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Page 52
I don't know where else to find the vague torment of thought, its way
of enhancing colour and form in nature, more intensely observed. Next
day: "When I returned _William_ was come. _The surprise shot through
me._" This woman was not so much poet as crystal vase. You can see the
thought cloud and take shape.
The twin life was resumed for yet a little while. In the same month
came her descriptions of the daffodils in Gowbarrow Park, and of the
scene by Brothers Water, which prove to anybody in need of proof
that she was William's well-spring of poesy. Not that the journal is
necessarily involved. No need to suppose that he even read it. But
that she could make him see, and be moved by, what she had seen is
proved by this: "17th.-- ... I saw a robin chasing a scarlet butterfly
this morning"; and "Sunday, 18th.-- ... William wrote the poem on _The
Robin and the Butterfly_." No, beautiful beyond praise as the journals
are, it is certain that she was more beautiful than they. And what a
discerning, illuminative eye she had! "As I lay down on the grass, I
observed the glittering silver line on the ridge of the backs of the
sheep, owing to their situation respecting the sun, which made them
look beautiful, but with something of strangeness, like animals of
another kind, as if belonging to a more splendid world...." What a
woman to go a-gipsying through the world with!
Then comes the end.... "Thursday, 8th July.-- In the afternoon, after
we had talked a little, William fell asleep. I read _The Winter's
Tale_; then I went to bed but did not sleep. The swallows stole in and
out of their nest, and sat there, _whiles_ quite still; _whiles_ they
sung low for two minutes or more at a time, just like a muffled robin.
William was looking at _The Pedlar_ when I got up. He arranged it,
and after tea I wrote it out--280 lines.... The moon was behind....
We walked first to the top of the hill to see Rydale. It was dark and
dull, but our own vale was very solemn--the shape of Helm Crag was
quite distinct though black. We walked backwards and forwards on the
White Moss path; there was a sky like white brightness on the lake....
O beautiful place! Dear Mary, William. The hour is come.... I must
prepare to go. The swallows, I must leave them, the wall, the garden,
the roses, all. Dear creatures, they sang last night after I was in
bed; seemed to be singing to one another, just before they settled to
rest for the night. Well, I must go. Farewell."
Next day she set out with William to meet her secret dread, knowing
that life in Rydale could never be the same again. Wordsworth married
Mary Hutchinson on the 4th October, 1802. The secret is no secret now,
for Dorothy was a crystal vase.
_NOCTES AMBROSIAN�_
Weather has sent me indoors, chance to an old book. I have been
reading _Noctes Ambrosian�_ again. Bad buffoonery as much of it is and
full to the throttle of the warm-watery optimism induced by whisky,
yet as fighting literature it is incalculably better than its modern
substitute in _Blackwood_. The sniper who monthly tries to pinch out
his adversaries there--Mrs. Partington's nephew, in fact--wants the
one quality which will make that kind of thing intolerable--that is,
high spirits. The Black Hussars of Maga both had them, and drank
them, frequently neat. I judge that the Nephew has to be more careful.
Eupepsy is not revealed in his writing; but Christopher North and his
co-mates must have had the stomachs of ostriches. The guzzling and
swilling which were the staple of the _Noctes_ were remarked upon at
the time as incredible as well as disgusting; but it is to be presumed
that they wouldn't have been there if, to the majority at least, they
had not been a counsel of perfection. "I wasn't as drunk as I should
have liked to be, your Worship, but I was drunk."
As well as that, most people thought it exceedingly funny. Dickens
and his readers thought it funny too. Christmas would not have been
Christmas unless somebody got beastly drunk. We have moved on since
then, and carried the Nephew with us, _multum gementem_. One can see
him kicking violently under the arm of the _Zeitgeist_ as he is borne
down the ringing grooves of change. Now, therefore, he is tart in his
musings, chastises rather with fleas than with scorpions.
When the _Noctes_ can stand away from Politics and Literature--for the
two were always involved in those days, so that unless you approved a
man's party you couldn't allow that he wrote tolerable verse--they can
wile away a winter evening very pleasantly. Christopher North had an
eye for character, a sense of humour, and knew and loved the country.
He was country bred. He is at his best when he combines his loves,
as he does in the person of the Shepherd. Keep the Shepherd off (_a_)
girls, (_b_) nursing mothers, (_c_) the Sabbath, (_d_) eating, (_e_)
drinking, (_f_) his own poetry, and he is good reading. Knowing and
loving Ettrick Forest as I do, I need no better guide to it than
North's Shepherd. Having fished all its waters from Loch Skene
downwards, I should ask no better company, evenings, at Tibbie
Shields' or the Tushielaw Inn. Edward FitzGerald could have made a
good book out of the _Noctes_, cutting it down to one volume out of
four. As it is mainly, it will stand or fall by its high spirits. The
really funny character in it is Gurney, the shorthand writer, who is
kept in a cupboard, and at the end of the last uproarious chapter,
when the coast is cleared of the horseplaying protagonists, "comes out
like a mouse, and begins to nibble cheese." That is imagination.
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