HOME AT GRASMERE
WILLIAM and DOROTHY WORDSWORTH (1770–1850 and 1771–1855 respectively), were brother and sister and, despite their childhood separation, treasured companions in their adult years. William spent some time in France during the revolution and was inspired by republican ideals. He also fell in love with Annette Vallon, who bore him a daughter. On his return, he and Dorothy lived together in Dorset and moved on to Nether Stowey, Somerset, to be nearer to their friend Coleridge. It was here that Dorothy began writing her journal and William wrote the Lyrical Ballads with Coleridge. In 1799, Dorothy and William moved to Dove Cottage, Grasmere, and the creative process continued; Dorothy capturing the beauty of the landscape in her journal, William writing ‘Michael’ and ‘The Recluse’. After a trip to France to visit Annette Vallon and his subsequent marriage to Mary Hutchinson, William wrote his most celebrated lyric verses, including ‘Resolution and Independence’ and ‘Intimations of Immortality’, many of which were inspired by Dorothy’s journals. In his later years, William became a conservative public man, abandoning much of his youthful idealism. He died in 1850 and The Prelude was published posthumously. Dorothy died five years later and has been hailed as ‘probably… the most distinguished of English writers who never wrote a line for the general public’.
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COLETTE CLARK was educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read history. She started this book, collating Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal with William’s poems, in the year she went down from Oxford. For two years she worked as Secretary to the Ballet Rambert before working with the Royal Academy of Dancing.
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Introduction and notes copyright © Colette Clark, 1960
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-193581-2
Preface
Introduction
ARRIVAL AT GRASMERE
Extracts from a letter from William Wordsworth to Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Recluse. Book I: Home at Grasmere
THE GRASMERE JOURNAL
1. 14 May – 17 August 1800
2. 21 August – 10 October 1800
3. 11 October – 9 December 1800
4. 24 October – 20 December 1801
5. 21 December 1801 – 9 March 1802
6. 11 March – 17 March 1802
7. 18 March – 21 April 1802
8. 22 April – 1 May 1802
9. 4 May – 31 May 1802
10. 1 June – 8 July 1802
11. 9 July – 22 September 1802
12. 24 September 1802 – 16 January 1803
Index of Poems
Index of First Lines
To my Father
This little book makes no claim whatever to be a work of scholarship or original research. Any scholarship it contains I owe entirely to Mr Ernest de Selincourt and Miss Helen Darbishire. Their edition of Wordsworth’s poetry published by the Oxford University Press in five volumes between 1940 and 1952 has been so exhaustively and imaginatively carried out that, for the time being at least, all further research on the subject would be quite fruitless. It was de Selincourt who first published the complete version of the Journals from the original manuscripts, and his two-volume edition printed by Macmillan in 1941 is again the most comprehensive we are likely to obtain. It is these two texts of the poems and Journal together with their notes and data which I am using here to form the basis of my book. I cannot hope to add anything to the deep learning they contain. I can only acknowledge my debt to Mr de Selincourt and Miss Darbishire and hope they would not disapprove of the use I have made of their work.
The only value of this book lies in its arrangement and presentation. So often the poetry, letters, and writings which surround a poet and his work are kept apart and the link between them is ignored. The ordinary reader of Wordsworth may hardly realize that not only the inspiration but even the source of much of his best poetry is so close at hand. De Selincourt, of course, never lost sight of this for a moment and is constantly referring from one Wordsworth to the other. But there is so much to be learnt from this elationship that I wanted to present his work in a more accessible form. I have even tried to carry it a stage further. By placing William’s poems in the middle of Dorothy’s Journal beside the very day on which they were written, I hope to make the unity between them more vivid and more credible to the general reader.
This is a purely personal selection from both the Journal and the Poems. I have tried to cut no more of the Journal than was strictly necessary in the interests of space and have included all poems written at the time. But with the poems to which Dorothy only refers or from which she quotes a single line, I have been more arbitrary. Some are printed in their entirety, but others such as ‘Peter Bell’, ‘The Idiot Boy’, or the ‘The Old Cumberland Beggar’ I thought too long or too remote from life at Grasmere and omitted altogether. So much is Grasmere the theme of the book that at one time I thought of ending with that lovely last day before they set off for France; but the opportunity to put in the sonnets was too tempting to be missed.
I have assumed some biographical knowledge of the period on the part of the reader. My comments and notes are only to underline all that the Journal gradually reveals of the unique ‘oneness’ of the Wordsworths in their writings and in their lives.
Finally I would like to acknowledge the enormous debt I owe to my father who first suggested the idea to me, and to Sir William Emrys Williams without whose constant encouragement the book would never have been finished.
