of the soul; its incarnation is a limitation of its power. The radiant vision of the child is due to its nearness to his former state of existence as compared with the remoteness of later years. His mental vision is a vision brought with him from another world, instead of a maternal inheritance nurtured by close communion with the maternal parent in the dawn of his earthly life; so that, disregarding the symbolism referred to by Legouis, and the mysticism of Wordsworth's conception, both of which belong to the sphere of imagination rather than to the sphere of science, we conclude that all that can be safely said in attempting to explain the poetic powers of Wordsworth on the basis of his antecedents is that, so far as his immediate ancestors are concerned, very little can be found that indicates obligation to them for his unusual gifts. He was, however, descended from a line of yeomen who were close to Nature, and as a Northman his peculiar feeling for Nature may be an inheritance from early ancestors who daily lived in Nature's presence, and whose emotional regard for her may have been transmitted by Nature herself, through a long line of generations, to him who was to become one of her most faithful devotees, worshiping humbly at her shrine and acknowledging her sovereignty in reverence and love.

Wordsworth seems to have possessed certain original aptitudes or predispositions which, whether received through inheritance or by immediate endowment on the part of the Creator, peculiarly fitted him for the poet's art. In the first place, he had an unusually keen organic sensibility; his powers of sense were very susceptible to Nature's stimuli. From earliest childhood, so far as his mental history can be traced, an exceptional sensitiveness of eye and ear are manifest. This keenness of perceptive faculty, added to another apparent predisposition,—a unique emotional regard for Nature, preeminently fitted him to be a Nature poet. Their union resulted in an intensity and minuteness of observation that furnished the imagination with a wealth of images of "beauteous forms " with which to carry on its work of idealization and insight.

Furthermore, his imaginative life was, as we have seen, closely associated with a mystical consciousness which so warmed and colored it as greatly to enrich the fruits of its poetic activity. This, probably more than anything else, was responsible for "the gleam" that is such a distinguishing mark of his genius. It affected powerfully his apprehension of Nature and was largely accountable for the refined spiritual conception of things which is to be found in his poetry. This unique tendency of mind was unquestionably original; its manifestations are among his earliest recorded experiences.

There was, too, a constitutional moral sensitiveness which characterized Wordsworth and very early affected his imagination, notably in its æsthetic interpretation and insight. This element was a pronounced factor in his consciousness as a boy, and became more and more so throughout the history of his mental unfolding. Early in his career it impelled him to an ethical interpretation of nature, not only ascribing to her a moral life, but also investing her with a moral office in her relation to Man. How greatly this moral sensitiveness enriched his poetry will be manifest in the course of our study. Indeed, it was involved in his very birth as a poet. He was called and dedicated to be Nature's high priest, and it was his to accept the high office, "else sin greatly." It lies at the foundation of his conception of the poet's art, for with him poetry must have an ethical aim. The poet must be a teacher,—the bearer of a divine message to the race. He deals not with a dream but with things oracular, and is morally responsible for the right use of his gifts.

Another fundamental relation which must be kept in mind in studying the development of the inner life of Wordsworth is his relation to the social environment. The poet cannot, any more than ordinary men, be regarded as an isolated personal unit. He belongs to a race system, and from birth is surrounded by human beings with whom he is in interaction, and by whom he is greatly influenced. He is born into the family and is brought under its

personal and organized life. Soon he is initiated into a community whose members are bound together by common interests, manners, institutions, sentiments, and ideals, and is in a large measure molded by its influence. He is born, also, into the state, the community organized under political government, with which he is in constant relation and by which his life of intelligence, feeling, and will is powerfully affected. The poet, by virtue of his genius, may be freer from the law of social environment than his fellows, but he cannot escape it. Even genius is subject to law, as the whole history of the arts testifies.

