CHAPTER III IMAGINATION'S BROKEN SLUMBER. NATURE AND MAN IN THE ALPS. NATURE AND MAN IN THE CITY In October, 1787, when seventeen and a half years old, Wordsworth entered St. John's College, Cambridge, as an undergraduate. In "The Prelude" he does not speak very enthusiastically of the benefits derived from his college life. He evidently was not in sympathy with much of the formal instruction there, nor did he have great reverence for those in authority. The general life of the college also failed to appeal to him to any considerable extent. He felt that, by temperament and training, he was not fitted for such an environment. Still, with all of his misgivings, he had his solaces. These came from a consciousness of "holy powers and faculties" with which Nature had endowed him.1 Often he withdrew from his comrades and the ordinary scenes and experiences of the day, and as he walked alone through the fields his mind would return into herself and be refreshed. At times, "as if awakened, summoned, roused, constrained," he says: I looked for universal things; perused I called on both to teach me what they might; Or turning the mind in upon herself, Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts And spread them with a wider creeping; felt Incumbencies more awful, visitings Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul, 1 The Prelude, III, 88 f. 2 Ibid., 106-121. Here, too, as in the Hawkshead days, he invested Nature with spirit, attributing to things not only life but moral life. His mystical soul was functioning. Everything had meaning, even the loose stones lying in the road. Exceedingly sensitive and obedient to Nature's various aspects, he lived in a world of his own creation and was happy in its conscious possession. The description of his riches amid the poverty of his other experiences is very interesting, and relieves the somewhat melancholy account of his Cambridge life: I was mounting now To such community with highest truth - To every natural form, rock, fruit, or flower, Or linked them to some feeling: the great mass To the sky's influence in a kindred mood I made it, for it only lived to me, And to the God who sees into the heart.1 Here his mysticism seems even more pronounced than before. He attributes not only life but moral life to things—even to loose stones covering the highway. For him the whole world of so-called corporeal things lies embedded "in a quickening soul." We see at a glance how far removed this is from the ordinary view of the material world. An apprehension of corporeal reality 1 The Prelude, III, 122-143. that invests with moral life the stones lying in the road indicates a nature endowed with profound mystical insight, and the student of Wordsworth's Nature poetry will fail utterly to understand his spiritual conception and interpretation of things if he does not study them in their relation to his mystical nature. Wherever we find the gleam in his Nature poetry, it is the mystical gleam. Wherever we find the vision, it is the mystical vision. And the meaning that things have is a meaning for Man, and it is an ethical and spiritual meaning. They impart lessons to Man's moral and spiritual nature. Things themselves are possessed of spirit, and live and move and have their being in an omnipresent Spirit, and their office is to minister unto spirit. Wordsworth manifested his feelings and sympathies, sometimes in gestures and looks, in such a manner that those observing him thought him afflicted with a kind of madness, but he understood it and was not disturbed. It was a heavenly endowment that acquainted him with the spirit of things and enabled him to commune with them. If "steady moods of thoughtfulness matured to inspiration," if prophecy, if poetic vision, or the vision of primeval man may be called madness, then indeed was Wordsworth mad. This was not madness, however, but merely a unique spiritual sympathy with, and mystical insight into, Reality. These exalted moods, with their illuminating visions, were the "god-like hours" of his life at Cambridge. Still he was not insensible to university life. Often such moods gave way to the pastimes incident to such a place. The sight of so many young men, gathered from different quarters, at this renowned institution, had its influence upon him. It was a scene good to behold. There was also a social side to his nature. Often he went with the throng, loving the idleness and joy of good fellowship. Then, too, Wordsworth was not utterly devoid of sentiment, indifferent to the memories of the place. He could not walk the ground trod by generations of illustrious poets and philosophers without being stirred in spirit. It was not a matter of indifference to him that Newton, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and other immortals had lived and learned here. Although imagination slept, it did not sleep utterly. The subtle influences of his surroundings penetrated his soul. He laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn shade, beside the pleasant Mill of Trompington," and "heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales of amorous passion." He called ་་ Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace,1 "Brother, Englishman, and Friend!" And he continues: Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth— Once, indeed, he drank to Milton's memory till pride And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain Never excited by the fumes of wine On the whole, however, the first months of life at Cambridge were disappointing, and imagination was comparatively inactive. They were characterized largely by indifference, low aims, and a dismissal of duty. His memory was languid, his heart "reposed in a noontide rest," and "the inner pulse of contemplation almost failed to beat." The exalted emotion which the place excited in others was not bred in him, nor were the influences of the place sufficiently potent to shame him out of an easy life or to arouse him to worthy resolve and earnest endeavor. 1 The Prelude, III, 280-281. 2 Ibid., 283-292. 8 Ibid., 299-302. Wordsworth left Cambridge to enjoy his summer vacation at Hawkshead. On his return he began at once to renew his acquaintance with things, places, and persons, and his spirit was refreshed. And now his peculiar mystical consciousness asserts itself again. He makes the circuit of the little lake, and a quiet thoughtfulness reigns within him. An exalted mood is his, in which his soul unveils herself and stands as in the presence of God. He has an intuition, or at least "glimmering views," of the immortal life, and of the dignity and strength of high endeavor. It is interesting to note that here his mysticism, as compared with its description in the previous chapter, takes on the nature of vision. There it was predominantly emotional and in its most pronounced form is described in terms of spiritual hearing rather than of spiritual seeing. But during the Cambridge period it is preeminently a consciousness that assumes the form of vision. This is evident in the account of the trance already given, where he attributed a moral life to all things and saw all things embedded " in a quickening soul." Indeed, he says, "I saw them feel.” The noetic element is more conspicuous too. The mystical consciousness becomes more articulate in its functioning, and the eternal verities of God, Immortality, and Duty are disclosed to his spiritual eye. ་་ There is, too, a change in his mental attitude toward his surroundings. There is a freshness in the daily life of those whose occupations he loved. The peace and simplicity of these rural folk greatly charm him. Furthermore, he notes a human-heartedness in his love for things. A "pensive feeling" reigns within him. The emotional reactions to the great objects of Nature, and their suggestions of import, are now more subdued, and a calm and semimelancholy thoughtfulness, with its corresponding life of feeling, is his as he contemplates them.1 Despite these visions and pensive moods, however, when later he reviewed this period of his history, Wordsworth felt that he had 1 The Prelude, IV, 160-255. |