworth has given utterance will
remain, though the system in which he believed should sink into
oblivion; as, indeed, all human systems have found different modes of
symbolising the same fundamental feelings. But it is enough vaguely to
indicate considerations not here to be developed.
It only remains to be added once more that Wordsworth's poetry derives
its power from the same source as his philosophy. It speaks to our
strongest feelings because his speculation rests upon our deepest
thoughts. His singular capacity for investing all objects with a glow
derived from early associations; his keen sympathy with natural and
simple emotions; his sense of the sanctifying influences which can be
extracted from sorrow, are of equal value to his power over our
intellects and our imaginations. His psychology, stated systematically,
is rational; and, when expressed passionately, turns into poetry. To be
sensitive to the most important phenomena is the first step equally
towards a poetical or a scientific exposition. To see these truly is the
condition of making the poetry harmonious and the philosophy logical.
And it is often difficult to say which power is most remarkable in
Wordsworth. It would be easy to illustrate the truth by other than moral
topics. His sonnet, noticed by De Quincey, in which he speaks of the
abstracting power of darkness, and observes that as the hills pass into
twilight we see the same sight as the ancient Britons, is impressive as
it stands, but would be equally good as an illustration in a
metaphysical treatise. Again, the sonnet beginning
With ships the sea was sprinkled far and wide,
is at once, as he has shown in a commentary of his own, an illustration
of a curious psychological law--of our tendency, that is, to introduce
an arbitrary principle of order into a random collection of
objects--and, for the same reason, a striking embodiment of the
corresponding mood of feeling. The little poem called 'Stepping
Westward' is in the same way at once a delicate expression of a specific
sentiment and an acute critical analysis of the subtle associations
suggested by a single phrase. But such illustrations might be multiplied
indefinitely. As he has himself said, there is scarcely one of his poems
which does not call attention to some moral sentiment, or to a general
principle or law of thought, of our intellectual constitution.
Finally, we might look at the reverse side of the picture, and endeavour
to show how the narrow limits of Wordsworth's power are connected with
certain moral defects; with the want of quick sympathy which shows
itself in his dramatic feebleness, and the austerity of character which
caused him to lose his special gifts too early and become a rather
commonplace defender of conservatism; and that curious diffidence (he
assures us that it was 'diffidence') which induced him to write many
thousand lines of blank verse entirely about himself. But the task would
be superfluous as well as ungrateful. It was his aim, he tells us, 'to
console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy
happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to
think, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous;'
and, high as was the aim he did much towards its accomplishment.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] J. S. Mill and Whewell were, for their generation, the ablest
exponents of two opposite systems of thought upon such matters. Mill has
expressed his obligations to Wordsworth in his 'Autobiography,' and
Whewell dedicated to Wordsworth his 'Elements of Morality' in
acknowledgment of his influence as a moralist.
[25] The poem of Henry Vaughan, to which reference is often made in this
connection, scarcely contains more than a pregnant hint.
[26] As, for example, in the _Lines on Tintern Abbey_: 'If this be but a
vain belief.'
[27] See Wordsworth's reference to the _Wealth of Nations_, in the
_Prelude_, book xiii.
[28] So, too, in the _Prelude_:--
Then was the truth received into my heart,
That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,
If from the affliction somewhere do not grow
Honour which could not else have been, a faith,
An elevation, and a sanctity;
If new strength be not given, nor old restored,
The fault is ours, not Nature's.
_LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS_
When Mr. Forster brought out the collected edition of Landor's works,
the critics were generally embarrassed. They evaded for the most part
any committal of themselves to an estimate of their author's merits, and
were generally content to say that we might now look forward to a
definitive judgment in the ultimate court of literary appeal. Such an
attitude of suspense was natural enough. Landor is perhaps the most
striking instance in modern literature of a radical divergence of
opinion between the connoisseurs and the mass of readers. The general
public have never been induced to read him, in spite of the lavish
applauses of some self-constituted authorities. One may go further. It
is doubtful whether those who aspire to a finer literary palate than is
possessed by the vulgar herd are really so keenly appreciative as the
innocent reader of published remarks might suppose. Hypocrisy in matters
of taste--whether of the literal or metaphorical kind--is the commonest
of vices. There are vintages, both material and intellectual, which are
more frequently praised than heartily enjoyed. I have heard very good
judges whisper in private that they have found Landor dull; and the rare
citations made from his works often betray a very perfunctory study of
them. Not long ago, for example, an able critic quoted a passage from
one of the 'Imaginary Conversations' to prove that Landor admired
Milton's prose, adding the remark that it might probably be taken as an
expression of his real sentiments, although put in the mouth of a
dramatic person. To anyone who has read Landor with ordinary attention,
it seems as absurd to speak in this hypothetical manner as it would be
to infer from some incidental allusion that Mr. Ruskin admires Turner.
Landor's adoration for Milton is one of the most conspicuous of his
critical propensities. There are, of course, many eulogies upon Landor
of undeniable weight. They are hearty, genuine, and from competent
judges. Yet the enthusiasm of such admirable critics as Mr. Emerson and
Mr. Lowell may be carped at by some who fancy that every American enjoys
a peculiar sense of complacency when rescuing an English genius from the
neglect of his own countrymen. If Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne have
been conspicuous in their admiration, it might be urged that neither of
them has too strong a desire to keep to that beaten highroad of the
commonplace, beyond which even the best guides meet with pitfalls.
