No More Learning

I have this
moment received a letter from William. . . . "

Ed.





* * * * *





NOTE V. --"THE MEETING-POINT OF TWO HIGHWAYS"


(See p. 353, 'The Prelude', book xii. l. 293)


The following extract from a letter of Mr. Rawnsley's casts important
light on a difficult question of localization. Dr. Cradock is inclined
now to select the Outgate Crag, the second of the four places referred
to by Mr. Rawnsley. But the first may have been the place, and the
extract which follows will show how much is yet to be done in this
matter of localizing poetical allusions.
"As to

'the crag,
That, from the meeting-point of two highways
Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched,'

there seems to be no doubt but that we have four competitors for the
honour of being the place to which the poet:

'impatient for the sight
Of those led palfreys that should bear them home'

repaired with his brothers

'one Christmas-time,
On the glad eve of its dear holidays. '

And unless, as it seems is quite possible, from what one sees in other
of Wordsworth's poems, he really stood on one of the crags, and then
in his description drew the picture of the landscape at his feet from
his memory of what it was as seen from another of the vantage places,
we need a high crag, rising gradually or abruptly from the actual
meeting-place of two highways, with, if possible at this distance of
time, a wall--or traces of it--quite at its summit. (I may mention
that the wallers in this country still give two hundred years as the
length of time that a dry wall will stand. ) We need also traces of an
old thorn tree close by. The wall, too, must be so placed on the
summit of the crag that, as it faces the direction in which the lad is
looking for his palfrey, it shall afford shelter to him against

'the sleety rain,
And all the business of the elements. '

It is evident that the lad would be looking out in a north-easterly
direction, i. e. towards the head of Windermere and Ambleside. So that

'the mist,
That on the line of each of those two roads
Advanced in such indisputable shapes,'

was urged by a wind that found the poet at his look-out station, glad
to have the wall between him and it. Further, there must be in close
proximity wood and the sound of rushing water, or the lapping of a
lake wind-driven against the marge, for the boy remembers that 'the
bleak music from that old stone wall' was mingled with 'the noise of
wood and water. ' The roads spoken of must be two highways, and must be
capable of being seen for some distance; unless, as it is just
possible, the epithet 'far-stretched' may be taken as applying not so
much to the roads, as to the gradual ascent of the crag from the
meeting-place of the two highways.

The scene from the crag must be extended, and half plain half
wood-land; at least one gathers as much from the lines:

'as the mist
Gave intermitting prospect of the copse
And plain beneath. '

Lastly, it was a day of driving sleet and mist, and this of itself
would necessitate that the poet and his brothers should only go to the
place close to which the ponies must pass, or from which most plainly
the roads were visible.

The boys too were

'feverish, and tired, and restless,'

and a schoolboy, to gain his point on such a day and on such an
errand, does not take much account of a mile of country to be
travelled over.

So that it is immaterial, I think, to make the distance from Hawkshead
of either of the four crags or vantage grounds a factor in decision.

The farther the lads were from home when they met their ponies, the
longer ride back they would have, and this to schoolboys is matter of
consideration at such times.