(c) RECOLLECTIONS OF TOUR IN ITALY, BY H.C. ROBINSON.
Oct. 18. 1850.
MY DEAR SIR,
I feel quite ashamed, I assure you, of sending you the Itinerary of my journey with Mr. Wordsworth, so poorly accompanied as it must be, and the more, because Mr. Wordsworth seems to have thought that I might be able to make a contribution to your work worth your acceptance. At the same time, I am much relieved by recollecting that he himself cared nothing for the connection which a place might have with a great poet, unless an acquaintance with it served to illustrate his works. He made this remark in the Church of St. Onofrio at Rome, where Tasso lies buried. The place which, on this account, interested him more than any other on the journey was Vaucluse, while he cared nothing for Arezzo, which claims to be the place of Petrarch’s birth. Indeed, a priest on the spot, on another visit, said it is not certain that he was born there, much less in the house marked with his name. Mr. W. was not without the esprit de corps, even before his official dignity, and took great interest in Savona, on account of Chiabrera, as appears in the ‘Musings near Aquapendente,’ perhaps the most beautiful of these Memorials of the Italian tour — ’alas too few!’ As he himself repeatedly said of the journey, ‘It is too late.’ ‘I have matter for volumes,’ he said once, ‘had I but youth to work it up.’ It is remarkable how in this admirable poem meditation predominates over observation. It often happened that objects of universal attraction served chiefly to bring back to his mind absent objects dear to him. When we were on that noble spot, the Amphitheatre at Nismes, I observed his eyes fixed in a direction where there was the least to be seen; and, looking that way, I beheld two very young children at play with flowers; and I overheard him say to himself, ‘Oh! you darlings, I wish I could put you in my pocket and carry you to Rydal Mount.’
It was Mr. Theed, the sculptor, who informed us of the pine tree being the gift of Sir George Beaumont. This incident occurred within a few minutes after our walking up the Pincian Hill. And this was the very first observation Mr. W. made at Rome.
It was a remark justly made on the Memorials of the Swiss Journey in 1820, that Mr. W. left unnoticed the great objects which have given rise to innumerable common-place verses and huge piles of bad prose, and which every body talks about, while he dwelt on impressions peculiar to himself. As a reproach, nothing can be more idle and unmeaning. I expected it would be so with these latter poems, and so I found it. There are not more than two others which bring anything to my mind.
The most important of these is the ‘Cuckoo at Laverna.’ I recollect perfectly well that I heard the cuckoo at Laverna twice before he heard it; and that it absolutely fretted him that my ear was first favoured; and that he exclaimed with delight, ‘I hear it! I hear it!’ It was at Laverna, too, that he led me to expect that he had found a subject on which he would write; and that was the love which birds bore to St. Francis. He repeated to me a short time afterwards a few lines, which I do not recollect among those he has written on St. Francis in this poem. On the journey, one night only I heard him in bed composing verses, and on the following day I offered to be his amanuensis; but I was not patient enough, I fear, and he did not employ me a second time. He made inquiries for St. Francis’s biography, as if he would dub him his Leib-heiliger (body-saint), as Goethe (saying that every one must have one) declared St. Philip Neri to be his.
The painter monk at Camaldoli also interested him, but he heard my account only in addition to a very poor exhibition of professional talent; but he would not allow the pictures to be so very poor, as every nun ought to be beautiful when she takes the veil.
I recollect, too, the pleasure he expressed when I said to him, ‘You are now sitting in Dante’s chair.’ It faces the south transept of the cathedral at Florence.
I have been often asked whether Mr. W. wrote anything on the journey, and my answer has always been, ‘Little or nothing.’ Seeds were cast into the earth, and they took root slowly. This reminds me that I once was privy to the conception of a sonnet, with a distinctness which did not once occur on the longer Italian journey. This was when I accompanied him into the Isle of Man. We had been drinking tea with Mr. and Mrs. Cookson, and left them when the weather was dull. Very soon after leaving them we passed the church tower of Bala Sala. The upper part of the tower had a sort of frieze of yellow lichens. Mr. W. pointed it out to me, and said, ‘It’s a perpetual sunshine.’ I thought no more of it, till I read the beautiful sonnet,
‘Broken in fortune, but in mind entire;’
and then I exclaimed, I was present at the conception of this sonnet, at least of the combination of thought out of which it arose.
