Dorothy Wordsworth

“ The garden, mimic of spring, is gay with flowers. The purple-starred hepatica spreads itself in the sun, and the clustering snow-drops put forth their white heads, at first upright, ribbed with green, and like a rosebud when completely opened, hanging their heads downwards, but slowly lengthening their slender stems. The slanting woods of an unvarying brown, showing the light through the thin net-work of their upper boughs. Upon the highest ridge of that round hill covered with planted oaks, the shafts of the trees show in the light like the columns of a ruin. ”

“ We lost our path, and could see the Tarn no longer. We made our way out with difficulty, guided by a heap of stones which we well remembered. We were afraid of being bewildered in the mists, till the darkness should overtake us. We were long before we knew that we were in the right track, but thanks to William's skill we knew it long before we could see our way before us. There was no footmark upon the snow either of man or beast. We saw four sheep before we had left the snow region. The vale of Grasmere, when the mists broke away, looked soft and grave, of a yellow hue. ”

“ The moon was a perfect boat, a silver boat, when we were out in the evening. The birch tree is all over green in small leaf, more light and elegant than when it is full out. It bent to the breezes, as if for the love of its own delightful motions. Sloe-thorns and hawthorns in the hedges.
Friday, 7th May.—William had slept uncommonly well, so, feeling himself strong, he fell to work at The Leech Gatherer; he wrote hard at it till dinner time, then he gave over, tired to death—he had finished the poem. ”

“ Its fleece dropped a glittering shower under its belly. Primroses by the road-side, pile wort that shone like stars of gold in the sun, violets, strawberries, retired and half-buried among the grass. When we came to the foot of Brothers Water, I left William sitting on the bridge, and went along the path on the right side of the lake through the wood. I was delighted with what I saw. The water under the boughs of the bare old trees, the simplicity of the mountains, and the exquisite beauty of the path. There was one grey cottage. ”

“ After dinner we sate in the orchard. It was a thick, hazy, dull air. The thrush sang almost continually; the little birds were more than usually busy with their voices. The sparrows are now full fledged. The nest is so full that they lie upon one another; they sit quietly in their nest with closed mouths. I walked to Rydale after tea, which we drank by the kitchen fire. The evening very dull; a terrible kind of threatening brightness at sunset above Easedale. The sloe-thorn beautiful in the hedges, and in the wild spots higher up among the hawthorns. No letters. William met me. ”

“ The hawthorn hedges, black and pointed, glittering with millions of diamond drops; the hollies shining with broader patches of light. The road to the village of Holford glittered like another stream. On our return, the wind high—a violent storm of hail and rain at the Castle of Comfort. All the Heavens seemed in one perpetual motion when the rain ceased; the moon appearing, now half veiled, and now retired behind heavy clouds, the stars still moving, the roads very dirty. ”

“ Tuesday, 23rd.— . . . When we came out of our own doors, that dear thrush was singing upon the topmost of the smooth branches of the ash tree at the top of the orchard. How long it had been perched on that same tree I cannot tell, but we had heard its dear voice in the orchard the day through, along with a cheerful undersong made by our winter friends, the robins. As we came home, I picked up a few mosses by the roadside, which I left at home. We then went to John's Grove. There we sate a little while looking at the fading landscape. ”

“ The sun was shining among them, the snow thinly scattered upon the tops of the mountains. In the afternoon we sate by the fire: I read Chaucer aloud, and Mary read the first canto of The Fairy Queen. After tea Mary and I walked to Ambleside for letters. . . . It was a sober starlight evening. The stars not shining as it were with all their brightness when they were visible, and sometimes hiding themselves behind small greying clouds, that passed soberly along. ”

“ A beautiful evening, very starry, the horned moon.
24th.—Coleridge, the Chesters, and Ellen Cruikshank called. We walked with them through the wood. Went in the evening into the Coombe to get eggs; returned through the wood, and walked in the park. A duller night than last night: a sort of white shade over the blue sky. The stars dim. The spring continues to advance very slowly, no green trees, the hedges leafless; nothing green but the brambles that still retain their old leaves, the evergreens, and the palms, which indeed are not absolutely green. ”