Dorothy Wordsworth was one of those sweet characters whose only life lies in their complete dedication to a man of genius. Without self-consciousness or self-congratulation she absorbed herself in her brother’s life and work and starts the Journal ‘because I shall give William pleasure by it’. This was the only way in which she could fulfil herself, and through it she became an artist in her own right. She is to us, as she was to William, ‘a breath of fragrance independent of the wind’. From the austerity of her brother and the uncertainty of Coleridge we turn to the Journal, as they did, for her unfailing delight in the world around her. We too are refreshed by her sensitive eye and lively spontaneous style and come to realize why Wordsworth depended on her to preserve his own freshness of vision and daily contact with Nature. This interdependence of brother and sister was something that each valued more than anything else in their lives. It shines through such poems as ‘The Glow-worm’ or ‘To a Butterfly’, and every page of the Journal reflects it. It is the very essence of both.
All Wordsworthian scholars have, of course, studied Dorothy’s Journal and used it as a commentary and guide to his works. Many of the poet’s admirers enjoy it for its own sake and even the general reader is acquainted with certain passages such as the first sight of the daffodils or the description of the leech-gatherer. But there is still more to discover from Dorothy and her Journals. At first, perhaps, they are a little disillusioning. They contain no intimate glimpses of Wordsworth and Coleridge about the house, no reports of their literary discussions through the night. Dorothy never records a single conversation verbatim and only here and there jots down a remark her brother has made. Readers may be disappointed that she says so little of William’s immediate responses to nature. She herself notes down the sights they have enjoyed and describes them minutely, but of William’s reaction she says no more than that he is writing a poem on the subject Above all, anyone who expects startling revelations of emotion will be put to shame. Dorothy gives no account of her feelings towards Coleridge, nor of his to her. She says nothing of William’s sentiments over his marriage or of his love for his future wife. During this, the greatest emotional crisis of her life, she records only that it happened. Yet the elusive phrases, the broken asides which are found throughout the Journal, become more poignant in isolation. At moments they seem almost to be torn from her against her will, and they tell us all we need know of the deep emotional undercurrent beneath the surface of the book.
It is essential to remember the harmony of spirit which existed between the Wordsworths when we begin to question the source of their inspiration. Was it Dorothy or William who first spoke the phrases which seem so spontaneous in the Journal and then reappear in the poems? Sometimes we know it to be Dorothy. It was she who first saw the tall beggar woman and the two wild little boys in their flower-decked hats and set down the story in detail for William’s pleasure. When two years later he came to write the poem, the poor man found he could not stop himself using her very words. Such a lively chronicle close at hand would have been irresistible to any poet, and William seems to have used it again and again. It was not until two years after that heavenly walk from Eusemere that he wrote ‘The Daffodils’, but there is no doubt that he first re-read Dorothy’s account and tried to recapture the joy and delight of her description in his own poem. Even when he wrote a poem on the spot like ‘Lines written in March’ he was certainly aware of how much he owed to his sister’s rapturous observation of the scene. But in most cases the problem of whose was the original invention remains unsolved. An example of this is Wordsworth’s sonnet ‘Composed after a Journey across the Hambleton Hills’. He had clearly watched the scene it describes with the same eyes as Dorothy and transformed it in the same spirit, but which piece was written first? In this case the vision seems Dorothy’s while the moralizing at the end ‘they are of the sky and from our earthly memory fade away’ is typically William. Perhaps for once he did write his poem extempore(though Dorothy never mentions him doing so) and she only wrote up her Journal a day or two later. But once our speculations reach this stage we can only think of them as a game or literary exercise.
It was not only for her powers of descriptive detail, however, that Wordsworth valued Dorothy. It was, as he says in passages too well known to need repeating here, for her whole self. She had that boundless child-like delight in nature which the poet treasured above everything else. Every evening she walks out to see the failing light over Rydale and Grasmere and each time finds it more beautiful. She never wearies of describing the scene.
October 19th, 1800. Rydale was very very beautiful. The surface of the water quite still, like a dim mirror. The colours of the large island exquisitely beautiful, and the trees still fresh and green were magnified by the mists.
October 20th, 1800. The lights were very grand upon the woody Rydale hills. The two lakes divinely beautiful. Grasmere excessively solemn and the whole lake was calm and dappled with soft grey ripples.
October 24th, 1800. After dinner we walked round Rydale lake, rich calm, streaked, very beautiful.
She happily goes for the same walks every day, along their favourite path past John’s Grove, over White Moss Common or up to Easedale Tarn. And as she leans over Sara’s Gate, she is always enchanted by the view.
December 26th, 1801. Grasmere Lake a beautiful image of stillness, clear as glass, reflecting all things, the wind up and the waters sounding. The lake of a rich purple, the fields a soft yellow, the island yellowish-green, the copses red-brown, the mountains purple. The Church and buildings how quiet they were.
Another evening when William was away she finds consolation in her beloved vale.
Grasmere was very solemn in the last glimpse of twilight; it calls home the heart to quietness.
