But those who, like Wordsworth,
had been taught by that great convulsion to disdain the fetters of
sentiment and tradition and to look on Reason as supreme were not
willing to relinquish their belief because violence had conquered
her in one more battle. Rather they clung with the greater tenacity,--
"adhered," in Wordsworth's words,
More firmly to old tenets, and to prove
Their temper, strained them more;
cast off more decisively than ever the influences of tradition, and
in their Utopian visions even wished to see the perfected race
severed in its perfection from the memories of humanity, and from
kinship with the struggling past.
Through a mood of this kind Wordsworth had to travel now. And his
nature, formed for pervading attachments and steady memories,
suffered grievously from the privation of much which even the
coldest and calmest temper cannot forego without detriment and pain.
For it is not with impunity that men commit themselves to the sole
guidance of either of the two great elements of their being. The
penalties of trusting to the emotions alone are notorious; and every
day affords some instance of a character that has degenerated into a
bundle of impulses, of a will that has become caprice.
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