Edmund Lee

“ It is the bruised herb that exudes its fragrance; the broken heart that, when bound, pulsates most truly. It was a saying of Goethe that he never had an affliction which did not turn into a poem. But disappointment may also be the parent of gloom, and pave the way to a spirit of morose indifference. At such junctures a life may, by the skilful leading of a wise affection, be saved for beauty and happiness, for greater good and more exalted attainment and enjoyment, by reason of the very sorrow which, unhallowed, would have plunged it into bitterness. ”

“ Of more refined humanity, thy breath,
Dear sister, was a kind of gentler spring
That went before my steps.
The marriage of Wordsworth, in 1802, did not occasion any waning of sympathy or cessation of intercourse between him and his sister. The circle was then only widened, not broken. Dorothy continued to be an honoured inmate of her brother's home, the sharer of his labours, and companion of his walks and excursions; in speech as well as in silence together garnering scenes of beauty and flowers of thought both for their own future lives and the world's weal. ”

“ Let any one haunted by small cares, by fears worse than cares, and by passions worse than either, go up on a mountain height on such a summer's day as this, and there confront his soul with the living soul of Nature. [Pg 53] Will the stately solitude not calm him? Can the nobleness of beauty not raise him to like nobleness? Is there no Divine voice for him in the absolute stillness? No loving hand guiding through the pathless wilds? No tenderness for man in the lavishness of Nature? Have the clouds no lesson of strength in their softness? the sun no cheering in its glory? ”

“ A few tender words in her journal upon saying farewell show that her character as a friend was no less true than as a sister: "At seven o'clock I embraced her, and left her all in tears. What affection there was in her good-bye, that pressure of the hand, the 'Come again!' the utterance choked by tears! Poor, dear Louise, I have had the courage to leave her and not to weep at all.... But what matter? I love as much as another; what comes from the heart is worth as much as what flows from the eyes. But this tender Louise loves and weeps. ”

“ After tea at Patterdale set out again;—a fine evening; the seven stars close to the mountain top; all the stars seemed brighter than usual. The steeps were reflected in Brothers Water, and, above the lake, appeared like enormous black, perpendicular walls. The Kirkstone torrents had been swollen by the rains, and now filled the mountain pass with their roaring, which added greatly to the solemnity of our walk. Behind us, when we had climbed to a great height, we saw one light, very distinct, in the vale, like a large red star—a solitary one in the gloomy region. ”

“ Here are your shoes under the bed, the table quite filled, the mirror suspended from the nail, the books which you read yesterday evening before going to sleep, and I who kissed you, touched you, looked at you! What is this world where everything disappears? Maurice, my dear Maurice, oh!
"When you had gone I went to church, where I could pray and weep at my ease. What do you do, who never pray, when you are sorrowful, when your heart is bruised? For me, I feel that I have need of a consolation more than human, that it is necessary to have God for a friend." ”

“ Writing of the sad occurrence to Sir George Beaumont shortly after, Wordsworth says:—"My poor sister and my wife, who loved him almost as we did (for he was one of the most amiable of men) are in miserable affliction, which I do all in my power to alleviate; but, Heaven knows, I want consolation myself. I can say nothing higher of my ever-dear brother than that he was worthy of his sister, who is now weeping beside me, and of the friendship of Coleridge; meek, affectionate, silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, and a poet in everything but words." ”

“ When I do not pass my evening in my room, I pass it en famille with Auguste and Félicité. We talk as brothers and sister, or else we do some reading together. You see that my life sufficiently resembles that of Le Cayla, except all of you and the sweet face of the country, and the horizon which I loved to contemplate in the evening from the western corner of the terrace. It sets me longing when spring returns to give life to our little garden; the walk will not be so long as in our fields, but I shall always have verdure and the little path by the flowers. ”

“ In short, beyond any person I have known in this world, Miss Wordsworth was the creature of impulse; but, as a woman most thoroughly virtuous and well principled, as one who could not fail to be kept right by her own excellent heart, and as an intellectual creature from her cradle, with much of her illustrious brother's peculiarity of mind—finally as one who had been, in effect, educated and trained by that very brother—she won the sympathy and respectful regard of every man worthy to approach her. ”