It would be a mistake to think of all this as a sentimental paradise where it was easy to find peace of heart. As a way of life it was lonely, remote, and intense beyond what most people can bear. Scarcely a day goes past wthout either Dorothy or William complaining of feeling unwell. They suffer from the headaches, bad nights, and all the other complaints which seem to be an inseparable part of the creative life, and Dorothy never fails to record them. Only one thing gives her as much concern, and that is the troubles and disorders of their friend Coleridge. Coleridge emerges from the Journal as a shadowy and melancholy figure. Though he and Dorothy correspond daily, she says nothing of the cause of his unhappiness or of his love for Sara Hutchinson. She only records each evening ‘A heart-rending letter from Coleridge – we were as sad as we could be’, or another time, ‘It was a sad melancholy letter and prevented us all from sleeping’. In the end his constant complaints of ill-health and depression grow a little wearisome. We begin to dread the arrival of his letters and resent their depressing effect on poor Dorothy. Once or twice, however, a glimpse of his personality filters through, and we are rewarded. He finds a bower among the rocks or dams a stream or reads poems on the water and lets the boat take its own course, and has a magical effect on them all.
William and C. read and repeated verses. I drank a little brandy and water and was in heaven.
Strangely enough whenever he visits them with his family or they go over to Keswick Hall, the Journal breaks off abruptly. Whether because Dorothy is then too busy to write or because it would not interest William is not made clear, but for whatever reason intimate details of Coleridge’s life and household never make an appearance.
Of the literary circles of the time there is little to be learnt from the Journal. Dorothy seldom mentions the works of her contemporaries, although she does once comment on a play by Charles Lamb. Coleridge is the only poet whose work is discussed, and then she says no more than ‘Exceedingly delighted with the second part of Christobel’. But we are always told what books they are reading and these make an absorbing study. Many of them were ‘Lives’, and the works of poets which have long been forgotten. They had more taste for the Elizabethans than we today, and both adored Ben Jonson. We find them reading unlikely plays of Shakespeare, such as The Winter’s Tale and Henry V as well as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It. But more interesting still are the references to poets William admires when they coincide with new phases in his own work. Scholars use the Journal to help trace these developments in his style, but even the lay reader will find it a rich source for discoveries. The poem ‘A Farewell’, for instance, which he wrote before going to Mary has always been considered one of his most Spenserian. The Journal shows that he was indeed absorbed in Spenser at the time and had been reading the exquisite ‘Prothalamium’ a short while before he began composition. It was his reading of Chaucer with his sister which fired him to translate the Canterbury Tales in the winter of 1801. In the following months when he was working on ‘The Pedlar’ Dorothy would read to him from Paradise Lost.
After tea I read aloud the eleventh book of Paradise Lost. We were much impressed and also melted into tears.
In 1802 another significant line appears in the Journal.
William wrote 2 sonnets on Buonaparte, after I had read Milton’s sonnets to him.
These were the first of the great sonnets which Wordsworth was to compose with such ease and profusion at the end of the period.
In this Grasmere life the two Hutchinson sisters play a large part. William and Dorothy wrote to them every day, and at different times they both visited Dove Cottage. Dorothy is constantly referring to them, and always in the tenderest terms. They shared her passionate love for the flowers and mosses they used to find on their walks, her fear of cows, and her patience with William. On a particularly heavenly walk, she and Coleridge would often wish for Mary and Sara, and when they come to stay they are immediately led off by Dorothy to visit her favourite new sight. Yet neither of them ever really comes to life. Mary was more than a friend – she was to become William’s wife, but the strange lack of emotion which surrounds the sisters persists in her relationship with him. On the day of their marriage, Dorothy almost breaks down. But as soon as they are back on the road to Grasmere, Mary retreats into the background once again. Throughout the journey home William and Dorothy only reminisced on the other happy times when they had gone along that way. They look out for the familiar landmarks and revisit the remembered sights. On one occasion Dorothy cannot prevent a note of anguish from creeping in.
When we passed through the village of Wensley my heart was melted away with dear recollections – the bridge, the little waterspout, the steep hill, the church… for they were the first objects that I saw after we were left to ourselves and had turned our whole hearts to Grasmere…
Twice they set off exploring and leave Mary behind, and one evening when the carriage breaks down it is on Dorothy’s breast that William falls asleep. Altogether a strange bridal home-coming following the most pathetic of weddings. Yet it is hard to say which of the two ladies is to be pitied most. We know that Dorothy first heard of William’s engagement on 12 April 1802 when ‘every question was like the snapping of a little thread about my heart’. But de Selincourt has pointed out that at that very hour William was riding home from Middleham and writing ‘Among all lovely things my love had been’. How it must have consoled Dorothy, he says, that at such a time he should have composed for her alone one of his most affectionate and lovely poems. A comfort to Dorothy perhaps, but we cannot help feeling a pang of sympathy for Mary.
