"... In my reperusals of the poem, it seemed always to strike on my feeling as well as judgment, that if there were any serious defect, it consisted in a disproportion of the Accidents to the spiritual Incidents; and, closely connected with this,—if it be not indeed the same,—that Emily is indeed talked of, and once appears, but neither speaks nor acts, in all the first three-fourths of the poem. Then, as the outward interest of the poem is in favour of the old man's religious feelings, and the filial heroism of his band of sons, it seemed to require something in order to place the two protestant malcontents of the family in a light that made them beautiful as well as virtuous. In short, to express it far more strongly than I mean or think, in order (in the present anguish of my spirits) to be able to express it at all, that three-fourths of the work is everything rather than Emily; and then, the last—almost a separate and doubtless an exquisite poem—wholly of Emily. The whole of the rest, and the delivering up of the family by Francis, I never ceased to find, not only comparatively heavy, but to me quite obscure as to Francis's motives. On the few, to whom, within my acquaintance, the poem has been read, either by yourself or me (I have, I believe, read it only at the Beaumonts'), it produced the same effect.
"Now I have conceived two little incidents, the introduction of which, joined to a little abridgment, and lyrical precipitation of the last half of the third, I had thought would have removed this defect, so seeming to me, and bring to a finer balance the business with the action of the tale. But after my receipt of your letter, concerning Lamb's censures, I felt my courage fail, and that what I deemed a harmonizing would disgust you as a materialization of the plan, and appear to you like insensibility to the power of the history in the mind. Not that I should have shrunk back from the mere fear of giving transient pain, and a temporary offence, from the want of sympathy of feeling and coincidence of opinions. I rather envy than blame that deep interest in a production, which is inevitable perhaps, and certainly not dishonourable to such as feel poetry their calling and their duty, and which no man would find much fault with if the object, instead of a poem, were a large estate or a title. It appears to me to become a foible only when the poet denies, or is unconscious of its existence, but I did not deem myself in such a state of mind as to entitle me to rely on my own opinion when opposed to yours, from the heat and bustle of these disgusting lectures.
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"From most of these causes I was suffering, so as not to allow me any rational confidence in my opinions when contrary to yours, which had been formed in calmness and on long reflection. Then I received your sister's letter, stating the wish that I would give up the thought of proposing the means of correction, and merely point out the things to be corrected, which—as they could be of no great consequence—you might do in a day or two, and the publication of the poem—for the immediacy of which she expressed great anxiety—be no longer retarded. The merely verbal alteranda did appear to me very few and trifling. From your letter on L——, I concluded that you would not have the incidents and action interfered with, and therefore I sent it off; but soon retracted it, in order to note down the single words and phrases that I disliked in the books, after the two first, as there would be time to receive your opinion of them during the printing of the two first, in which I saw nothing amiss, except the one passage we altered together, and the two lines which I scratched out, because you yourself were doubtful. Mrs. Shepherd told me that she had felt them exactly as I did—namely, as interrupting the spirit of the continuous tranquil motion of The White Doe."
It will be seen from this letter that Wordsworth had gone over the poem with Coleridge, and that they had altered some passages "together"; that Coleridge had read a copy of it sent to the Beaumonts, doubtless at Dunmow in Essex; that he had thought of a plan by which the poem could be immensely improved, both by addition and subtraction; but that hearing from Wordsworth, or more probably from his sister Dorothy, that Charles Lamb had also criticised its structure, he gave up his intention of sending to his friend suggestions, which evidently implied a radical alteration of "the incidents and action" of the tale. It would have been extremely interesting to know how the author of Christabel and The Ancient Mariner proposed to recast The White Doe of Rylstone. It is, alas! impossible for posterity to know this, although it is not difficult to conjecture the line which the alterations would take. Wordsworth's genius was not great in construction, as in imagination; and he valued a story only as giving him a "point of departure" for a flight of fancy or of idealization. Early in 1808 he wrote to Walter Scott asking him for facts about the Norton family. Scott supplied him with them, and the following was Wordsworth's reply.
"Grasmere, May 14, 1808.
"My dear Scott—Thank you for the interesting particulars about the Nortons. I like them much for their own sakes; but so far from being serviceable to my poem, they would stand in the way of it, as I have followed (as I was in duty bound to do) the traditionary and common historic account. Therefore I shall say, in this case, a plague upon your industrious antiquarians, that have put my fine story to confusion."
From the "advertisement" which Wordsworth prefixed to his edition of 1815, I infer that the larger part of the poem was written at Stockton. In it he says that "the Poem of The White Doe was composed at the close of the year" (1807). This is an illustration of the vague manner in which he was in the habit of assigning dates. The Fenwick note, and the evidence of his sister's letter, is conclusive; although the fact that The Force of Prayer—written in 1807—is called in the Fenwick note "an appendage to The White Doe," is further confirmation of the belief that the principal part of the latter poem was finished in 1807. All things considered, The White Doe of Rylstone may be most conveniently placed after the poems belonging to the year 1807, and before those known to have been written in 1808; while The Force of Prayer naturally follows it.
The poem—first published in quarto in 1815—was scarcely altered in the editions of 1820, 1827, and 1832. In 1837, however, it was revised throughout, and in that year the text was virtually settled; the subsequent changes being few and insignificant, while those introduced in 1837 were numerous and important. A glance at the foot-notes will show that many passages were entirely rewritten in that year, and that a good many lines of the earlier text were altogether omitted. All the poems were subjected to minute revision in 1836-37; but few, if any, were more thoroughly recast, and improved, in that year than The White Doe of Rylstone. As a sample of the best kind of changes—where a new thought was added to the earlier text with admirable felicity—compare the lines in canto vii., as it stood in 1815, when the Lady Emily first saw the White Doe at the old Hall of Rylstone, after her terrible losses and desolation—
with the additional thought conveyed in the version of 1837—
In the "Reminiscences" of Wordsworth—written by the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge for the late Bishop of Lincoln's Memoirs of his uncle—the following occurs. (See vol. ii. p. 311.) "His conversation was on critical subjects, arising out of his attempts to alter his poems. He said he considered The White Doe as, in conception, the highest work he had ever produced. The mere physical action was all unsuccessful: but the true action of the poem was spiritual—the subduing of the will, and all inferior fancies, to the perfect purifying and spiritualizing of the intellectual nature; while the Doe, by connection with Emily, is raised as it were from its mere animal nature into something mysterious and saint-like. He said he should devote much labour to perfecting the execution of it in the mere business parts, in which, from anxiety 'to get on' with the more important parts, he was sensible that imperfections had crept in which gave the style a feebleness of character."
From this conversation—which took place in 1836—it will be seen that Wordsworth knew very well that there were feeble passages in the earlier editions; and that, in the thorough revision which he gave to all his poems in 1836-37, this one was specially singled out for "much labour." The result is seen by a glance at the changes of the text.
The notes appended by Wordsworth to the edition of 1815 explain some of the historical and topographical allusions in the poem. To these the following editorial notes may be added—