And Wordsworth, especially in his poems which deal
with Coleorton, has shown how deeply he felt the sway of such a
home's hereditary majesty, its secure and tranquillizing charm. Yet
there are moods when the heart which deeply feels the inequality of
human lots turns towards a humbler ideal. There are moments when the
broad park, the halls and towers, seem no longer the fitting frame
of human greatness, but rather an isolating solitude, an unfeeling
triumph over the poor.
In such a mood of mind it will not always satisfy us to dwell, as
Wordsworth has so often done, on the virtue and happiness that
gather round a cottage hearth,--which we must, after all, judge by a
somewhat less exacting standard. We turn rather to the "refined
rusticity" of an English Parsonage home.
Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends,
Is marked by no distinguishable line;
The turf unites, the pathways intertwine,--
and the clergyman's abode has but so much of dignity as befits the
minister of the Church which is the hamlet's centre; enough to
suggest the old Athenian boast of beauty without extravagance, and
study without effeminacy; enough to show that dwellings where not
this life but another is the prevailing thought and care, yet need
not lack the graces of culture, nor the loves of home.
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