We can truly say that the Journal would be an enchanting and valuable book even supposing Wordsworth had been a bad poet. Dorothy never thought of it like this, of course, and was sadly conscious of shortcomings as a writer. One evening after a particularly lonely walk among the hills and stars of Grasmere, she cried out ‘It made me more than half a poet’, and when she arrived home she ‘tried to write verses, but alas!’ Was she not aware of the beauty and vividness of her own description of the scene which comes over to us today as fresh and alive as it was the night she wrote it? Yet she is more to us than just a fine writer of natural description. Nor is it only for her prose that we enjoy her. She takes the liveliest interest in all the neighbouring characters and listens with relish to the stories of her servant Molly. When she visits Mrs Clarkson at Eusemere she is delighted to find she shares her love of odd local gossip and sets down all she can remember. She is equally fascinated by the endless stream of beggars which pass the house or whom she meets out walking. She asks their history and describes them in extraordinarily vivid detail. The strange tales she records give us a good idea of the poverty and hardship of the time. Nothing is too trivial for Dorothy’s attention.
I found a strawberry flower in a rock. I uprooted it rashly and I felt as if I had been committing an outrage, so I planted it again. It will have but a stormy life of it, but let it live if it can.
Her love of wild flowers lights up every page of the Journal. Even on the coldest days she finds one to console her.
We stopped to look at the stone seat at the top of the hill. There was a white cushion upon it, round at the edge like a cushion, and the rock behind looked soft as velvet, of a vivid green, and so tempting! The snow too looked as soft as a down cushion. A young foxglove like a star, in the centre.
Her human sympathy and love of natural beauty are boundless, but it is revealing to see how she breaks down over man-made works of art. When she visits Rievaulx Abbey on her way to France, it is of ‘the grovelets of wild roses and other shrubs’ that she writes. And on reaching Canterbury, ‘the City and Cathedral disappointed me’.
But although we may delight in the Journal without William, for Dorothy it would have been empty; her love for him was its dynamo. Once he is married she never quite regains the rapturous spirit of their first two years alone at Grasmere. At first she tries to keep up her writing in the old enthusiastic way. But quite soon the entries start to dwindle, and often she only records the day, or makes desperate resolutions not to neglect her Journal. The rare beautiful passages which we still find, have a melancholy character which seems to reflect her mood.
It is a breathless, grey day, that leaves the golden woods of autumn quiet in their own tranquility, stately and beautiful in their decaying.
Finally on a particularly cold January day, the Journal breaks off altogether. It is not, of course, the last she writes, but there is nothing else which contains quite the same degree of intimacy and freedom. We are privileged to read what was only set down for a beloved brother to see, but perhaps we can feel a little more justified if we use her impressions as he did. They inspired and guided Wordsworth as a poet; by returning his poetry back to this source, we perhaps fulfil Dorothy’s original purpose, and come a little nearer to the heart of life at Grasmere.
Extracts from William Wordsworth’s letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge describing the journey to Grasmere.
Christmas Eve, Grasmere, 1799
My dearest Coleridge,
We arrived here last Friday, and have now been four days in our new abode without writing to you, a long time! but we have been in such confusion as not to have had a moment’s leisure.
I arrived at Sockburn the day after you quitted it, I scarcely knew whether to be sorry or no that you were no longer there, as it would have been a great pain to me to have parted from you. I was sadly disappointed in not finding Dorothy; Mary was a solitary house-keeper and overjoyed to see me. D is now sitting by me racked with the tooth-ache. This is a grievous misfortune as she has so much work for her needle among the bedcurtains, etc. that she is absolutely buried in it. We have both caught troublesome colds in our new and almost empty house, but we hope to make it a comfortable dwelling. Our first two days were days of fear as one of the rooms upstairs smoked like a furnace, we have since learned that it is uninhabitable as a sitting room on this account; the other room however which is fortunately the one we intended for our living room promises uncommonly well; that is, the chimney draws perfectly, and does not even smoke at the first lighting of the fire. In particular winds most likely we shall have puffs of inconvenience, but this I believe will be found a curable evil, by means of devils as they are called and other beneficent agents which we shall station at the top of the chimney if their services should be required. D is much pleased with the house and appurtenances, the orchard especially; in imagination she has already built a seat with a summer shed on the highest platform in this our little domestic slip of mountain. The spot commands a view over the roof of our house, of the lake, the church, helm cragg, and two thirds of the vale. We mean also to enclose the two or three yards of ground between us and the road, this for the sake of a few flowers, and because it will make it more our own. Besides, am I fanciful when I would extend the obligation of gratitude to insensate things? May not a man have a salutary pleasure in doing something gratuitously for the sake of his house, as for an individual to which he owes so much – The manners of the neighbouring cottagers have far exceeded our expectations; they seem little adulterated; indeed