I beg to subscribe myself, with sincere esteem,
Faithfully yours,
H.C. ROBINSON.
(d) REMINISCENCES OF WORDSWORTH.
BY LADY RICHARDSON, AND MRS. DAVY, OF THE OAKS, AMBLESIDE.
(1.) LADY RICHARDSON.
Lancrigg, Easedale, August 26. 1841.
Wordsworth made some striking remarks on Goethe in a walk on the terrace yesterday. He thinks that the German poet is greatly overrated, both in this country and his own. He said, ‘He does not seem to me to be a great poet in either of the classes of poets. At the head of the first class I would place Homer and Shakspeare, whose universal minds are able to reach every variety of thought and feeling without bringing their own individuality before the reader. They infuse, they breathe life into every object they approach, but you never find themselves. At the head of the second class, those whom you can trace individually in all they write, I would place Spenser and Milton. In all that Spenser writes you can trace the gentle affectionate spirit of the man; in all that Milton writes you find the exalted sustained being that he was. Now in what Goethe writes, who aims to be of the first class, the universal, you find the man himself, the artificial man, where he should not be found; so consider him a very artificial writer, aiming to be universal, and yet constantly exposing his individuality, which his character was not of a kind to dignify. He had not sufficiently clear moral perceptions to make him anything but an artificial writer.
Tuesday, the 2d of May, Wordsworth and Miss F. came early to walk about and dine. He was in a very happy kindly mood. We took a walk on the terrace, and he went as usual to his favourite points. On our return he was struck with the berries on the holly tree, and said, ‘Why should not you and I go and pull some berries from the other side of the tree, which is not seen from the window? and then we can go and plant them in the rocky ground behind the house.’ We pulled the berries, and set forth with our tool. I made the holes, and the Poet put in the berries. He was as earnest and eager about it, as if it had been a matter of importance; and as he put the seeds in, he every now and then muttered, in his low solemn tone, that beautiful verse from Burns’s ‘Vision:’
‘And wear thou this, she solemn said, And bound the holly round my head. The polished leaves and berries red Did rustling play; And like a passing thought she fled In light away.’
He clambered to the highest rocks in the ‘Tom Intake,’ and put in the berries in such situations as Nature sometimes does with such true and beautiful effect. He said, ‘I like to do this for posterity. Some people are selfish enough to say, What has posterity done for me? but the past does much for us.’
(II.) ADDITIONAL SENT TO THE PRESENT EDITOR BY LADY RICHARDSON.
August 28th, 1841. — Mr. Wordsworth, Miss Fenwick, and Mrs. Hill came to dine, and it rained on the whole day, but happily the Poet talked on from two to eight without being weary, as we certainly were not. After dinner, when we came to the drawing-room, the conversation turned on the treatment of Wordsworth by the reviews of the day. I had never heard him open out on it before, and was much struck with the manner in which he did it; from his present elevation looking calmly back on the past, and at the same time feeling that an irreparable injury had been done to him at the time when life and hope were young. As nearly as I can I shall record his words as they were spoken. He s
aid:
‘At the time I resolved to dedicate myself to poetry and separate myself from the ordinary lucrative professions, it would certainly have been a great object to me to have reaped the profits I should have done from my writings but for the stupidity of Mr. Gifford and the impertinence of Mr. Jeffrey. It would have enabled me to purchase many books which I could not obtain, and I should have gone to Italy earlier, which I never could afford to do until I was sixty-five, when Moxon gave me a thousand pounds for my writings. This was the only kind of injury Mr. Jeffrey did me, for I immediately perceived that his mind was of that kind that his individual opinion on poetry was of no consequence to me whatever, that it was only by the influence his periodical exercised at the time in preventing my poems being read and sold that he could injure me; for feeling that my writings were founded on what was true and spiritual in human nature, I knew the time would come when they must be known, and I never therefore felt his opinion of the slightest value, except in preventing the young of that generation from receiving impressions which might have been of use to them through life. I say this, I hope not in a boasting spirit, but I am now daily surprised by receiving letters from various places at home and abroad expressive of gratitude to me from persons I never saw or heard of. As this occurs now, I may fairly conclude that it might have been so when the poems appeared, but for the tyranny exercised over public opinion by the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews.’
