"Move along its shades,
In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand
Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods."
"What a life there is in trees," said Miss Wordsworth; and her own life was one not only helping to reveal the living speech of the mute world, not only finding life where it is by the duller eye unseen, and by the dull sense unfelt, but helping to show what a noble thing all life may be made.
It must not be supposed that in what may seem to have been a complete abandonment to the worship of her brother and of Nature Miss Wordsworth had no heart for others, no room for human sympathy. She was, on the contrary, during their early years at Grasmere especially, widely known and beloved; her ready ear was always open to the tale of sorrow, and her helping hand ready to aid. It was after the commencement of her long and tedious illness that Wordsworth said of her he did not believe her tenderness of heart was ever exceeded by any of God's creatures, that her loving kindness had no bounds. The following lines written by Mrs. Fletcher, when 82 years of age, after reading Miss Wordsworth's Grasmere journal, are very appropriate:—
"If in thine inmost soul there chance to dwell
Aught of the poetry of human life,
Take thou this book, and with a humble heart
Follow these pilgrims in their joyous walk;
And mark their high commission—not to domes