Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 2 (of 2)Wordsworth, Dorothy
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Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Wordsworth, Dorothy
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Diaries; Wordsworth, Dorothy, 1771-1855 -- Diaries; Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850 -- Family
between old stone walls--nothing to be seen above them but the tops of
fruit trees, and the imprisoning hills. No doubt when those walls were
built, the lands belonged to the churches and monasteries. Happy were we
when we came to the glen and rushing river, and still happier when,
having clomb the eminence, we sate beside the churchyard, where kindly
breezes visited us--the warm breezes of Italy! We had here a volunteer
guide, a ragged child, voluble with his story trimmed up for the
stranger. He could tell the history of the Hero of Uri and declare the
import of each memorial;--while (not neglecting the saints) he proudly
pointed out to our notice (what indeed could not have escaped it) a
gigantic daubing of the figure of St. Christopher on the wall of the
church steeple. But our smart young maiden was to introduce us to the
interior of the ivied Tower, so romantic in its situation above the
roaring stream, at the mouth of the glen, which, behind, is buried
beneath overhanging woods. We ascended to the upper rooms by a blind
staircase that might have belonged to a turret of one of our ancient
castles, which conducted us into a gothic room, where we found neither
the ghost nor the armour of William Tell; but an artist at work with the
pencil; with two or three young men, his pupils, from Altorf--no better
introduction to the favour of one of those young men was required than
that of our sprightly female attendant. From this little academy of the
arts, drawings are dispersed, probably, to every country of the
continent of Europe.
[Footnote 53: There is a mistake here as to the date, which renders
all subsequent ones inaccurate.--ED.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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