not accompany him, she wished to return home with me, for a year's schooling, as she playfully expressed it, and, in spite of Mrs. R.'s remonstrances, I carried her off.
What a busy year we had of it! We cooked; we cut out linen (the village schoolmistress was for a time a cipher in that department); we tried experiments in domestic economy; we made calculations; then we read light books and heavy books, history and philosophy, poetry and romance, I being obliged to exercise great ingenuity to avoid an immoderate proportion of educational works, a department of literature to which Amy, in common with many young mothers, manifested a decided preference.
Thus occupied, the days and weeks glided swiftly away, but not without leaving traces of their passage. Amy's intellectual and moral growth in this twelvemonth was as rapid as was her boy's increase in physical proportions. She felt it herself, and, with her increased self-respect, increased her love and admiration of the husband, for whose sake she had been stimulated to self-government and self-tuition. Small had been the joy of her wedding-day, compared to the rapture with which, at the end of the year, she threw herself into his arms; and slight had been his disappointment after the honeymoon, to the delightful surprise which he felt every day on the discovery of some new improvement, or the promise of some fresh excellence in his lovely wife.
"Yes, yes," I thought, as I watched them walking in the garden, and talking over their future plans, with that look of perfect confidence which tells so much; "those hearts are united now – they will soon grow so close that nothing earthly will avail to separate them."
I wiped my spectacles – they had often been dimmed the last day or two – and taking little Herbert's hand, we, too, sallied forth for a confidential tête-à-tête among the daisies.
I went to see Amy when she was once more settled in a house of her own, and, though Mrs. R. sighed and shook her head, every time poor Amy's domestic arrangements were alluded to, I thought every thing about her charming. True, she was waited upon by a tidy housemaid, instead of a tall footman; true, if she required a special dainty to appear upon her table, she was obliged to soil the tips of her own delicate fingers, instead of commanding the service of a professional artiste; true, if she wished to go abroad, she walked, instead of using a carriage. But what then? I could not see that she was a bit the worse for any of these changes. Then, again, she did not now go one night to the opera, another to the theatre, and a third to a ball; but she was so busy in the daytime, and so happy in the evening, in the company of her husband, that she had no desire for such amusements. She no longer presided over great entertainments, but her small, cheerful, pretty house, furnished with good taste and thoroughly arranged for comfort, was always hospitably open to those true friends whom adverse fortune had not rendered shy or indifferent.
"Poor Amy does seem happy," remarked her mother, after we had spent a delightful evening with the young folks, and a party of old friends; "it is very strange, but she does seem happy in spite of her misfortunes."
"Misfortunes!" exclaimed my brother; "call them blessings! Yes, Margaret, I am a convert at last, and ready to confess that women are improvable, and that the loss of wealth may prove an inestimable blessing!"
ANECDOTES OF WORDSWORTH
It is not our intention to criticise the writings of the great philosophical poet of modern times, but merely to note down a few recollections of the benign old man before they pass away forever with the fleeting shades of memory.
Glorious old man of the mountain, methinks we see him now: his deep-set gray eyes steeped in contemplation; his hand buried in his waistcoat – one leg crossed over the other – reciting in a deep, but somewhat tremulous voice, a passage, either from Milton or himself – the only two poets he honored by his quotations. While the vision stands before us, let us sketch the outward and visible shape, which held a great spirit within its fold.
Tall, and broadly formed, spare of flesh, with a slight stoop, carelessly dressed; a fine oval face; a nose aquiline, though somewhat heavy; bald about the brow, with a few gray hairs straggling over the forehead; fragments of gray whiskers, and a mouth, inclined to be large, but energetically compressed; his eyebrows turned upward when listening, and contracted when talking, with a deep voice, broken by its very emphasis: this is as near a picture as we can give of the "Bard of Rydal." To a certain extent, although in a different sense, what Pope wrote for Gay, applies to Wordsworth:
"In wit, a man – in simplicity, a child."
Taking wit as poetical intellect, this is Wordsworth's character in a single sentence.
There was a strange mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous in his composition. He would descant on Milton, or the principles of poetry, with a freshness and vigor of mind worthy of the author of the "Laodamia," and the next minute utter such astounding opinions about steamboats, reform, and human progress and politics, as would positively make a child of ten years old smile.
The most remarkable thing about him was his entire ignorance of modern literature: the poetry of the last thirty years was unknown to him: no solicitation would possibly induce him to read it – the only contemporaries he had read or acknowledged, were Scott, Rogers, Landor, Coleridge, and Southey.
The undue attention which he bestowed upon what other men considered trifles, was another remarkable trait in his character: he would correspond perseveringly with the secretary of a railway concerning an overcharge in the carriage of a parcel, and he would walk a dozen miles, and call at a dozen houses, to recover an old cotton umbrella, not worth a shilling. The importance of these small matters had doubtless been forced upon him by his early poverty, and by the manly independence and integrity of his character.
Exact himself, he exacted exactness from others, and if, when in company with a friend, they took a cab together, he would on no account suffer his companion to pay more than his share: when the conveyance stopped, he would inquire of the driver the fare, take out his own half, and give it to the Jehu, leaving his associate to do the same. We remember on one occasion, when we had jumped out first, and paying all the charge, and he afterward paying the sharp Jehu his half, that he, on discovering the imposition, wanted us to run half-way down Southampton-street to get the overcharge back, and regaled the company at dinner that day with an energetic denunciation of the rascality of cab-men, and the idleness and extravagance of youth.
Among his weaknesses was a reverence for rank and wealth, perfectly puzzling in so independent a man: if he had promised to dine with a baronet, and an invitation came from an earl he considered it a piece of religious duty to forfeit his prior engagement, and he would never realize the idea that the baronet could possibly feel offended.
Another curious trait in his character was his inability to understand the slightest approach to a joke: even when explained to him, he would feel uneasy, and put it on a logical rack: with him every thing was either absolutely true or absolutely false: – he made no allowance for pleasantry, badinage, persiflage, or even playfulness: he took every thing literally.
A young lady, an intimate friend of his, related to us a ludicrous instance of the embarrassments this occasionally led to: being on a visit to the Lakes for the first time, the old poet took great pride in showing her all his pet spots and finest views. They were, consequently, out very often, for hours and hours together.
At an evening party, the niece of Lady F – (whose grounds join the bard's garden), in the gayety of girlhood, said to the poet: "I saw you this morning, Mr. Wordsworth, before any body was up, flirting with my aunt on the lawn; and then how slily you stole away by the back entrance." This alluded to a gate made to save the detour of going into the road. The words had scarcely passed the giddy girl's lips, ere she became painfully aware that she had committed some tremendous crime. Wordsworth looked distressed and solemn at his wife: his wife looked muffled thoughts at her daughter, Miss Wordsworth, and then they all three looked at each other
