[Footnote BW: The "nook" is not now "treeless," but the fir-wood on the western side of the Vale adds to its "quiet," and deepens the sense of seclusion.--ED.] [Footnote BX: Blea Tarn. "The scene in which this small piece of water lies, suggested to the Author the following description (given in his poem of _The Excursion_), supposing the spectator to look down upon it, not from the road, but from one of its elevated sides." (See Wordsworth's _Description of the Scenery of the District of the Lakes_ in his _Prose Works_.)--ED.] [Footnote BY: The solitary cottage, called Blea Tarn house, which is passed on the left of the road under Side Pike.--ED.] [Footnote BZ: The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal: Wednesday, 3rd September 1800.--"I went to a funeral at John Dawson's. About 10 men and 4 women.... The dead person 56 years of age, buried by the parish.... They set the corpse down at the door; and, while we stood within the threshold, the men, with their hats off, sang, with decent and solemn countenances, a verse of a funeral psalm. The corpse was then borne down the hill, and they sang till they had passed the Town-end. I was affected to tears while we stood in the house.... There were no near kindred, no children. When we got out of the dark house the sun was shining, and the prospect looked as divinely beautiful as I ever saw it. It seemed more sacred than I had ever seen it, and yet more allied to human life.... When we came to the bridge, they began to sing again, and stopped during four lines before they entered the churchyard." Compare this with such phrases in _The Excursion_ as-- They shaped their course along the sloping side Of that small valley, singing as they moved; A sober company and few, the men Bare-headed, --(p. 84.) We heard the hymn they sang--a solemn sound Heard any where; but in a place like this 'Tis more than human! --(p. 90.)--ED. ] [Footnote CA: See the note on the preceding page.--ED.] [Footnote CB: Descending from the top of Lingmoor to Blea Tarn.--ED.] [Footnote CC: The upper part of Little Langdale, descending to Fell Foot.--ED.] [Footnote CD: A spot exactly similar to this can easily be found, about two hundred yards above the house, in the narrow gorge of Blea Tarn Ghyll, below a waterfall, where a "moss-grown wall" still approaches the rock on the other side of the stream, and where a "penthouse" might easily be made by children.--ED.] [Footnote CE: It may not be too trivial to note that, to this day, in the Cumberland and Westmoreland vales, one of the favourite games of children on the fell-sides near their cottages, is playing at mimic gardens and parterres, made out of fragments of broken pottery.--ED.] [Footnote CF: Compare Lamb's remark in a letter to Wordsworth, 14th August 1814. See _Letters of Charles Lamb_, edited by Canon Ainger, vol. i. p. 271.--ED.]