poetry from their earliest days. One young person in particular I knew, very like his own description of
“Those whose hearts every hour run wild,
But never yet did go astray;”
who had read nothing but Wordsworth, and had by him been plentifully fed. I do not mean that she never skimmed novels nor dipped into periodicals; but she never, properly speaking, read, i. e. comprehended and reflected on any other book. But as all knowledge has been taught by Professor Jacotot from the Telemachus of Fenelon, so was she taught the secrets of the universe from Wordsworth’s poems. He pointed out to her how
“The primal duties shine aloft like stars,
“The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,
“Are scattered at the feet of Man—like flowers.”
He read her lectures about the daisy, the robin red-breast, and the waterfall. He taught her to study Nature and feel God’s presence; to enjoy and prize human sympathies without needing the stimulus of human passions; to love beauty with a faith which enabled her to perceive it amid seeming ugliness, to hope goodness so as to create it. And she was a very pretty specimen of Wordsworthianism; so sincere, so simple, so animated and so equable, so hopeful and so calm. She was confiding as an infant, and so may remain till her latest day, for she has no touch of idolatry; and her trustfulness is not in any chosen person or persons, but in the goodness of God, who will always protect those who are true to themselves and sincere towards others.
But the young, in general, are idolaters. They will have their private chapels of ease in the great temple of nature; they will ornament, according to fancy, their favorite shrines; and ah! too frequently look with aversion or contempt upon all others. Till this ceases to be so, till they can feel the general beauty of design, and live content to be immortal in the grand whole, they
