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ciled in due time again, but their respect for monarchy is at an end. They want nothing now but a little English sobriety, and that they want extremely; I heartily wish them some wit in their anger, for it were great pity that so many millions should be miserable for want of it.

II

You can hardly have sent me intelligence that would have gratified me more than that of my two dear friends, Sir John and Lady Throckmorton, having departed from Paris two days before the terrible 10th of August. I have had many anxious thoughts on their account; and am truly happy to learn they have sought a more peaceful region, while it was yet permitted them to do so. They will not, I trust, revisit those scenes of tumult and horror while they shall continue to merit that description. We are here all of one mind respecting the cause in which the Parisians are engaged; wish them a free people, and as happy as they can wish themselves. But their conduct has not always pleased us: we are shocked at their sanguinary proceedings, and begin to fear, myself in particular, that they will prove themselves unworthy, because incapable of enjoying it, of the inestimable blessings of liberty. My daily toast is, Sobriety and Freedom to the French; for they seem as destitute of the former as they are eager to secure the latter.

III

This has been a 'time in which I have heard no news but of the shocking kind, and the public news is as shocking as any. War I perceive war in procinct-and I cannot but consider it as a prelude to war at home. The national burden is already nearly intolerable, and the expenses of the war will make it quite so. We have many spirits in the country eager to revolt, and to act a French tragedy on the stage of England. Alas! poor Louis! I will tell you what the French have done. They have made me weep for a King of France, which I never thought to do, and they have made me sick of the very name of liberty, which I never thought to be. Oh, how I detest them! Coxcombs, as they are, on this occasion as they ever are on all. Apes of the Spartan and the Roman character, with neither the virtue nor the good sense that belonged to it.

Is this treason at Eartham? I hope not. If it is, I must be a traitor.

EXPERIENCES OF AN ENGLISH IDEALIST

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

[From The Prelude, Books IX-XI; written 1799-1805; published 1850]

1

1. First View of the Revolution 1 Through Paris lay my readiest course, and there

Sojourning a few days, I visited

In haste, each spot of old or recent fame,
The latter chiefly; from the field of Mars
Down to the suburbs of St. Antony,
And from Mont Martre southward to the
Dome

Of Geneviève. In both her clamorous Halls,
The National Synod and the Jacobins,
I saw the Revolutionary Power
Toss like a ship at anchor, rocked by storins;
The Arcades I traversed, in the Palace huge
Of Orleans; coasted round and round the
line

Of Tavern, Brothel, Gaming-house, and
Shop,

Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk
Of all who had a purpose, or had not;

I stared and listened, with a stranger's ears,
To Hawkers and Haranguers, hubbub wild!
And hissing Factionists with ardent eyes,
In knots, or pairs, or single. Not a look
Hope takes, or Doubt or Fear is forced to

wear,

But seemed there present; and I scanned them all,

Watched every gesture uncontrollable,
Of anger, and vexation, and despite,
All side by side, and struggling face to face,
With gaiety and dissolute idleness.

Where silent zephyrs sported with the dust

Of the Bastille, I sate in the open sun,
And from the rubbish gathered up a stone,
And pocketed the relic, in the guise
Of an enthusiast; yet, in honest truth,
I looked for something that I could not find,
Affecting more emotion than I felt;
For 'tis most certain, that these various
sights,

However potent their first shock, with me

1 Wordsworth visited France in November, 1791, and remained until December, 1792, an eye witness of some of the most stirring scenes of the Revolution.

Appeared to recompense the traveler's pains Less than the painted Magdalene of Le Brun,

A beauty exquisitely wrought, with hair Disheveled, gleaming eyes, and rueful cheek Pale and bedropped with everflowing tears. [Book IX, lines 42-80.]

2. An Idealist of the Revolution
Meantime, day by day, the roads
Were crowded with the bravest youth of
France,

And all the promptest of her spirits, linked
In gallant soldiership, and posting on
To meet the war upon her frontier bounds.
Yet at this very moment do tears start
Into mine eyes: I do not say I weep-

I wept not then,-but tears have dimmed my sight,

In memory of the farewells of that time,
Domestic severings, female fortitude
At dearest separation, patriot love
And self-devotion, and terrestrial hope,
Encouraged with a martyr's confidence;
Even files of strangers merely seen but once,
And for a moment, men from far with sound
Of music, martial tunes, and banners spread,
Entering the city, here and there a face,
Or person singled out among the rest,
Yet still a stranger and beloved as such;
Even by these passing spectacles my heart
Was oftentimes uplifted, and they seemed
Arguments sent from Heaven to prove the

cause

Good, pure, which no one could stand up against,

Who was not lost, abandoned, selfish, proud,
Mean, miserable, wilfully depraved,
Hater perverse of equity and truth.

