was not characteristic. In every scene
many of the most brilliant details are but accidental. A true eye for
Nature does not note them, or at least does not dwell on them.' On the
same occasion he remarked, 'Scott misquoted in one of his novels my
lines on _Yarrow_. He makes me write,

"The swans on sweet St. Mary's lake
Float double, swans and shadow;"

but I wrote

"The _swan_ on _still_ St. Mary's lake."

Never could I have written "swans" in the plural. The scene when I saw
it, with its still and dim lake, under the dusky hills, was one of utter
loneliness: there was _one_ swan, and one only, stemming the water, and
the pathetic loneliness of the region gave importance to the one
companion of that swan, its own white image in the water. It was for
that reason that I recorded the Swan and the Shadow. Had there been many
swans and many shadows, they would have implied nothing as regards the
character of the scene; and I should have said nothing about them.' He
proceeded to remark that many who could descant with eloquence on Nature
cared little for her, and that many more who truly loved her had yet no
eye to discern her--which he regarded as a sort of 'spiritual
discernment.' He continued, 'Indeed I have hardly ever known any one but
myself who had a true eye for Nature, one that thoroughly understood her
meanings and her teachings--except' (here he interrupted himself) 'one
person. There was a young clergyman, called Frederick Faber,[269] who
resided at Ambleside. He had not only as good an eye for Nature as I
have, but even a better one, and sometimes pointed out to me on the
mountains effects which, with all my great experience, I had never
detected.'

[269] Afterwards Father Faber of the Oratory. His 'Sir Launcelot'
abounds in admirable descriptions.

Truth, he used to say--that is, truth in its largest sense, as a thing
at once real and ideal, a truth including exact and accurate detail, and
yet everywhere subordinating mere detail to the spirit of the
whole--this, he affirmed, was the soul and essence not only of
descriptive poetry, but of all poetry. He had often, he told me,
intended to write an essay on poetry, setting forth this principle, and
illustrating it by references to the chief representatives of poetry in
its various departments. It was this twofold truth which made Shakspeare
the greatest of all poets. 'It was well for Shakspeare,' he remarked,
'that he gave himself to the dra