“ It is a week since I came down from the mountains, quite sad, thinking of Louise, my heart full of our friendship, and with regrets for our separation. What it costs to go away from a friend, when we have found so much happiness together! To say adieu is a word that makes us weep, which kills. Fenelon is quite right in saying that friendship which makes much happiness for life, gives also inexpressible pain. We felt this, Louise and I. It is from their depth that the sweetest things of life have their bitterness. ”

“ While, as may be imagined, the grief of her parents at the loss was great, that of De Quincey (who was not at Grasmere at the time, and was informed of the event by Miss Wordsworth) was so poignant and extravagant as to become romantic. The dear child had got so near the heart of the little dreamy opium-eater—had, in fact, found so warm a corner there—that he seemed to be almost overwhelmed. The heart was empty, and the eyes that could no longer gaze upon the living form were filled with its image. He used to imagine that he saw her. ”

“ In the annals of domestic history it would be difficult to meet with a story more deeply interesting and pathetic than that of Charles and Mary Lamb. If Dorothy Wordsworth bears the palm for sisterly devotion and help, thereby crowning her brother's life with blessing, Charles Lamb stands before us the most signal example as the sharer and sustainer of a sister's lot of suffering. Darkest lives may be illumined by hope and brightened by love; and among lives of noble self-denial, those of Charles Lamb and his sister must always take a prominent place. ”

“ I hear you point out a spot, where, if we could erect a little cottage and call it our own, we should be the happiest of human beings. I see my brother fired with the idea of leading his sister to such a retreat. Our parlour is in a moment furnished; our garden is adorned by magic; the roses and honeysuckles spring at our command; the wood behind the house lifts its head, and furnishes us with a winter's shelter and a summer's noonday shade. My dear friend, I trust that ere long you will be, without the aid of imagination, the companion of my walks, and my dear William may be of our party.... ”

“ As for you, my incomparable sister, I have not the heart to turn you from your resolves. We think alike, and I cannot condemn in you the sentiments which I daily entertain. Life has been given to us as a benefit; when it ceases to be such.... I have nobody left in this world to attach me to it but you. My friends, the relations I loved most, are in the grave; in short, I have lost everything. If you take the resolution which I have taken, we end together our misfortunes and our unhappiness ”

“ A change of rule was to be the dawn of hope to the nations. But when, instead of peace came strife and outrage, instead of prosperity misery, instead of freedom tyranny, instead of the fruition of hope the gloom of despair—then Wordsworth bowed his head in bitterness, ready almost to doubt the Almighty government of the world.
But the angel of his life came to his aid. Although their happiness was delayed, and Wordsworth's purposes remained unformed a year or two longer, the watchful love of his sister came as a soothing balm, and her dominant influence as a healing virtue. ”

“ To the northward the scene was less visionary;—Place Fell steady and bold;—the whole lake driving onward like a great river—waves dancing round the small islands. The house at Blowick was the boundary of our walk; and we returned, lamenting to see a decaying and uncomfortable dwelling in a place where sublimity and beauty seemed to contend with each other. But these regrets were dispelled by a glance on the woods that clothe the opposite steeps of the lake. ”

“ To lovers of his poetry the spirit of Wordsworth yet casts a spell over the landscape; and mountain and vale and lake are almost as articulate to the hearing ear as are the storied stones of Rome. But Life's grandest music is audible only to the ready ear. It is to the "inward eye" of love, gathering its treasured harvest, that the brightest halo is revealed. Earth may be
"Crammed with heaven,"—
"But only he who sees takes off his shoes."
As Nature whispers her secrets to her true lovers ”

“ Mary Sidney was two or three years younger than her brother Philip, to whom she became such a loving and devoted companion, and upon whose character and life she exercised such a powerful influence. Being a child of rare natural endowments, it can be well understood that, brought up in such a home, and under the immediate care of such parents, who appreciated learning at its true value and for its own sake, she early exhibited those charms and accomplishments which rendered her conspicuous among the learned, and her society courted by the greatest of that brilliant age. ”

