286 THE LAST SUMMERS AND WINTERS. 



myself seen the said Derwent for more than forty years, so 

 I daresay there would not be much reminiscence between 

 us. Yet I remember the last day I saw him as distinctly 

 as I do yesterday. He w T as standing before the kitchen 

 fire at Elleray, with bare feet upon a sandy floor, and hold- 

 ing a pair of wet worsted stockings close upon the grate, 

 the said stockings sending up a cloud of steam, which he 

 called performing a chemical experiment. I thought these 

 words very fine, though I scarcely knew what they meant. 

 Poor Hartley meanwhile went mouthing about, swinging 

 his arms to and fro, and muttering to himself I know not 

 what, but certainly quite unconscious whether his stockings 

 were wet or dry. 



"You expected, from what you heard, to be disappointed 

 in Wordsworth's ' Life/ I suppose it is a hard thing for 

 a man who is not himself a poet to write the life of one 

 who is ; that is, if his doing so involved the necessity of 

 his unfolding the inner life of one whose soul was ' like a 

 star that dwelt apart/ Yet I think there is no harm in 

 our having a connected narrative of the ordinary ongoings 

 of the poet's life, by a kindly disposed relative, who had ac- 

 cess to an accurate knowledge of dates, localities, and other 

 minor matters of detail. I expected nothing more than 

 this, did not in fact desire anything more, and so have not 

 been disappointed. The most curious thing about the book 

 is, that it makes no mention whatever of the only critical 