Wordsworth is certainly no exception among the poets in this respect. Throughout the major part of his poetical career he seems to have been especially sensitive to his human surroundings. Certain individuals proved to be powerful factors in his life and art. Then, too, the simplicity and sincerity of the humbler classes of society appealed to his heart, and the fundamental in Man, as he read it in these simple folk, inspired much of his song. The inequalities of society, the tyranny of the classes over the masses, the evils of the industrial organization, the weakness of the educational system, the oppression of the political order, and the tremendous social and political conflicts of his time affected him profoundly, awakening the great deeps of his nature, coloring his feeling and imagination, and making him preëminently a poet of Man. Remarkable poet of Nature that he was, the human within him was so powerfully affected by the human without and around him that, almost in the very beginning of his career as a poet, he resolved that his theme should be

No other than the very heart of man,

As found among the best of those who live.1

And although this resolve was by no means literally carried Nature, also, occupying a conspicuous place in his affections

out,

and art,

still he attained the position where, under the influence

1 The Prelude, XIII, 241-242.

of his human environment, he learned to look even upon Nature as hearing often "the still, sad music of humanity.”

One of the more formal and direct influences of the social environment brought to bear upon the individual mind in its unfolding and development is education. This usually plays a large and important part, although in the case of Wordsworth it belonged to the category of minor influences. His early education was in a measure directed by his mother. She was not a woman of great attainments, nor possessed of much pedagogical skill, but she dealt wisely with her son. In after years, when reflecting on her method, or lack of method, he commended her judgment in guiding his mental development. An insight into her educational creed, which consisted chiefly in faith in Nature's beneficent instincts, may be gained from "The Prelude." He was permitted to unfold his physical and mental powers mainly under Nature's guidance and under the benign influence that flowed from his mother's heart. He grew up almost like the child of Rousseau's "Émile,” Nature being allowed a comparatively free hand. Such liberty proved to be an important influence in molding and fashioning both his body and his mind, and was in a measure responsible for the development of that love for Nature which was so large a part of his life from youth even to manhood's prime.1

Wordsworth, however, received formal instruction also during this early period. Sometimes he was taught at Cockermouth by the Reverend Mr. Eillbanks; also at Penrith by Mrs. Anne Birkett. Writing of the latter to his friend, the Reverend Hugh James Rose, he says: "The old Dame did not affect to make theologians, or logicians, but she taught to read, and she practised the memory, often no doubt by rote; but still the faculty was improved." His father too had a part in his early education. He was a man who evidently had some appreciation of poetry, as well as regard for it as a mental discipline, and required his boy to commit to memory certain selections from Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton.

1 The Prelude, V, 256-293.

2 Memoirs, edited by Reed, I, 33.

This constituted the education of Wordsworth in these years of childhood. There is little here that has any special bearing on his future life except, as has already been suggested, the influence of his mother's method in dealing with him. Wordsworth, in the fifth book of "The Prelude," contrasts it with the artificial pedagogy in vogue in the schools at the time of his writing. His sympathies are undoubtedly with the more natural method of his mother. This is what might be expected of one born and nurtured so close to Nature's heart; he was too thoroughly a child of Nature to fail to appreciate later in life the advantages of such a method. He had too keen a regard for Nature's tutorial power to overlook the benefits that came to him during those first years of life, through the means adopted by maternal wisdom in the training of mind and body. And it may be that here, in these early experiences, we have the foundations laid for the educational views to which he gave expression later in "The Prelude" and "The Excursion." However this may be, it is certain that through the liberty granted to Nature by this simple Englishwoman in the training of her son, his susceptible soul early received impressions which gave direction to his future unfolding.

Again, the poet, like other human beings, is born into a physical environment, and this also has much to do with his mental and spiritual development. Not only is it a powerful influence in determining the general life of every soul but also in the determination of the particular quality and form of its functioning. It has much to do with what and how it perceives, imagines, thinks, feels, and wills, coloring its entire mental life and affecting both the quantity and quality of its content. Here again the poet is no exception to the rule; rather, because of his sensitiveness and susceptibility, does he most conclusively prove it. This was undoubtedly the case with Wordsworth. Born and brought up in the Lake country, far famed for its natural beauty, has written more knowingly and eloquently than he,—from birth, through childhood and youth up to mature manhood, much of his

of which no one