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They will act in each case for the best, that is, for the happiness of the greatest number, without slavery to formulas. His political ideal is, therefore, individualism or atomism; the doctrine of liberty raised to the highest terms. Thus, for example, marriage is an absurdity. If two people agree to live together, they are "unreasonable" to enslave themselves to a tie which may become irksome. They should be free to part at any moment. Society should be nothing but an aggregate of independent units, bound together by no rules whatever. A rule should never survive its reason, and the only reason for a rule is the calculation that it will make us happy.

The doctrine had an apparent consistency, at least, which served to show Wordsworth whither he was going. Two curious poems of this period illustrate his feelings. After leaving the Isle of Wight, Wordsworth had rambled over Salisbury Plain and been profoundly impressed by the scenery. There, too, he had apparently heard the story which is told in one of the best "Ingoldsby Legends." In 1786,1 one Jarvis Matcham had been startled by a thunderstorm and confessed to a companion that he had committed a murder ("scuttled a poor little drummer-boy's nob," as Barham puts it) some years before. In Wordsworth's version, the murderer is not a "bloodthirsty swab." but an amiable person, who "would not have robbed the raven of its food." He had been seized by a press-gang, and finding on his return that his family were in distress, had robbed and murdered a miscellaneous traveller for their benefit; an act possibly excusable on Godwin's principles. With this story Wordsworth combined another of the "female vagrant," whose cruel sufferings were due to her husband having been forced into the army. This represents, as he tells us, foreboding thoughts which came to him when watching the British Fleet at Spithead. He foresaw that the war was leading to

1 The story, which Barham says came to him from Sir Walter Scott, is told in the New Annual Register for 1786.

"misery beyond all possible calculation." Wretched men were being forcibly torn from their families; and plunged not only into misery, but into crime. The horrors of war are bad enough, but they involve also a difficult moral problem, when the victims not only suffer, but are demoralized; and painful forebodings were combined with bewilderment as to ethical puzzles. Was the murderer most to blame or the tyrants who had crushed his life; and what are we to think of the Providential government under which such things are possible and even natural? The moral problem is more prominent in the curious tragedy, the "Borderers." That tragedy, received with rapture by his new friend, Coleridge, was written, he says, to be read, not to be acted; and, like most tragedies so written, has almost failed to find readers, as it quite failed to find actors. Had he written it later, he says, he should have introduced a more complex plot, and a greater variety of characters. He might have tried, but nobody could have a less dramatic genius than Wordsworth, or was less qualified to describe any character except his own. The "Borderers," however, is noticeable here only as an illustration of his state of mind. It was meant to embody a theory, upon which at the time he wrote a prose essay-namely, how we are to explain the "apparently motiveless actions of bad men." His villain is a man who erroneously supposed that he was joining in an act of justice when he was really becoming accomplice in an atrocious crime. Having found out his mistake, he resolves-not to repent, but in future to commit any number of crimes on his own account. Conscience is a nuisance and remorse a mistake. The villain not only acts upon his principles, but endeavors to subject the hero of the piece to a similar process of conversion. The hero, in fact, is induced by his machinations to cause the death of a virtuous old gentleman, under specially atrocious circumstances. The villain calculates that having thus become an unconscious sinner, the hero will in future be a systematic and delib

the problems which Wordsworth tells
us brought him into endless perplexity.
What, after all, was the meaning of
right and wrong, and obligation: What
was the lordly "attribute" of freewill
but a mockery, if we have neither any
real knowledge of what will do good,
nor of why we should do it? He could,
he says, "unsoul by syllogistic words"
the "mysteries of being" which make
"of the whole human race one brother-
hood." It was in the name of the
brotherhood that the revolutionary
teachers appealed to him; and yet God-
win, as a prophet, ended by dissolving
all society into a set of unconnected
atoms. M. Legouis remarks that
Wordsworth "purged himself of his
pessimism" after the fashion of Goethe,
by putting it into a book. This, how-
ever, must not be taken to imply that
Wordsworth ever shared the atrocious
sentiments of his imaginary villain.
The "Borderers" naturally recalls
Schiller's "Robbers," from which, as it
had just been translated, Wordsworth
may have taken a hint. Wordsworth's
villian and hero are contrasted much as
Schiller's two Moors. But it could
never have been expected that any
young Englishman would, like the al-
leged German baron, have taken
the highway to realize Wordsworth's
imaginary personages. The "Border-
ers" is not only without the imagina-
tive vigor which at the time made
Schiller's bombast excusable-the prod-
uct of a contemplative speculation in-
stead of youthful passion; but it is plain
enough that he loathes his villain too
much to allow him the least attractive-
ness. The play represents the kind of
moral spasm by which a man repels a
totally uncongenial element of thought.
He had found that what he took for a
wholesome food contained a deadly
poison, and to become conscious of its
nature is to expel it with disgust.

