Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/157

131 Other support, not scrupulous whence it came,

And by what compromise it stood, not nice?

Enough if notions seemed to be high-pitched,

And qualities determined.—Ruling such,

And with such herding, I maintained a strife

Hopeless, and still more hopeless every hour;

But, in the process, I began to feel

That, if the emancipation of the world

Were missed, I should at least secure my own,

And be in part compensated. For rights,

Widely—inveterately usurped upon,

I spake with vehemence; and promptly seized

Whate'er Abstraction furnished for my needs

Or purposes; nor scrupled to proclaim,

And propagate, by liberty of life,

Those new persuasions. Not that I rejoiced,

Or even found pleasure, in such vagrant course,

For its own sake; but farthest from the walk

Which I had trod in happiness and peace,

Was most inviting to a troubled mind;

That, in a struggling and distempered world,

Beheld a cherished image of itself.

Yet, mark the contradictions of which Man