Being at Patterdale on a rainy day I am at perfect leisure & I think I cannot do better than transcribe for you a poem which my Brother wrote the other day before yesterday. We left home yesterday morning. I rode upon my little pony and William walked by my side. We came over Kirkstone and had a very pleasant journey though the day was misty; & at the top of Kirkstone we could not see fifty yards around us. We were very anxious to visit some of the Vales tributary to Ulswater where we have never been before, while yet the brown leaves are upon some of the trees; but I am afraid it must not be this year, for the weather seems broken. We are in the house of a Friend, a comfortable Cottage

most happily situated in the main Vale above the Lake of Ulswater. From this room I look over the level bed of the valley, intersected with hedgerows, (it seems as level as a bowling-green) horses & cows are feeding in the fields which are of a soft yellow hue, through which you hardly perceive the tinge of the fading green, a colour that harmonizes exquisitely with that of the trees upon the mountain opposite, where a thick cloud is resting; and through that veil, rocks and craggy points now appear.—and then are hidden again. My dear Lady Beaumont, this is a wonderful country; the more wonderful, the more we know of it, much as the Tourists stare at our great rocks while they wheel along the turnpike roads. Yesterday we had visions of things, imperfectly seen as we passed along, that might have employed our fancy happily for hours, if they had not in the next moment been replaced by others as beautiful. This Dale has not yet been intruded upon by any of the Fancy-builders, —there is only one offensive object, the house of Mr Mounsey, the King of Patterdale,

& that is chiefly ugly from the colour which has been so cried out against that he intends to change it next summer. But poor Grasmere is a devoted place! You may remember that I spoke of the white-washing of the church, & six years ago a trim Box was erected on the a hill-side; which it is surrounded with fir and Larch plantations, that look like a blotch or scar on the fair surface of the mountain. Luckily these deformities are not visible in the grand view of the Vale, but alas poor Grasmere! The first object which now presents itself after you have clomb the hill from Rydale is Mr Crump’s newly-erected large mansion,

staring over the church Steeple, its foundation under the crags being much above the top of the Steeple—then a farm-house opposite to ours, on the other side of the Lake, has been taken by a dashing man from Manchester

who, no doubt, will make a fine place of it, and as he has taken the Island, too, will probably erect a pavilion there upon it, or, it may be, an Obelisk. This is not all. A very beautiful little Estate has been purchased in the more retired part of the Vale, and the first thing the Gentleman has done preparatory to building his house, has been to make a sunk Fence

which you overlook on every side from the rocks, thickets, and green sloping hills! Add to all that Sir Michael Fleming

has been getting his woods appraised, and after Christmas the Ax is to be lifted against them, & not one tree left, so the whole eastern side of the Lake will be entirely naked, even to the very edge of the water!—but what could we expect better from Sir Michael? who has been building a long high wall under the grand woods behind his house which cuts the hill in two by a straight line; and to make his doings visible to all men he has whitewashed it as white as snow. One who could do this wants a sense which others have. To him there is no “Spirit in the wood.”

    I must add to my lamentations for the fate of Grasmere one consolation for you; that our regrets at parting with it will be more than half spent before we go; & that, in fact, we begin already to think that there may be many places which we should now prefer.

    I seem to have forgotten my object, which was to transcribe my Brother’s Poem,

and forgotten too, his exclamations against my last long letter. The poem, which as it pleases me so much I feel assured will please you, was suggested by a very beautiful passage in a Journal of a Tour among the Highlands, by Thomas Wilkinson,

the person mentioned by my Brother to Sir George as employed by Lord Lowther

to regulate the improvements in his grounds.

    I was glad to hear that you were so much pleased with the Translation from Michael Angelo, —I think it is very happily done, & a very fine Sonnet.

I wish my Brother could have done more in testimony of his reverence for so great a man, but he finds so much thought in the poems & the Italian so difficult that he has tried in vain. Adieu, —I write with a party talking round me—excuse blunders—it is now eight o’clock in the evening. Since I began in the morning we have had a most enchanting walk, & we hope to have a fine day tomorrow, when we shall return to Grasmere. On Saturday we shall feast on the Leicestershire hare

& drink a bumper to your healths by our own fire side. Farewell! believe me your ever affectionate and faithful Friend Dorothy Wordsworth. 

    I received the first of your short letters on Monday, the second not till today; judge of the mismanagement of our Post office!—regular Office, indeed we have none, but the Post now comes four times a week; yet (so do they arrange it) on the Sunday evenings he brings as many letters as all the rest of the week put together. I do not know why I have troubled you with this my lamentation at this time except that in future it may serve to explain to you if there should be any extraordinary delay when you may have written what may demand an immediate answer. My Brother and Sister are at Park House. She left me last Monday and William yesterday morning, & I do not expect them home before the end of next week: perhaps my Sister may stay longer, as she is still not in strong health, & we think that change of air may be of service to her. She will bring Miss Hutchinson

to spend the winter with us. 