erate sinner, and a convenient sub- the "Borderers?" These are, in fact, ordinate. I do not feel much clearer, I confess, as to apparently motiveless actions after reading the play than before. The villain's sophistry does not strike me as very plausible, nor his motives, on his own showing, very intelligible. Wordsworth's own state of mind, however, is clearer. He had, he says, seen many such cases during the advance of the French Revolution, "to the extreme of wickedness." Men are led into crime from originally good motives, and there is then no limit to the consequent "hardening of the heart and perversion of the understanding." Robespierre, whose fall had rejoiced him, had started from most benevolent principles, and ended by becoming the typical monster. The temporary success, too, of the villainy, and the perversion of power granted in the name of human liberty to a crushing and bloodthirsty tyranny, was bewildering. "Often," says Coleridge in the "Friend," "have I reflected with awe on the great and disproportionate power which an individual of no extraordinary talents or attainments may exert, by merely throwing off all restraints of conscience." And what, he adds, "must not be the power of an individual of consummate wickedness, who can or ganize all the forces of a nation?" Robespierre, or Napoleon would have found conscience a great impediment. Godwin's theory seemed to Wordsworth to make it superfluous. Godwin would suppress conscience, and substitute calculation. No doubt for him the calculation was to include the happiness of all. Only, when you have suppressed all ties and associations, it becomes rather puzzling to say what reason you have for caring for others. If husbands and wives may part when it is agreeable to both, will they not part when it is agreeable to either? If a statesman may break through all laws, when they oppose a useful end, will he not most simply define useful as useful to himself? Take leave, in other words, of all prejudices and all respect for social bonds, and are you not on the highroad to become such a one as the villain of

to

What was the influence, then, which opened Wordsworth's eyes and caused what seemed, at least, to be a change of front? He answers that question himself by referring to two influences. The first was the influence of the de

the universal heart." Nature is equally corrupted in the "close and over-crowded haunts of cities." But in the poor men, who reminded him of his early friends, of the schoolmaster "Matthew," and old Dame Tyson, he found the voice of the real man; and observed "how oft high service is performed within" men's hearts which resemble not pompous temples, but the "mere mountain chapel." Was not this to go back to Rousseau, to denunciations of luxury and exaltations of the man of nature? Wordsworth had been converted to the revolution by the sight of the poor peasant girl, the victim of feudal privileges-why should he renounce the revolution by force of sympathy with the same class in England?

voted sister who now came to live with him. She pointed out to him that his "office upon earth" was to be a poet. She persuaded him, one may say, to cease to bother himself with Godwin's metaphysics, with puzzles as to freewill and necessity, and the ground of moral obligation, and to return to his early aspirations. If this bit of advice fell in with his own predisposition, the influence of Dorothy Wordsworth was something far more than could be summed up in any advice, however judicious. It meant, in brief, that Wordsworth had by his side a woman of high enthusiasm and cognate genius, thoroughly devoted to him and capable of sharing his inspiration; and that thus the "undomestic wanderer" was to be bound by one of the sweetest and purest of human ties. His early affections, hitherto deprived of any outlet, could now revive and his profound sense of their infinite value encouraged to break the chains of logic, or rather to set down the logic as sophistry. Godwinism meant a direct assault upon the family tie; and that tie was now revealing its value by direct experience of its power. The friendship with Coleridge, then in the full flush of youthful genius, and the most delightful and generous of admirers, came to encourage the growth of such feelings; while Coleridge's mystical tendencies in philosophy probably suggested some solution of the Godwin "syllogizing." Perhaps, after all, Godwin might be a humbug, and the true key to the great problems was to be found in Germany, where both the young men were soon to go for initiation. Meanwhile, however, another influence was affecting Wordsworth. His sister had led him back to nature, and he now found that nature should include the unsophisticated human being. He rambled as of old, and in his rambles found that the "lonely roads were open schools" in which he might study the passions and thoughts of unsophisticated human beings. The result was remarkable. He found nobility and sense in the humble friends. The "wealthy few" I must not, however, speak of Wordssee by "artificial lights," and "neglect worth's pathetic power, which, in its

