Something of this sort was, I think, agreed on. It is, in
substance, what I have been all my life doing in my system of philosophy.
[Footnote 1:
Poetical Works, vol. i. p. 206. It is not too much to say of this beautiful
poem, and yet it is difficult to say more, that it is at once worthy of the
poet, his subject, and his object:--
"An Orphic song indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts,
To their own music chanted."--ED.]
* * * * *
I think Wordsworth possessed more of the genius of a great philosophic poet
than any man I ever knew, or, as I believe, has existed in England since
Milton; but it seems to me that he ought never to have abandoned the
contemplative position, which is peculiarly--perhaps I might say
exclusively--fitted for him. His proper title is _Spectator ab extra_.
* * * * *
_July_ 23. 1832.
FRENCH REVOLUTION.
No man was more enthusiastic than I was for France and the Revolution: it
had all my wishes, none of my expectations. Before 1793, I clearly saw and
often enough stated in public, the horrid delusion, the vile mockery, of
the whole affair.[1]
When some one said in my brother James's presence[2] that I was a Jacobin,
he very well observed,--"No! Samuel is no Jacobin; he is a hot-headed
Moravian!" Indeed, I was in the extreme opposite pole.
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