To Miss Wordsworth the "sorrow's crown of sorrow" came with the death in April, 1850, of the brother for whom she had lived and for whom she had done so much. Having attained his eightieth year, he caught a cold, which resulted in a bronchial attack. After lying for a few weeks in a state of exhaustion, the great soul passed to its everlasting rest, to swell the song of the eternal world.
Although cared for and dearly beloved by the survivors, the death of her brother seemed to snap the strong tie by which she was bound to life. In consequence of being herself confined to her room, she was not able to witness the progress and end of her brother's illness. To the very last they had been so completely devoted to each other that when his death was communicated to her she was at first unable to realise it. When the truth at length dawned upon her, she gave utterance to the pathetic exclamation, that there was nothing left worth living for.
Miss Wordsworth, however, survived her brother by nearly five years. It is a satisfaction to know that even her latest years were not without gleams of brightness. Although, compared with her early mental vigour, there was visible a melancholy wreck of mind, it was chiefly the result of an uncertain and vanishing memory. She had, indeed, to the very last perfectly lucid intervals during which she was remarkably clear and quite herself. As a not uncommon result of loss of memory in aged people, she forgot near events, and was what might be termed somewhat childish. She could remember quite well what took place in her girlhood, while if asked what she had been doing or talking about an hour previously she would have no recollection of it.
During her latest years Miss Wordsworth was unable to read much, but would frequently amuse herself by reciting poetry and other scraps, which, learnt in previous years, she remembered wonderfully well. A casual observer, who might see the placid old lady, of fourscore years, wheeled on the terrace at Rydal Mount, her unwrinkled though somewhat pensive face framed by a full-bordered cap, would have no suggestion of the often vacant mind.
Although sometimes considerably depressed in spirits, her tedious affliction was, on the whole, borne with exemplary Christian fortitude. It has been said that "her loving-kindness in health had known no bounds, and the sympathy she had ever felt for the sorrows of others was now rivalled by the patience with which she bore her own."
When the end at length came it was calm and tolerably painless. Taking cold early in the year 1855, her condition was aggravated by an attack of bronchitis, and her spirit left the worn-out frame on the 25th of January, in her eighty-third year.
Her remains were deposited in the peaceful churchyard of Grasmere, by the murmuring waters of a mountain stream, the same sacred spot of earth which contained those of her beloved brother, overshadowed by the same yew trees.
It was from her own choice—a choice decided and happy—that Miss Wordsworth was never married. De Quincey (who seems, by the way, to have had a pretty universal knowledge) informs us that she had several offers of marriage, and amongst them, to his knowledge, one from Hazlitt, all of which she decisively rejected. Although he speaks so confidently, it is probable that, with regard to Hazlitt, he was mistaken. With the exception of a visit to Nether Stowey, and a short stay in the Lake district some few years later, it does not appear that Hazlitt was brought into contact with the Wordsworths, or that the relations between them were at all familiar; and Hazlitt's grandson and biographer does not attach much importance to the statement. Miss Wordsworth had a far higher vocation. Her sacrifice, if it can be so called, to her brother was complete; but her lot was not, therefore, less happy. Doubtless the duties of marriage and maternity, had the poet's prophecy concerning her been fulfilled, would have filled her life, in its maturity and decline, with cares and interests which would have contributed to the keeping of her mind in a condition of more continuous mental vigour and equipoise. But the one great object of her life had been accomplished. She had lived to know all slander and rancour, the effect of all spiteful reviews, lived down; and—if not able fully to appreciate and rejoice in the fact—to see her brother, whom she had helped so much to perfect, universally acknowledged as a master of English song, occupying a foremost niche in the Temple of Fame—the greatest poet since Milton.
And, although her old age was somewhat overclouded, it cannot be considered altogether sad; and it is not with thoughts of sadness that our reflections on such a beneficent career as hers should be closed.
If the latter portion of her life was overshadowed with gloom and sickness; if the brightness of the morning and the serenity of noonday too early gave place to a long twilight upon which the shadows fell heavily, her bright and lucid intervals give abundant hope that gleams of gladness revisited the mind which, for so long, had been a "mansion for all lovely forms" treasured and garnered in her early years.