John Stuart Mill famously writesin hisAutobiography(1873) that reading William Wordsworth's poetry brought him relief when he was depressed. Exhausted by the “habit of analysis” instilled in him through his father's rigorous educational program, Mill recalls that “the state of my thoughts and feelings made the fact of my reading Wordsworth for the first time . . . an important event in my life” (137, 146; ch. 5). He describes how he “took up the collection of [Wordsworth's] poems from curiosity, with no expectation of mental relief from it,” but fortuitously found “the precise thing for [his] mental wants at that particular juncture,” the delightful “states of feeling” the poems conjure in their renderings of beauty (146-48; ch. 5).

中文翻译：

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浏览维多利亚时代的读者

约翰斯图尔特米尔著名地写道在他的自传（1873 年）阅读威廉·华兹华斯的诗歌让他在沮丧时得到解脱。被父亲严格的教育计划灌输给他的“分析习惯”所累，密尔回忆说，“我的思想和感受状态使我第一次阅读华兹华斯成为事实。. . 我生命中的重要事件”（137、146；第 5 章）。他描述了他是如何“出于好奇而收集 [华兹华斯的] 诗集，并没有期望从中得到精神上的解脱”，但幸运地找到了“在那个特定时刻满足 [他] 精神需求的准确东西”，令人愉快的“状态感觉”这些诗歌在对美的描绘中让人联想到（146-48；第 5 章）。