In fancy's region of celestial things;
But she—by sympathy disclosed the might,
That slumbered in his soul, and drew it thence,
In richest numbers of subduing power,
To soften, harmonise, and soothe mankind;
Nor less to elevate, and point the way
To truth Divine—not with polemic skill,
He sought from Nature and the human heart,
That sacred wisdom from the fount of God."
It has been well said that with a masculine power of mind Miss Wordsworth "had every womanly virtue, and presented with those splendid gifts such a rare combination, that even the enthusiastic strains in which her brother sang her praises borrowed no aid from his poetic imagination. It was she who in childhood moderated the sternness of his moody temper, and she carried on the work which she had begun. His chief delight had been in scenes which were distinguished by terror and grandeur, and she taught him the beauty of the simplest products and mildest graces of Nature; while she was softening his mind she was elevating herself; and out of this interchange of gifts grew an absolute harmony of thought and feeling." What was originally harsh in Wordsworth was toned by the womanly sweetness of his sister, and his spirit softened by her habitual delicacy of thought and act. Not only so, but with a devotion (I will not say self-sacrifice, for it was none) as rare as it is noble, she simply dedicated to him her life and service, living in and for him. She read for him, saw for him, and heard for him; found subjects for his reflection, and was always at hand—his willing scribe. Rejecting for herself all thoughts of love and marriage, she gave to him and his her mature life as willingly and cheerfully as when he was alone and unfriended, she had done her bright girlhood. With a mental capacity and literary skill, which would have enabled her to carve out for herself an independent reputation and position of no mean order, she preferred to sink herself, and her future, in that of her brother, with whom she has thus become, for all time, so indelibly associated. And he was grateful, and returned her devotedness with a love, tender, and almost reverential. One other allusion to her in his poems should be given. It may be thought that his praise of her is exaggerated; but none so well as he himself knew the extent of his obligation to her—and he was not one to bestow praise for the sake only of poetic effect. Writing in the "Prelude," he says:—