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, Of Geneviève. In both her clamorous Halls, Of Tavern, Brothel, Gaming-house, and Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk I stared and listened, with a stranger's ears, wear, But seemed there present; and I scanned them all, Watched every gesture uncontrollable, Where silent zephyrs sported with the dust Of the Bastille, I sate in the open sun, 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 And all the promptest of her spirits, linked I wept not then,-but tears have dimmed my sight, In memory of the farewells of that time, cause Good, pure, which no one could stand up against, Who was not lost, abandoned, selfish, proud, Among that band of Officers was one, Did breathe its sweetness out most sensibly, 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 With the most noble, but unto the poor As man; and, to the mean and the obscure, The experience of past ages, as, through help Of books and common' life, it makes sure way To youthful minds, by objects over near 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 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 To aspirations then of our own minds Oh, sweet it is, in academic groves, Or such retirement, Friend! as we have known In the green dales beside our Rotha's stream, Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts ab struse If nature then be standing on the brink A hope it is, and a desire; a creed For the Sicilian Tyrant's overthrow, 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; 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 Upon her palfrey, or that gentle maid Joust underneath the trees, that as in storm Rocked high above their heads; anon, the din Of boisterous merriment, and music's roar, Rejoicing o'er a female in the midst, When to a convent in a meadow green, I could not but bewail a wrong so harsh, cross High on the topmost pinnacle, a sign Of hospitality and peaceful rest. Or to that rural castle, name now slipped 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, 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, 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 Be found no more, that we should see the earth Unthwarted in her wish to recompense To all mankind. But, these things set apart, Captivity by mandate without law Should cease; and open accusation lead not stoop To humbler matter that detained us oft 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 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, 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 more To abide in the great City, where I found 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 Not in my single self alone I found, Given to my moral nature had I known I had been traveling: this a stride at once 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 |