Before answering, I may remark that in any case the impression was deep and lasting. It shows how Wordsworth reached his famous theory that the language of poetry should be indistinguishable from that of ordinary life. That is merely the literary translation of his social doctrine. He and Coleridge have both told us how they agreed to divide labor, and, while Coleridge was to give human interest to the romantic, Wordsworth was to show the romance which is incorporated in commonplace things. Wordsworth proceeded to write the poems which appeared in the "Lyrical Ballads;" and, if his theory tripped him up sometimes, wrote some of those exquisite and pathetic passages which amply redeem intervening tracts of quaintly prosaic narrative and commonplace moralizing-some of the passages, in short, which make one love Wordsworth, and feel his unequalled power of soothing and humanizing sorrow. "Simon Lee"-to mention only one-was the portrait of an old man at Alfoxden. If you are apt to yawn in the middle you recognize the true Wordsworth at the conclusion:

I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of man

Hath oftener left me mourning!

way, seems to me to be unapproachable. thus protect a "fountain of affection Henceforward, he found in such themes the inspiration of his truest poetry. The principle is given in the "Song at the Feast at Brougham Castle," where he says of the shepherd lord:

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie,

His daily teachers had been fields and rills,

and in countless other utterances of the same sentiment. A change, indeed, took place, of which M. Legouis gives a curious illustration. About the beginning of 1798, Wordsworth, as he shows, wrote the story of the ruined cottage which is now imbedded in the fifth book of the "Excursion." M. Legouis translates the story, omitting the subsequent interpolations. Coleridge, long afterwards, declared it to be the finest poem of the same length in our language. The poem, as originally written, is a painfully pathetic story of undeserved misery patiently born, and ending in the destruction of a peasant's household. In the later form the

narrator has to interrupt himself by apologies for the sadness of the story and edifying remarks upon the ways of Providence. Wordsworth, somehow or other, had become reconciled.

The change was not the abandonment of his old sentiments, but the indication that they were again coming to the surface and casting off a heterogeneous element. The superficial change, indeed, was marked enough. To Wordsworth, the revolutionary movement now represented not progress—the natural expansion of his sympathies - but social disintegration and the attack upon all that he held to be the most valuable. The secret is revealed by his remarkable letter to Fox in 1801. There he calls the statesman's attention to two of his most significant poems, "The Brothers" and "Michael." These poems are intended to describe the domestic affections "as they exist among a class of men now almost confined to the North of England." He observes that the little holdings of the "statesmen" serve to strengthen the family tie, and

pure as his heart was intended for." This class, he adds, is rapidly disappearing, and its disappearance indicates the greatest of our national dangers. These most touching poems written in 1800 represent Wordsworth's final solution of his problem and embody a sentiment which runs through his later work. Its meaning is clear enough. Wordsworth had begun to feel that Godwin's antisocial logic had an embodiment in facts. What he now saw behind it was not Rousseau's sentimentalism, but the harsh doctrinaire system of the economists. The theorists who professed to start from the rights of man were really attacking the essential social duties. Godwinism meant the "individualism" of the later economists. Individualism meant the reckless competition and race for wealth which was destroying the very framework of peaceful society. The English Radical represented Adam Smith; and Wordsworth now perceived

