Read Ebook: Dorothy Wordsworth: The Story of a Sister's Love by Lee Edmund

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In the early part of 1794, having still no fixed residence, we find Wordsworth staying at Halifax. Writing in February of that year to a friend, he says: "My sister is under the same roof with me; indeed, it was to see her that I came into the country. I have been doing nothing, and still continue to do nothing. What is to become of me I know not." About this time the brother and sister together made a tour in the Lake District. She writes: "After having enjoyed the company of my brother William at Halifax, we set forward by coach towards Whitehaven, and thence to Kendal. I walked, with my brother at my side, from Kendal to Grasmere, eighteen miles, and afterwards from Grasmere to Keswick, fifteen miles, through the most delightful country that was ever seen. We are now at a farmhouse about half a mile from Keswick. When I came I intended to stay only a few days; but the country is so delightful, and, above all, I have so full an enjoyment of my brother's company, that I have determined to stay a few weeks longer."

In his uncertainty of mind Wordsworth projected the publishing of a periodical, and afterwards contributing to the London Newspaper Press. That the latter scheme was not put into practice was owing to the fact that just at this time an incident occurred which had no small influence upon what may be considered the turning point in his life.

RACEDOWN AND ALFOXDEN.

To all lovers of Wordsworth it is well known how, while he was yet undecided as to his future calling, he went to nurse a young friend named Raisley Calvert, who was afflicted with a malady which threatened to prove fatal, and by whose side he felt it his duty to remain. After a protracted illness his friend died, and bequeathed him a legacy of ?900. It is probable that in this generous act, to which Wordsworth has more than once recorded his indebtedness, Mr. Calvert was actuated by mixed motives; that it was to be regarded not only as an expression of gratitude, but that he also perceived in his friend talents which others were slow to recognise, and desired thus to provide him with the means of devoting himself, at any rate for a time, to the pursuit of poetry. However this may be, the incident cannot but be regarded as a link in the chain of providential circumstances which combined to prepare the poet for his future high calling. It is not, however, intended in this sketch to refer to Wordsworth himself more than is necessary for the purpose of elucidating any events in the life and character of his sister, or of tracing her influence upon him. Having thus obtained the means of livelihood for a few years, one of their cherished hopes was realised. His childhood's playmate became his constant and lifelong companion, devoting herself to him and his interests and aims as only a noble woman could have done.

At what a critical time Miss Wordsworth thus entered more closely into the life of her brother we learn from his biography, as well as from his works. Dejected and despondent by reason of the scenes of which he had been an eyewitness in France, and the terrible days which followed, Wordsworth was at this time greatly in danger of becoming misanthropic, and of giving way to a melancholy which might have coloured all his life, and deprived his works of the healthful and educating influence which they breathe. All disappointment and sorrow may become the precursor of blessing, the mother of a great hope. It is the bruised herb ne another.

Theism is the doctrine that the universe owes its existence, and continuance in existence, to the reason and will of a self-existent Being, who is infinitely powerful, wise, and good. It is the doctrine that nature has a Creator and Preserver, the nations a Governor, men a heavenly Father and Judge. It is a doctrine which has a long history behind it, and it is desirable that we should understand how we are related to that history.

Theism is very far from coextensive with religion. Religion is spread over the whole earth; theism only over a comparatively small portion of it. There are but three theistic religions--the Mosaic, the Christian, and the Mohammedan. They are connected historically in the closest manner--the idea of God having been transmitted to the two latter, and not independently originated by them. All other religions are polytheistic or pantheistic, or both together. Among those who have been educated in any of these heathen religions, only a few minds of rare penetration and power have been able to rise by their own exertions to a consistent theistic belief. The God of all those among us who believe in God, even of those who reject Christianity, who reject all revelation, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. From these ancient Jewish fathers the knowledge of Him has historically descended through an unbroken suculate her brother's better nature, to deaden what was unworthy, and to encourage, by tender care and patient endeavour, that higher life towards which his mind and soul were turned. She became, and for many years continued to be, the loadstar of his existence, and affords one of the most pleasing instances of sisterly devotion and fidelity on record. In her brother was verified the poet's prophecy:--

"True heart and shining star shall guide thee right."

Well was it for Wordsworth, and for us, that he had a sister, and that it was to this brother--one after her own heart--she at this juncture devoted herself. In this we may see another of the providential circumstances that beset the career of Wordsworth. As Spenser says:--

"It chanced-- Eternal God that chance did guide."