December 1841. — Wordsworth and Miss Fenwick spent the shortest day of the year with us; he brought with him his Epitaph on Southey, and as we sat round the fire after dinner, my mother asked him to read it to us, which he did in his usual impressive manner. He asked our impression of it. My mother ventured to tell him of one word, or rather two, which she thought might be altered with advantage. They were these:
‘Wide was his range, but ne’er in human breast Did private feeling find a holier nest.’
‘Holier nest’ were the words she objected to, as not being a correct union of ideas. He took the suggestion most kindly, and said it had been much discussed in his own mind and in his family circle, but that he saw the force of what she said, and that he was aware many others would see it also. He said there was yet time to change it, and that he should consult Judge Coleridge whether the line, as he once had it,
‘Did private feeling meet in holier rest,’
would not be more appropriate to the simplicity of an epitaph where you con every word, and where every word is expected to bear an exact meaning. We all thought this was an improvement. During tea he talked with great animation of the separation of feeling between the rich and poor in this country; the reason of this he thinks is the greater freedom we enjoy; that the line of demarcation not being so clearly laid down in this country by the law as in others, people fancy they must make it for themselves. He considers Christianity the only cure for this state of things. He spoke of his own desire to carry out the feeling of brotherhood with regard to servants, which he all along endeavoured to do. He doubted whether he might not have had better servants on a different system; but he thought it right to endeavour to inspire your domestics with a feeling of common interest. My mother said she entirely agreed with him, but she had always found it most difficult.
(III.) LADY RICHARDSON (CONTINUED).
November 1843. — Wordsworth holds the critical power very low, infinitely lower than the inventive; and he said to-day that if the quantity of time considered in writing critiques on the works of others were given to original composition, of whatever kind it might be, it would be much better employed; it would make a man find out sooner his own level, and it would do infinitely less mischief. A false or malicious criticism may do much injury to the minds of others; a stupid invention, either in prose or verse, is quite harmless.
December 22d, 1843. — The shortest day is past, and it was a very pleasant one to us, for Wordsworth and Miss Fenwick offered to spend it with us. They came early, and, although it was misty and dingy, he proposed to walk up Easedale. We went by the terrace, and through the little gate on the Fell, round by Brimmer Head, having diverged a little up from Easedale, nearly as far as the ruined cottage. He said, when he and his sister wandered there so much, that cottage was inhabited by a man of the name of Benson, a waller, its last inhabitant. He said on the terrace, ‘This is a striking anniversary to me; for this day forty-four years ago, my sister and I took up our abode at Grasmere, and three days after we found out this walk, which long remained our favourite haunt.’ There is always something very touching in his way of speaking of his sister; the tones of his voice become more gentle and solemn, and he ceases to have that flow of expression which is so remarkable in him on all other subjects. It is as if the sadness connected with her present condition was too much for him to dwell upon in connection with the past, although habit and the ‘omnipotence of circumstance’ have made its daily presence less oppressive to his spirits. He said that his sister spoke constantly of their early days, but more of the years they spent together in other parts of England than those at Grasmere. As we proceeded on our walk he happened to speak of the frequent unhappiness of married persons, and the low and wretched principles on which the greater number of marriages were formed. He said that unless there was a strong foundation of love and respect, the ‘unavoidable breaks and cataracts’ of domestic life must soon end in mutual aversion, for that married life ought not to be in theory, and assuredly it never was in practice, a system of mere submission on either side, but it should be a system of mutual cooperation for the good of each. If the wife is always expected to conceal her difference of opinion from her husband, she ceases to be an equal, and the man loses the advantage which the marriage tie is intended to provide for him in a civilised and Christian country. He then went on to say, that, although he never saw an amiable single woman without wishing that she were married, from his strong feeling of the happiness of a well-assorted marriage, yet he was far from thinking that marriage always improved people. It certainly did not, unless it was a congenial marriage.