How dire a thing

The "Wealth of Nations."
Is worshipped in that idol, proudly named

The evils which now impressed him were the absorption of small freeholds by large estates, and the growth of the factory system in the place of domestic manufacture. He dwells upon these evils in the "Excursion" in language which is a foretaste of much modern Socialism. Wordsworth had plenty of allies in this view of the case. While he was renouncing the principle of Individualism, Owen was beginning to put in practice the schemes suggested by the same evils, and leading to his later Socialism. Cobbett was lamenting the demoralization of the agricultural laborer, and taking up his curious position of Radicalism inspired by regret for the "good old times." There is no need, at the present day, for expounding such views or explaining why it should appear to Wordsworth that the revolutionary movement which had started by taking up the cause of the poor had ended by assailing the very bases of order and morality. The for

eign developments, the growth of a military despotism, and the oppression of Switzerland by France in the name of fraternity, no doubt seemed clear justifications of his attitude. But he had sufficient reasons at home. The Radical, with whom he had been allied, was attacking what he held dearest, not only destroying the privileges of nobles, but breaking up the poor man's home, and creating a vast "proletariat"-a mass of degraded humanity-instead of encouraging "plain living and high thinking," and destroying the classes whose simplicity and independence had made them the soundest element of mutual prosperity. I do noɩ, of course, enquire how far Wordsworth's estimate of the situation was sound. I only say that this explains how he reached it naturally and consistently. It was, as I have said, anything but a purely logical process, though it may be said that it was guided by an implicit logic. It really meant that he became aware of the fact that his instincts had led him into the camp of his real enemies. When he realized the fact, he stuck to his instincts, and, indeed, regarded them as due to divine inspiration. They were attacked by the revolutionary party. He would find in them not only the source of happiness, but the ultimate revelation of religion and morality:

The primal duties shine aloft like stars; The charities that soothe and heal and bless

would once have rejected. But it was also the source of a power which should be recognized by men of a different belief. When J. S. Mill went through the mental crisis described in his "Autobiography," he thought that he had injured his powers of feeling by the habit of constant analysis. He had so destroyed the associations and with them the sympathies which make life desirable. In this state of mind he found an aumirable restorative in Wordsworth's poetry. "Analysis" represents just the intellectual habit which Wordsworth denounces. It is the state of mind in which his imaginary man of science botanizes upon his mother's grave; picks the flowers to pieces and drops the sentiment. Mill, accordingly, tried and tried, he says successfully, to adopt Wordsworth's method to find happiness in "tranquil contemplation," while yet strengthening his interest in the "common feelings and common destiny of human beings." With "culture of this sort," he says, "there was nothing to dread from the most confirmed habit of analysis." If Mill's great aim was to "humanize" political economy, he drew from Wordsworth encouragement for the task. This point of contact between two men, each of whom represents much that was most antipathetic to the other, is significant. It suggests much upon which I cannot dwell; but it may hint to the Radical that Wordsworth, in giving up a doc

Are scattered at the feet of men like trine which he never really assimilated,

flowers.

Wordsworth's ultimate doctrine, one may say, is the duty of cherishing the "intimations of immortality," which visit our infancy, to transmute sorrow into purifying and strengthening influence, and so to "build up our moral being." In his particular case, this, no doubt, meant that the boy of Hawkshead was to be the father of the man who could not be permanently held by the logical toils of Godwin. It meant, too, a certain self-complacency and an optimistic tendency which, however pleasant. dulled his poetic fervor, and made him acquiesce in much that he

was faithful to convictions which, partial or capable of perversion as they may be, represent a very important aspect of truth.

LESLIE STEPHEN.

From The London Times. THE STORY OF NANSEN'S ACHIEVEMENT ↑ Dr. Nansen and his comrades have

1 Fridtjof Nansen's "Farthest North," being the Narrative of the Voyage and Exploration of the Fram, 1893-96, and the Fifteen Months' Sledge Expedition. By Doctor Nansen and Lieutenant Johansen, with an Appendix by Otto Sverdrup. Westminster : Constable and Co., 1897.

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