, which is certainly a far higher
compliment to her:--

"Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful,--in sooth, more beautiful,
As being a thing more holy."

The other poems, "Let other bards of angels sing," and "Oh, dearer far
than life and light are dear," were also addressed to her.

It was through her early friendship for Wordsworth's sister that she
first came to know the poet, and she was not at that time a person whom
a poet would be supposed to fancy. She was the incarnation of good-sense
as applied to the concerns of the every-day world, and in no sense a
dreamer, or a seeker after the ideal. Her intellect, however, developed
by contact with higher minds, and her tastes after a time became more in
accordance with those of her husband. She learned to passionately admire
the outward world, in which he took such great delight, and to admire
his poetry and that of his friends. She was of a kindly, cheery,
generous nature, very unselfish in her dealings with her family, and
highly beloved by her friends. She was the finest example of thrift and
frugality to be found in her neighborhood, and is said to have exerted a
decidedly beneficial influence upon all her poorer neighbors. She did
not give them as much in charity as many others did, but she taught them
how to take care of what they had, and to save something for their days
of need. Miss Martineau, who was a neighbor, says: "The oldest residents
have long borne witness that the homes of the neighbors have assumed a
new character of order and comfort and wholesome economy, since the
poet's family lived at Rydal Mount." She took the kindest and tenderest
care of Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, who was for many years a helpless
charge upon her hands. This sister had ruined her health, and finally
dethroned her reason, by trying to accompany her brother on his long and
tiresome rambles among the lakes and up the mountains. She has been
known to walk with him forty miles in a single day. Many English women
are famous walkers, but her record is beyond them all. Such excessive
exercise is bad for a man, as was proved in the case of Dickens, who
doubtless injured himself much by such long pedestrian trips after brain
labor; but no woman can endure such a strain as this, and the adoring
sister not only failed to be a companion to her idolized brother, but
became a care and burden for many years.