roaring like the sea with the noise of the streams in flood, while a star above the mountain-top seemed to listen quietly to the tumult. As he walked the lonely road his depression was lifted, and comfort slid into his heart : A Power is passing from the earth That Man, who is from God sent forth, Then wherefore should we mourn? CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION When POETRY and Religion, which Wordsworth often compared, have many points in common. a great poet appears, the history of the process whereby his work comes to be appreciated and accepted is singularly like the early history of any one of the religions of mankind that sprang from single Founders. The prophet at first is reviled, or despised, or merely neglected. Then he finds disciples, who, though they understand his teaching but imperfectly and see his vision. but obscurely, yet in their partial understanding and partial insight are strong enough to move the world. But the original impulse weakens as it spreads; the living passion is petrified in codes and creeds; the revelation becomes a commonplace; and so the religion that began in vision ends in orthodoxy. When once it has reached this stage new dangers beset it, for now its general acceptance attracts men to profess it for ends of their own, which, whether they be laudable or base, bear little or no resemblance to the aims of the Founder. Much of his startling doctrine is explained away, or pared down, or assimilated to the verdicts of commonThe cry of revolt from the old order becomes the watchword of authority under a new order which in all essential respects differs but little from the old. sense. The history of the appreciation of any great poet exhibits itself, therefore, like the history of religion, in a series of revivals. From time to time, one man here and another there reads the classic page sincerely and simply, neglecting the commentators, and finds in it novelty and power. He puts aside the critical books which, as Wordsworth said, Effeminately level down the truth To certain general notions, for the sake and attempts to enter into closer sympathy of mind and heart with the first author. A new meaning shines for him in the old threadbare texts, and he begins to understand that a poet is not a purveyor to established tastes but a shaping and compelling force, a light thrown on the dark places of changeful human experience. There are, no doubt, easier ways of reading than this. By the discrimination of a trained taste the most striking beauties of a volume of poems may be selected, and by the aid of a wide comparative learning they may be illustrated and annotated. But much of this work can be done by one who is half asleep, deaf to the music and impervious to the influence of the poet himself. Something of the freshness of emotion that went to the first making of the poem, something of the excitement, the glee, the passion, must be shared by the intending critic; if he is to understand what the poet meant, he must feel as the poet felt. He In this attempt to follow Wordsworth we have watched him making his way along the precipitous edge which is the boundary of thought. We have seen him, in his effort to grapple with the mystery of the common things of life, trying all new ways-breaking with literary tradition, with social usage, with language itself, lest they should encumber his further progress. attained to a clearer and truer view of life than is granted to most poets, and he paid the price of this great happiness in a great and incurable solitude of spirit. The seer is always solitary; and, for good or for evil, it remains true that to reach Wordsworth's height of contemplation, to taste the pure sources of the solace that he found, and to be glad with his gladness, a man must cut himself off from not a few of the pleasures that come to the dusty, kindly traffickers in the valley. There are souls who would refuse vision on these terms; would shut their eyes to truth rather than separate themselves from their fellows by that airy, impassable barrier which a difference of faculty creates. Human sympathy, full and mutual, is what they hold by; they would rather forego faith than let it for an instant seem to cast a shadow upon charity. Perhaps something of this was felt by Wordsworth in his later years; he grew tolerant with the tolerance of age, and relapsed into the modes of thought and speech that he found in the society around him. But it is not the Wordsworth of the early years of Queen Victoria, the Churchman and Tory, whose companionship enlightens and befriends the later reader, it is the strong and daring pioneer of a younger day. He failed, it must be admitted, in many of the things that he attempted; failed more signally and obviously than other great poets who have made a more prudent estimate of human powers and have chosen a task to match their strength. He pressed onward to a point where speech fails and drops into silence, where thought is baffled, and turns back upon its own footsteps. But it is a good discipline to follow that intense and fervid spirit, as far as may be, to the heights that denied him access. There is a certain degra |