‘My dear Sarah,—I should have written before, but the last post
here I missed, and there is one here only every other day. I travelled to
Leicester, where I arrived at 11 at night, without an incident, only that in
Wells’s Row, Islington, we took up an old lady blind and deaf, whose only
pleasure seemed to be to shake hands with us all round very often. She spoke,
however, of her dinner with great pleasure, and expressed a wish that she might
have some fish, an observation to which we could make no reply. Left Leicester
next morning at half-past five in an empty coach, and at eleven found myself at
Moore’s. His cottage is all
alone in a pretty little valley with fields and woods about it, and is new and
neat. They say, however, it is leaky and smoky. She struck me as much taller
and much improved in expression, and still very handsome, tho’ a little
of her lustre is gone, and she is thinner. But she surprised me agreeably, and
would be admired anywhere. The two little girls are not pretty nor otherwise,
and quiet and merry and caressing beyond anything. I wished for you with them
very often, and they had made arrangements for you. I staid till
Sunday—having passed into Dovedale with M. and seen Ham, and then went
off alone (for, after all, he left me in the lurch) to Manchester. Napped
there, and at one in the morning came on in the mail to Kendal, arriving here
on Monday at three. On Tuesday, after a row on the lake, I walked and drank tea
with the Wordsworths, who are all as
before. They still talk of
| THE WORDSWORTHS AT RYDAL | 231 |
‘There is nothing but complaint anywhere. No
| 232 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘The natives here are all astounded at Sharp’s absence two years running. Miss W., to whom it was a great event in her retired life, is, I believe, chief mourner, after whom come the innkeepers, &c.’
