romantic theory rather than a fact, as Wordsworth would have discovered if
his meditative nature had, allowed him to get into really direct and
personal contact with the peasants about him. As to the proper language of
poetry, no one to-day (thanks partly to Wordsworth) defends artificiality,
but most of Wordsworth's own best work, as well as that of all other poets,
proves clearly that there _is_ an essential difference between the
language of prose and that of poetry, that much of the meaning of poetry
results from the use of unusual, suggestive, words and picturesque
expressions, which create the essential poetic atmosphere and stir the
imagination in ways distinctly different from those of prose. Wordsworth's
obstinate adherence to his theory in its full extent, indeed, produced such
trivial and absurd results as 'Goody Blake and Harry Gill,' 'The Idiot
Boy,' and 'Peter Bell,' and great masses of hopeless prosiness in his long
blank-verse narratives.

This obstinacy and these poems are only the most conspicuous result of
Wordsworth's chief temperamental defect, which was an almost total lack of
the sense of humor. Regarding himself as the prophet of a supremely
important new gospel, he never admitted the possibility of error in his own
point of view and was never able to stand aside from his poetry and
criticise it dispassionately. This somewhat irritating egotism, however,
was perhaps a necessary element in his success; without it he might not
have been able to live serenely through the years of misunderstanding and
ridicule which would have silenced or embittered a more diffident spirit.

The variety of Wordsworth's poetry deserves special mention; in addition to
his short lyric and narrative poems of Nature and the spiritual life
several kinds stand out distinctly. A very few poems, the noble 'Ode to
Duty,' 'Laodamia,' and 'Dion,' are classical in inspiration and show the
finely severe repression and finish of classic style. Among his many