BRIEF ESSAYS 223 



Wordsworth felt akin to all solitary things; he 

 is drawn by every recluse and wanderer; he loves 

 to contemplate beggars, and dwellers or watchers in 

 secluded dells, and to sing the praises of "The Soli- 

 tary Reaper." A solitary flower, a solitary scene 

 of almost any kind, never failed to move him. 

 What a charm of seclusion in the poem begin- 

 ning, — 



" I wandered lonely as a cloud 

 That floats on high o'er vales and hills." 



Or in this other, — 



" I heard a thousand blended notes 

 While in a grove I sat reclined 

 In that sweet mood where pleasant thoughts 

 Bring sad thoughts to the mind." 



Or again in this immortal song, — 



" She dwelt among the untrodden ways, 

 Beside the springs of Dove, 

 A maid whom there were none to praise 

 And very few to love: 



" A violet by a mossy stone 

 Half hidden from the eye ; 

 Fair as a star when only one 

 Is shining in the sky." 



Before Wordsworth, solitude had a lover and poet 

 in Abraham Cowley. Through nearly all his essays 

 there runs a desire to escape from the world, and to 

 be alone with nature and with his own thoughts. 

 And who has better expressed this desire and the 

 satisfaction which its fulfillment brings 1 He longed 

 for the country as an exile longs for home. He 

 says to Evelyn that he had never had any other 

 desire so strong and so like to covetousness as the 



