Studies in Literature | Page 3

high reflection set to sonorous verse, this remarkable poem
is in its whole effect unique in impressive power, as a picture of the
advance of an elect and serious spirit from childhood and school-time,
through the ordeal of adolescence, through close contact with stirring
and enormous events, to that decisive stage when it has found the
sources of its strength, and is fully and finally prepared to put its
temper to the proof.
The three Books that describe the poet's residence in France have a
special and a striking value of their own. Their presentation of the

phases of good men's minds as the successive scenes of the Revolution
unfolded themselves has real historic interest. More than this, it is an
abiding lesson to brave men how to bear themselves in hours of public
stress. It portrays exactly that mixture of persevering faith and hope
with firm and reasoned judgment, with which I like to think that Turgot,
if he had lived, would have confronted the workings of the
Revolutionary power. Great masters in many kinds have been inspired
by the French Revolution. Human genius might seem to have
exhausted itself in the burning political passion of Burke, in the
glowing melodrama of fire and tears of Carlyle, Michelet, Hugo; but
the ninth, tenth, and eleventh Books of the _Prelude_, by their
strenuous simplicity, their deep truthfulness, their slowfooted and
inexorable transition from ardent hope to dark imaginations, sense of
woes to come, sorrow for human kind, and pain of heart, breathe the
very spirit of the great catastrophe. There is none of the ephemeral
glow of the political exhortation, none of the tiresome falsity of the
dithyramb in history. Wordsworth might well wish that some dramatic
tale, endued with livelier shapes and flinging out less guarded words,
might set forth the lessons of his experience. The material was fitting.
The story of these three Books has something of the severity, the
self-control, the inexorable necessity of classic tragedy, and like classic
tragedy it has a noble end. The dregs and sour sediment that reaction
from exaggerated hope is so apt to stir in poor natures had no place
here. The French Revolution made the one crisis in Wordsworth's
mental history, the one heavy assault on his continence of soul, and
when he emerged from it all his greatness remained to him. After a
long spell of depression, bewilderment, mortification, and sore
disappointment, the old faith in new shapes was given back.
"Nature's self, By all varieties of human love Assisted, led me back
through opening day To those sweet counsels between head and heart
Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with peace, Which,
through the later sinkings of this cause, Hath still upheld me and
upholds me now."
It was six years after his return from France before Wordsworth finally
settled down in the scenes with which his name and the power of his
genius were to be for ever associated. During this interval it was that
two great sources of personal influence were opened to him. He entered

upon that close and beloved companionship with his sister, which
remained unbroken to the end of their days; and he first made the
acquaintance of Coleridge. The character of Dorothy Wordsworth has
long taken its place in the gallery of admirable and devoted women
who have inspired the work and the thoughts of great men. "She is a
woman, indeed," said Coleridge, "in mind I mean, and heart; for her
person is such that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would
think her rather ordinary; if you expected to see an ordinary woman,
you would think her pretty." To the solidity, sense, and strong
intelligence of the Wordsworth stock she added a grace, a warmth, a
liveliness peculiarly her own. Her nature shines transparent in her
letters, in her truly admirable journal, and in every report that we have
of her. Wordsworth's own feelings for her, and his sense of the debt
that he owed to her faithful affection and eager mind, he has placed on
lasting record.
The intimacy with Coleridge was, as has been said, Wordsworth's one
strong friendship, and must be counted among the highest examples of
that generous relation between great writers. Unlike in the quality of
their genius, and unlike in force of character and the fortunes of life,
they remained bound to one another by sympathies that neither time
nor harsh trial ever extinguished. Coleridge had left Cambridge in 1794,
had married, had started various unsuccessful projects for combining
the improvement of mankind with the earning of an income, and was
now settled in a small cottage at Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, with
an acre and a half of land, from which he hoped to raise corn and
vegetables enough to support himself