BARTRAM'S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE 175 



animates the inimitable machines, which gives them motion, impowers 

 them to speak and perform, this must be divine indeed? (Travels, 

 xxiv, XXV ) . 



The truth is that, in spite of an occasional implication of dis- 

 approval, Wordsworth found himself kin to the gentle Quaker, 

 wandering in the woods, along rivers and lakes, untrodden 

 ways, watching Indians and traders (Wordsworth's " pedlars "), 

 picking plants, and loving and contemplating all nature. There 

 can be no doubt that " Wordsworth's imaginative acceptance of 

 Bartram is in the long run sympathetic, as is shown by the fre- 

 quency with which scenery and diction from the ' Travels ' rise 

 to the surface in his purest and most characteristic poetry." *^ 

 If Wordsworth, according to his latest biographer, " could paint 

 with power the exotic splendour of the Indian forest," *^ there 

 was a good reason: Bartram's Travels. Nor can there be any 

 doubt as to Wordsworth's philosophical acceptance of Bartram. 

 It is not surprising to find him telling us, in his Fenwick note to 

 " Expostulation and Reply " — surely a poem characteristic of 

 his attitude towards nature — that " This poem is a favourite 

 among the Quakers, as I have learned on many occasions." *® 

 William Bartram, the Philadelphia Quaker, if asked the same 

 question: 



Why, William, sit you thus alone. 



And dream your time away.-* 



would have answered with the same sentiments if not in exactly 

 the same words: 



The eye — it cannot choose but see; 

 We cannot bid the ear be still; 

 Our bodies feel, where'er they be, 

 Against or with our will. 



Nor less I deem that there are Powers 

 Which of themselves our minds impress; 

 That we can feed this mind of ours 

 In a wise passiveness. 



" Ibid., p. 499. 



*' C. H. Herford, Wordsworth, p. 118. 



" Poems, I, 272. 



