REMOVAL TO RYDAL MOUNT.--DORA WORDSWORTH.
Since their settlement in Grasmere, the worldly circumstances of
Wordsworth, as well as those of his sister, had considerably improved.
We have seen upon what slender, combined means they began housekeeping,
living in "noble poverty"--and were happy. Shortly afterwards the then
Earl of Lonsdale honourably paid to the Wordsworths the large sum of
money which, as has been before mentioned, had been withheld by his
father. The share of each of them of this is said to have been about
£1,800. In addition to this the poet's muse had begun to be more
profitable to him. Though he had not then been awarded that high and
foremost rank in the inspired choir which he has since attained, yet his
power as a great poet was beginning to be acknowledged by more than the
select number who had from the first recognised his genius.
About this time he also had conferred upon him the appointment as
distributor of stamps for Westmoreland. While the emoluments of this
office formed a substantial addition to the poet's income, its duties
were such that they could be chiefly performed by deputy.
In obtaining for their new home the now classic RYDAL MOUNT, the good
fortune of the Wordsworths did not fail them. The "modest mansion" is
well known, and many descriptions of it have been given. For the beauty
of its situation, and the amenities of its surroundings, it is almost
unsurpassed. It has been somewhere stated that whilst most persons, who,
having chosen their own residences, think them the first, they are all
ready to give the second place to Rydal Mount. I have on two occasions
since the poet's death had the good fortune to obtain admittance to the
grounds, and, with feelings of reverence and emotion, paced the
terrace-walks, worn by the footsteps of the great departed. We are on
such occasions strikingly reminded of the words of Foster: "What a tale
could be told by many a room were the walls endowed with memory and
speech." The house stands in an elevated position, being on a plateau on
the south side of Nab Scar. Striking off from the side of the house is a
walk called the Upper Terrace. From this path the views are exceedingly
lovely. Immediately in front is the Rothay Valley, backed by the
richly-wooded heights of Loughrigg, with Windermere in the distance to
the left, "a light thrown into the picture in the winter season, and in
the summer a beautiful feature, changing with every hue of the sky."
About halfway along the terrace we come to a rustic alcove, built of fir
poles, and lined with cones. Here, we should think, the walk ends, for
we are parallel with the boundary wall of the garden below; but opening
a door, we find the road branches slightly to the right, and, opening
into the far terrace, reveals a surprise view. Here we see beneath us
Rydal Water, gemmed with its romantic islands, and beyond, the green
heights of Loughrigg Terrace. Following the path, with its sloping banks
of fern and flowers, for about fifty yards, we find it terminated by a
little wicket-gate, which opens upon a field, whence the old, and now
grass-green, road to Grasmere is reached. On the left side of the Upper
Terrace is a dwarf wall, niched with ferns and mosses. Below this wall
is another terrace--a level one--formed by the poet himself, chiefly for
the sake of Miss Fenwick, who was a valued friend, and, in after years,
an inmate at Rydal Mount. To her the poet dictated the MSS. notes upon
his poems, referred to in the "Memoirs," and elsewhere, as the "MSS. I.
F."
In speaking of the nocturnal aspect of Rydal Mount, Wordsworth mentions
"the beauty of the situation, its being backed and flanked by lofty
fells, which bring the heavenly bodies to touch, as it were, the earth
upon the mountain tops, while the prospect in front lies open to a
length of level valley, the extended lake, and a terminating ridge of
low hills."
A poetical description of this chosen retreat, by Miss Jewsbury, and
published in the _Literary Magnet_, for 1826, may be quoted here:--
"THE POET'S HOME."
"Low and white, yet scarcely seen,
Are its walls for mantling green;
Not a window lets in light,
But through flowers clustering bright;
Not a glance may wander there,
But it falls on something fair;
Garden choice, and fairy mound,
Only that no elves are found;
Winding walk, and sheltered nook,
For student grave and graver book:
Or a bird-like bower, perchance,
Fit for maiden and romance.
