apparently paralyzed, "drawn in a bath chair by a servant." They did not
realize that the poor sufferer, with her wandering speech and looks, was
Dorothy Wordsworth, whose share in her great brother's fame will never
be forgotten while literature lasts.

In the evening, however--

... after visiting Mrs. Arnold we drove together to bid Wordsworth
good-by, as we were to go next morning. We found the old man as
before, seated by the fireside and languid and sleepy in manner.
Again he awakened as conversation went on, and, a stranger coming
in, we rose to go away. He seemed unwilling that we should go so
soon, and said he would walk out with us. We went to the mound in
front, and the Duchess then asked if he would repeat some of his own
lines to us. He said he hardly thought he could do that, but that he
would have been glad to read some to us. We stood looking at the
view for some time, when Mrs. Wordsworth came out and asked us back
to the house to take some tea. This was just what we wanted. We sat
for about half an hour at tea, during which I tried to direct the
conversation to interesting subjects--Coleridge, Southey, etc. He
gave a very different impression from the preceding evening. His
memory seemed clear and unclouded--his remarks forcible and
decided--with some tendency to run off to irrelevant anecdote.

When tea was over, we renewed our request that he should read to us.
He said, "Oh dear, that is terrible!" but consented, asking what we
chose. He jumped at "Tintern Abbey" in preference to any part of the
"Excursion."

He told us he had written "Tintern Abbey" in 1798, taking four days