Could they have known her, would have loved; methought
Her very presence such a sweetness breathed,
That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills,
And everything she looked on, should have had
An intimation how she bore herself
Towards them, and to all creatures.

Her journal of a tour in Scotland, and her description of a week on
Ullswater, affixed to Wordsworth's _Guide to the Lakes_,--diaries
not written for publication but merely to communicate her own
delight to intimate friends at a distance,--are surely indescribably
attractive in their naive and tender feeling, combined with a
delicacy of insight into natural beauty which was almost a new thing
in the history of the world. If we compare, for instance, any of her
descriptions of the Lakes with Southey's, we see the difference
between mere literary skill, which can now be rivalled in many
quarters, and that sympathetic intuition which comes of love alone.
Even if we compare her with Gray, whose short notice of Cumberland
bears on every page the stamp of a true poet, we are struck by the
way in which Miss Wordsworth's tenderness for all living things
gives character and pathos to her landscapes, and evokes from the
wildest solitude some note that thrills the heart.

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.

The cottage life in her brother's company which we have seen Miss
Wordsworth picturing to herself with girlish ardour, was destined to