as far as we have seen not at all. The people we have uniformly found kind-hearted frank and manly, prompt to serve without servility. This is but an experience of four days, but we have had dealings with persons of various occupations, and have had no reason whatever to complain. We do not think it will be necessary for us to keep a servant. We have agreed to give a woman, who lives in one of the adjoining cottages two shillings a week for attending two or three hours a day to light the fires wash dishes, etc., etc In addition to this she is to have her victuals likewise on other days if we should have visitors and she is wanted more than usual. We could have had this attendance for eighteen pence a week but we added the sixpence for the sake of the poor woman, who is made happy by it. The weather since our arrival has been a keen frost, one morning two thirds of the lake was covered with ice continued all the day but, to our great surprize, the next morning, though there was no intermission of the frost, had entirely disappeared. The ice had been so thin that the wind had broken it up, and most likely driven it to the outlet of the lake. Rydale is covered with ice, clear as polished steel, I have procured a pair of skates and tomorrow mean to give my body to the wind, – not however without reasonable caution. We are looking for John every day; it will be a pity, if he should come, that D is so much engaged, she has scarcely been out since our arrival; one evening I tempted her forth; the planet Jupiter was on the top of the hugest of the Rydale mountains, but I had reason to repent for having seduced her from her work as she returned with a raging tooth-ache. – We were highly pleased with your last short letter, which we had confidently and eagerly expected at Sockburn. Stuarf’s conduct is liberal and I hope it will answer for him. You make no mention of your health. I was uneasy on that account when you were with us; upon recollection it seemed to me that the fatigues, accidents, and exposures attendant upon our journey, took greater hold of you than they ought to have done had your habit of body been such as not to render caution necessary for it. You do not speak of your travelling conversations, I shall probably be able to send it to you. I am afraid it will have one fault, that of being too long. – As to the Tragedy and Peter Bell, D will do all in her power to put them forward. Composition I find invariably pernicious to me, and even penmanship if continued for any length of time at one sitting. I shall therefore wish you good night, my beloved friend, a wish, with a thousand others, in which D joins me. I am afraid half of what I have written is illegible, farewell.
Friday Evg: We have been overhead in confusion, painting the rooms, mending the doors, and heaven knows what! This however shall not prevent me from attempting to give you some account of our journey hither. We left Sockburne tuesday before last early in the morning, D on a double horse, behind that good creature George, and I upon Lilly, or Violet as Cottle calls her. We cross’d the Tees in the Sockburn fields by moonlight. George accompanied us eight miles beyond Richmond and there we parted with sorrowful hearts. We were now in Wensley dale and D and I set off side by side to foot it as far as Kendal. A little before sunset we reached one of the waterfalls of which I read you a short description in Mr Taylor’s tour. I meant to have attempted to give you a picture of it but I feel myself too lazy to execute the task. Tis a singular scene; such a performance as you might have expected from some giant gardiner employed by one of Queen Elizabeth’s Courtiers, if this same giant gardiner had consulted with Spenser and they two had finish’d the work together. By this you will understand that with something of vastness or grandeur it is at once formal and wild. We reach’d the town of Askrigg, 12 miles, about six in the evening, having walked the last three miles in the dark and two of them over hardfrozen road to the great annoyance of our feet and ancles. Next morning the earth was thinly covered with snow, enough to make the road soft and prevent its being slippery. On leaving Askrigg we turned aside to see another waterfall – ‘twas a beautiful morning with driving snow showers that disappeared by fits, and unveiled the east which was all one delicious pale mill which we passed and in a moment a sweet little valley opened before us, with an area of grassy ground, and a stream dashing over various lamina of black rocks close under a bank covered with firs. The bank and stream on our left, another woody bank on our right, and the flat meadow in front, from which, as at Buttermere, the stream had retired as it were to hide itself under the shade. As we walked up this delightful valley we were tempted to look back perpetually on the brook which reflected the orange light of the morning among the gloomy rocks with a brightness varying according to the agitation of the current. The steeple of Askrigg was between us and the east, at the bottom of the valley; it was not a quarter of a mile distant, but oh I how far we were from it. The two banks seemed to join before us with a facing of rock common to them both, when we reached this point the valley opened out again, two rocky banks on each side, which, hung with ivy and moss and fringed luxuriantly with brushwood, ran directly parallel to each other and then approaching with a gentle curve, at their point of union presented a lofty waterfall, the termination of the valley. Twas a keen frosty morning, showers of snow threatening us but the sun bright and active; we had a task of twenty one miles to perform in a short winter’s day, all this put our minds in such a state of excitation that we were no unworthy spectators of this delightful scene. On a nearer approach the water seemed to fall down a tall arch or rather nitch which had shaped itself by