Dorothy Wordsworth Part 1

Dorothy Wordsworth.

by Edmund Lee.

PREFACE.

This little book owes its origin to the fact that, with the exception of Professor Shairp's Sketch contained in the preface to the "Tour in Scotland," no biography or memoir of the subject of it has. .h.i.therto been written. Seeing what an important part Miss Wordsworth occupied in influencing the revival of English poetry at the close of the last century, this has frequently been to me a matter of surprise. To the best of my knowledge, she does not even occupy any place in the numerous sketches of famous women which have from time to time appeared. At the same time the references to her in the biographies of her brother and in the reviews of his works are many.

My main object in the present work has been, so far as permissible, to gather together into the form of a Memoir of her life various allusions to Miss Wordsworth, together with such further particulars as might be procurable, and with some reflections to which such a life gives rise.

My task has, therefore, been one of a compiler rather than an author.

I acknowledge my great indebtedness to all sources from whence information has been obtained. In addition to the authorities after mentioned, I desire especially to mention the kindness of Dr. Sadler for his permission to reprint the letters of Miss Wordsworth to the late Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson, published in his "Diary and Reminiscences"; and of Mr. F. W. H. Myers for the like permission to make use of some letters which for the first time appeared in his "Wordsworth."

However far I have failed in my original design, and however imperfectly I may have performed my self-appointed task of love, it cannot be doubted that no name can more fittingly have a place in female biography than that of Dorothy Wordsworth.

BRADFORD, 1886.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

The influences which help to shape human destiny are many and varied. At some period in the early history of two lives, beginning their course separately, one of them, by coming into contact with the other, is quickened into deeper vitality, and the germ of a great and unthought-of future is formed. Lives touch each other, and from thenceforth, like meeting waters, their onward course is destined, and flows through deeper and broader channels.

Among the most commanding of human influences is that of _woman_. As mother, or sister, or wife we find her, at every period of a man's existence, occupying a prominent part as his guide, comforter, and friend. Not unfrequently it happens that the influence of a sister is the greatest, and that to which a career is due. Especially is this so when the mother dies whilst the brother and sister are young. The influence of the wife, all-powerful though it may be, is of a later date, when character and conduct have to a great extent become formed, and the tendency of genius settled. When the sister's companions.h.i.+p gives place to that of the wife, a career may have become developed. In this way the most dominant power may remain unrevealed; and the blossoming and perfection of character may never be traced to their original source.

Many pleasant stories of affection between brothers and sisters, and of their inspiration of each other, have been told; and many more have existed among those who have lived unhistoric lives, and whose annals are recorded only among memories which linger round lonely hearths.

Lovely and pleasant in their saddened lives were Charles and Mary Lamb.

The way in which they were each devoted to the other, and in which they were bound up in each other's well-being to the complete forgetfulness of self, suggests a pleasing and pathetic picture of fraternal fidelity, while it reveals a domestic history the most touching and tragic the world has known.

We have a companion picture, but a more happy and pleasant one, in the lives of William and Dorothy Wordsworth.

The culture and well-being of a nation depend largely upon the character, purity, and progress of its literature. To no cla.s.s of writers has the world been more indebted than to its poets--those "rare souls, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world." It was well said by one of these: "Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward.

It has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wis.h.i.+ng to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me."

Among those who have permanently elevated and enriched our English literature during the present century, none is ent.i.tled to a more honoured place than is William Wordsworth, our greatest laureate; and none of the influences which entered into his life, and served to build up his great career, and to complete his great work, can fail to be of interest. And of all the world's benefactors--of all who in any of the primary departments, have achieved most signal distinction, has none been more indebted to the aid of another, than was Wordsworth to the devoted aid and the constraining and softening power of his sister.

In many respects there is a marked similarity between the lives of Charles and Mary Lamb and those of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. The burden of the story of each is that of a brother's and sister's love.

