A brief course in the teaching process — Story, Setting & Ideas

nds like the kind of repetition a man would make on a guitar, or something like that.

“‘Play me no tricks,’ said Lord Ronald, ‘For I am yours in word and in deed. Play me no tricks,’ said Lord Ronald, ‘Your riddle is hard to read.’”

It comes again and again. When you come to _Lucy Gray_, a poem which was very famous, and which is, perhaps, a little hard to get the real spirit of at first; did any one feel especially attracted by that? Miss Graves? What did you like about it?

_Miss G._: It was entirely different from the others,—the way it turned out,—well, just the description in everything,—the snow,—then, it seemed to go easier than the others.

_Teacher_: We have rather taken it for granted all along that all these were very easy,—easy to sing.

_Pupil_: I don’t think the later ballads are nearly as easy to sing as others.

_Teacher_: You think this _Lucy Gray_ is different, you like the descriptive verses in it? Any special phrases or description that particularly struck you, Miss Graves?

_Miss G._: I don’t see any just now—

_Teacher_: Any one happen to remember any?

_Pupil_: “The minster-clock has just struck two.”

_Teacher_: Miss Thibaut?

“Her feet disperse the powdery snow, That rises up like smoke.”

“Her feet disperse the powdery snow, That rises up like smoke.”

Would that be in place in one of the old ballads? They weren’t interested in the appearance of the snow very much. Miss Weiss?

_Miss W._: I think I like this ballad because it leaves something to the imagination, the rest tell you everything; it doesn’t say surely that she is still alive, it leaves it to you to think about it.

_Teacher_: Do you think Wordsworth himself thinks she is still alive?

_Pupil_: I think he does; I don’t know if he does, but I think he does.

_Teacher_: In this remote country region, the people who would maintain that she was alive would be—?

_Pupil_: The country people.

_Teacher_: What is Wordsworth’s attitude?

_Pupil_: I don’t think he credits it very much; I think he respects it, but I don’t think he credits it.

_Teacher_: He doesn’t tell you whether he expects you to believe it or not; but at any rate, there is a fineness of feeling toward the country people that makes him respect the country superstition.

_Pupil_: I think she must have been lost, because if she hadn’t, she might have come back to her mother and father.

_Teacher_: Of course, your imagination there is piecing it out; Wordsworth doesn’t tell you out and out that she was drowned.

_Pupil_: I think he does; he says her footsteps stopped in the middle of the plank, and something must have happened there.

_Teacher_: The actual drowning was not described; you cannot help feeling that in the old ballads they would have given you a full description, like _Sir Patrick Spence_; the ballad ends how?

_Pupil_: Wordsworth was not trying to imitate the old ballads, was he?

_Teacher_: No; it is a good deal further away from the old ballads than the others we have had; it is a more imaginative poem, more beauty of phrasing and thought. Any other questions or comments about _Lucy Gray_?

_Pupil_: I like this verse:—

“They follow’d from the snowy bank Those footmarks, one by one, Into the middle of the plank; And further there were none.”

_Teacher_: You think that is because of the things Wordsworth does not say, the fact that he keeps a certain amount to himself?

_Teacher_: That quality of reticence, isn’t it? How is it in modern times; have you noticed how you respect people who do not say quite all they feel; they keep their deepest feelings largely to themselves, and you can only guess at it by what is left unsaid? Are the kind of people who are represented in this poem the sort of people you ordinarily encounter in the old ballads?

_Pupil_: I don’t think we do; the chief characters were the nobles and barons, the highest people in England and Scotland.

_Teacher_: These people were what?

_Pupil_: Common people.

_Teacher_: You get that from what phrase in the poem? Any one?

_Pupil_: Just after he asked her to go for her mother: “At this the father raised his hook”; he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t been a working man.

_Pupil_: I don’t think he would have sent Lucy Gray after her mother in the snow; they would have been riding in a coach and four.