“ The clouds beneath our feet spread themselves to the water, and the clouds of the sky almost joined them. Gathered sticks in the wood; a perfect stillness. The redbreasts sang upon the leafless boughs. Of a great number of sheep in the field, only one standing. Returned to dinner at five o'clock. The moonlight still and warm as a summer's night at nine o'clock.
4th.—Walked a great part of the way to Stowey with Coleridge. The morning warm and sunny. The young lasses seen on the hill-tops, in the villages and roads, in their summer holiday clothes—pink petticoats and blue. ”

“ The full moon (not quite full) was among a company of shady island clouds, and the sky bluer about it than the natural sky blue. William observed that the full moon, above a dark fir grove, is a fine image of the descent of a superior being. There was a shower which drove us into John's Grove before we had quitted our favourite path. ”

“ Monday.—A cold dry windy morning. I worked in the garden, and planted flowers, etc. Sate under the trees after dinner till tea time. . . . I went to Ambleside after tea, crossed the stepping-stones at the foot of Grasmere, and pursued my way on the other side of Rydale and by Clappersgate. I sate a long time to watch the hurrying waves, and to hear the regularly irregular sound of the dashing waters. The waves round about the little Island seemed like a dance of spirits that rose out of the water, round its small circumference of shore. ”

“ Rydale Lake was in its own evening brightness: the Island, and Points distinct. Jane Ashburner came up to us when we were sitting upon the wall. . . . The garden looked pretty in the half-moonlight, half-daylight, as we went up the vale. . . .
Saturday, 17th.—A mild warm rain. We sate in the garden all the morning. William dug a little. I transplanted a honey-suckle. The lake was still. The sheep on the island, reflected in the water, like the grey-deer we saw in Gowbarrow Park. We walked after tea by moonlight. I had been in bed in the afternoon, and William had slept in his chair. ”

“ The colours of the mountains soft, and rich with orange fern; the cattle pasturing upon the hilltops; kites sailing in the sky above our heads; sheep bleating, and feeding in the water courses, scattered over the mountains. ”

“ We went up into Rydale woods and read it there. We sate near the old wall, which fenced a hazel grove, which William said was exactly like the filbert grove at Middleham. It is a beautiful spot, a sloping or rather steep piece of ground, with hazels growing "tall and erect" in clumps at distances, almost seeming regular, as if they had been planted. . . . I wrote to Mary after dinner, while William sate in the orchard. . . . I spoke of the little birds keeping us company, and William told me that that very morning a bird had perched upon his leg. ”

“ Blankenese, a village or town scattered over the sides of three hills, woody where the houses lie and sleep down below, the houses half-concealed by, and half-obtruding themselves from, the low trees. Naked boats with masts lying at the bare feet of the Blankenese hills. Houses more and more frequent as we approach Hamburgh. The banks of the Elbe more steep. Some gentlemen's seats after the English fashion. The spires of Altona and Hamburgh visible a considerable time. At Altona we took a boat, and rowed through the narrow passages of the Elbe, crowded with vessels of all nations. ”

“ Yesterday morning William walked as far as the Swan with Aggy Fisher, who was going to attend upon Goan's dying infant. She said, "There are many heavier crosses than the death of an infant;" and went on, "There was a woman in this vale who buried four grown-up children in one year, and I have heard her say, when many years were gone by, that she had more pleasure in thinking of those four than of her living children, for as children get up and have families of their own, their duty to their parents wears out and weakens. ”

“ There was a strange mountain lightness, when we were at the top of the White Moss. I have often observed it there in the evenings, being between the two valleys. There is more of the sky there than any other place. It has a strange effect. Sometimes, along with the obscurity of evening, or night, it seems almost like a peculiar sort of light. There was not much wind till we came to John's Grove, then it roared right out of the grove, all the trees were tossing about. Coleridge's letter somewhat damped us. ”

“ A bird at the top of the crag was flying round and round, and looked in thinness and transparency, shape and motion like a moth. . . . We climbed the hill, but looked in vain for a shade, except at the foot of the great waterfall. We came down, and rested upon a moss-covered rock rising out of the bed of the river. ”

