of spiritual being. After this he crossed to France to learn the language.
The Revolution was then (1792) in its early stages, and in his 'Prelude'
Wordsworth has left the finest existing statement of the exultant
anticipations of a new world of social justice which the movement aroused
in himself and other young English liberals. When the Revolution past into
the period of violent bloodshed he determined, with more enthusiasm than
judgment, to put himself forward as a leader of the moderate Girondins.
From the wholesale slaughter of this party a few months later he was saved
through the stopping of his allowance by his more cautious uncles, which
compelled him, after a year's absence, to return to England.

For several years longer Wordsworth lived uncertainly. When, soon after his
return, England, in horror at the execution of the French king, joined the
coalition of European powers against France, Wordsworth experienced a great
shock--the first, he tells us, that his moral nature had ever suffered--at
seeing his own country arrayed with corrupt despotisms against what seemed
to him the cause of humanity. The complete degeneration of the Revolution
into anarchy and tyranny further served to plunge him into a chaos of moral
bewilderment, from which he was gradually rescued partly by renewed
communion with Nature and partly by the influence of his sister Dorothy, a
woman of the most sensitive nature but of strong character and admirable
good sense. From this time for the rest of her life she continued to live
with him, and by her unstinted and unselfish devotion contributed very
largely to his poetic success. He had now begun to write poetry (though
thus far rather stiffly and in the rimed couplet), and the receipt of a
small legacy from a friend enabled him to devote his life to the art. Six
or seven years later his resources were several times multiplied by an
honorable act of the new Lord Lonsdale, who voluntarily repaid a sum of
money owed by his predecessor to Wordsworth's father.