We returned, in the
first place, to Ambleside, along the border of Grasmere Lake, which would
be a pretty little piece of water, with its steep and high surrounding
hills, were it not that a stubborn and straight-lined stone fence,
running along the eastern shore, by the roadside, quite spoils its
appearance. Rydal Water, though nothing can make a lake of it, looked
prettier and less diminutive than at the first view; and, in fact, I find
that it is impossible to know accurately how any prospect or other thing
looks, until after at least a second view, which always essentially
corrects the first. This, I think, is especially true in regard to
objects which we have heard much about, and exercised our imagination
upon; the first view being a vain attempt to reconcile our idea with the
reality, and at the second we begin to accept the thing for what it
really is. Wordsworth's situation is really a beautiful one; and Nab
Scaur behind his house rises with a grand, protecting air. We passed
Nab's cottage, in which De Quincey formerly lived, and where Hartley
Coleridge lived and died. It is a small, buff-tinted, plastered stone
cottage, immediately on the roadside, and originally, I should think, of
a very humble class; but it now looks as if persons of taste might some
time or other have sat down in it, and caused flowers to spring up about
it. It is very agreeably situated under the great, precipitous hill, and
with Rydal Water close at band, on the other side of the road.
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