The friends were generally gay and light-hearted, in spite of philosophising upon ways and means of setting the world right by moral suasion; and picnics punctuated the summer days. One of these, at Alfoxden, has attained a certain fame. There were present on this occasion: Coleridge, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, and Cottle; the good-natured, providential Cottle, friend in need of literary babes and sucklings. The provisions consisted of brandy, bread-and-cheese, and lettuces. Coleridge, in his clumsy way, broke the precious brandy-bottle, the salt was spilled, a tramp stole the cheese, and so all that remained was bread and lettuces.
The “Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth,” the poet’s sister and companion at Alfoxden and elsewhere, have been published, but it cannot be said that they add greatly to one’s intellectual appreciation of the society formed by these friends, nor do they impress the reader with the mental powers of the lady, or with her knowledge of country life. Here and there are such passages as “saw a glow-worm,” or “heard the nightingale;” as though such sights and sounds were things remarkable in the Quantocks. To have been deaf to the nightingale in his season, or not to have noticed the glow-worm’s glimmer: those would have been incidents of an evening’s walk much better worth remarking for their singularity in these still unspoiled hills.
But let us have a few specimen days from Dorothy Wordsworth’s diary, to taste her quality. March 1798, for example, will serve:
“28th.—Hung out the linen.”
“29th.—Coleridge dined with us.”
“30th.—Walked I know not where.”
“31st.—Walked.”
And then “April 1st. Walked by moonlight.” What utter drivel and self-confessed inanity; exasperating in its baldness, when an account of what Coleridge said on the occasion of his driving with them would have given us reading the world would now probably be glad enough to possess!