Among that band of Officers was one,
Already hinted at,1 of other mould-
A patriot, thence rejected by the rest,
And with an oriental loathing spurned,
As of a different caste. A meeker man
Than this lived never, nor a more benign,
Meek though enthusiastic. Injuries
Made him more gracious, and his nature
then

Did breathe its sweetness out most sensibly,
As aromatic flowers on Alpine turf,
When foot hath crushed them. He through
the events

Of that great change wandered in perfect faith,

1 Michael Beaupuy, one of the true knights errant of the Revolution, met by Wordsworth during his sojourn in Blois.

As through a book, an old romance, or tale
Of Fairy, or some dream of actions wrought
Behind the summer clouds. By birth he
ranked

With the most noble, but unto the poor
Among mankind he was in service bound,
As by some tie invisible, oaths professed
To a religious order. Man he loved

As man; and, to the mean and the obscure,
And all the homely in their homely works
Transferred a courtesy which had no air
Of condescension; but did rather seem
A passion and a gallantry, like that
Which he, a soldier, in his idler day
Had paid to woman: somewhat vain he was,
Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity,
But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy
Diffused around him, while he was intent
On works of love or freedom, or revolved
Complacently the progress of a cause,
Whereof he was a part: yet this was meek
And placid, and took nothing from the man
That was delightful. Oft in solitude
With him did I discourse about the end
Of civil government, and its wisest forms;
Of ancient loyalty, and chartered rights,
Custom and habit, novelty and change;
Of self-respect, and virtue in the few
For patrimonial honor set apart,
And ignorance in the laboring multitude.
For he, to all intolerance indisposed,
Balanced these contemplations in his mind;
And I, who at that time was scarcely dipped
Into the turmoil, bore a sounder judgment
Than later days allowed; carried about me,
With less alloy to its integrity,

The experience of past ages, as, through help

Of books and common' life, it makes sure

way

To youthful minds, by objects over near
Not pressed upon, nor dazzled or misled
By struggling with the crowd for present
ends.

But though not deaf, nor obstinate to find Error without excuse upon the side Of them who strove against us, more delight We took, and let this freely be confessed, In painting to ourselves the miseries Of royal courts, and that voluptuous life Unfeeling, where the man who is of soul The meanest thrives the most; where dignity,

True personal dignity, abideth not;

A light, a cruel, and vain world cut off From the natural inlets of just sentiment, From lowly sympathy and chastening truth;

Where good and evil interchange their

names,

And thirst for bloody spoils abroad is paired With vice at home. We added dearest themes

Man and his noble nature, as it is

The gift which God has placed within his power,

His blind desires and steady faculties Capable of clear truth, the one to break Bondage, the other to build liberty

On firm foundations, making social life, Through knowledge spreading and imperishable,

As just in regulation, and as pure
As individual in the wise and good.

We summoned up the honorable deeds Of ancient Story, thought of each bright spot,

That would be found in all recorded time, Of truth preserved and error passed away; Of single spirits that catch the flame from Heaven,

And how the multitudes of men will feed And fan each other; thought of sects, how keen

They are to put the appropriate nature on, Triumphant over every obstacle

Of custom, language, country, love, or hate, And what they do and suffer for their creed; How far they travel, and how long endure; How quickly mighty Nations have been formed,

From least beginnings; how, together locked
By new opinions, scattered tribes have made
One body, spreading wide as clouds in
heaven.

To aspirations then of our own minds
Did we appeal; and, finally, beheld
A living confirmation of the whole
Before us, in a people from the depth
Of shameful imbecility uprisen,
Fresh as the morning star. Elate we looked
Upon their virtues; saw, in rudest men,
Self-sacrifice the firmest; generous love,
And continence of mind, and sense of right,
Uppermost in the midst of fiercest strife.

