"Yet, how happy the poets are," said she. "Their words call the deepest feelings into existence in thousands of mute souls, and how often their songs have become a confession of the sweetest secrets! Their heart beats in the breasts of the poor and the rich. The happy sing with them, and the sad weep with them. But I cannot feel any poet so completely my own as Wordsworth. I know many of my friends do not like him. They say he is not a poet. But that is exactly why I like him; he avoids all the hackneyed poetical catch-words, all exaggeration, and everything comprehended in Pegasus-flights. He is true—and does not everything lie in this one word? He opens our eyes to the beauty which lies under our feet like the daisy in the meadow. He calls everything by its true name. He never intends to startle, deceive, or dazzle any one. He seeks no admiration for himself. He only shows mankind how beautiful everything is which man's hand has not yet spoiled or broken. Is not a dew-drop on a blade of grass more beautiful than a pearl set in gold? Is not a living spring, which gushes up before us, we know not whence, more beautiful than all the fountains of Versailles? Is not his Highland Girl a lovelier and truer expression of real beauty than Goethe's Helena, or Byron's Haidee? And then the plainness of his language, and the purity of his thoughts! Is it not a pity that we have never had such a poet? Schiller could have been our Wordsworth, had he had more faith in himself than in the old Greeks and Romans. Our Ruckert would come the nearest to him, had he not also sought consolation and home under Eastern roses, away from his poor Fatherland. Few poets have the courage to be just what they are. Wordsworth had it; and as we gladly listen to great men, even in those moments when they are not inspired, but, like other mortals, quietly cherish their thoughts, and patiently wait the moment that will disclose new glimpses into the infinite, so have I also listened gladly to Wordsworth himself, in his poems, which contain nothing more than any one might have said. The greatest poets allow themselves rest. In Homer we often read a hundred verses without a single beauty, and just so in Dante; while Pindar, whom all admire so much, drives me to distraction with his ecstacies. What would I not give to spend one summer on the lakes; visit with Wordsworth all the places to which he has given names; greet all the trees which he has saved from the axe; and only once watch a far-off sunset with him, which he describes as only Turner could have painted."
It was a peculiarity of hers that her voice never dropped at the close of her talk, as with most people; on the contrary, it rose and always ended, as it were, in the broken seventh chord. She always talked up, never down, to people. The melody of her sentences resembled that of the child when it says: "Can't I, father?" There was something beseeching in her tones, and it was well-nigh impossible to gainsay her.
"Wordsworth," said I, "is a dear poet, and a still dearer man to me, and as one often has a more beautiful, wide-spread, and stirring outlook from a little hill which he ascends without effort, than when he has clambered up Mont Blanc with difficulty and weariness, so it seems to me with Wordsworth's poetry. At first, he often appeared commonplace to me, and I have frequently laid down his poems unable to understand how the best minds of England to-day can cherish such an admiration for him. The conviction has grown upon me that no poet whom his nation, or the intellectual aristocracy of his people, recognize as a poet, should remain unenjoyed by us, whatever his language. Admiration is an art which we must learn. Many Germans say Racine does not please them. The Englishman says, 'I do not understand Goethe.' The Frenchman says Shakespeare is a boor. What does all this amount to? Nothing more than the child who says it likes a waltz better than a symphony of Beethoven's. The art consists in discovering and understanding what each nation admires in its great men. He who seeks beauty will eventually find it, and discover that the Persians are not entirely deceived in their Hafiz, nor the Hindoos in their Kalidasa. We cannot understand a great man all at once. It takes strength, effort, and perseverance, and it is singular that what pleases us at first sight seldom captivates us any length of time.
"And yet," she continued, "there is something common to all great poets, to all true artists, to all the world's heroes, be they Persian or Hindoo, heathen or Christian, Roman or German; it is—I hardly know what to call it—it is the Infinite which seems to lie behind them, a far away glance into the Eternal, an apotheosis of the most trifling and transitory things. Goethe, the grand heathen, knew the sweet peace which comes from Heaven; and when he sings:
"On every mountain-height
Is rest.
O'er each summit white
Thou feelest
Scarcely a breath.
The bird songs are still from each bough;
Only wait, soon shalt thou
Rest too, in death.
"does not an endless distance, a repose which earth cannot give, disclose itself to him above the fir-clad summits? This background is never wanting with Wordsworth. Let the carpers say what they will, it is nevertheless only the super-earthly, be it ever so obscure, which charms and quiets the human heart. Who has better understood this earthly beauty than Michel Angelo?—but he understood it, because it was to him a reflection of superearthly beauty. You know his sonnet:
["La forza d'un bel volto al ciel mi sprona
(Ch'altro in terra non e che mi diletti),
E vivo ascendo tra gli spirti eletti;
Grazia ch'ad uom mortal raro si dona.
Si ben col suo Fattor l'opra consuona,
Ch'a lui mi levo per divin concetti;
E quivi informo i pensier tutti e i detti;
Ardendo, amando per gentil persona.
Onde, se mai da due begli occhi il guardo
Torcer non so, conosco in lor la luce
Che mi mostra la via, ch'a Dio mi guide;
E se nel lume loro acceso io ardo,
Nel nobil foco mio dolce riluce
La gioja che nel cielo eterna ride.">[
"The might of one fair face sublimes my love,
For it hath weaned my heart from low desires;
Nor death I heed nor purgatorial fires.
Thy beauty, antepast of joys above
Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve;
For, Oh! how good, how beautiful must be
The God that made so good a thing as thee,
So fair an image of the Heavenly Dove.
Forgive me if I cannot turn away
From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,
For they are guiding stars, benignly given
To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;
And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,
I live and love in God's peculiar light."
She was exhausted and silent, and how could I disturb that silence? When human hearts, after friendly interchange of thoughts feel calmed and quieted, it is as if an angel had flown through the room and we heard the gentle flutter of wings over our heads. As my gaze rested upon her, her lovely form seemed illuminated in the twilight of the summer evening, and her hand, which I held in mine, alone gave me the consciousness of her real presence. Then suddenly a bright refulgence spread over her countenance. She felt it, opened her eyes and looked upon me wonderingly. The wonderful brightness of her eyes, which the half-closed eyelids covered as with a veil, shone like the lightning. I looked around and at last saw that the moon had arisen in full splendor between two peaks opposite the castle, and brightened the lake and the village with its friendly smiles. Never had I seen Nature, never had I seen her dear face so beautiful, never had such holy rest settled down upon my soul. "Marie," said I, "in this resplendent moment, let me, just as I am, confess my whole love. Let us, while we feel so powerfully the nearness of the superearthly, unite our souls in a tie which can never again be broken. Whatever love may be, Marie, I love you and I feel, Marie, you are mine for I am thine."
I knelt before her, but ventured not to look into her eyes. My lips touched her hand and I kissed it. At this she withdrew her hand from me, slowly at first and then quickly and decidedly, and as I looked at her an expression of pain was on her face. She was silent for a time, but at last she raised herself and said with a deep sigh: