Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And TriumphsFuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
History
Brave Men and Women: Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs
Fuller, Osgood E. (Osgood Eaton)
Biography
The last thing that would have occurred to Mrs. Wordsworth would have
been that her departure, or any thing about her, would be publicly
noticed amidst the events of a stirring time. Those who knew her well
regarded her with as true a homage as they ever rendered to any member
of the household, or to any personage of the remarkable group which will
be forever traditionally associated with the Lake District; but this
reverence, genuine and hearty as it was, would not, in all eyes, be a
sufficient reason for recording more than the fact of her death. It is
her survivorship of such a group which constitutes an undisputed public
interest in her decease. With her closes a remarkable scene in the
history of the literature of our century. The well-known cottage, mount,
and garden at Rydal will be regarded with other eyes when shut up or
transferred to new occupants. With Mrs. Wordsworth, an old world has
passed away before the eyes of the inhabitants of the district, and a
new one succeeds, which may have its own delights, solemnities, honors,
and graces, but which can never replace the familiar one that is gone.
There was something mournful in the lingering of this aged lady--blind,
deaf, and bereaved in her latter years; but _she_ was not mournful, any
more than she was insensible. Age did not blunt her feelings, nor deaden
her interest in the events of the day. It seems not so very long ago
that she said that the worst of living in such a place (as the Lake
District), was its making one unwilling to go. It is too beautiful to
let one be ready to leave it. Within a few years the beloved daughter
was gone, and then the aged husband, and then the son-in-law, and then
the devoted friend, Mr. Wordsworth's publisher, Mr. Moxon, who paid his
duty occasionally by the side of her chair; then she became blind and
deaf. Still her cheerfulness was indomitable. No doubt, she would in
reality have been "willing to go," whenever called upon, throughout her
long life; but she liked life to the end. By her disinterestedness of
nature, by her fortitude of spirit, and her constitutional elasticity
and activity, she was qualified for the honor of surviving her
household--nursing and burying them, and bearing the bereavement which
they were vicariously spared. She did it wisely, tenderly, bravely, and
cheerfully; and then she will be remembered accordingly by all who
witnessed the spectacle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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