“ Of the falls of the Clyde, Miss Wordsworth observes: "We had been told that the Cartland Crags were better worth going to see than the falls of the Clyde. I do not think so; but I have seen rocky dells resembling these before, with clear water instead of that muddy stream, and never saw anything like the falls of the Clyde. It would be a delicious spot to have near one's house; one would linger out many a day in the cool shadow of the caverns, and the stream would soothe one by its murmuring; still, being an old friend, one would not love it the less for its homely face. ”

“ The first of Frederick's lamentation Psalms written during his reverses consists of an Epistle to Wilhelmina, and commences as follows:—
"O sweet and dear hope of my remaining days: O sister, whose friendship, so fertile in resources, shares all my sorrows, and with a helpful arm assists me in the gulf! It is in vain that the Destinies have overwhelmed me with disasters: if the crowd of Kings have sworn my ruin; if the earth have opened to swallow me—you still love me, noble and affectionate sister: loved by you, what is there of misfortune?" ”

“ It overlooks from the front the beauteous lake of Grasmere, though the view from the lower rooms is now considerably obstructed by buildings since erected. Behind is a small garden and orchard, in which is a spring of pure water, round which the primroses and daffodils bloom, as they did when lovingly reared by Miss Wordsworth. A dozen steps or so, cut in the rocky slope lead up to a little terrace walk, on a bit of mountain ground, enclosed in the domain, and sheltered in the rear by a fir-clad wood. Altogether it was an ideal cottage-home for the enthusiastic young couple. ”

“ The pursuit chosen for Maurice by his father was distasteful to him, and from time to time he confides to his sister his struggles between duty and inclination—how much more he prefers history, religious philosophy, and poetry, and had hopes of a literary career. Writing to her early in January he says:—"From time to time discouragement, redoubtable discouragement, falls again on my soul like a weight of ice and paralyses all my courage and all my thirst for knowledge; but I struggle with all my strength; I call to my aid all that I have of hope and of ardour, and generally I raise myself up. ”

“ It was also during their residence at Alfoxden that Miss Wordsworth and her brother made their tour on the banks of the Wye, so signally memorialised in his famous lines on Tintern Abbey, of which he says, no poem of his was composed under circumstances more pleasant for him to remember. Its elevating reflections and rhythmic strains take captive the affections of the lover of Nature, and linger in his memory like the music of youth. ”

“ During all this trying period the love of Eugénie for her brother did not wane, nor did her confidence in him, in his genius and ultimate success, become abated. Troubled as she herself was with mental conflicts, with a constitutional melancholy which made her peculiarly sensitive to the pangs of bereavement, to the sorrows of all around her, and all the weariness of daily life, she never forgot her brother. Her journal, written as it was to him, discloses a life of the most tender solicitude and most pathetic interest on the part of a sister towards a brother on record. ”

“ From the shore a low promontory pushes itself into the water, and on it stands a white village, with a parish church rising in the midst of it, having enclosures, cornfields, and meadows, green as an emerald, which, with trees, and hedges, and cattle, fill up the whole space from the edge of the water, and just opposite to you is a large farmhouse at the bottom of a steep, smooth lawn, embosomed in old woods, which climb half way up the mountain sides, and discover above a broken line of crags that crown the scene. ”

“ Here is Eugénie's reply:—
January 22nd, 1832.
"It is Sunday to-day: the day for repose. So I hear no other sound than that which my pen makes on the paper. I am thinking of you. You are not so tranquil in your great Paris, except in your little chamber, where you find again Le Cayla in a more enjoyable form. When I saw yesterday the great oak of the Teoulet covered with hoar-frost, I thought of the great fir of Maurice. Nothing is more elegant than these trees in winter dress; but hurrah for their summer toilet! When one must only see trees, one loves better to have them green than white. ”

“ Wilhelmina, who had ever been so ready with her pen, was no longer able to use it, not even to bid a last farewell to her friend. Yet, in token of how much her thoughts were with him, she sent him her picture a fortnight before her end, as a last message of friendship and gratitude. Soon her spirit would fathom the great mysteries which had occupied her during her life. Who is there who would not believe in affection's double sight? ”

“ Dejected and despondent by reason of the scenes of which he had been an eyewitness in France, and the terrible days which followed, Wordsworth was at this time greatly in danger of becoming misanthropic, and of giving way to a melancholy which might have coloured all his life, and deprived his works of the healthful and educating influence which they breathe. All disappointment and sorrow may become the precursor of blessing, the mother of a great hope. ”

