But the
consequences of making Reason our tyrant instead of our king are
almost equally disastrous. There is so little which Reason,
divested of all emotional or instinctive supports, is able to prove
to our satisfaction that a sceptical aridity is likely to take
possession of the soul. It was thus with Wordsworth; he was driven
to a perpetual questioning of all beliefs and analysis of all motives,--
Till, demanding formal proof,
And seeking it in everything, I lost
All feeling of conviction; and, in fine,
Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,
Yielded up moral questions in despair.
In this mood all those great generalized conceptions which are the
food of our love, our reverence, our religion, dissolve away; and
Wordsworth tells us that at this time
Even the visible universe
Fell under the dominion of a taste
Less spiritual, with microscopic view
Was scanned, as I had scanned the moral world.
He looked on the operations of nature "in disconnection dull and
spiritless;" he could no longer apprehend her unity nor feel her
charm. He retained indeed his craving for natural beauty, but in an
uneasy and fastidious mood,--
Giving way
To a comparison of scene with scene,
Bent overmuch on superficial things,
Pampering myself with meagre novelties
Of colour and proportion; to the moods
Of time and season, to the moral power,
The affections, and the spirit of the place,
Insensible.
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