insensible moulderings in the wall of an old castle. We left this spot with reluctance but highly exhilarated. When we had walked about a mile and a half we overtook two men with a string of ponies and some empty carts. I recommended to D to avail herself of this opportunity of husbanding her strength, we rode with them more than two miles, twas bitter cold, the wind driving the snow behind us in the best stile of a mountain storm. We soon reached an Inn at a place called Hardaw, and descending from our vehicles, after warming ourselves by the cottage fire we walked up the brook side to take a view of a third waterfall. We had not gone a few hundred yards between two winding rocky banks before we came full upon it. It appeared to throw itself in a narrow line from a lofty wall of rock; the water which shot manifestly to some distance from the rock seeming from the extreme height of the fall to be dispersed before it reached the bason, into a thin shower of snow that was toss’d about like snow blown from the roof of a house. We were disappointed in the cascade though the introductory and accompanying banks were a noble mixture of grandeur and beauty. We walked up to the fall and what would I not give if I could convey to you the images and feelings which were then communicated to me. After cautiously sounding our way over stones of all colours and sizes encased in the clearest ice formed by the spray of the waterfall, we found the rock which before had seemed a perpendicular wall extending itself over us like the ceiling of a huge cave; from the summit of which water shot directly over our heads into a bason and more fragments of rocks wrinkled over with masses of ice, white as snow, or rather as D says like congealed froth. The water fell at least ten yards from us and we stood directly behind it, the excavation not so deep in the rock as to impress any feelings of darkness, but lofty and magnificent and, in connection with the adjoining banks excluding as much of the sky as could well be spared from a scene so exquisitely beautiful. The spot where we stood was as dry as the chamber in which I am now sitting, and the incumbent rock of which the groundwork was limestone veined and dappled with colours which melted into each other in every possible variety. On the summit of the cave were three festoons or rather wrinkles in the rock which ran parallel to each other like the folds of a curtain when it is drawn up; each of them was hung with icicles of various length, and nearly in the middle of the festoons in the deepest valley made by their waiving line the stream shot from between the rows of icicles in irregular fits of strength and with a body of water that momently varied. Sometimes it threw itself into the bason in one continued curve, sometimes it was interrupted almost midway in its fall arid, being blown towards us, part of the water fell at no great distance from our feet like the heaviest thunder shower. In such a situation you have at every moment a feeling of the presence of the sky. Above the highest point of the waterfall large fleecy clouds drove over our heads and the sky appeared of a blue more than usually brilliant. The rocks on each side, which, joining with the sides of the cave, formed the vista of the brook were checquered with three diminutive waterfalls or rather veins of water each of which was a miniature of all that summer and winter can produce of a delicate beauty. The rock in the centre of these falls where the water was most abundant, deep black, the adjoining parts yellow white purple violet and dove-coloured; or covered with water-plants of the most vivid green, and hung with streams and fountains of ice and icicles that in some places seemed to conceal the verdure of the plants and the variegated colours of the rocks and in some places to render their hues more splendid. I cannot express to you the enchanted effect produced by this Arabian scene of colour as the wind blew aside the great waterfall behind which we stood and hid and revealed each of these faery cataracts in irregular succession or displayed them with various gradations of distinctness, as the intervening spray was thickened or dispersed. – In the luxury of our imaginations we could not help feeding on the pleasure which in the heat of a July noon this cavern would spread through a frame exquisitely sensible. That huge rock of ivy on the right, the bank winding round on the left with all its living foliage, and the breeze stealing up the valley and bedewing the cavern with the faintest imaginable spray. And then the murmur of the water, the quiet, the seclusions, and a long summer day to dream in! – Have I not tired you? With difficulty we tore ourselves away, and on returning to the cottage we found we had been absent an hour. Twas a short one to us, we were in high spirits, and off we drove, and will you believe me when I tell you that we walked the next ten miles by the watch over a high mountain road thanks to the wind that drove behind us and the good road, in two hours and a quarter, a marvellous feat of which D will long tell. Well! we rested in a tempting inn, close by Garsdale chapel, a lowly house of prayer in a charming little valley, here we stopp’d a quarter of an hour and then off to Sedbergh, 7 miles farther, in an hour and thirty-five minutes, the wind was still at our backs and the road delightful. I must hurry on, next morning we walked to Kendal, 11 miles, a terrible up and down road, in 3 hours, and after buying and ordering furniture, the next day by half past four we readied Grasmere in a post chaise. So ends my long story. God bless you,
W.W.
Write soon I pray you. God bless you. My love to Mrs Coleridge and a kiss for Hartley.
D.W.
Soon after the Wordsworths had settled at Grasmere, William began a long philosophical poem called ‘The Recluse’. He never finished it; but the first part, printed below, serves to set the scene before the Journal begins.
