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

Thursday, 3rd December 1801.--Wm. walked into Easedale. Hail and snow.... I wrote a little bit of my letter to Coleridge.... Friday, 4th.-- ... Wm. translating The Prioress's Tale. William and Mary walked after tea to Rydale. I finished the letter to Coleridge, and we received a letter from him and Sara. C.'s letter written in good spirits. A letter of Lamb's about George Dyer with it.[42] [Footnote 42: An unprinted letter.--ED.] Saturday, 5th.-- ... Wm. finished The Prioress's Tale, and after tea Mary and he wrote it out.... Sunday, 6th.--A very fine beautiful sunshiny morning. Wm. worked a while at Chaucer, then we set forward to walk into Easedale.... We walked backwards and forwards in the flat field, which makes the second course of Easedale, with that beautiful rock in the field beside us, and all the rocks and the woods and the mountains enclosing us round. The sun was shining among them, the snow thinly scattered upon the tops of the mountains. In the afternoon we sate by the fire: I read Chaucer aloud, and Mary read the first canto of The Fairy Queen. After tea Mary and I walked to Ambleside for letters.... It was a sober starlight evening. The stars not shining as it were with all their brightness when they were visible, and sometimes hiding themselves behind small greying clouds, that passed soberly along. We opened C.'s letter at Wilcock's door. We thought we saw that he wrote in good spirits, so we came happily homewards where we arrived 2 hours after we left home. It was a sad melancholy letter, and prevented us all from sleeping.