My birthday. The snow fell on Skiddaw and Grysdale Pike for the first time.
[A life-long mistake. He was born October 21, 1772.]
Tuesday evening, 1/2 past 6, October 22, 1801
All the mountains black and tremendously obscure, except Swinside. At this time I saw, one after the other, nearly in the same place, two perfect moon-rainbows, the one foot in the field below my garden, the other in the field nearest but two to the church. It was grey-moonlight-mist-colour. Friday morning, Mary Hutchinson arrives.
The art in a great man, and of evidently superior faculties, to be often obliged to people, often his inferiors—in this way the enthusiasm of affection may be excited. Pity where we can help and our help is accepted with gratitude, conjoined with admiration, breeds an enthusiastic affection. The same pity conjoined with admiration, where neither our help is accepted nor efficient, breeds dyspathy and fear.
Nota bene to make a detailed comparison, in the manner of Jeremy Taylor, between the searching for the first cause of a thing and the seeking the fountains of the Nile—so many streams, each with its particular fountain—and, at last, it all comes to a name!