But there is also a great difference. While one is the tale of an elder sister's affection, and of the brother's self-sacrifice for the tender care of her during periods of nature's saddest affliction, the other tells how a younger sister consecrated her life to her brother's greatest good, relinquis.h.i.+ng for herself everything outside him in such a way that she became absorbed in his own existence. But as a self-sacrificing love always brings its own reward, the poet's sister attained hers. She is for all time identified and a.s.sociated with her brother, who, with a grateful love, has "crowned her for immortality."

As Mr. Paxton Hood remarks: "Not Laura with Petrarch, nor Beatrice with Dante, nor the fair Geraldine with Surrey, are more really connected than is Wordsworth with his sister Dorothy."

CHAPTER II.

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE.

Dorothy Wordsworth was the only daughter and third child of John and Anne Wordsworth. She was born on Christmas Day, 1771, at c.o.c.kermouth, in c.u.mberland, being a year and nine months younger than her famous brother, the poet. John Wordsworth, the father, was an attorney-at-law, who had attained considerable success in his profession, being the solicitor of the then Earl of Lonsdale, in an old manor-house belonging to whose family he resided. Miss Wordsworth's mother was, on the maternal side, descended from an old and distinguished family, being the only daughter of William Cookson, of Penrith, who had married Dorothy Crackenthorp, whose family, we are informed, had, since the early part of the fourteenth century, resided at Newbiggen Hall, Westmoreland. The Wordsworths themselves traced their descent from a Yorks.h.i.+re family of that name who had settled in the county about the time of the Norman Conquest.

Dorothy had the misfortune to lose her excellent mother when she was a little more than six years old. After this great loss her father's health declined, and she was left an orphan at the early age of twelve.

The sources of information concerning her childhood are very meagre.

We cannot doubt that for the qualities of mind and heart which distinguished her she was, in common with the other members of her family--her four brothers, who all won for themselves successful careers--indebted to her parenthood, and especially to her mother, of whom the poet says:--

"She was the heart And hinge of all our learning and our loves."

The beauty and gentleness of disposition by which, in after years, Dorothy Wordsworth developed into such a perfect woman were not absent in her early childhood. Although we know so little, we have abundant testimony that as a child she was fittingly named _Dorothea_--the gift of G.o.d--and that then her life of ministry to her poet-brother began. We can well imagine how the little dark-eyed brunette, sparkling and impulsive damsel as she was, and the only girl in the family, became the darling of the circle. In after years, when her favourite and famous brother had entered on the career which she helped so much to stimulate and to perfect, we find in his poems many allusions to her, as well in her prattling childhood as in her mature years. The sight of a b.u.t.terfly calls to the poet's mind the pleasures of the early home, the time when he and his little playmate "together chased the b.u.t.terfly." The kindness of her child heart is told in a few expressive words. He says:--

"A very hunter did I rush Upon the prey;--with leaps and springs I followed on from brake to bush; But she--G.o.d love her!--_feared to brush The dust from off its wings_."

The sight of a sparrow's nest, many years after, also served to bring to the poet's remembrance his father's home and his sister's love. The "bright blue eggs" appeared to him "a vision of delight." In them he saw another sparrow's nest, in the years gone by daily visited in company with his little sister.

"Behold, within that leafy shade, Those bright blue eggs together laid!

On me the chance-discovered sight Gleamed like a vision of delight.

I started, seeming to espy The home and sheltered bed, The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by My Father's house, in wet or dry, My sister Emmeline and I Together visited.

She looked at it and seemed to fear it, Dreading, though wis.h.i.+ng, to be near it: Such heart was in her, being then A little Prattler among men.

The Blessing of my later years Was with me when a boy: She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares, and delicate fears; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears, And love, and thought, and joy."

It is to her early thoughtfulness that the poet alludes in another poem having reference to the same period. In this poem he represents his sister and her young play-fellows gathering spring flowers, and thus records her prudent "Foresight":--

"Here are daisies, take your fill; Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower: Of the lofty daffodil Make your bed or make your bower; Fill your lap and fill your bosom; Only spare the strawberry-blossom!

