In his introductory essay Mr. Morley has dwelt strongly on the
circumstance of Wordsworth's remarkable personal happiness, as having
had much to do with the physiognomy of his poetic creation--a calm,
irresistible, well-being--almost mystic in character, and yet
doubtless [93] connected with physical conditions. Long ago De
Quincey noted it as a strongly determinant fact in Wordsworth's
literary career, pointing, at the same time, to his remarkable good
luck also, on the material side of life. The poet's own flawless
temperament, his fine mountain atmosphere of mind (so to express it),
had no doubt a good deal to do with that. What a store of good
fortune, what a goodly contribution to happiness, in the very best
sense of that term, is really involved in a cheerful, grateful,
physical temperament; especially, in the case of a poet--a great
poet--who will, of course, have to face the appropriate trials of a
great poet.
Coleridge and other English critics at the beginning of the present
century had a great deal to say concerning a psychological
distinction of much importance (as it appeared to them) between the
fancy and the imagination. Stripped of a great deal of somewhat
obscure metaphysical theory, this distinction reduced itself to the
certainly vital one, with which all true criticism more or less
directly has to do, between the lower and higher degrees of intensity
in the [94] poet's conception of his subject, and his concentration
of himself upon his work.
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