Writing of Miss Wordsworth at this time, her nephew, the late Bishop of Lincoln, says: "She was endowed with tender sensibility, with an exquisite perception of beauty, with a retentive recollection of what she saw, with a felicitous tact in discerning and admirable skill in delineating natural objects with graphic accuracy and vivid gracefulness. She weaned him from contemporary politics, and won him to beauty and truth."

Wordsworth himself, afterwards writing of this same period of his life, says:--

"Depressed, bewildered thus, I did not walk With scoffers, seeking light and gay revenge From indiscriminate laughter, nor sit down In reconcilement with an utter waste Of intellect.

We thus find Miss Wordsworth keeping house with her brother, who, having at length determined upon his course of life, was, in 1795, living at Racedown Lodge in Dorsetshire. From this time forth, amid all the changes of fortune and condition, they were close and life-long companions.

However great may have been her influence upon him previously, it now became a moulding and educating power. They were both in the strength of their youth--that time of radiant enjoyment--bound not only by that most endearing of natural ties, but by tastes, aims, and hopes most singularly mutual. The close association of daily intercourse and community of thought, together with a thorough sympathy, seemed now, as only an ardent enthusiasm and devoted love of kindred objects can do, to cement their lives. In this their first home, the only one which they had really known since childhood, and to which they had so longingly looked forward, they were all in all to each other. Separation from the busy world, and from society, was no hardship to them, so long as they were uninterrupted in the society of each other, and in the pursuits they loved. Though in a part of the country, then so remote that they had only a post once a week, they went into raptures over their lot. The house which they temporarily occupied was, we are informed, pretty well stocked with books, and they were industrious in both indoor and outdoor occupations. They read, and thought, and talked together, rambling through the lovely combs and by the ever-changing sea. "My brother," she says, "handles the spade with great dexterity," while she herself was engaged in reading Italian authors.

The following description of Coleridge, from the pen of Miss Wordsworth, cannot fail to be of interest. Writing to a friend, she says: "You had a great loss in not seeing Coleridge. He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul, mind, and spirit. Then he is so benevolent, so good-tempered and cheerful, and, like William, excites himself so much about every little trifle. At first I thought him very plain--that is, for about three minutes. He is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, thick lips, and not very good teeth; longish, loose-growing, half-curling, rough, black hair. But if you hear him speak for five minutes, you think no more about them. His eye is large and full, and not very dark, but grey--such an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression; but it speaks every emotion of his animated mind. It has more of the 'poet's eye in fine frenzy rolling' than I ever witnessed. He has fine dark eyebrows and an overhanging forehead."

'Guilt was a thing impossible in her.'

Her information various; her eye watchful in minutest observation of Nature; and her taste a perfect electrometer. It bends, protrudes, and draws in at subtlest beauties and most recondite faults."

From this description of Coleridge it might appear that Miss Wordsworth was one of those happy possessors of a face and features which though in repose might appear homely, became illumined by the sweet smiles of love--flashed into beauty by the gleam of the soul-lit eye.

The pleasure which the friendship of Coleridge afforded them induced Wordsworth and his sister to change their residence in order to be near him. Accordingly, in the summer of 1797, they settled at Alfoxden, near Nether Stowey. Alfoxden is described by Hazlitt as a "romantic old family mansion of the St. Aubins," and he gives the additional information that it was then in the possession of a friend of the poet, who gave him the free use of it. De Quincey states that he understood that the Wordsworths had the use of the house on condition of keeping it in repair.

Although Miss Wordsworth afterwards spoke of Racedown as the dearest place of her recollections upon the whole surface of the island, as the first home she had, she was soon enamoured of her new abode, and the scenery of Somersetshire. Of the neighbourhood of Nether Stowey she says, in a letter to a friend, dated 4th July: "There is everything there--sea, woods wild as fancy ever painted; brooks clear and pebbly as in Cumberland; villages as romantic; and William and I, in a wander by ourselves, found out a sequestered waterfall in a dell formed by steep hills, covered by full-grown timber-trees. The woods are as fine as those at Lowther, and the country more romantic; it has the character of the less grand parts of the neighbourhood of the lakes."

