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Quote: Forget His Feeling...
- 04/23/07
- 10
I recently encountered an interesting quote. It is from William Wordsworth’s The Prelude, considered to be the masterpiece of this English Poet who lived from April 7, 1770 to April 23, 1850. Though the poem is autobiographical, this portion is largely based on the experience of a well-known Christian.
And I have read of one by shipwreck thrown
With fellow sufferers whom the waves had spared
Upon a region uninhabited,
An island of the deep, who having brought
To land a single volume and no more—
A treatise of geometry—was used,
Although of food and clothing destitute,
And beyond common wretchedness depressed,
To part from company and take this book,
Then first a self-taught pupil in those truths,
To spots remote and corners of the isle
By the seaside, and draw his diagrams
With a long stick upon the sand, and thus
Did often beguile his sorrow, and almost
Forget his feeling…
Care to hazard a guess as to whom Wordsworth refers?
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Comments (10)
“When peace like a river attendeth my wayWhen sorrows like sea billows rollWhat ever my lot you have taught me…”
?
Nope, not Horatio Spafford.
Hi there,
I think its John Newton. But I could be wrong. I had to read lots of “Preludes” by lots of dead British guys for my last MA exam. I might be completely confused.
Charity
Actually if I’m right, Newton wrote a poem about it, or at least references the experience in this poem, which you can read here:
http://www.firstscience.com/home/poems-and-quotes/poems/the-world_942.html
(pardon my lack of techy-ness to hyperlink..)
Well, if I am wrong, its an interesting poem nonetheless and I have expanded literary horizons.
Robinson Caruso?
Oops I mean Crusoe….based on a true person named Alexander Selkirk.
My first thoughts were Crusoe as well … but don’t know much about Newton. So if it’s he I’ll be better informed when you announce his identity.
It is, indeed, John Newton who served as the inspiration for this portion of the poem (though he was not shipwrecked, he was held as a slave and spent a great deal of time learning geometry).
Wasn’t it from Survivor - Fiji?
hmmm maybe Will Hunting is right. Education comes from desperation, not institution.