Volume 1

Studies of a biographer / by Leslie Stephen.

  • Leslie Stephen
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of a biographer / by Leslie Stephen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    269/284 page 257
    2 57 without the imaginative vigour which at the time made Schiller’s bombast excusable—the product of a contemplative speculation instead of youthful passion,—but it is plain enough that the poet loathes his villain too much to allow him the least attractiveness. The play represents the kind of moral spasm by which a man repels a totally un¬ congenial element of thought. He had found that what he took for a wholesome food contained a deadly poison, and to become conscious of its nature is to expel it with disgust. What was the influence, then, which opened Wordsworth’s eyes and caused what seemed, at least, to be a change of front ? He answers that question himself by referring to two influences. The first was the influence of the devoted sister who now came to live with him. She pointed out to him that his c office upon earth ’ was to be a poet. She persuaded him, one may say, to cease to bother himself with Godwin’s metaphysics, with puzzles as to Freewill and Necessity and the ground of moral obligation, and to return to his early aspirations. If this bit of advice fell in with his own predisposition, the influence of Dorothy Wordsworth was something far more than could be summed up in any advice, however judicious. VOL. i. p
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