THE RECLUSE
PART FIRST
Book First – Home at Grasmere
Once to the verge of yon steep barrier came
A roving school-boy; what the adventurer’s age
Hath now escaped his memory – but the hour,
One of a golden summer holiday
He well remembers, though the year be gone –
Alone and devious from afar he came;
And, with a sudden influx overpowered
At sight of this seclusion, he forgot
His haste, for hasty had his footsteps been
As boyish his pursuits; and sighing said,
‘What happy fortune were it here to live!
And, if a thought of dying, if a thought
Of mortal separation, could intrude
With paradise before him, here to die!’
No Prophet was he, had not even a hope,
Scarcely a wish, but one bright pleasing thought,
A fancy in the heart of what might be
The lot of others, never could be his.
The station whence he looked was soft and green,
Not giddy yet aerial, with a depth
Of vale below, a height of hills above.
For rest of body perfect was the spot,
All that luxurious nature could desire;
But stirring to the spirit; who could gaze
And not feel motions there? He thought of clouds
That sail on winds: of breezes that delight
To play on water, or in endless chase
Pursue each other through the yielding plain
Of grass or corn, over and through and through,
In billow after billow, evermore
Disporting – nor unmindful was the boy
Of sunbeams, shadows, butterflies and birds;
Of fluttering sylphs and softly-gliding Fays,
Genii, and winged angels that are Lords
Without restraint of all which they behold.
The illusion strengthening as he gazed, he felt
That such unfettered liberty was his,
Such power and joy; but only for this end,
To flit from field to rock, from rock to field,
From shore to island, and from isle to shore,
From open ground to covert, from a bed
Of meadow-flowers into a tuft of wood;
From high to low, from low to high, yet still
Within the bound of this huge concave; here
Must be his home, this valley be his world.
Since that day forth the Place to him – to me
(For I who live to register the truth
Was the same young and happy Being) became
As beautiful to thought, as it had been
When present, to the bodily sense; a haunt
Of pure affections, shedding upon joy
A brighter joy; and through such damp and gloom
Of the gay mind, as of times splenetic youth
Makes for sorrow, darting beams of light
That no self-cherished sadness could withstand;
And now ‘tis mine, perchance for life, dear Vale
Beloved Grasmere (let the wandering streams
Take up, the cloud-capt hills repeat, the Name)
One of thy lowly Dwellings is my Home.
And was the cost so great? and could it seem
An act of courage, and the thing itself
A conquest? who must bear the blame? Sage man
Thy prudence, thy experience, thy desires,
Thy apprehensions – blush thou for them all.
Yes the realities of life so cold,
So cowardly, so ready to betray,
So stinted in the measure of their grace
As we pronounce them, doing them much wrong,
Have been to me more bountiful than hope,
Less timid than desire – but that is past.
On Nature’s invitation do I come,
By Reason sanctioned. Can the choice mislead,
That made the calmest fairest spot of earth
With all its unappropriated good
My own; and not mine only, for with me
Entrenched, say rather peacefully embowered,
Under yon orchard, in yon humble cot,
A younger Orphan of a home extinct,
The only Daughter of my Parents dwells.
Ay, think on that, my heart, and cease to stir,
Pause upon that and let the breathing frame
No longer breathe, but all be satisfied.
– Oh, if such silence be not thanks to God
For what hath been bestowed, then where, where then
Shall gratitude find rest? Mine eyes did ne’er
Fix on a lovely object, nor my mind
Take pleasure in the midst of happy thoughts,
But either She whom now I have, who now
Divides with me this loved abode, was there,
Or not far off. Where’er my footsteps turned,
Her voice was like a hidden Bird that sang.
The thought of her was like a flash of light,
Or an unseen companionship, a breath
Of fragrance independent of the Wind.
In all my goings, in the new and old
Of all my meditations, and in this
Favourite of all, in this the most of all.
– What being, therefore, since the birth of Man
Had ever more abundant cause to speak
Thanks, and if favours of the Heavenly Muse
Make him more thankful, then to call on Verse
To aid him and in song resound his joy?
The boon is absolute; surpassing grace
To me hath been vouchsafed; among the bowers
Of blissful Eden this was neither given
Nor could be given, possession of the good
Which had been sighed for, ancient thought fulfilled,
And dear Imagination realised,
Up to their highest measure, yea and more.
Embrace me then, ye Hills, and close me in;
Now in the clear and open day I feel
Your guardianship; I take it to my heart;
‘Tis like the solemn shelter of the night.
But I would call thee beautiful, for mild,
And soft, and gay, and beautiful thou art
Dear Valley, having in thy face a smile
Though peaceful, full of gladness. Thou art pleased,
Pleased with thy crags and woody steeps, thy Lake,
Its one green island and its winding shores;
The multitude of little rocky hills,
Thy Church and cottages of mountain stone
Clustered like stars some few, but single most,
And lurking dimly in their shy retreats,
Or glancing at each other cheerful looks
Like separated stars with clouds between.