Southey's praises of Landor were sincere and emphatic; but it must be
added that they provoke a recollection of one of Johnson's shrewd
remarks. 'The reciprocal civility of authors,' says the Doctor, 'is one
of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.' One forgives poor
Southey indeed for the vanity which enabled him to bear up so bravely
against anxiety and repeated disappointment; and if both he and Landor
found that 'reciprocal civility' helped them to bear the disregard of
contemporaries, one would not judge them harshly. It was simply a tacit
agreement to throw their harmless vanity into a common stock. Of Mr.
Forster, Landor's faithful friend and admirer, one can only say that in
his writing about Landor, as upon other topics, we are distracted
between the respect due to his strong feeling for the excellent in
literature, and the undeniable facts that his criticisms have a very
blunt edge, and that his eulogies are apt to be indiscriminate.
Southey and Wordsworth had a simple method of explaining the neglect of
a great author. According to them, contemporary neglect affords a
negative presumption in favour of permanent reputation. No lofty poet
has honour in his own generation. Southey's conviction that his
ponderous epics would make the fortune of his children is a pleasant
instance of self-delusion. But the theory is generally admitted in
regard to Wordsworth; and Landor accepted and defended it with
characteristic vigour. 'I have published,' he says in the conversation
with Hare, 'five volumes of "Imaginary Conversations:" cut the worst of
them through the middle, and there will remain in the decimal fraction
enough to satisfy my appetite for fame. I shall dine late; but the
dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select.' He recurs
frequently to the doctrine. 'Be patient!' he says, in another character.
'From the higher heavens of poetry it is long before the radiance of the
brightest star can reach the world below. We hear that one man finds out
one beauty, another man finds out another, placing his observatory and
instruments on the poet's grave. The worms must have eaten us before we
rightly know what we are. It is only when we are skeletons that we are
boxed and ticketed and prized and shown. Be it so! I shall not be tired
of waiting.' Conscious, as he says in his own person, that in 2,000
years there have not been five volumes of prose (the work of one author)
equal to his 'Conversations,' he could indeed afford to wait: if
conscious of earthly things, he must be waiting still.
This superlative self-esteem strikes one, to say the truth, as part of
Landor's abiding boyishness. It is only in schoolboy themes that we are
still inclined to talk about the devouring love of fame. Grown-up men
look rightly with some contempt upon such aspirations. What work a man
does is really done in, or at least through, his own generation; and the
posthumous fame which poets affect to value means, for the most part,
being known by name to a few antiquarians, schoolmasters, or secluded
students. When the poet, to adopt Landor's metaphor, has become a
luminous star, his superiority to those which have grown dim by distance
is indeed for the first time clearly demonstrated. We can still see him,
though other bodies of his system have vanished into the infinite depths
of oblivion. But he has also ceased to give appreciable warmth or light
to ordinary human beings. He is a splendid name, but not a living
influence. There are, of course, exceptions and qualifications to any
such statements, but I have a suspicion that even Shakespeare's chief
work may have been done in the Globe Theatre, to living audiences, who
felt what they never thought of criticising, and were quite unable to
measure; and that, spite of all æsthetic philosophers and minute
antiquarians and judicious revivals, his real influence upon men's minds
has been for the most part declining as his fame has been spreading. To
defend or fully expound this heretical dogma would take too much space.
The 'late-dinner' theory, however, as held by Wordsworth and Landor, is
subject to one less questionable qualification. It is an utterly
untenable proposition that great men have been generally overlooked in
their own day.
If we run over the chief names of our literature, it would be hard to
point to one which was not honoured, and sometimes honoured to excess,
during its proprietor's lifetime. It is, indeed, true that much
ephemeral underwood has often hidden in part the majestic forms which
now stand out as sole relics of the forest. It is true also that the
petty spite and jealousy of contemporaries, especially of their ablest
contemporaries, has often prevented the full recognition of great men.
And there have been some whose fame, like that of Bunyan and De Foe, has
extended amongst the lower sphere of readers before receiving the
ratification of constituted judges. But such irregularities in the
distribution of fame do not quite meet the point. I doubt whether one
could mention a single case in which an author, overlooked at the time
both by the critics and the mass, has afterwards become famous; and the
cases are very rare in which a reputation once decayed has again taken
root and shown real vitality. The experiment of resuscitation has been
tried of late years with great pertinacity. The forgotten images of our
seventeenth-century ancestors have been brought out of the lumber-room
amidst immense flourishes of trumpets, but they are terribly worm-eaten;
and all efforts to make their statues once more stand firmly on their
pedestals have generally failed. Landor himself refused to see the
merits of the mere 'mushrooms,' as he somewhere called them, which grew
beneath the Shakespearian oak; and though such men as Chapman, Webster,
and Ford have received the warmest eulogies of Lamb and other able
successors, their vitality is spasmodic and uncertain. We generally read
them, if we read them, at the point of the critic's bayonet.