\ Wordsworth was convinced (and he gave his whole life to preaching the lesson) that to find joy in the sights and sounds of Nature actually fed a man's heart, and disposed him to the good life. In the well-known lines written on revisiting the banks of the Wye after an interval of five years, he expressed what he him- self had owed to the sights seen on his former visit —
Oft in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart, And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration.
So far we should all agree : but he goes on —
Feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love.
Wordsworth believed that happiness found among the things of Nature, the simple leap of the heart, for example, at the sight of a rainbow, transmuted itself into acts of kindness ; and this need not surprise us, if we believe, as Wordsworth believed, that behind all the outward shapes of Nature lives and works the Spirit of God, who through these things sheds into our hearts His own gifts of joy and peace.^
^ Canon Beeching, The Grace of Episcojpacy, 134.
366 ETERNITY IN THE HEART
All earthly beauty hath one cause and proof, To lead the pilgrim soul to beauty above : Yet lieth the greater bliss so far aloof That few there be are weaned from earthly love. Joy's ladder it is, reaching from home to home, The best of all the work that all was good : Whereof 'twas writ the angels aye upclomb, Down sped, and at the top the Lord God stood.*
3. Beauty has its seasons ; it flushes and fades. Everything in the world must be in its true place and time, or it is not beautiful. That is true from the lowest to the highest ; only with the lowest it is not easy to discover it. It does not seem to matter where the pebble lies, on this side of the road or on the other. It may indeed do sad mischief out of its place ; but its place is a wide one. It may lie in many spots and do no harm, and seem to show all the beauty and render all the use of which it is capable. But the things of higher nature are more fastidious in their demands. The plant must have its proper soil to feed its roots upon, or its bright flowers lose their beauty, and even there, only in one short happy season of the year is it in its glory, while the pebble keeps its lustre always. Higher still comes the animal, and he has more needs that must be met, more arrangements that must be made, a more definite place in which he must be set, before he can do his best. And then, highest of all, comes man, and with his highest life comes the completest dependence upon circum- stances. He is the least independent creature on the earth. The most beautiful in his right time and place, he is the most wretched and miserable out of it. He is the most liable of all the creatures to be thrown out of place. He must have all the furnishings of life, friendships, family, ambitions, cultures of every kind, or his best is not attained. It belongs then to the highest and most gifted lives to seek their places in the world. It is the prerogative of their superiority. Surely it would be good for men if they could learn this early. It would scatter many delusions. It would dissipate the folly of universal genius.
^ The perfect woodwork of the carpenter, the strong ironwork of the smith, the carved marble of the sculptor, the August fields of the farmer, the cloth of the weaver, the school of the master,
* Robert Bridges.
ECCLESIASTES iii. ii 367
the quiet room of the student, the college with its turrets, the cottage with its hollyhocks and vines, all come with their separate charm, and help to compose the magnificence of the world. In the thrilling page of history, the poverty of the learned is seen now to be as grand as the gold of the merchant or the estates of royalty. We do not feel that Socrates needed riches, and we are glad that Jesus Christ had nothing but a soul. The isolation of His soul made it stand forth like white figures upon a dark back- ground. His soul reposes upon poverty like a rainbow upon a cloud.^
^ I cannot feel it beautiful when I find men still at their business when they ought to be at home with their children. I cannot feel it beautiful to see the common work of the world going on on Sundays. I cannot feel it beautiful to see little children at hard work when they ought to be in school, or aged people still obliged to toil and moil to the very end. But good honest work, done with some pride and zest, and done in season, becomes in a way transfigured, and is " beautiful in its time." *