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VIRTUE AND APPRECIATION . In “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways,” an unidentified speaker mourns Lucy, a beautiful woman who died young and underappreciated in the English countryside. For the speaker, Lucy’s beauty was an aspect of her overall virtue, a quiet, mysterious quality she had in spite of the fact that, as the speaker says, “She lived unknown.” In a world that for the most part couldn’t have cared less about Lucy, the speaker loved her; the speaker insists that she mattered in life, and still matters in death. The poem, then, suggests that virtue like Lucy’s can have a lasting emotional impact even if its audience is thin, and that appreciating it is therefore worthwhile. The first stanza establishes that Lucy was worthy of love and praise despite her anonymity. The poem’s title and opening line—“She dwelt among the untrodden ways”—set up a context of anonymity and remoteness. Lucy’s “ways,” or the place she lived, were “untrodden,” meaning very few people walked over them. And she “dwelt” there, implying she rarely left her base. As a result, her chances of encountering other people were slim. This is why “there were none to praise” and “very few to love” her. By noting that no one praised Lucy, the speaker implies she was worthy of praise, and therefore that it’s a shame she didn’t get the recognition she deserved. The question of love is only slightly different: Lucy didn’t go totally unloved, but only “very few” loved her. The speaker, who laments how seriously underappreciated Lucy was in life, implies that the speaker was one of the few to take due notice of Lucy. In the rest of the poem, the speaker will argue that even though it affected few people, Lucy’s virtue had serious value. The speaker goes on to show how her virtue persisted despite having no audience. Lucy was like “A violet by a mossy stone / Half hidden from the eye!” Because of Lucy’s isolation, her beauty and virtue would only reveal themselves under close attention; she was like a subtle flower in the shadow of an obvious rock. Here again, the speaker implies his or her love for Lucy. There was pleasure in attempting to grasp Lucy’s virtue, perhaps because it was essentially ungraspable, or “Half hidden.” Finding it—or nearly finding it—required serious work. Lucy was also as “Fair” as the first star in the evening sky. Like the star (probably an allusion to the goddess Venus, who represents beauty, love, and sex), Lucy is fair, or beautiful, because she is isolated, and therefore unique. She shines when no one else is able to, suggesting a special power. And even as she went unnoticed, she kept “shining.” The speaker, by drawing attention to these aspects of Lucy’s virtue—her modest beauty, her mysteriousness, her consistent shining despite having no audience—claims that her virtue was powerful and good, and ultimately unforgettable. In stanza 3 the speaker says again how seriously underappreciated Lucy was in life. Though part lament, the observation serves more to emphasize the speaker’s final affirmation of Lucy’s lasting impact. Lucy “lived unknown.” Here, the speaker deepens the claim from stanza 1. Not only did Lucy go through life unpraised and pretty much unloved—she “lived unknown,” the result of which was that few people noticed her death. By emphasizing this point, the speaker seems to consider a counterargument: maybe, if Lucy was so unknown, her virtue didn’t matter after all. Quickly, however, the speaker refutes this idea. Lucy made a “difference.” The poem’s final line is an exclamatory, and therefore confident, affirmation of Lucy’s value. And this is at the moment when she’s most isolated: she’s not just “Half hidden,” but “in her grave,” sealed up in the earth. Lucy’s virtue is not ultimately worthless, says the speaker. It was enough to make a difference for him or her, and because of that Lucy's memory—and perhaps, in a way, her virtue itself—survives