The _Excursion_, in short, has the
drawbacks of a didactic poem as compared with lyrical poems; but,
judged as a didactic poem, it has the advantage of containing
teaching of true and permanent value.
I shall not attempt to deduce a settled scheme of philosophy from
these discourses among the mountains. I would urge only that as a
guide to conduct Wordsworth's precepts are not in themselves either
unintelligible or visionary. For whereas some moralists would have us
amend nature, and others bid us follow her, there is apt to be
something impracticable in the first maxim, and something vague in
the second. Asceticism, quietism, enthusiasm, ecstasy--all systems
which imply an unnatural repression or an unnatural excitation of
our faculties--are ill-suited for the mass of mankind. And on the
other hand, if we are told to follow nature, to develope our
original character, we are too often in doubt as to which of our
conflicting instincts to follow, what part of our complex nature to
accept as our regulating self. But Wordsworth, while impressing on
us conformity to nature as the rule of life, suggests a test of such
conformity which can be practically applied. "The child is father of
the man,"--in the words which stand as introduction to his poetical
works, and Wordsworth holds that the instincts and pleasures of a
healthy childhood sufficiently indicate the lines on which our
maturer character should be formed.
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