Then, far off, a glorious sheen
Of wide and sunlit waters seen;
Hills that in the distance lie,
Blue and yielding as the sky;
And nearer, closing round the nest,
The home of all the 'living crest,'
Other rocks and mountains stand,
Rugged, yet a guardian band,
Like those that did, in fable old,
Elysium from the world enfold.
". . . . . . . Companions meet
Thou shalt have in thy retreat:
One of long-tried love and truth;
Thine in age as thine in youth;
One, whose locks of partial grey,
Whisper somewhat of decay;
Yet whose bright and beaming eye
Tells of more that cannot die.
"Then a second form beyond,
Thine, too, by another bond,
Sportive, tender, graceful, wild--
Scarcely woman, more than child--
One who doth thy heart entwine,
Like the ever-clinging vine;
One to whom thou art a stay,
As the oak that, scarred and grey,
Standeth on, and standeth fast,
Strong and stately to the last.
"Poet's lot like this hath been;
Such, perchance, may I have seen;
Or in fancy's fairy land,
Or in truth, and near at hand:
If in fancy, then, forsooth,
Fancy had the force of truth;
If, again, a truth it were,
Then were truth as fancy fair;
But, which ever it might be,
''Twas a Paradise to me.'"
Of the "companions meet" referred to above it is evident that the
first-named "of long-tried love and truth" is Miss Wordsworth; the
second, Mrs. Wordsworth; and the third, Miss Dora Wordsworth, the poet's
daughter, to whom some further reference should now be made.
At the time of the removal to Rydal Mount, in the spring of 1813, the
family, in addition to the parents and Miss Wordsworth, consisted of
three children, of whom the second--Dorothy, or Dora, born in 1804--was
of the interesting age of nine years. She was named after her aunt, Miss
Wordsworth; for, although her father would have preferred to have called
her Mary, the name Dorothy, as he stated to Lady Beaumont, had been so
long devoted in his own thoughts to the first daughter he might have,
he could not break his promise to himself. By way of further
distinguishing her from her aunt, Mr. Crabb Robinson used to call her
Dorina. To this surviving daughter, as she grew up to womanhood,
Wordsworth was passionately attached. Inheriting as she did, in no
slight degree, the family genius, he seemed to see reproduced in her a
harmonious blending of the characteristics and mental lineaments of his
wife and sister, the two beings in the world whom he had most devotedly
loved.
Wordsworth's later poems contain several allusions to Dora. In this
place I will quote a stanza or two only, from one, entitled "The Triad,"
written in celebration of Edith Southey, Dora Wordsworth, and Sara
Coleridge:--
"Open, ye thickets! let her fly,
Swift as a Thracian Nymph o'er field and height!
For She, to all but those who love her, shy,
Would gladly vanish from a Stranger's sight;
Though where she is beloved and loves,
Light as the wheeling butterfly she moves;
Her happy spirit as a bird is free,
That rifles blossoms on a tree,
Turning them inside out with arch audacity.
Alas! how little can a moment show
Of an eye where feeling plays
In ten thousand dewy rays;
A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!
--She stops--is fastened to that rivulet's side;
And there (while, with sedater mien,
O'er timid waters that have scarcely left
Their birth-place in the rocky cleft,
She bends) at leisure may be seen
Features to old ideal grace allied,
Amid their smiles and dimples dignified--
Fit countenance for the soul of primal truth:
The bland composure of eternal youth!
"What more changeful than the sea?
But over his great tides
Fidelity presides;
And this light-hearted Maiden, constant is as he.
High is her aim as heaven above,
And wide as ether her good-will;
And, like the lowly reed, her love
Can drink its nurture from the scantiest rill:
Insight as keen as frosty star
Is to _her_ charity no bar,
Nor interrupts her frolic graces
When she is, far from these wild places,
Encircled by familiar faces."
Writing of Dora Wordsworth, Miss Coleridge says:--"There is truth in the
sketch of Dora--poetic truth, though such as none but a poetic father
would have seen. She was unique in her sweetness and goodness. I mean
that her character was most peculiar--a compound of vehemence of feeling
and gentleness, sharpness and lovingness, which is not often seen."