Page:Studies of a Biographer 1.djvu/273

 should include the unsophisticated human being. He rambled as of old, and in his rambles found that the 'lonely roads were open schools' in which he might study the passions and thoughts of unsophisticated human beings. The result was remarkable. He found nobility and sense in the humble friends. The 'wealthy few' see by 'artificial lights,' and 'neglect the universal heart.' Nature is equally corrupted in the 'close and overcrowded haunts of cities.' But in the poor men, who reminded him of his early friends, of the schoolmaster 'Matthew,' and old Dame Tyson, he found the voice of the real man; and observed 'how oft high service is performed within' men's hearts which resemble not pompous temples, but the 'mere mountain chapel.' Was not this to go back to Rousseau, to denunciations of luxury and exaltations of the man of nature? Wordsworth had been converted to the Revolution by the sight of the poor peasant girl, the victim of feudal privileges—why should he renounce the Revolution by force of sympathy with the same class in England?

Before answering, I may remark that in any case the impression was deep and lasting. It shows how Wordsworth reached his famous theory that