Wordsworth’s service to humanity consists in the fact that he has shown us old truth in a new light, and has made plain the close relationship that exists between physical nature and the soul of man.  Is this much or little?  I think it is much.  When we realize that we are a part of all that we see, or hear, or feel, we are not lonely.  But to feel a sense of separation is to feel the chill of death.

Wordsworth taught that the earth is the universal Mother and that the life of the flower has its source in the same universal life from whence ours is derived.  To know this truth is to feel a tenderness, a kindliness, a spirit of fraternalism, toward every manifestation of this universal life.  No attempt was made to say the last word, only a wish to express the truth that the spirit of God is manifest on every hand.

Now this is a very simple philosophy.  No far-reaching, syllogistic logic is required to prove it; no miracle, nor special dispensation is needed; you just feel that it is so, that’s all, and it gives you peace.  Children, foolish folks, old men, whose sands of life are nearly run, comprehend it.  But heaven bless you! you can’t prove any such foolishness.  Jeffrey saw the ridiculousness of these assumptions and so he declared, “This will never do,” and for twenty years “The Edinburgh Review” never ceased to fling off fleers and jeers—­and to criticize and scoff.  That a great periodical, rich and influential, in the city which was the very center of learning, should go so much out of its way to attack a quiet countryman living in a four-roomed cottage, away off in the hills of Cumberland, seems a little queer.

Then, this countryman did not seek to found a kingdom, nor to revolutionize society, nor did he force upon the world his pattypan rhymes about linnets, and larks, and daffodils.  Far from it:  he was very modest—­diffident, in fact—­and his song was quite in the minor key, but still the chain-shot and bombs of literary warfare were sent hissing in his direction.

There is a little story about a certain general who figured as division-commander in the War of Secession:  this warrior had his headquarters, for a time, in a typical Southern home in the Tennessee Mountains.  The house had a large fireplace and chimney; in this chimney, swallows had nests.  One day, as the great man was busy at his maps, working out a plan of campaign against the enemy, the swallows made quite an uproar.  Perhaps some of the eggs were hatching; anyway, the birds were needlessly noisy in their domestic affairs, and it disturbed the great man—­he grew nervous.  He called his adjutant.  “Sir,” said the mighty warrior, “dislodge those damn pests in the chimney, without delay.”

Two soldiers were ordered to climb the roof and dislodge the enemy.  Yet the swallows were not dislodged, for the soldiers could not reach them.

So Jeffrey’s tirades were unavailing, and Wordsworth was not dislodged.