Diaries and real summer romance

To me a good diary is just as good as a well written novel. Real life, even the ins and outs of a normal day to day life, can be very interesting. Seeing how people lived in other ages can give insights to our own lives and change our prospective.

Years ago, we went to the Lake District and visited Dove Cottage and Rydal Mount which were the homes of William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy. I had purchased this book in a bookshop in Grasmere. I decided to pick it back up again and finish reading it this summer. Dorothy records the daily activities of herself and her brother, the poet William Wordsworth. It talks about their frequent walks in the countryside, their friends and acquaintances, their home which at the time of this journal was Dove Cottage and their garden. It gives account of the marriage of William to Mary Hutchinson in 1802. Here is the romantic poem in which he portrayed her:

"She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleam'd upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May~time and the chearful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way~lay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance i which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.....

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughful breath;
A Traveller betwixt life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, forsight, strenght and skill;
A perfect Woman; nobly plann'd,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light....."