e in our literature will you find
mood so tender, so intimately, so delicately related?

A week later, and William returned. With him, it seems, her
descriptive powers. "Monday morning--a soft rain and mist. We walked
to Rydale for letters, The Vale looked very beautiful in excessive
simplicity, yet at the same time, uncommon obscurity. The church stood
alone, mountains behind. The meadows looked calm and rich, bordering
on the still lake. Nothing else to be seen but lake and island."
Exquisite landscape. For its like we must go to Japan. Here is
another. An interior. It is the 23rd of March, "about ten o'clock, a
quiet night. The fire flickers, and the watch ticks. I hear nothing
save the breathing of my beloved as he now and then pushes his book
forward, and turns over a leaf...." No more, but the peace of it is
profound, the art incomparable.

In April, between the 5th and 12th, William went into Yorkshire upon
an errand which she knew and dreaded. Her trouble makes the words
throb.

"Monday, 12th.... The ground covered with snow. Walked to T.
Wilkinson's and sent for letters. The woman brought me one
from William and Mary. It was a sharp windy night. Thomas
Wilkinson came with me to Barton and questioned me like a
catechiser all the way. Every question was like the snapping
of a little thread about my heart. I was so full of thought of
my half-read letter and other things. I was glad when he left
me. Then I had time to look at the moon while I was thinking
of my own thoughts. The moon travelled through the clouds,
tinging them yellow as she passed along, with two stars near
her, one larger than the other.... At this time William, as
I found the next day, was riding by himself between Middleham
and Barnard Castle."

I don't know where else to find the vague torment of thought, its way
of enhancing colour and form in nature, more intensely observed. Next
day: "When I returned _William_ was come. _The surprise shot through
me._" This woman was not so much poet as crystal vase. You can see the
thought cloud and take shape.

The twin life was resumed for yet a little while. In the same month
came her descriptions of the daffodils in Gowbarrow Park, and of the
scene by Brothers Water, which prove to anybody in need of proof
that she was William's well-spring of poesy. Not that the journal is
necessarily involved. No need to suppose that he even read it. But
that