Being settled at Alfoxden, she writes again, on 14th August: "Here we are, in a large mansion, in a large park, with seventy head of deer around us. But I must begin with the day of leaving Racedown to pay Coleridge a visit. You know how much we were delighted with the neighbourhood of Stowey. The evening that I wrote to you, William and I had rambled as far as this house, and pryed into the recesses of our little brook, but without any more fixed thoughts upon it than some dreams of happiness in a little cottage, and passing wishes that such a place might be found out. We spent a fortnight at Coleridge's: in the course of that time we heard that this house was to let, applied for it, and took it. Our principal inducement was Coleridge's society. It was a month yesterday since we came to Alfoxden.

"The house is a large mansion, with furniture enough for a dozen families like ours. There is a very excellent garden, well stocked with vegetables and fruit. The garden is at the end of the house, and our favourite parlour, as at Racedown, looks that way. In front is a little court, with grass-plot, gravel-walk, and shrubs; the moss roses were in full beauty a month ago. The front of the house is to the south; but is screened from the sun by a high hill which rises immediately from it. This hill is beautiful, scattered irregularly and abundantly with trees, and topped with fern, which spreads a considerable way down it. The deer dwell here, and sheep, so that we have a living prospect. From the end of the house we have a view of the sea, over a woody, meadow country; and exactly opposite the window, where I now sit, is an immense wood, whose round top from this point has exactly the appearance of a mighty dome. In some parts of this wood there is an under-grove of hollies, which are now very beautiful. In a glen at the bottom of the wood is the waterfall of which I spoke, a quarter of a mile from the house. We are three miles from Stowey, and not two miles from the sea. Wherever we turn we have woods, smooth downs, and valleys with small brooks running down them, through green meadows, hardly ever intersected with hedgerows, but scattered over with trees. The hills that cradle these valleys are either covered with fern and bilberries, or oak woods, which are cut for charcoal.... Walks extend for miles over the hill-tops; the great beauty of which is their wild simplicity: they are perfectly smooth, without rocks.

"The Tor of Glastonbury is before our eyes during more than half of our walk to Stowey; and in the park, wherever we go, keeping about fifteen yards above the house, it makes a part of our prospect."

RESIDENCE AT ALFOXDEN.--REMOVAL TO GRASMERE.

The year succeeding the time when Miss Wordsworth and her brother became resident at Alfoxden was one of glowing enjoyment and fruitful industry. We are not without a few pleasing pictures of this charmed primitive period of their lives--its profitable intercourse, its delightful rambles.

"Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roamed, Unchecked, or loitered 'mid his sylvan combs; Thou, in bewitching words with happy heart, Didst chant the vision of that ancient man, The bright-eyed mariner; and rueful woes Didst utter of the Lady Christabel-- And I, associate with such labours, steeped In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours, Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found After the perils of his moonlight ride, Near the loud waterfall; or her who sate In misery near the miserable thorn."

We can imagine the happy meetings and rapturous feelings of the two young poets in the company of the bright young woman, who was gifted with a no less poetic soul, wandering amid the delightful scenery of Somersetshire, revelling in the beauties of woodland and ocean, and the pleasant evenings, when each read to the other his growing poems; and they together discussed their ambitious schemes for the golden future, receiving the suggestions and approval of the ever-sympathetic sister and friend. Wordsworth has described this as a "very pleasant and productive time" of his life.

It was during one of the short tours of Wordsworth and Coleridge, with the bright and faithful Dorothy by their side, inspiring and stimulating , that the story of "The Ancient Mariner" was conceived. Wordsworth has said of it in a passage oft-repeated:--

"In the autumn of 1797, Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself, started from Alfoxden pretty late in the afternoon, with a view of visiting Linton and the valley of stones near it; and as our united funds were very small, we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by writing a poem, to be sent to the new Monthly Magazine. In the course of this walk was planned the poem of 'The Ancient Mariner,' founded on a dream, as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend, Mr. Cruikshank. Much the greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge's invention; but certain parts I suggested. For example, some crime to be committed, which was to bring upon the Old Navigator, as Coleridge afterwards delighted to call him, the spectral persecution, as a consequence of that crime and his own wanderings. I had been reading in 'Shelvocke's Voyages,' a day or two before, that, while doubling Cape Horn, they frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude--the largest sort of sea-fowl, some extending their wings 12 or 13 feet. Suppose, said I, you represent him as having killed one of these birds on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon them to avenge the crime. The incident was thought fitting for the purpose, and adopted accordingly. I also suggested the navigation of the ship by the dead man; but I do not recollect that I had anything more to do with the scheme of the poem."

