CHAPTER II.
In our last chapter we took a breezy morning walk amid the Lake scenery of England—more particularly that portion of it which lies between the old homes of Wordsworth and of Southey; we found it a thirteen-mile stretch of road, coiling along narrow meadows and over gray heights—beside mountains and mountain tarns—with Helvellyn lifting mid-way and Skiddaw towering at the end. We had our talk of Dr. Southey—so brave at his work—so generous in his home charities—so stiff in his Churchism and latter-day Toryism—with a very keen eye for beauty; yet writing poems—stately and masterful—which long ago went to the top-shelves, and stay there.
We had our rough and ready interviews with that first of “War Correspondents”—Henry Crabb Robinson—who knew all the prominent men of this epoch, and has given us such entertaining chit-chat about them, as we all listen to, and straightway forget. Afterwards we had a look at that strange, intellectual, disorderly creature De Quincey—he living a long while in the Lake Country—and in his more inspired moments seeming to carry us by his swift words, into that mystical region lying beyond the borders of what we know and see. He swayed men; but he rarely taught them, or fed them.