December 22_d_, 1843.—­The shortest day is past, and it was a very pleasant one to us, for Wordsworth and Miss Fenwick offered to spend it with us.  They came early, and, although it was misty and dingy, he proposed to walk up Easedale.  We went by the terrace, and through the little gate on the Fell, round by Brimmer Head, having diverged a little up from Easedale, nearly as far as the ruined cottage.  He said, when he and his sister wandered there so much, that cottage was inhabited by a man of the name of Benson, a waller, its last inhabitant.  He said on the terrace, ’This is a striking anniversary to me; for this day forty-four years ago, my sister and I took up our abode at Grasmere, and three days after we found out this walk, which long remained our favourite haunt.’  There is always something very touching in his way of speaking of his sister; the tones of his voice become more gentle and solemn, and he ceases to have that flow of expression which is so remarkable in him on all other subjects.  It is as if the sadness connected with her present condition was too much for him to dwell upon in connection with the past, although habit and the ‘omnipotence of circumstance’ have made its daily presence less oppressive to his spirits.  He said that his sister spoke constantly of their early days, but more of the years they spent together in other parts of England than those at Grasmere.  As we proceeded on our walk he happened to speak of the frequent unhappiness of married persons, and the low and wretched principles on which the greater number of marriages were formed.  He said that unless there was a strong foundation of love and respect, the ’unavoidable breaks and cataracts’ of domestic life must soon end in mutual aversion, for that married life ought not to be in theory, and assuredly it never was in practice, a system of mere submission on either side, but it should be a system of mutual cooperation for the good of each.  If the wife is always expected to conceal her difference of opinion from her husband, she ceases to be an equal, and the man loses the advantage which the marriage tie is intended to provide for him in a civilised and Christian country.  He then went on to say, that, although he never saw an amiable single woman without wishing that she were married, from his strong feeling of the happiness of a well-assorted marriage, yet he was far from thinking that marriage always improved people.  It certainly did not, unless it was a congenial marriage.[247]

(IV.) Mrs. DAVY.

’The Oaks, Ambleside, Monday, Jan. 22. 1844.

While Mrs. Quillinan was sitting with us to-day, Henry Fletcher ran in to say that he had reserved his summons for Oxford (he had been in suspense about rooms as an exhibitioner at Balliol), and must be off within an hour.  His young cousins and I went down with him to wait for the mail in the marketplace.  We found Mr. Wordsworth walking about before the post-office door in very charming mood.  His spirits were