Wednesday, 10th.—A very snowy morning.... I was writing out the poem, as we hoped for a final writing.... We read the first part and were delighted with it, but Wm. afterwards got to some ugly place, and went to bed tired out. A wild, moonlight night.
Thursday, 11th.— ... Wm. sadly tired and working at The Pedlar.... We made up a good fire after dinner, and Wm. brought his mattress out, and lay down on the floor. I read to him the life of Ben Jonson, and some short poems of his, which were too interesting for him, and would not let him go to sleep. I had begun with Fletcher, but he was too dull for me. Fuller says, in his Life of Jonson (speaking of his plays), "If his latter be not so spriteful and vigorous as his first pieces, all that are old, and all who desire to be old, should excuse him therein." He says he "beheld" wit-combats between Shakespeare and Jonson, and compares Shakespeare to an English man-of-war, Jonson to a great Spanish galleon. There is one affecting line in Jonson's epitaph on his first daughter—
Here lies to each her parents ruth,
Mary the daughter of their youth.
At six months' end she parted hence,
In safety of her innocence.
Two beggars to-day. I continued to read to Wm. We were much delighted with the poem of Penshurst.[50] Wm. rose better. I was cheerful and happy. He got to work again.
Friday, 12th.—A very fine, bright, clear, hard frost. Wm. working again. I recopied The Pedlar, but poor Wm. all the time at work.... In the afternoon a poor woman came, she said, to beg, ... but she has been used to go a-begging, for she has often come here. Her father lived to the age of 105. She is a woman of strong bones, with a complexion that has been beautiful, and remained very fresh last year, but now she looks broken, and her little boy—a pretty little fellow, and whom I have loved for the sake of Basil—looks thin and pale. I observed this to her. "Aye," says she, "we have all been ill. Our house was nearly unroofed in the storm, and we lived in it so for more than a week." The child wears a ragged drab coat and a fur cap. Poor little fellow, I think he seems scarcely at all grown since the first time I saw him. William was with me when we met him in a lane going to Skelwith Bridge. He looked very pretty. He was walking lazily, in the deep narrow lane, overshadowed with the hedgerows, his meal poke hung over his shoulder. He said he "was going a laiting." Poor creature! He now wears the same coat he had on at that time. When the woman was gone, I could not help thinking that we are not half thankful enough that we are placed in that condition of life in which we are. We do not so often bless God for this, as we wish for this £50, that £100, etc. etc. We have not, however, to reproach ourselves with ever breathing a murmur. This woman's was but a common case. The snow still lies upon the ground. Just at the closing in of the day, I heard a cart pass the door, and at the same time the dismal sound of a crying infant. I went to the window, and had light enough to see that a man was driving a cart, which seemed not to be very full, and that a woman with an infant in her arms was following close behind and a dog close to her. It was a wild and melancholy sight. Wm. rubbed his tables after candles were lighted, and we sate a long time with the windows unclosed, and almost finished writing The Pedlar; but poor Wm. wore himself out, and me out, with labour. We had an affecting conversation. Went to bed at 12 o'clock.
Saturday, 13th.—It snowed a little this morning. Still at work at The Pedlar, altering and refitting. We did not walk, though it was a very fine day. We received a present of eggs and milk from Janet Dockeray, and just before she went, the little boy from the Hill brought us a letter from Sara H., and one from the Frenchman in London. I wrote to Sara after tea, and Wm. took out his old newspapers, and the new ones came in soon after. We sate, after I had finished the letter, talking; and Wm. read parts of his Recluse aloud to me....
Sunday, 14th February.—A fine morning. The sun shines out, but it has been a hard frost in the night. There are some little snowdrops that are afraid to put their white heads quite out, and a few blossoms of hepatica that are half-starved. Wm. left me at work altering some passages of The Pedlar, and went into the orchard. The fine day pushed him on to resolve, and as soon as I had read a letter to him, which I had just received from Mrs. Clarkson, he said he would go to Penrith, so Molly was despatched for the horse. I worked hard, got the writing finished, and all quite trim. I wrote to Mrs. Clarkson, and put up some letters for Mary H., and off he went in his blue spencer, and a pair of new pantaloons fresh from London.... I then sate over the fire, reading Ben Jonson's Penshurst, and other things. Before sunset, I put on my shawl and walked out. The snow-covered mountains were spotted with rich sunlight, a palish buffish colour.... I stood at the wishing-gate, and when I came in view of Rydale, I cast a long look upon the mountains beyond. They were very white, but I concluded that Wm. would have a very safe passage over Kirkstone, and I was quite easy about him. After dinner, a little before sunset, I walked out about 20 yards above Glow-worm Rock. I met a carman, a Highlander I suppose, with four carts, the first three belonging to himself, the last evidently to a man and his family who had joined company with him, and who I guessed to be potters. The carman was cheering his horses, and talking to a little lass about ten years of age who seemed to make him her companion. She ran to the wall, and took up a large stone to support the wheel of one of his carts, and ran on before with it in her arms to be ready for him. She was a beautiful creature, and there was something uncommonly impressive in the lightness and joyousness of her manner. Her business seemed to be all pleasure—pleasure in her own motions, and the man looked at her as if he too was pleased, and spoke to her in the same tone in which he spoke to his horses. There was a wildness in her whole figure, not the wildness of a Mountain lass, but of the Road lass, a traveller from her birth, who had wanted neither food nor clothes. Her mother followed the last cart with a lovely child, perhaps about a year old, at her back, and a good-looking girl, about fifteen years old, walked beside her. All the children were like the mother. She had a very fresh complexion, but she was blown with fagging up the steep hill, and with what she carried. Her husband was helping the horse to drag the cart up by pushing it with his shoulder. I reached home, and read German till about 9 o'clock. I wrote to Coleridge. Went to bed at about 12 o'clock.... I slept badly, for my thoughts were full of Wm.
Monday, 15th February.—It snowed a good deal, and was terribly cold. After dinner it was fair, but I was obliged to run all the way to the foot of the White Moss, to get the least bit of warmth into me. I found a letter from C. He was much better, this was very satisfactory, but his letter was not an answer to Wm.'s which I expected. A letter from Annette. I got tea when I reached home, and then set on reading German. I wrote part of a letter to Coleridge, went to bed and slept badly.
Tuesday, 16th.—A fine morning, but I had persuaded myself not to expect Wm., I believe because I was afraid of being disappointed. I ironed all day. He came just at tea time, had only seen Mary H. for a couple of hours between Eamont Bridge and Hartshorn Tree. Mrs. C. better. He had had a difficult journey over Kirkstone, and came home by Threlkeld. We spent a sweet evening. He was better, had altered The Pedlar. We went to bed pretty soon. Mr. Graham said he wished Wm. had been with him the other day—he was riding in a post-chaise and he heard a strange cry that he could not understand, the sound continued, and he called to the chaise driver to stop. It was a little girl that was crying as if her heart would burst. She had got up behind the chaise, and her cloak had been caught by the wheel, and was jammed in, and it hung there. She was crying after it, poor thing. Mr. Graham took her into the chaise, and her cloak was released from the wheel, but the child's misery did not cease, for her cloak was torn to rags; it had been a miserable cloak before, but she had no other, and it was the greatest sorrow that could befall her. Her name was Alice Fell.[51] She had no parents, and belonged to the next town. At the next town, Mr. G. left money with some respectable people in the town, to buy her a new cloak.
Wednesday, 17th.—A miserable nasty snowy morning. We did not walk, but the old man from the hill brought us a short letter from Mary H. I copied the second part of Peter Bell....