I remember Mr. Wordsworth saying that, at a particular stage of his mental progress, he used to be frequently so rapt into an unreal transcendental world of ideas that the external world seemed no longer to exist in relation to him, and he had to reconvince himself of its existence by clasping a tree, or something that happened to be near him. I could not help connecting this fact with that obscure passage in his great Ode on the 'Intimations of Immortality,' in which he speaks of
'Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things;
Fallings from us, vanishings:
Blank misgivings of a creature,
Moving about in worlds not realised,' &c.
I heard him once make the remark that it would be a good habit to watch closely the first involuntary thoughts upon waking in the morning, as indications of the real current of the moral being.
I was struck by what seemed to me a beautiful analogy, which I once heard him draw, and which was new to me—that the individual characters of mankind showed themselves distinctively in childhood and youth, as those of trees in Spring; that of both, of trees in Summer and of human kind in middle life, they were then alike to a great degree merged in a dull uniformity; and that again, in Autumn and in declining age, there appeared afresh all their original and inherent variety brought out into view with deeper marking of character, with more vivid contrast, and with greater accession of interest and beauty.
He thought the charm of Robinson Crusoe mistakenly ascribed, as it commonly is done, to its naturalness. Attaching a full value to the singular yet easily imagined and most picturesque circumstances of the adventurer's position, to the admirable painting of the scenes, and to the knowledge displayed of the working of human feelings, he yet felt sure that the intense interest created by the story arose chiefly from the extraordinary energy and resource of the hero under his difficult circumstances, from their being so far beyond what it was natural to expect, or what would have been exhibited by the average of men; and that similarly the high pleasure derived from his successes and good fortunes arose from the peculiar source of these uncommon merits of his character.
I have heard him pronounce that the Tragedy of Othello, Plato's records of the last scenes of the career of Socrates, and Isaac Walton's Life of George Herbert, were in his opinion the most pathetic of human compositions.
In a walk one day, after stopping, according to his custom, to claim admiration for some happy aspect of the landscape, or beautiful composition on a smaller scale of natural objects, caught by him at the precisely best point of view in the midst of his conversation on other subjects, he added, good-humouredly, that there were three callings for success in which Nature had furnished him with qualifications—the callings of poet, landscape-gardener, and critic of pictures and works of art. On hearing this I could not but remember how his qualifications for the second were proved by the surprising variety of natural beauties he managed to display to their best advantage, from the very circumscribed limits of the garden at Rydal Mount, 'an invisible hand of art everywhere working' (to use his own exquisite expression) 'in the very spirit of Nature,' and how many there were who have owed the charm of their grounds and gardens to direction sought from his well-known taste and feeling. As to works of art, his criticism was not that of one versed in the history of the schools, but, always proceeding upon first principles, the 'prima philosophia,' as he called it; and it was, as it appeared to me, of the highest order.
He was a very great admirer of Virgil, not so much as a creative poet, but as the most consummate master of language, that, perhaps, ever existed. From him, and Horace, who was an especial favourite, and Lucretius, he used to quote much.[265]