Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 1 (of 2)

[Footnote 64: See vol. ii. p. 300.--ED.] [Footnote 65: "Resigned" is curiously used in the Lake District. A woman there once told me that Mr. Ruskin was "very much resigned to his own company."--ED.] Saturday, May 1st.--Rose not till half-past 8, a heavenly morning. As soon as breakfast was over, we went into the garden, and sowed the scarlet beans about the house. It was a clear sky. I sowed the flowers, William helped me. We then went and sate in the orchard till dinner time. It was very hot. William wrote The Celandine.[66] We planned a shed, for the sun was too much for us. After dinner, we went again to our old resting-place in the Hollins under the rock. We first lay under the Holly, where we saw nothing but the holly tree, and a budding elm tree mossed, with the sky above our heads. But that holly tree had a beauty about it more than its own, knowing as we did when we arose. When the sun had got low enough, we went to the Rock Shade. Oh, the overwhelming beauty of the vale below, greener than green! Two ravens flew high, high in the sky, and the sun shone upon their bellies and their wings, long after there was none of his light to be seen but a little space on the top of Loughrigg Fell. Heard the cuckoo to-day, this first of May. We went down to tea at 8 o'clock, and returned after tea. The landscape was fading: sheep and lambs quiet among the rocks. We walked towards King's, and backwards and forwards. The sky was perfectly cloudless. N.B. it is often so. Three solitary stars in the middle of the blue vault, one or two on the points of the high hills.