n of those institutions which I condemn appears to me
to be hastening on too rapidly. I recoil from the very idea of a
revolution. I am a determined enemy to every species of violence. I see
no connection, but what the obstinacy of pride and ignorance renders
necessary, between justice and the sword, between reason and bonds. I
deplore the miserable condition of the French, and think that _we_ can
only be guarded from the same scourge by the undaunted efforts of good
men.... I severely condemn all inflammatory addresses to the passions of
men. I know that the multitude walk in darkness. I would put into each
man's hands a lantern, to guide him; and not have him to set out upon
his journey depending for illumination on abortive flashes of lightning,
or the coruscations of transitory meteors.'[31]

11. _At Milkhouse, Halifax_: 'Not _to take orders_.'

'My sister,' he says, in a letter to Mathews (February 17th, 1794), 'is
under the same roof with me; indeed it was to see her that I came into
this country. I have been doing nothing, and still continue to do
nothing. What is to become of me I know not.' He announces his resolve
_not_ to take orders; and 'as for the Law, I have neither strength of
mind, purse, or constitution, to engage in that pursuit.'[32]

12. _Literary Work: Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches_: 1794.

In May, 1794, William Wordsworth was at Whitehaven, at his uncle's, Mr.
Richard Wordsworth's; and he then proposes to his friend Mathews, who
was resident in London, that they should set on foot a monthly political
and literary Miscellany, to which, he says, 'he would communicate
critical remarks on poetry, the arts of painting, gardening, &c.,
besides essays on morals and politics.' 'I am at present,' he adds,
'nearly at leisure--I say _nearly_, for I am _not quite_ so, as I am
correcting, and considerably adding to, those poems which I published in
your absence' ('The Evening Walk' and 'Descriptive Sketches'). 'It was
with great reluctance that I sent those two little works into the world
in so imperfect a state. But as I had done nothing by which to
distinguish myself at the university, I thought these little things
might show that I _could_ do something. They have been treated with
unmerited contempt by some of the periodicals, and others have spoken in
higher terms of them than they deserve.'[33]

[31] Extract of letter to Mathews, _Memoirs_, i. 79-80.

[32] _Memoirs_, i. 82.

[33] Ibid.