WORDSWORTH’S SISTERS

Evening Star, Issue 20137, 30 March 1929, Page 21

WORDSWORTH’S SISTERS

PROFESSOR HARPER'S BOOK Professor George M'Lean Harper, of Princeton University, is one of the great expositors of English literature to American renders, <md the greatest living authority on Wordsworth. In ‘ The Spirit of Delight ’ there is collected a scries of his essays on men and women “who have.” ns he says above, “ written joyously.” They aro not all English, but a good proportion of them are-—Coleridge, Hardy, Matthew Arnold, for example, figure in his pages. Here is the choice dedication : ‘“To Robert H. Marsh, an English friend, and therefore faithful friend o 1 ’ mine and of my country.” FROM TWO DIARIES. Wo quote (says ‘ Public Opinion from a typical chapter which reveal* his charm of style. In this he contrast? Eugenie de Guerin and Dorothy Wordsworth. This is how he begins: “ A certain young woman wrote in her diary one March morning: “‘ Ho has a nice bright day. It was hard frost in the night. The robins are singing sweetly. Now for my walk. I will be busy. I will look well and bo well when he comes back to me.' 0 the darling! Hero is one of In’s bitten apples. I can hardly find it in my heart to throw it into the Are.’

“Another young woman on a February day in a different country many years later wrote in her diary: ‘That you arc no longer here seems to me impossible. 1 keep telling myself yon will come back, and yet you are far away, and your shoes, those two empty feet in your bedroom, stand perfectly still. I stare at them and love them.’

“ One would suppose that the man who had left the bitten apple and the man who had worn tho shoes were lovers or husbands of the writers; but, in fact, it was a sister in each case who penned these words about an absent brother. Between Dorothy Wordsworth in the North of England, romancing about her poet brother William, who had gone away for three flays to a neighbouring village, and Eugenie de Guerin, in the South of France, pining for her poet brother Maurice, who had long been in Paris, there is at least a superficial resemblance. But they were most alike in the height and purity of their characters—a springing height and exquisite purity which sot them apart even from other most delicat o and lofty spirits. . . .”

Wo wish we had space to ((note Professor Harper’s delightful sketch of Eugenic de Guerin, for it is, in delineation of character and fine understanding born of real sympathy and appreciation, a literary triumph. But readers can judge this by Ids pen picture that follows of Dorothy Wordsworth :

“ To think of Dorothy Wordsworth as leading a life of seclusion would be to mistake quietness for inactivity, for, in fact, sho was intellectually the least secluded woman in England. While well-bred and spiritually-minded French girls were limited in their reading to a selection of the French classics and to books of piety, Dorothy ranged freely through literature—English, Italian. French, and German—making no distinction on grounds of mere refinement; devouring the best poetry and fiction her country bad produced, from Chaucer to Scott, including the Elizabethan drama and the oightoonthcentnry novel. “She was personally acquainted with a host of interesting persons, several of whom were, among the leaders of the age—with her brothers William, Christopher, and John, with Coleridge, with Charles Lamb, with Wilberforee, who is said to have offered her bis hand in marriage, with Hazlitf. with Thomas Clarkson, with John Wilson, with De Qnincey, who worshipped her, with Southey, who was her neighbour, with Sir Walter Scott, with Charles Lloyd, with Sir Hmnnlirv Davy, Thomas Poole, John Thelwell. and Crabb Robinson ; and among friends of her own sex she numbered the livelv Jmm Pollard, the public-spirited Mrs Clarkson, Alary Lamb, and her own sister-in-law. Mary Hutchinson. William’s wife, and Sarah Hutchinson, whom Coleridge esteemed above all other women. THE BEST EDUCATED WOMEN. “I think it is quite likely that she was socially the most highly privileged and intellectually the best-educated woman who crossed the divide between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. 'that she was also the most permanently interesting woman writer of her generation in England is also my opinion, and perhaps-many readers would agree with me- if her exquisite journals were more available, . .

From the lives of these two famous women Professor Harper draws these lessons for the modern girl:— “ We want onr daughters to be more fully aware than they are of the life of Nature around them; to have a more solid education; to possess their souls in quietness; to understand the poor and humble, and be kindly disposed toward them; to bo free from vulgarity which is worldliness: to read the best books, and write with simplicity and charm: to realise that the highest personal distinction is compatible with the faithful and competent performance of household duties. Tfc might help them to live thus, in the beautiful oldfashioned way, if they had Dorothy Wordsworth’s' journals at hand, in which to learn how lively and happy and deep and sincere a woman’s life may be. “I have gone over in my mind all the diaries, autobiographies, and collections of letters I’ have ever read, without finding one of them more capable of moulding the character of a girl. The educated young women of our time are too well instructed in history and science to be much edified by tiio' timid reflections of the Languedocian recluse; hut they would find in the frank maid of rocky Cumberland a helpful sister. She shrank from no truth. She was modern in her outlook, facing the future hopefully. She maclo a mark for herself in her station, where she stood, accepting her brother’s maxim— Shine, poet, in thy place and be content. ' And though she could speculate with tlie philosophers and dream with the reformers, her soul The lowliest duties on herself did lay.