.. One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists, one only;--an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe'er
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power;
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good."[378]
That is doctrine such as we hear in church too, religious and
philosophic doctrine; and the attached Wordsworthian loves passages of
such doctrine, and brings them forward in proof of his poet's
excellence. But however true the doctrine may be, it has, as here
presented, none of the characters of _poetic_ truth, the kind of truth
which we require from a poet, and in which Wordsworth is really strong.
Even the "intimations" of the famous Ode,[379] those corner-stones of
the supposed philosophic system of Wordsworth,--the idea of the high
instincts and affections coming out in childhood, testifying of a divine
home recently left, and fading away as our life proceeds,--this idea, of
undeniable beauty as a play of fancy, has itself not the character of
poetic truth of the best kind; it has no real solidity.
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