'Bravo!' said Madge, 'but, of all Wordsworth's poems, that is the one
for which I believe I care the least.'
Frank's countenance fell.
'Oh, me! I thought it was just what would suit you.'
'No, not particularly. There are some noble lines in it; for example
-
"And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!"
But the very title--Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of
Early Childhood--is unmeaning to me, and as for the verse which is in
everybody's mouth -
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;"
and still worse the vision of "that immortal sea," and of the
children who "sport upon the shore," they convey nothing whatever to
me. I find though they are much admired by the clergy of the better
sort, and by certain religiously-disposed people, to whom thinking is
distasteful or impossible. Because they cannot definitely believe,
they fling themselves with all the more fervour upon these cloudy
Wordsworthian phrases, and imagine they see something solid in the
coloured fog.'
It was now growing dark and a few heavy drops of rain began to fall,
but in a minute or two they ceased. Frank, contrary to his usual
wont, was silent. There was something undiscovered in Madge, a
region which he had not visited and perhaps could not enter. She
discerned in an instant what she had done, and in an instant
repented.
Pages:
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71