No More Learning

Aubrey de Vere tells of a conversation he
had with Wordsworth, in which he vehemently condemned the
ultra-realistic poet, who goes to Nature with

"pencil and note-book, and jots down whatever strikes him most,"
adding, "Nature does not permit an inventory to be made of her charms!
He should have left his pencil and note-book at home; fixed his eye as
he walked with a reverent attention on all that surrounded him, and
taken all into a heart that could understand and enjoy. Afterwards he
would have discovered that while much of what he had admired was
preserved to him, much was also most wisely obliterated. _That which
remained, the picture surviving in his mind, would have presented the
ideal and essential truth of the scene, and done so in large part by
discarding much which, though in itself striking, was not
characteristic. _ In every scene, many of the most brilliant details
are but accidental. "

The two last sentences of this extract give admirable expression to one
feature of Wordsworth's interpretation of Nature. In the deepest poetry,
as in the loftiest music,--in Wordsworth's lyrics as in Beethoven's
sonatas--it is by what they unerringly suggest and not by what they
exhaustively express that their truth and power are known. "In what he
leaves unsaid," wrote Schiller, "I discover the master of style. " It
depends, no doubt, upon the vision of the "inward eye," and the
reproductive power of the idealising mind, whether the result is a
travesty of Nature, or the embodiment of a truth higher than Nature
yields. On the other hand, it is equally certain that the identification
of localities casts a sudden light in many instances upon obscure
passages in a poem, and is by far the best commentary that can be given.
It is much to be able to compare the actual scene, with the ideal
creation suggested by it; as the latter was both Wordsworth's reading of
the text of Nature, and his interpretation of it. In his seventy-third
year, he said, looking back on his 'Evening Walk', that there was not an
image in the poem which he had not observed, and that he "recollected
the time and place where most of them were noted. " In the Fenwick notes,
we constantly find him saying, "the fact occurred strictly as recorded,"
"the fact was as mentioned in the poem"; and the fact very often
involved the accessories of place.

Any one who has tried to trace out the allusions in the "Poems on the
Naming of Places," or to discover the site of "Michael's Sheepfold," to
identify "Ghimmer Crag," or "Thurston-Mere,"--not to speak of the
individual "rocks" and "recesses" near Blea Tarn at the head of Little
Langdale so minutely described in 'The Excursion',--will admit that
local commentary is an important aid to the understanding of Wordsworth.
If to read the 'Yew Trees' in Borrowdale itself,

in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves,

to read 'The Brothers' in Ennerdale, or "The Daffodils" by the shore of
Ullswater, gives a new significance to these "poems of the imagination,"
a discovery of the obscurer allusions to place or scene will deepen our
appreciation of those passages in which his idealism is most pronounced.
Every one knows Kirkstone Pass, Aira Force, Dungeon Ghyll, the Wishing
Gate, and Helm Crag: many persons know the Glowworm Rock, and used to
know the Rock of Names; but where is "Emma's Dell"? or "the meeting
point of two highways," so characteristically described in the twelfth
book of 'The Prelude'? and who will fix the site of the pool in Rydal
Upper Park, immortalised in the poem 'To M. H. '? or identify "Joanna's
Rock"? Many of the places in the English Lake District are undergoing
change, and every year the local allusions will be more difficult to
trace. Perhaps the most interesting memorial of the poet which existed,
viz. the "Rock of Names," on the shore of Thirlmere, is now sunk under
the waters of a Manchester reservoir. Other memorials are perishing by
the wear and tear of time, the decay of old buildings, the alteration of
roads, the cutting down of trees, and the modernising, or "improving,"
of the district generally. All this is inevitable. But it is well that
many of the natural objects, over and around which the light of
Wordsworth's genius lingers, are out of the reach of "improvements," and
are indestructible even by machinery.

If it be objected that several of the places which we try to
identify--and which some would prefer to leave for ever undisturbed in
the realm of imagination--were purposely left obscure, it may be
replied that Death and Time have probably now removed all reasons for
reticence, especially in the case of those poems referring to domestic
life and friendly ties. While an author is alive, or while those are
alive to whom he has made reference in the course of his allusions to
place, it may even be right that works designed for posterity should not
be dealt with after the fashion of the modern "interviewer. " But
greatness has its penalties; and a "fierce light" "beats around the
throne" of Genius, as well as round that of Empire. Moreover, all
experience shows that posterity takes a great and a growing interest in
exact topographical illustrations of the works of great authors.