(IV.) Mrs. DAVY.
‘The Oaks, Ambleside, Monday, Jan. 22. 1844.
While Mrs. Quillinan was sitting with us to-day, Henry Fletcher ran in to say that he had reserved his summons for Oxford (he had been in suspense about rooms as an exhibitioner at Balliol), and must be off within an hour. His young cousins and I went down with him to wait for the mail in the marketplace. We found Mr. Wordsworth walking about before the post-office door in very charming mood. His spirits were excited by the bright morning sunshine, and he entered at once on a full flow of discourse. He looked very benevolently on Henry as he mounted on the top of the coach, and seemed quite disposed to give an old man’s blessing to the young man entering on an untried field, and then (nowise interrupted by the hurrying to and fro of ostlers with their smoking horses, or passengers with their carpet bags) he launched into a dissertation, in which there was, I thought, a remarkable union of his powerful diction, and his practical, thoughtful good sense, on the subject of college habits, and of his utter distrust of all attempts to nurse virtue by an avoidance of temptation. He expressed also his entire want of confidence (from experience he said) of highly-wrought religious expression in youth. The safest training for the mind in religion he considered to be a contemplating of the character and personal history of Christ. ‘Work it,’ he said, ‘into your thoughts, into your imagination, make it a real presence in the mind.’ I was rejoiced to hear this plain, loving confession of a Christian faith from Wordsworth. I never heard one more earnest, more as if it came out of a devoutly believing heart.
The Oaks, March 5. 1844.
On our way to Lancrigg to-day, we called at Foxhow. We met Mr. Wordsworth there, and asked him to go with us. It was a beautiful day, one of his very own ‘mild days’ of this month. He kindly consented, and walked with us to meet the carriage at Pelter Bridge. On our drive, he mentioned, with marked pleasure, a dedication written by Mr. Keble, and sent to him for his approval, and
for his permission to have it prefixed to Mr. Keble’s new volumes of Latin Lectures on Poetry delivered at Oxford. Mr. Wordsworth said that he had never seen any estimate of his poetical powers, or more especially of his aims in poetry, that appeared to him so discriminating and so satisfactory. He considers praise a perilous and a difficult thing. On this subject he often quotes his lamented friend, Sir George Beaumont, whom, in his intercourse with men of genius, literary aspirants, he describes as admirable in the modesty which he inculcated and practised on this head.
The Oaks, Ambleside, July 11. 1844.
Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth at dinner, along with our family party. Mr. and Mrs. Price (from Rugby), two aunts of Mrs. P.’s, and her brother, Mr. Rose, a young clergyman (a devout admirer of Wordsworth), joined us at tea. A circle was made as large as our little parlour could hold. Mr. Price sat next to Mr. Wordsworth, and by design or fortunate accident, introduced some remark on the powers and the discourse of Coleridge. Mr. Wordsworth entered heartily and largely on the subject. He said that the liveliest and truest image he could give of Coleridge’s talk was ‘that of a majestic river, the sound or sight of whose course you caught at intervals, which was sometimes concealed by forests, sometimes lost in sand, then came flashing out broad and distinct, then again took a turn which your eye could not follow, yet you knew and felt that it was the same river: so,’ he said, ‘there was always a train, a stream, in Coleridge’s discourse, always a connection between its parts in his own mind, though one not always perceptible to the minds of others.’ Mr. Wordsworth went on to say, that in his opinion Coleridge had been spoilt as a poet by going to Germany. The bent of his mind, which was at all times very much to metaphysical theology, had there been fixed in that direction. ‘If it had not been so,’ said Wordsworth, ‘he would have been the greatest, the most abiding poet of his age. His very faults would have made him popular (meaning his sententiousness and laboured strain), while he had enough of the essentials of a poet to make him deservedly popular in a higher sense.’
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