“ He called us, and we found him in a bower—the sweetest that was ever seen. The rock on one side is very high, and all covered with ivy, which hung loosely about, and bore bunches of brown berries. On the other side it was higher than my head. We looked down on the Ambleside vale, that seemed to wind away from us, the village lying under the hill. The fir-tree island was reflected beautifully. About this bower there is mountain-ash, common-ash, yew-tree, ivy, holly, hawthorn, grasses, and flowers, and a carpet of moss. Above, at the top of the rock, there is another spot. ”

“ Alfoxden, January 20th 1798.—The green paths down the hill-sides are channels for streams. The young wheat is streaked by silver lines of water running between the ridges, the sheep are gathered together on the slopes. After the wet dark days, the country seems more populous. It peoples itself in the sunbeams. ”

“ There we lay, ate our dinner, and stayed there till about four o'clock or later. William and Coleridge repeated and read verses. I drank a little brandy and water, and was in heaven. The stag's horn is very beautiful and fresh, springing upon the fells; mountain ashes, green. We drank tea at a farm house. . . . We parted from Coleridge at Sara's crag, after having looked for the letters which C. carved in the morning. I missed them all. William deepened the X with C.'s pen-knife. We sate afterwards on the wall, seeing the sun go down, and the reflections in the still water. ”

“ There are many inns and eating-houses by the roadside. We went to a pretty village, or nest of houses about a league from Blankenese, and beyond to a large open field, enclosed on one side with oak trees, through which winds a pleasant gravel walk. ”

“ Our road soon led us along the sides of dreary bare hills, but we had a glorious prospect to the left of Saddleback, half-way covered with snow, and underneath the comfortable white houses and the village of Threlkeld. These houses and the village want trees about them. Skiddaw was behind us, and dear Coleridge's desert home. As we ascended the hills it grew very cold and slippery. Luckily, the wind was at our backs, and helped us on. ”

“ We walked backwards and forwards in the flat field, which makes the second course of Easedale, with that beautiful rock in the field beside us, and all the rocks and the woods and the mountains enclosing us round. ”

“ She was a beautiful creature, and there was something uncommonly impressive in the lightness and joyousness of her manner. Her business seemed to be all pleasure—pleasure in her own motions, and the man looked at her as if he too was pleased, and spoke to her in the same tone in which he spoke to his horses. There was a wildness in her whole figure, not the wildness of a Mountain lass, but of the Road lass, a traveller from her birth, who had wanted neither food nor clothes. ”

“ Nothing is omitted of any literary or biographical value. Some persons may think that too much has been recorded, others that everything should have been printed. As to this, posterity must judge. I think that many, in future years, will value these Journals, not only as a record of the relations existing between Wordsworth and his sister, his wife her family and his friends, but also as an illustration of the remarkable literary brotherhood and sisterhood of the period. ”

“ I read Palemon and Arcite. . . . William writing out his alteration of Chaucer's Cuckoo and Nightingale. . . . When I had finished a letter to C., . . . Mary and I walked into Easedale, and backwards and forwards in that large field under George Rawson's white cottage. We had intended gathering mosses, and for that purpose we turned into the green lane, behind the tailor's, but it was too dark to see the mosses. The river came galloping past the Church, as fast as it could come; and when we got into Easedale we saw Churn Milk Force, like a broad stream of snow at the little foot-bridge. ”

“ In our road to the boat we looked into one of the large churches. Service was just ended. The audience appeared to be simply composed of singing boys dressed in large cocked hats, and a few old women who sat in the aisles. . . . Met many bright-looking girls with white caps, carrying black prayer-books in their hands. . . . Coleridge went to Ratzeberg at five o'clock in the diligence. Chester accompanied me towards Altona. The streets wide and pleasant in that quarter of the town. Immense crowds of people walking for pleasure, and many pleasure-waggons passing and repassing. ”

“ Sunday, 1st October.—Coleridge and Chester went to Ratzeberg at seven o'clock in the morning. . . . William and I set forward at half-past eleven with an intention of going to Blankenese. . . . The buildings all seem solid and warm in themselves, but still they look cold from their nakedness of trees. They are generally newly built, and placed in gardens, which are planted in front with poplars and low shrubs, but the possessors seem to have no prospective view to a shelter for their children. They do not plant behind their houses. ”