The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1910-07-08

ipH SNAKES ICt!:t:. lis IONt d.iN .'Il'"
Ledge OF nature are indisputable; but
not even his retirement to one Of the
best houses in Stratford-on-Avon SUI
fees to persuade us that he yearned
to lead the simple country life there.
1t is indeed a tour de force on the
part of the poet laureate to cite Pope,
not exactly as lover of the country,
but at least as a poet who lived, not IN
London, but at TWickenham. Horace
Walpole lived at Strawberry Hill, but
he was nevertheless a town mouse II
ever there was one. Again the exile Of
Byron and Shelley was not altogether
a voluntary one. nor was there much
of the simple country life about their
residence in Switzerland and Italy.
Tennyson, it is true, comes nearer to
the point. Perhaps next to Words
worth he shows more of true taste
for the simple country life than the
rest of them. But be never quite lost
his footing in the town nor his inter-
est in the larger concerns of mankind.
Even in his exquisite invitation to
Maurice, when he offered his coming
guest honest talk and wholesome
Wine" the talk was to be, not OF
Wordsworth's favorite themes, but Of
things which concern the larger inter-
ests and welfare of mankind. His sue
cessor to, with whom we are break
ing a friendly lance, is a man who
loves the country we'll and sings
sweetly of nature; but he is also one
who is, in his own words, "well ac-
quainted with cities and men of the
world" and we are not quite sure that
the impression conveyed to most peo-
pie by "The Garden that Love" would
be exactly what Wordsworth under
stood by the simple country life.
On the whole, then, in spite of the
gentle protest of the poet laureate, we
must adhere to our opinion-an opin-
ion which Mr.. Clement Shorter, in his
letter of this morning, corroborates-
that Wordsworth is almost the sole
poet and preacher Of the simple coun-
try life who has really lived and low
ed the life that he sang. Nearly all
the others have sung rather of nature
and it's manifold inspiration than of
the simple country life as such; and
of nearly all of them it must be ac-
knowledged that their highest inspira-
tions come, not like Wordsworth's di-
rect from nature and the country, but
from a wide, penetrating, and sympa-
thetic outlook on mankind and the
world at large. Perhaps in these days
no man can be a great poet who is
blind to the aspects of nature and deaf
to it's inspiration; but even Words
worth himself-unique - he is in his
intimate sympathy with natureris no
exception to the canon that no man
can be great poet who seeks his in
spiration in nature alone. After all,
it was not the poet in Wordsworth,
but the man and even the peasant-the
word is Matthew Arnold's, or we
should not dare to use it-that prefer
red the simple country life. He was
not the greater for it, as Mr.. Austin,
following Matthew Arnold, acknowl-
edges; rather he was great among the
greatest in spite of it. He sang often
of high and mighty themes, but he
sang of them nobly because he was a
great poet, not because he had "too
much of a peasant" in him. He sang,
too, Of nature and it's inspiration as no
poet had ever sung before, and per-
haps as few poets will ever sing again,
because nature and human nature
were so rarely commingled and inter-
fused in his very being that their fu-
sion found expression, at once unique
and inevitable, in his song. But all
this is only so much as to say that
Wordsworth was his own Incompatible
self. It is not to say that Wordsworth
was what he was because he loved and
lived the simple country life, nor do
the instances cited by the poet laur-
cate convince US that the many poets
who have sung sweetly of nature have
shared Wordsworth's love in this re-
spect.