G.o.d has given a kindlier power To the favoured strawberry-flower.

Hither soon as spring is fled You and Charles and I will walk; Lurking berries, ripe and red, Then will hang on every stalk, Each within the leafy bower; And for that promise spare the flower!"

An incident showing the tender sensibility of her nature when a child is also deserving of special mention. In a note to the "Second Evening Voluntary," Wordsworth says: "My sister, when she first heard the voice of the sea from this point (the high ground on the coast of c.u.mberland overlooking Whitehaven and the sea beyond it) and beheld the sea spread before her, burst into tears. Our family then lived at c.o.c.kermouth, and this fact was often mentioned among us as indicating the sensibility for which she was so remarkable."

The death of their mother was, however, the signal for separation. Her brother William was sent to school at Hawkshead, in North Lancas.h.i.+re, and Dorothy went to reside with her maternal grandfather at Penrith.

Subsequently, during her brother's school and college days, we are informed that she lived chiefly at Halifax with her cousin, occasionally making lengthened visits at Forncett, to her cousin, Dr. Cookson, Canon of Windsor. Although they were in this way for some years deprived of each other's society, except during occasional college vacations, they were not forgotten by each other, and their early love did not grow cold. Wordsworth, having gone to Cambridge in 1787, during one of his early vacations visited his relations at Penrith, when he was for a short period restored to his sister's society. In his autobiographical poem, "The Prelude," he has thus recorded the fact:--

"In summer, making quest for works of art, Or scenes renowned for beauty, I explored That streamlet whose blue current works its way Between romantic Dovedale's spiry rocks; Pried into Yorks.h.i.+re dales, or hidden tracts Of my own native region, and was blest Between these sundry wanderings with a joy Above all joys, that seemed another morn Risen on mid noon; blest with the presence Of that sole Sister ---- Now, after separation desolate, Restored to me--such absence that she seemed A gift then first bestowed."

It cannot be doubted that the poetic tendency of Dorothy Wordsworth's mind, like that of her brother, was fostered by the beauties of the natural scenery in the midst of which a large portion of her childhood was cast. The beauty of wood, and lake, and mountain early sank into their receptive minds, and helped to make them what they became, both to each other, and to the world. To the influence of Nature in the maturing of their intellect, the development of both mind and heart, it may be necessary to refer later.

During the last of his college vacations--that of the year 1790, so remarkable in French history--Wordsworth made a three months' tour on the Continent with his friend, Mr. Robert Jones. Writing to his sister, then budding into womanhood, from the Lake of Constance, a fine description of the scenery through which they were pa.s.sing, he says: "I have thought of you perpetually; and never have my eyes rested upon a scene of great loveliness but I have almost instantly wished that you could for a moment be transported to the place where I stood to enjoy it. I have been more particularly induced to form those wishes, because the scenes of Switzerland have no resemblance to any I have found in England; consequently it may probably never be in your power to form an idea of them." And he concludes by saying: "I must now bid you adieu, with a.s.suring you that you are perpetually in my thoughts."

Wordsworth took his degree, and left Cambridge in 1791. Being undecided as to his future occupation, he spent the succeeding twelve months in France. His life for some time was wandering and uncertain. He has himself stated that he was once told by an intimate friend of his mother's that she had said the only one of her five children about whose future life she was anxious was William; and he, she said, would be remarkable either for good or for evil.

Wordsworth's experience of the French Revolution was far from being happy. His expectations were ruthlessly disappointed. With his ardent spirit he could not be an unconcerned observer of the stirring events which then agitated that ill-fated country. He had bright hopes of great results from the Revolution--of signal benefits to mankind. How bitterly he was disappointed we learn something from "The Prelude." The awful scenes of the time of blood and terror which followed were so deeply imaged on his mind, that for years afterwards they haunted his dreams, and he seemed