s very unlike
Coleridge's. When his sister had left them, he wrote to her, describing
scenes by brief precise touches which draw the picture that Coleridge
blurs with grand phrases. Moreover, Wordsworth tells sister Dorothy that
John will give him forty pounds to buy a bit of land by the lake, where
they may build a cottage to live in henceforth. He says, also, that
there is a small house vacant near the spot.--They took that house;
and thus the Wordsworths became "Lakers." They entered that well-known
cottage at Grasmere on the shortest day (St. Thomas's) of 1799. Many
years afterwards, Dorothy wrote of the aspect of Grasmere on her arrival
that winter evening,--the pale orange lights on the lake, and the
reflection of the mountains and the island in the still waters. She
had wandered about the world in an unsettled way; and now she had cast
anchor for life,--not in that house, but within view of that valley.

All readers of Wordsworth, on either side the Atlantic, believe
that they know that cottage, (described in the fifth book of the
"Excursion,") with its little orchard, and the moss house, and the
tiny terrace behind, with its fine view of the lake and the basin of
mountains. There the brother and sister lived for some years in a very
humble way, making their feast of the beauty about them. Wordsworth was
fond of telling how they had meat only two or three times a week; and he
was eager to impress on new-comers--on me among others--the prudence of
warning visitors that they must make up their minds to the scantiest
fare. He was as emphatic about this, laying his finger on one's arm to
enforce it, as about catching mice or educating the people. It was vain
to say that one would rather not invite guests than fail to provide for
them; he insisted that the expense would be awful, and assumed that his
sister's and his own example settled the matter. I suppose they were
poor in those days; but it was not for long. A devoted sister Dorothy
was. Too late it appeared that she had sacrificed herself to aid and
indulge her brother. When her mind was gone, and she was dying by
inches, Mrs. Wordsworth offered me the serious warning that she gave
whenever occasion allowed, against overwalking. She told me that Dorothy
had, not occasionally only, but often, walked forty miles in a day to
give her brother her presence. To repair the ravages thus caused she
took opium; and the effect on her exhausted frame was to overthrow her
min