Moreover, it was in the too frequent
choice of subjects incapable of being idealized without a manifest jar
between theme and treatment that Wordsworth's great mistake lay. For
example, in "The Blind Highland Boy" he had originally the following
stanzas:--
"Strong is the current, but be mild,
Ye waves, and spare the helpless child!
If ye in anger fret or chafe,
A bee-hive would be ship as safe
As that in which he sails.
"But say, what was it? Thought of fear!
Well may ye tremble when ye hear!
--A household tub like one of those
Which women use to wash their clothes,
This carried the blind boy."
In endeavoring to get rid of the downright vulgarity of phrase in the
last stanza, Wordsworth invents an impossible tortoise-shell, and thus
robs his story of the reality which alone gave it a living interest. Any
extemporized raft would have floated the boy down to immortality. But
Wordsworth never quite learned the distinction between Fact, which
suffocates the Muse, and Truth, which is the very breath of her nostrils.
Study and self-culture did much for him, but they never quite satisfied
him that he was capable of making a mistake. He yielded silently to
friendly remonstrance on certain points, and gave up, for example, the
ludicrous exactness of
"I've measured it from side to side,
'T is three feet long and two feet wide.
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