without writing to you one word of thanks or acknowledgment, he
would deem it a thing absolutely _impossible_. It is nevertheless
true."

"Owing to a set of painful and uneasy sensations which I have, more
or less, at all times about my chest. I deferred writing to you,
being at first made still more uncomfortable by travelling, and
loathing to do violence to myself in what ought to be an act of pure
pleasure and enjoyment, viz., the expression of my deep sense of your
goodness. This feeling was indeed so strong in me, as to make me
look upon the act of writing to you as a thing not to be done but in
my best, my purest, and my happiest moments. Many of these I had,
but then I had not my pen, ink, and paper before me, my conveniences,
'my appliances and means to boot;' all which, the moment that I
thought of them, seemed to disturb and impair the sanctity of my
pleasure, I contented myself with thinking over my complacent
feelings, and breathing forth solitary gratulations and thanksgivings,
which I did in many a sweet and many a wild place, during my late
tour."

The friendship of which this act of delicate generosity was the
beginning was maintained till Sir George Beaumont's death in 1827,
and formed for many years Wordsworth's closest link with the world
of art and culture. Sir George was himself a painter as well as a
connoisseur, and his landscapes are not without indications of the
strong feeling for nature which he undoubtedly possessed. Wordsworth,
who had seen very few pictures, but was a penetrating critic of
those which he knew, discerned this vein of true feeling in his
friend's work, and has idealized a small landscape which Sir George
had given him, in a sonnet which reproduces the sense of happy pause