A CRITICISM OF LIFE? 329 



Their several addresses to the skylark give some measure* of 

 their different qualities. 



The tone of a poet, the mood he communicates, the atmo- 

 sphere he surrounds us with, is more important even than 

 what he says. This tone is the best or the worst we get from 

 him ; it makes it good or bad to be with him. Now it is 

 always good to be with Wordsworth. His personality is like 

 a climate at once sedative and stimulative. I feel inclined 

 to compare it to the influence of the high Alps, austere but 

 kindly, demanding some effort of renunciation, but yielding 

 in return a constant sustenance, and soothing the tired nerves 

 that need a respite from the passions and the fever of the 

 world. The landscape in these regions, far above the plains 

 and cities where men strive, is grave and sober. It has none 

 of the allurements of the south no waving forests, or dancing 

 waves, or fretwork of sun and shadow cast by olive branches 

 on the flowers. But it has also no deception, and no languor, 

 and no decay. In autumn the bald hillsides assume their 

 robes of orange and of crimson, faintly, delicately spread 

 upon the barren rocks. The air is singularly clear and lucid, 

 suffering no illusion, but satisfying the sense of vision with a 

 marvellous sincerity. And when winter comes, the world for 

 months together is clad in flawless purity of blue and white, 

 with shy, rare, unexpected beauty shed upon the scene from 

 hues of sunrise or sunset. On first acquaintance this Alpine 

 landscape is repellent and severe. We think it too ascetic 

 to be lived in. But familiarity convinces us that it is good and 

 wholesome to abide in it. We learn to love its reserve even 

 more than the prodigality of beauty showered on fortunate 

 islands where the orange and the myrtle flower in never- 

 ending summer. Something of the sort is experienced by 

 those who have yielded themselves to Wordsworth's influence. 

 The luxuriance of Keats, the splendour of Shelley, the 

 oriental glow of Coleridge, the torrid energy of Byron, though 

 good in themselves and infinitely precious, are felt to be less 

 permanent, less uniformly satisfying, less continuously bracing, 

 than the sober simplicity of the poet from whose ruggedness 

 at first we shrank. 



