Wordsworth in Downtown San Diego
by Glen Draeger

Printable Version (opens in new window).

Hello Literary Travelers,

You probably think my life is glamorous. Most days, at some point, I sit in my study with the computer on, a pen in one hand, a book in the other, a cup of tea on the desk and I read books, I read about our books and write these small tomes.

However, I used to have an even more glamorous side to my life: a real job. I was a delivery guy. I worked for DHL, an overnight express company and delivered packages in downtown San Diego and Coronado. I know, I know, how could anyone have been so fortunate? Loading and unloading boxes, driving on the freeway, riding elevators, sweating in the summer, working in a huge bureaucracy—it all sounds grand, I know, until they laid me off, but that's another story.

Let me tell you what I told the numerous celebrities who came to visit me after they've won some contest to be my guest for a day. A couple of years before I was laid off Brad Pitt rode with me on my delivery route and asked me what they all did: "What's it like?" I know what they mean, but I always make them say it. "What's what like, Brad?" They always look embarrassed at this point. "You know, not having anyone know you when you go to the store, not being bothered all the time in public, not having to worry about whether people like you for your money or your fame—you know, just being a regular guy. It must just be great."

"Look," I said to Brad, "I know my life must seem like paradise compared to yours, but it's really not that much different. I have to pay bills, I have relationships, I go to sleep at night, I have to get up in the morning. I brush my teeth; I put clothes on; I use the bathroom. Sure, our lives look different on the outside, but inside, it's all about the same."

I say all that to give you a little background, to give you some context in which to place me and to begin, again, a tale that may seem hard to believe, particularly because of my Orwell experience and my interview with Karl Marx. Why these things happen to me is a mystery.

Anyway, a few years ago there was a lot of construction in downtown San Diego (still is) and the roads were blocked off. I had to park about 5 blocks away from several of my deliveries and walk to them.

Walking. This is where it gets bizarre. When I started walking to my first stop a man walks up beside me. He was a ruddy looking fellow, almost six feet tall, almost looked like some kind of mountain man, a hunter from the days of Daniel Boone.

"I like to walk," he said.

"That's interesting," I replied matter-of-factly. I ran into a lot of strange people in downtown during my tenure as a delivery guy. Some talked to themselves, some yelled on the street corners, many approached me wanting money or just conversation. I was used to total strangers talking to me.

He walked with me for about block then said, "My name is Wordsworth. William Wordsworth and I like to walk."

Unusual? Yes. Remarkable? Certainly. Extraordinary? Beyond doubt. First Orwell, now Wordsworth? I stared at him for a moment. It was the very night I had planned to send out a small biographical sketch of Wordsworth to some students. What were the odds? Taking into consideration my experience at the bookstore—this went beyond mere coincidence, but I went with it. Sometimes there's no time to ask why, you have to go with the flow, seize the moment—you can't question everything, no matter how strange some of it may seem. "But you died in 1850," I replied in the same tone I might say, "Nice to meet you."

"Yes, yes, I know and I was born in 1770. So what? I'm here now and I like to walk. Did you know," he went on, "that during one period of my life I took a walking tour through France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. I love nature, I love a mountain stream and hailstorms and flowers and treks through the woods. This place," he said pointing to the tall buildings around us, "is not food for your soul, Glen."

"How did you know my name?" I asked.

"It doesn't matter. My love of nature has affected almost all of my poetry. I think I could almost call nature my church. Why you could even say that I worship nature—I said so in a poem."

"My class is reading that poem," I replied, reveling in the complete impossibility of the moment.

"Yes, yes, I know," he said as if annoyed by my intrusion. He continued, "When I attended college at Cambridge in England I preferred walking to classes and my classmates. School did not impress me and, believe me, my family was not happy about that."

"I'm a teacher—of sorts . . ."

"Yes you are," he said, "and I'm here to make sure you teach well. Your students need to know more about me than what you planned to tell them. For instance, when I was twenty-one I went to France, two years after the French revolution, met a French officer, Michel Beaupuy, who I was very impressed with and who changed me into a revolutionary and a utopian."

"A utopian? In what way?"

"I believed the world, in 1792, was on the verge of an ideal age, where there would no longer be poverty and people would rule themselves justly." He paused for moment. "My, my," he said with sigh, "the passions of youth are so often misguided."

"I know," I agreed. "Is that all that happened in France?"

"No. While I was there I fell in love with Annette Vallon, by whom I had a daughter. I left France and returned to England without her and while I was gone England and France went to war, a war that would last 20 years, thwarting my plans to bring her to me or to communicate with her. I was lovesick. However, by the time I saw her again, ten years later, I no longer loved her."

"Later in your life," I said to him, "you even tried to hide the whole affair. You destroyed her letters and never mentioned your daughter or Annette. None of this came to light until after your death."

"Yes, yes," he said. "You're right." He hung his head for moment as if thinking and regretting, then he began again. "After I returned to England the reality of the French Revolution, you know, The Reign of Terror where many were killed unjustly, disillusioned me. I was only 23 at the time. In 1795 I set up house with my sister, Dorothy. We had been separated as children upon the death of our father. Dorothy influenced much of my poetry. It has been written of her in your age that she was 'probably the most remarkable and the most distinguished of English writers who never wrote a line for the general public.'"

"You married her friend, correct?" I asked.

"Yes, I did—-Mary Hutchinson in 1802. We had four children, two who died in infancy."

"And you were friends with . . ."

"Yes, of course, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, another English poet. We published some poems together, though I was not impressed with his poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.' Did you know that the three of us, myself, Dorothy and Coleridge, spent many a day together?"

"No, I didn't."

"Your famous American writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, specifically came to England to visit Coleridge and me."

"Yes," I said, "you became quite famous. You and Coleridge are credited with beginning the English Romantic movement and you were the poet laureate of England from 1843-1850. In our day someone has written of you that you 'altered the course of English literature . . . and . . . changed the tone as well as the direction of modern poetry.' But not everyone sees you as one our greatest poets. Some critics believe you were too preachy, that you wanted to teach rather than delight."

"Well," he said, "I don't even consider that insulting. I once wrote, 'Every great poet is a teacher. I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing.' I also wrote, 'Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing . . . its object is truth . . . carried alive into the heart of passion.'" He stopped talking for a moment. "Well, I must be going. I don't know how you can take this city life. I think it would crush me."

"But didn't you once write in a poem," I reminded him, "'In truth, the prison, unto which we doom/Ourselves, no prison is . . .'?"

"Yes," he said, "yes, I guess I did."

And with that he left . . . walking . . . walking to I don't know where.

Regards,

Mr. Draeger

Sources used:

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, Volume 12, pp. 752-753.

Untermeyer, Louis, Lives of the Poets, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1959, pp. 338-370.

Wordsworth, William, William Wordsworth: Selected Poetry, edited by Nicholas Roe, The Penguin Poetry Library, Penguin Books, New York, 1992.

©2005-2012 Glen Draeger (all rights reserved)
Millstone Education: World Literature / http://www.millstoneeducation.com/worldLit