“ Her quiet death did not waken me; never did soul leave the world with more tranquillity.... I was led into another room."
Before her death Madame de Guérin had committed the delicate little Maurice to Eugénie's protecting love. Henceforth she regarded him as a sacred trust, and while deeply loving all her kindred, while befriending all who came within the range of her sympathy, it was to Maurice her heart's great love went out with a yearning desire for his well-being. As years went on, and Maurice advanced in intelligence, all causes seemed to combine to draw the bond yet closer. ”

“ On the great features of Nature—lochs and mountains, among which he has lived his days—he looks with a serene but sovereign eye, as if he held them all in fee, and they stood there to administer to the delight—we must not say the pride—of him, 'Sole king of rocky Cumberland;' and true it is that from the assemblage of their summits, in the sunset, impulses of deeper mood have come to him in solitude than ever visited the heart of any other poet.... The true Highland spirit is there ”

“ In the army of helpers the best results are not attained by great endeavours so much as by the humble ministries which wait for the willing hands and kind hearts.
It may be that reading these pages the shadow of a cloud may flit over the thoughtful face of some sister, who, with a glowing feeling of affection, thinks with regret on what may appear to be a narrow sphere. If so, let it be remembered that lives are no less noble for being less known. ”

“ He refers to the sweet sensations which, in hours of weariness in towns and cities, he has owed to the beauteous forms of Nature to which his mind has turned. He calls to memory the time when he had, indeed, loved Nature more passionately, and compares it with his present more mature and thoughtful affection, concluding with a fervid address to her who was by his side, and whose presence imparted an added charm—that of double vision—to every object and feeling ”

“ Then my heart immediately fixed upon you; and can one indeed find a better friend than a sister such as you are? Be willing, then, henceforth to be a great deal my confidant, and help me with your advice and your friendship. But you will say, 'Ought you to have any other confidant than a father? Is it not he who ought to be the depository of all your secrets?' You may well believe that I have made this reflection; but papa is so sensitive, he is affected with so little a thing that I would never dare tell him all that passes within me. ”

“ So great was his grief that we are told he often spent the night upon her grave. This may appear very extravagant, as it doubtless is; but we cannot measure a man like De Quincey by any ordinary standard. Possessing as he did a gigantic and immortal genius, he was at the same time one of the most unimaginable and eccentric, unreal and dreamy of beings that ever owned a warm human heart. The Wordsworth children were especially dear to him, and particularly so little Catherine. And they returned his affection. ”

“ On the whole she stands before us as a noble woman—the graceful and stately form, the beautifully modelled features, the dignified demeanour, befitting the possessor of the cultured mind, the kind heart, the constant and devoted life—faithful even to the death. It is to be regretted that the Margravine did not bring her Memorials down to a later period of her life. What remains of it is gleaned from her correspondence.
In his interludes of peace, as well as, indeed, during his many trying campaigns, Frederick devoted himself to the pursuit of literature. ”

“ The life of Miss Wordsworth had hitherto been, on the whole, one of serene and calm enjoyment. In the social circle bound so closely in mutual affection, and so richly endowed with the faculty of making herself happy—of truly living—the only cloud during many years of brightness had been the death of her brother John. ”

“ This side of Le Cayla is a little spoiled by the ruin of the great oak and the great cherry-tree, which were blown down in the winter; but this is nothing when we see the wood of Sept-Fonts all laid low—our dear walk without shade, our seats overturned, half broken; it makes me ill to see that, and I do not go there now, or I go only for reflection. Where shall I be?—where shall we be when these trees shall have become grown again? Others will go to walk under their shade, and will, like us, see winds which will make them fall. In all times there will be storms upon the earth. ”

“ Her remains were deposited in the peaceful churchyard of Grasmere, by the murmuring waters of a mountain stream, the same sacred spot of earth which contained those of her beloved brother, overshadowed by the same yew trees.
It was from her own choice—a choice decided and happy—that Miss Wordsworth was never married. De Quincey (who seems, by the way, to have had a pretty universal knowledge) informs us that she had several offers of marriage, and amongst them, to his knowledge, one from Hazlitt, all of which she decisively rejected. ”