Wordsworth mainly composed his poems during his rural rambles. It was not an unusual circumstance for him to write with a slate pencil on a smooth piece of stone his newly made lines. Surely the hillsides and lovely dales of Lake-land were fitting places for the great high priest of nature to give birth to his poetry. He repeated his poems aloud as he composed them, a practice which greatly puzzled the common people. We cannot perhaps better illustrate the strange impression it made on the country folk than by repeating an anecdote told to Dr. Charles Mackay by an American gentleman. He said--"One of his countrymen had lost his way in a vain attempt to discover Rydal Mount; had taken a wrong turn and gone three or four miles beyond or to the side of the point he should have aimed at. Meeting an old woman in a scarlet cloak, who was gathering sticks, he asked her the way to Rydal Mount. She could not tell him; she did not know. 'Not know,' said the American, 'the house of the great Wordsworth?' 'No.' 'What, not the house of the man whose fame brings people here from all parts of the world?' 'No,' she insisted, 'but what was he great in?--was he a preacher or a doctor?' 'Greater than preacher or doctor--he was a poet.' 'Oh, poet!' she replied; 'and why did you not tell me that before? I know who you mean now. I often meet him in the woods, jabbering his pottery (poetry) to himself. But I'm not afraid of him. He's quite harmless, and almost as sensible as you or me.'" This is the old story--a man, however great, is not much thought of in his own district. It is generally understood that Lord Tennyson composed much of his poetry during his rural rambles. Edwin Arnold, the editor of the _Daily Telegraph_, wrote his "Light of Asia" whilst travelling in the railway carriage to and from his newspaper office.