It was about this time that the Wordsworths made the acquaintance of Hazlitt. He was then staying with Coleridge, who took him over to Alfoxden. Of this visit Hazlitt says:--

'Heard the loud stag speak.'

"Next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, we strolled out into the park, and, seating ourselves on the trunk of an old ash tree, that stretched along the ground, Coleridge read aloud, with a sonorous and musical voice, the ballad of 'Betty Foy.' I was not critically or sceptically inclined. I saw touches of truth and nature, and took the rest for granted. But in 'The Thorn,' 'The Mad Mother,' and 'The Complaint of the Poor Indian Woman,' I felt that deeper power and pathos, which have been since acknowledged,

'In spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,'

as the characteristics of this author, and the sense of a new style and a new spirit in poetry, came over me. It had to me something of the effect that arises from the turning up of the fresh soil, or of the first welcome breath of spring,

'While yet the trembling year is unconfirmed.'

"Coleridge and myself walked back to Stowey that evening, and his voice sounded high,

'Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate; Fixt fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,'

This year was also celebrated by an introduction to Charles Lamb and his excellent sister Mary. Lamb was an old schoolfellow, and a close friend of Coleridge. They had been boys together at the Christ's Hospital, where the sympathy between them had been formed which became a life-long bond. A short emancipation from the toils of the East India House found Lamb and his sister spending a little time with Coleridge at Nether Stowey. From the time of the commencement of the acquaintance of Mary Lamb and Dorothy Wordsworth in this manner, their friendship was constant and their correspondence frequent. While, in temperament, they were totally unlike each other, there was that in the tenor of their lives, in the tender and helpful devotion of each of them to her brother--a devotion in both cases so warmly reciprocated--together with much in common in their tastes and pursuits, which served to cement a friendship begun under such pleasurable circumstances.

The poem "To my Sister," written in front of Alfoxden, is suggestive of the happy rural life at this time enjoyed by the poet and his sister. What lover of Wordsworth does not remember how on "the first mild day of March," when, to the receptive spirit of the poet, each minute of the advancing, balmy day appeared to be lovelier than the preceding one, while, sauntering on the lawn, he wrote, desiring her to hasten with her household morning duties, and share his enjoyment of the genial sunshine?

"It is the first mild day of March: Each minute sweeter than before The red-breast sings from the tall larch That stands beside our door.

"There is a blessing in the air, Which seems a sense of joy to yield To the bare trees, and mountains bare, And grass in the green field.

"'My sister! , Now that our morning meal is done, Make haste, your morning task resign; Come forth and feel the sun.

"'Edward will come with you--and, pray, Put on with speed your woodland dress; And bring no book; for this one day We'll give to idleness.

"'No joyless forms shall regulate Our living calendar: We from to-day, my Friend, will date The opening of the year.

"'Love, now a universal birth, From heart to heart is stealing, From earth to man, from man to earth; --It is the hour of feeling.

"'One moment now may give us more Than years of toiling reason: Our minds shall drink at every pore The spirit of the season.

"'Some silent laws our hearts will make, Which they shall long obey; We for the year to come may take Our temper from to-day.

"'And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above, We'll frame the measure of our souls: They shall be tuned to love.

"'Then come, my Sister! come, I pray, With speed put on your woodland dress; And bring no book: for this one day We'll give to idleness.'"

It was also during their residence at Alfoxden that Miss Wordsworth and her brother made their tour on the banks of the Wye, so signally memorialised in his famous lines on Tintern Abbey, of which he says, no poem of his was composed under circumstances more pleasant for him to remember. Its elevating reflections and rhythmic strains take captive the affections of the lover of Nature, and linger in his memory like the music of youth. In this place our interest in it arises from the allusions it contains to his beloved companion. He refers to the sweet sensations which, in hours of weariness in towns and cities, he has owed to the beauteous forms of Nature to which his mind has turned. He calls to memory the time when he had, indeed, loved Nature more passionately, and compares it with his present more mature and thoughtful affection, concluding with a fervid address to her who was by his side, and whose presence imparted an added charm--that of double vision--to every object and feeling; a sense of blessing shared:--

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