LITERARY REMINISCENCES. CHAPTER XIII. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND ROBERT SOUTHEY. --- THAT night the first of my personal intercourse with Wordsworth the first in which I saw him face to facewas (it is little, indeed, to say) memorable: it was marked by a change even in the physical condition of my nervous system. Long disappointment- hope for ever baffled, (and why should it be less painful because self-baffled?) -vexation and self-blame, almost self-contempt, at my own want of courage to face the man whom of all since the Flood I most yearned to behold: these feelings had impressed upon my nervous sensibilities a character of irritation agitation-restlessness - eternal self-dissatisfaction which were gradually gathering into a distinct, well-defined type, that would, but for youth-almighty youth, and the spirit of youth - have shaped itself into some nervous complaint, wearing symptoms sui generis, (for most nervous complaints, in minds that are at all eccentric, will be sui generis;) and, perhaps, finally, have been immortalized in some medical journal as the anomalous malady of an interesting young gentleman, aged VOL. II. 2 |