What want we? have we not perpetual streams,
Warm woods, and sunny hills, and fresh green fields,
And mountains not less green, and flocks and herds,
And thickets full of songsters, and the voice
Of lordly birds, an unexpected sound
Heard now and then from morn to latest eve,
Admonishing the man who walks below
Of solitude and silence in the sky?
These have we, and a thousand nooks of earth
Have also these, but nowhere else is found,
Nowhere (or it is fancy?) can be found
The one sensation that is here; ‘Tis here,
Here as it found its way into my heart
In childhood, here as it abides by day,
By night, here only; or in chosen minds
That take it with them hence, where’er they go.
–’Tis, but I cannot name it, ‘tis the sense
Of majesty, and beauty, and repose,
A blended holiness of earth and sky,
Something that makes this individual spot,
This small abiding-place of many men,
A termination, and a last retreat,
A centre, come from wheresoe’er you will,
A whole without dependence or defect,
Made for itself, and happy in itself,
Perfect contentment, Unity entire.
Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak,
When hitherward we journeyed side by side
Through burst of sunshine and through flying showers;
Paced the long vales – how long they were – and yet
How fast that length of way was left behind,
Wensley’s rich Vale, and Sedbergh’s naked heights.
The frosty wind, as if to make amends
For its keen breath, was aiding to our steps,
And drove us onward like two ships at sea,
Or like two birds, companions in mid-air,
Parted and reunited by the blast.
Stern was the face of nature; we rejoiced
In that stern countenance, for our souls thence drew
A feeling of their strength. The naked trees,
The icy brook, as on we passed, appeared
To question us. ‘Whence come ye, to what end?’
They seemed to say, ‘What would ye,’ said the shower,
‘Wild Wanderers, whither through my dark domain?’
The sunbeam said, ‘Be happy.’ When this vale
We entered, bright and solemn was the sky
That faced us with a passionate welcoming,
And led us to our threshold. Daylight failed
Insensibly, and round us gently fell
Composing darkness, with a quiet load
Of full contentment, in a little shed
Disturbed, uneasy in itself as seemed,
And wondering at its new inhabitants.
It loves us now, this Vale so beautiful
Begins to love us! by a sullen storm,
Two months unwearied of severest storm,
It put the temper of our minds to proof,
And found us faithful through the gloom, and heard
The poet mutter his prelusive songs
With cheerful heart, an unknown voice of joy
Among the silence of the woods and hills;
Silent to any gladsomeness of sound
With all their shepherds.
‘God be thanked, I want not
society by a moonlight lake.’
May 14th, 1800 [Wednesday]. Wm. and John set off into Yorkshire after dinner at ½ past 2 o’clock, cold pork in their pockets. I left them at the turning of the Lowwood bay under the trees. My heart was so full that I could hardly speak to W. when I gave him a farewell kiss. I sate a long time upon a stone at the margin of the lake, and after a flood of tears my heart was easier. The lake looked to me, I knew not why, dull and melancholy, and the weltering on the shores seemed a heavy sound. I walked as long as I could amongst the stones of the shore. The wood rich in flowers; a beautiful yellow, palish yellow, flower, that looked thick, round, and double, and smelt very sweet – I supposed it was a ranunculus. Crowfoot, the grassy-leaved rabbit-toothed white flower, strawberries, geranium, scentless violets, anemones two kinds, orchise, primroses. The heckberry very beautiful, the crab coming out as a low shrub. Met a blind man, driving a very large beautiful Bull, and a cow – he walked with two sticks. Came home by Clappersgate. The valley very green; many sweet views up to Rydale head, when I could juggle away the fine houses; but they disturbed me, even more than when I have been happier; one beautiful view of the Bridge, without Sir Michael’s. Sate down very often, though it was cold. I resolved to write a journal of the time till W. and J. return, and I set about keeping my resolve, because I will not quarrel with myself, and because I shall give Wm. pleasure by it when he comes home again. At Rydale, a woman of the village, stout and well dressed, begged a half-penny; she had never she said done it before, but these hard times! Arrived at home with a bad headach, set some slips of privett, the evening cold, had a fire, my face now flame-coloured. It is nine o’clock. I shall soon go to bed. A young woman begged at the door – she had come from Manchester on Sunday morn. with two shillings and a slip of paper which she supposed a Bank note – it was a cheat. She had buried her husband and three children within a year and a half – all in one grave – burying very dear – paupers all put in one place – 20 shillings paid for as much ground as will bury a man – a stone to be put over it or the right will be lost – 11/6 each time the ground is opened… Oh! that I had a letter from William!
May 15th, Thursday. A coldish dull morning – hoed the first row of peas, weeded etc. etc., sat hard to mending till evening. The rain which had threatened all day came on just when I was going to walk.
[May 16th,] Friday morning