United States or Malaysia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Her letters to the brother in New Zealand become, in a moment, all joy and ardor, and nothing could be prettier than the account, given by one of the sisters, of the quiet wedding in Rydal Chapel, the family breakfast, the bride's simple dress and radiant look, Matthew Arnold giving his sister away with the great fells standing sentinel.
Sometimes it is a recollection of some London drawing-room, where youth and beauty surrounded the rugged old man with an eager admiration which fell on no unwilling heart. Sometimes it is a story of some assemblage of young and old, rich and poor, from all the neighbouring houses and cottages, at Rydal Mount, to keep the aged poet's birthday with a simple feast and rustic play.
From Bowness the route is by Rydal Mount, where the poet Wordsworth lived, to Koswick, about twenty-three miles distant, on Derwentwater.
As you advance a mile or more on the road from Ambleside toward Grasmere, a lane overhung with trees turns up to the right, and there, at some few hundred yards from the highway, stands the modest cottage of the poet, elevated on Rydal Mount, so as to look out over the surrounding sea of foliage, and to take in a glorious view.
Wordsworth, now seventy-six, showed her the lovely scenery of Rydal Mount, pointing out as his especial pride, his avenue of hollyhocks crimson, straw-color, and white. De Quincey showed her many courtesies. Dr. Chalmers talked eloquently, while William and Mary Howitt seemed like old friends. Carlyle invited her to his home. "To interrupt him," she said, "is a physical impossibility.
The two poets produced in 1798 the Lyrical Ballads, among the contents of which it is sufficient to mention Tintern Abbey and The Ancient Mariner; and they subsequently travelled together in Germany. Then Wordsworth returned to his native lakes and never left them for long, abiding first at or near Grasmere, and from 1813 at his well-known home of Rydal Mount.
The distinctive impression which the family made on the minds of the people about them was that of practical ability; and it was thoroughly well conveyed by the remark of a man at Rydal, on hearing some talk of Mrs. Nothing could be more affecting than to watch the silent changes in Mrs. Wordsworth's spirits during the ten years which followed the death of her daughter.
In spite of being caught in an unpleasant lie, he admired this golden-haired, blue-eyed slip of a woman for the colossal bluff she was playing. "Personally, I'm sorry," he said, "but I couldn't help it. Rydal " "I am sure, unless you give the instructions quickly, that I shall shoot," she interrupted him. Her voice was so quiet that Peter was amazed. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Keith. But "
Two years ago I stood by Wordsworth's grave in the churchyard at Grasmere, and my companion wove a chaplet of flowers and placed it on the headstone. Afterwards we went into the old church and sat down in the poet's pew. "They are all dead and gone now," sighed the gray-headed sexton; "but I can remember when the seats used to be filled by the family from Rydal Mount.
The poet whose works are contained in the present volume was born in the little town of Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on April 7, 1770. He died at Rydal Mount, in the neighbouring county of Westmoreland, on April 23, 1850. In this long span of mortal years, events of vast and enduring moment shook the world.
Word Of The Day