Oh, sweet it is, in academic groves, Or such retirement, Friend! as we have known

In the green dales beside our Rotha's stream,
Greta, or Derwent, or some nameless rill,
To ruminate, with interchange of talk,
On rational liberty, and hope in man,
Justice and peace. But far more sweet such
toil-

Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts ab

struse

If nature then be standing on the brink
Of some great trial, and we hear the voice
Of one devoted,-one whom circumstance
Hath called upon to embody his deep sense
In action, give it outwardly a shape,
And that of benediction, to the world.
Then doubt is not, and truth is more than
truth,-

A hope it is, and a desire; a creed
Of zeal, by an authority Divine
Sanctioned, of danger, difficulty, or death.
Such conversation, under Attic shades,
Did Dion hold with Plato; ripened thus
For a deliverer's glorious task, and such
He, on that ministry already bound,
Held with Eudemus and Timonides,
Surrounded by adventurers in arms,
When those two vessels with their daring
freight,

For the Sicilian Tyrant's overthrow,
Sailed from Zacynthus,-philosophic war,
Led by Philosophers. With harder fate,
Though like ambition, such was he, O
Friend!

Of whom I speak. So BEAUPUY (let the

name

Stand near the worthiest of Antiquity) Fashioned his life; and many a long dis

course,

With like persuasion honored, we maintained:

He, on his part, accoutered for the worst, He perished fighting, in supreme command, Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire, For liberty, against deluded men,

His fellow country-men; and yet most blessed

In this, that he the fate of later times Lived not to see, nor what we now behold, Who have as ardent hearts as he had then.

Along that very Loire, with festal mirth Resounding at all hours, and innocent yet Of civil slaughter, was our frequent walk; Or in wide forests of continuous shade, Lofty and over-arched, with open space Beneath the trees, clear footing many a mile

A solemn region. Oft amid those haunts, From earnest dialogues I slipped in thought, And let remembrance steal to other times, When o'er those interwoven roots, mosselad,

And smooth as marble or a waveless sea, Some Hermit, from his cell forth-strayed, might pace

In sylvan meditation undisturbed;
As on the pavement of a Gothic church
Walks a lone Monk, when service hath ex-
pired,

In peace and silence. But if e'er was heard,

Heard, though unseen,-a devious traveler, Retiring or approaching from afar

With speed and echoes loud of trampling hoofs

From the hard floor reverberated, then
It was Angelica thundering through the
woods

Upon her palfrey, or that gentle maid
Erminia, fugitive as fair as she.
Sometimes methought I saw a pair of
knights

Joust underneath the trees, that as in storm Rocked high above their heads; anon, the din

Of boisterous merriment, and music's roar,
In sudden proclamation, burst from haunt
Of Satyrs in some viewless glade, with
dance

Rejoicing o'er a female in the midst,
A mortal beauty, their unhappy thrall.
The width of those huge forests, unto me
A novel scene, did often in this way
Master my fancy while I wandered on
With that revered companion. And some-
times-

When to a convent in a meadow green,
By a brook-side, we came, a roofless pile,
And not by reverential touch of Time
Dismantled, but by violence abrupt-
In spite of those heart-bracing colloquies,
In spite of real fervor, and of that
Less genuine and wrought up within my-
self-

I could not but bewail a wrong so harsh,
And for the Matin-bell to sound no more
Grieved, and the twilight taper, and the

cross

High on the topmost pinnacle, a sign
(How welcome to the weary traveler's
eyes!)

Of hospitality and peaceful rest.
And when the partner of those varied walks
Pointed upon occasion to the site
Of Romorentin, home of ancient kings,
To the imperial edifice of Blois,

Or to that rural castle, name now slipped
From my remembrance, where a lady lodged,
By the first Francis wooed, and bound to
him

In chains of mutual passion, from the tower, As a tradition of the country tells, Practiced to commune with her royal knight

By cressets and love-beacons, intercourse 'Twixt her high-seated residence and his Far off at Chambord on the plain beneath; Even here, though less than, with the peaceful house

Religious, 'mid those frequent monuments Of Kings, their vices and their better deeds, Imagination, potent to inflame

At times with virtuous wrath and noble scorn,

Did also often mitigate the force

Of civic prejudice, the bigotry,

So call it, of a youthful patriot's mind; And on these spots with many gleams I looked