    I have many dear and cheerful thoughts, and many melancholy ones in my solitude—these I sometimes seek, but at others they master me & I turn my cowardly heart to some other employment. I read, I copy some of my Brother’s Poems (a work which he has left me to do) or I write a letter. The Children are now in bed. The evening is very still, and there are no indoor sounds but the ticking of our Family watch which hangs over the chimney-piece under the drawing of the Applethwaite Cottage,

& a breathing or a beating of one single irregular Flame in my fire. No one who has not been an Inmate with Children in a Cottage can have a notion of the quietness that takes possession of it when they are gone to sleep. The hour before is generally a noisy one, often given up to boisterous efforts to amuse them, & the noise is heard in every corner of the house—then comes the washing and undressing, a work of misery, & in ten minutes after, all is stillness and perfect rest. It is at all times a sweet hour to us; but I can fancy that I have never enjoyed it so much as now that I am quite alone—yet it is a strange kind of pleasure for the Image of our departed Brother

haunts me with many a pang in the midst of happy recollections of him, & glorious hopes—he loved this fireside—he paced over this floor in pride before we had been six weeks in the house, exulting within his noble heart that his Father’s Children had once again a home together. We did not know on what day he would come, though we were expecting him every hour, therefore he had no reason to fear that he should surprize us suddenly; yet twice did he approach the door & lay his hand upon the latch, & stop, and turn away without the courage to enter (we had not met for several years) he then went to the Inn and sent us word that he was come. This will give you a notion of the depth of his affections and the delicacy of his feelings. While he stayed with us he busied himself continually with little schemes for our comfort. At this moment, when I cast my eyes about I scarcely see any thing that does not remind me of some circumstance of this kind, & my tears will flow by fits in spite of my inner and habitual sense of the many consolations which he has let for us (chiefly in his innocent life & noble death) and that all our regrets are selfish. His hope and mine, our Brother William, is yet spared to me, —& I have many blessings which poor John did not share; he knew & affectionately loved my Sister but he never saw her after her marriage, & he had only heard the names of their dear Children...

Oh! What a beautiful spectacle are they, as I have just left them this evening upon their pillows! how divine an image of peace! —But I was seeking consolation, and I find I am further from it for then came a bitter pang. I was weak enough to grieve for his Loss, thinking what happiness would have been his, could he have beheld their blessed countenances.

    I begin again after a pause. Poor Coleridge! We must not talk of him. I hope we shall not see him this winter; yet I cannot in my mind depend upon it, for I know that his earnest desire to return is the cause of his silence—he has nothing decisive to communicate & therefore has not heart to write. Heaven preserve him from Captivity in France!

    My Brother has not yet begun fairly with his great work;

but I hope he will after his return from Park house. We shall then in right earnest enjoy winter quiet & loneliness; besides starlight walks and winter winds are his delight—his mind, I think is often more fertile in this season than any other. I am now engaged in making a fair and final transcript of the Poem on his own Life. I mean final, till it is prepared for the press, which will not be for many years. No doubt before that time he will, either from the suggestions of his Friends or his own, or both, have some alterations to make, but it appears to us at present to be finished.

    We were very sorry that Sir George had not been well. My Brother entreats that he will not write to him till he can do it with perfect ease and comfort. He prizes Sir George’s letters most highly; but I can assure you, he never suffers himself to expect them, & would be very much hurt were he to attempt to write to him when it was an effort. You do not tell me whither you are going from Aston, probably to Dunmow

before you settle in London for the winter. Coleridge gave us such a description of Sir George’s venerable Mother whom he had the happiness of seeing at Dunmow as inspired me with reverence & admiration. Pray tell me if she continues to enjoy the same excellent health & cheerful spirits. Have you heard from your Sister again? I cannot express how much pleasure it gives me when you speak of her. I had almost forgotten to tell you that we were at Lowther three days after I wrote from Patterdale. We walked through the woods, & along the Forest path which my Brother described to you—but it was not the time to see its beauties for there were no daisies or other flowers, & the very line of the path was invisible, the whole ground being covered with leaves. Thomas Wilkinson (The Quaker), who was our Guide mentioned to us that he had seen a Gentleman just come from Coleorton, who had been among the woods for many hours in search of the path but could not find it. We wished we could have seen him, & my Brother sent a message to him to request that if he came into our neighborhood, he would have the goodness to call upon him. We spent a delightful day at Lowther, indeed the whole week was delightful—we ranged from one beautiful scene to another. I came home in perfect health, & we boasted of my wonderful strength; but last week I was confined to my bed four days by a violent pain in my left side. I was bled, blistered &c, and am now perfectly well, and the Apothecary tells me I have no reason to apprehend a return of the disease in consequence of having once had it. It being a new disease, I believe I was unduly alarmed, else, now that it is over, I think I should not have thought it worth while to mention it to you.