without deliberate renunciation. He lays great stress upon this; and yet
it is a point in his teaching sometimes overlooked. He insists
repeatedly upon the fact that before any one can taste of these joys of
the spirit, he must be purified, disciplined, self-controlled. He leaves
us a full account of his purgative stage. Although he started life with
a naturally pure and austere temperament, yet he had deliberately to
crush out certain strong passions to which he was liable, as well as all
personal ambition, all love of power, all desire for fame or money; and
to confine himself to the contemplation of such objects as--

excite
No morbid passions, no disquietude,
No vengeance and no hatred.

In the _Recluse_ he records how he deliberately fought, and bent to
other uses, a certain wild passionate delight he felt in danger, a
struggle or victory over a foe, in short, some of the primitive
instincts of a strong, healthy animal, feelings which few would regard
as reprehensible. These natural instincts, this force and energy, good
in themselves, Wordsworth did not crush, but deliberately turned into a
higher channel.

At the end of the _Prelude_ he makes his confession of the sins he did
not commit.

Never did I, in quest of right and wrong,
Tamper with conscience from a private aim;
Nor was in any public hope the dupe
Of selfish passions; nor did ever yield
Wilfully to mean cares or low pursuits.