Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 1 (of 2)Wordsworth, Dorothy
General
Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Wordsworth, Dorothy
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Diaries; Wordsworth, Dorothy, 1771-1855 -- Diaries; Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850 -- Family
so few as not to disturb the simplicity, unity, and life of that one
busy highway. We rested again and again. The bays were stormy, and we
heard the waves at different distances, and in the middle of the water,
like the sea.... All was cheerless and gloomy, so we faced the storm. At
Dobson's I was very kindly treated by a young woman. The landlady looked
sour, but it is her way.... William was sitting by a good fire when I
came downstairs. He soon made his way to the library, piled up in a
corner of the window. He brought out a volume of Enfield's _Speaker_,
another miscellany, and an odd volume of Congreve's plays. We had a
glass of warm rum and water. We enjoyed ourselves, and wished for Mary.
It rained and blew, when we went to bed.
_Friday, 16th April_ (_Good Friday_).--When I undrew curtains in the
morning, I was much affected by the beauty of the prospect, and the
change. The sun shone, the wind had passed away, the hills looked
cheerful, the river was very bright as it flowed into the lake. The
church rises up behind a little knot of rocks, the steeple not so high
as an ordinary three-story house. Trees in a row in the garden under the
wall. The valley is at first broken by little woody knolls that make
retiring places, fairy valleys in the vale, the river winds along under
these hills, travelling, not in a bustle but not slowly, to the lake. We
saw a fisherman in the flat meadow on the other side of the water. He
came towards us, and threw his line over the two-arched bridge. It is a
bridge of a heavy construction, almost bending inwards in the middle,
but it is grey, and there is a look of ancientry in the architecture of
it that pleased me. As we go on the vale opens out more into one vale,
with somewhat of a cradle bed. Cottages, with groups of trees, on the
side of the hills. We passed a pair of twin children, two years old.
Sate on the next bridge which we crossed--a single arch. We rested again
upon the turf, and looked at the same bridge. We observed arches in the
water, occasioned by the large stones sending it down in two streams. A
sheep came plunging through the river, stumbled up the bank, and passed
close to us. It had been frightened by an insignificant little dog on
the other side. 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. I repeated
_The Glow-worm_, as I walked along. I hung over the gate, and thought I
could have stayed for ever. When I returned, I found William writing a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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