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vaguely sighing for changes ? Though intensely fond of travelling, 

 he never could have said or felt, with Goethe, 



To make room for wandering was it 

 That the world was made so wide. 



On the contrary, within the circle of his own mountains, and 

 among the simple unconventional dalesmen of the north he sought 

 for a deeper meaning, underlying the commonplaces of life and 

 nature. To Wordsworth, the ' open secret ' lay at the heart of the 

 most familiar, lowly, and even common things. The humblest 

 object in nature, if approached with reverence, the most trivial 

 task in life, if discharged with dignity, was at once transfigured, 

 and lit up with ideal grace in the light of that transfiguration. 



But how are we to see this latent significance in common 

 things, this worth within the trivial and the familiar ? The diffi- 

 culty is a most real and serious one to many. Wordsworth's 

 answer is substantially this — It is by the opening of the inward 

 eye. There is no veil on the face of Nature, needing to be re- 

 moved : the film is on the human eye. We do not see what is 

 everywhere around us to be seen, because our organ of vision is 

 impaired ; and the malady is, to a great extent, hereditary. But 

 the recovery of the power of sight — that second sight, which 

 divines the secrets inaccessible to the material organ— is eflfected 

 by simple contact with Nature herself; not by the secondary study 

 of her through books, through Hterature, or through science, but 

 by familiarity with her face to face, in the ever-fresh and reno- 

 vating processes incessantly at work around us. 



If we are to reach the secret of Wordsworth, however, and 

 find his " healing power," we must apprehend something more 

 about it, even than this. There are one or two preliminary things 

 to be noticed. Those of you who have made his acquaintance at 

 all, will not have failed to note the accuracy of his local allusions 

 the rigid fidelity of his descriptions. They are not photographs : 

 but they are far better. They are divinations of the spirit of the 

 places he describes. His topographical allusions are so numerous 

 and minute that some have felt them to be wearisome ; but there 