Of chivalrous delight. Yet not the less,
Hatred of absolute rule, where will of one
Is law for all, and of that barren pride
In them who, by immunities unjust,
Between the sovereign and the people stand,
His helper and not theirs, laid stronger hold
Daily upon me, mixed with pity too

And love; for where hope is, there love will be

For the abject multitude. And when we chanced

One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl,
Who crept along fitting her languid gait
Unto a heifer's motion, by a cord

Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane

Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands

Was busy knitting in a heartless mood
Of solitude, and at the sight my friend
In agitation said, ""Tis against that
That we are fighting," I with him believed
That a benignant spirit was abroad
Which might not be withstood, that poverty
Abject as this would in a little time

Be found no more, that we should see the earth

Unthwarted in her wish to recompense
The meek, the lowly, patient child of toil,
All institutes forever blotted out
That legalized exclusion, empty pomp
Abolished, sensual state and cruel power,
Whether by edict of the one or few;
And finally, as sum and crown of all,
Should see the people having a strong hand
In framing their own laws; whence better
days

To all mankind. But, these things set apart,
Was not this single confidence enough
To animate the mind that ever turned
A thought to human welfare,-that, hence-
forth

Captivity by mandate without law

Should cease; and open accusation lead
To sentence in the hearing of the world,
And open punishment, if not the air
Be free to breathe in, and the heart of man
Dread nothing? From this height I shall

not stoop

To humbler matter that detained us oft
In thought or conversation, public acts,
And public persons, and emotions wrought
Within the breast, as ever-varying winds
Of record or report swept over us;
But I might here, instead, repeat a tale
Told by my Patriot friend, of sad events,
That prove to what low depth had struck
the roots,

How widely spread the boughs, of that old tree

Which, as a deadly mischief, and a foul And black dishonor, France was weary of. [Book IX, lines 262-552.]

3. Disappointment and Restoration

I

In this frame of mind, Dragged by a chain of harsh necessity, So seemed it,-now I thankfully acknowlledge,

Forced by the gracious providence of Heaven,

To England I returned, else (though assured

That I both was and must be of small weight,

No better than a landsman on the deck
Of a ship struggling with a hideous storm)
Doubtless, I should have then made com-

mon cause

With some who perished; haply perished too,

A poor mistaken and bewildered offering, Should to the breast of Nature have gone back,

With all my resolutions, all my hopes,
A Poet only to myself, to men
Useless, and even, beloved Friend! a soul
To thee unknown!

Twice had the trees let fall Their leaves, as often Winter had put on His hoary crown, since I had seen the surge Beat against Albion's shore, since ear of mine

Had caught the accents of my native speech
Upon our native country's sacred ground.
A patriot of the world, how could I glide
Into communion with her sylvan shades,
Erewhile my tuneful haunt? It pleased me

more

To abide in the great City, where I found
The general air still busy with the stir
Of that first memorable onset made
By a strong levy of humanity
Upon the traffickers in Negro blood;
Effort which, though defeated, had recalled
To notice old forgotten principles,
And through the nation spread a novel heat
Of virtuous feeling. For myself, I own
That this particular strife had wanted power
To rivet my affections; nor did now
Its unsuccessful issue much excite
My sorrow; for I brought with me the faith
That, if France prospered, good men would
not long

Pay fruitless worship to humanity,

And this most rotten branch of human shame,

Object, so seemed it, of superfluous pains, Would fall together with its parent tree. What, then, were my emotions, when in

arms

Britain put forth her freeborn strength in league,

Oh, pity and shame! with those confederate
Powers!

Not in my single self alone I found,
But in the minds of all ingenuous youth,
Change and subversion from that hour. No
shock

Given to my moral nature had I known
Down to that very moment; neither lapse
Nor turn of sentiment that might be named
A revolution, save at this one time;.
All else was progress on the self-same path
On which, with a diversity of pace,

I had been traveling: this a stride at once
Into another region. As a light

And pliant harebell, swinging in the breeze On some gray rock-its birthplace so had I Wantoned, fast rooted on the ancient tower Of my beloved country, wishing not

A happier fortune than to wither there: Now was I from that pleasant station torn And tossed about in whirlwind. I rejoiced, Yea, afterwards-truth most painful to

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