His answer was what children call 'making a great face,' and the ejaculation, 'Don't talk Latin in, the society of ladies.' When I was going away he remarked, 'What a stimulus the mountain air has on the appetite! I made a sign to Edmund to hand him the cutlets a second time.

I was afraid he would stick his fork into that beautiful woman who sat next him.' Wordsworth never resented a jest at his own expense.

Once when we had knocked three times in vain at the door of a London house, I exclaimed, quoting his sonnet written on Westminster-bridge, 'Dear God, the very houses seem asleep.' He laughed heartily, then smiled gravely, and lastly recounted the occasion, and described the early morning on which that sonnet was written.

He did not recite more than a part of it, to the accompaniment of distant cab and carriage; and I thought that the door was opened too soon.
Wordsworth, despite his dislike to great cities, was attracted occasionally in his later years 'To the proud margin of the Thames, And Lambeth's venerable towers,' where his society was courted by persons of the most different character.

But he complained bitterly of the great city.