'When to the attractions of the busy world,
Preferring studious leisure,' &c.[240]
Oct. 7th.—Yesterday Wordsworth drove me to Low-wovel; and then we ascended a great way towards Kirkstone by Troutbeck, passing by many interesting cots, barns, and farm-houses, where W. had constantly something to point out in the architecture, or the fringes of moss, fern, &c., on the roofs or walls. We crossed the valley, and descended on Troutbeck Church, whence we came down to the turnpike road, and I left the Poet, who was going on to assist Sir T. Pasley in laying out his grounds. I turned homeward, till I met my horse.
As we walked, I was admiring the never-ceasing sound of water, so remarkable in this country. 'I was walking,' he said, 'on the mountains, with ——, the Eastern traveller; it was after rain, and the torrents were full. I said, "I hope you like your companions—these bounding, joyous, foaming streams." "No," said the traveller, pompously, "I think they are not to be compared in delightful effect with the silent solitude of the Arabian Desert." My mountain blood was up. I quickly observed that he had boots and a stout great-coat on, and said, "I am sorry you don't like this; perhaps I can show you what will please you more." I strode away, and led him from crag to crag, hill to vale, and vale to hill, for about six hours; till I thought I should have had to bring him home, he was so tired.'
October 10th.—I have passed a great many hours to-day with Wordsworth, in his house. I stumbled on him with proof sheets before him. He read me nearly all the sweet stanzas written in his copy of the 'Castle of Indolence,'[241] describing himself and my uncle; and he and Mrs. W. both assured me the description of the latter at that time was perfectly accurate; that he was almost as a great boy in feelings, and had all the tricks and fancies there described. Mrs. W. seemed to look back on him, and those times, with the fondest affection. Then he read me some lines, which formed part of a suppressed portion of 'The Waggoner;' but which he is now printing 'on the Rock of Names,' so called because on it they had carved out their initials:
W.W. Wm. Wordsworth.
M.H. Mary W.
D.W. Dorothy Wordsworth.
S.T.C. Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
J.W. John Wordsworth.
S.H. Sarah Hutchinson.
This rock was about a mile beyond Wythburn Chapel, to which they used to accompany my uncle, in going to Keswick from Grasmere, and where they would meet him when he returned. This led him to read much of 'The Waggoner' to me. It seems a very favourite poem of his, and he read me splendid descriptions from it. He said his object in it had not been understood. It was a play of the fancy on a domestic incident and lowly character: he wished by the opening descriptive lines to put his reader into the state of mind in which he wished it to be read. If he failed in doing that, he wished him to lay it down. He pointed out, with the same view, the glowing lines on the state of exultation in which Ben and his companions are under the influence of liquor. Then he read the sickening languor of the morning walk, contrasted with the glorious uprising of Nature, and the songs of the birds. Here he has added about six most exquisite lines.
We walked out on the turf terrace, on the Loughrigg side of Rydal Water. Most exquisitely did the lake and opposite bank look. Thence he led me home under Loughrigg, through lovely spots I had never seen before. His conversation was on critical subjects, arising out of his attempts to alter his poems. He said he considered 'The White Doe' as, in conception, the highest work he had ever produced. The mere physical action was all unsuccessful; but the true action of the poem was spiritual—the subduing of the will, and all inferior passions, to the perfect purifying and spiritualising of the intellectual nature; while the Doe, by connection with Emily, is raised as it were from its mere animal nature into something mysterious and saint-like. He said he should devote much labour to perfecting the execution of it in the mere business parts, in which, from anxiety 'to get on' with the more important parts, he was sensible that imperfections had crept in, which gave the style a feebleness of character.
He talked of Milton, and observed how he sometimes indulged himself, in the 'Paradise Lost,' in lines which, if not in time, you could hardly call verse, instancing,