He expatiated much to me one day, as we walked among the hills above Grasmere, on the mode in which Nature had been described by one of the most justly popular of England's modern poets--one for whom he preserved a high and affectionate respect.

'He took pains,' Wordsworth said; 'he went out with his pencil and note-book, and jotted down whatever struck him most--a river rippling over the sands, a ruined tower on a rock above it, a promontory, and a mountain ash waving its red berries.

He went home, and wove the whole together into a poetical description.' After a pause, Wordsworth resumed with a flashing eye and impassioned voice, 'But Nature does not permit an inventory to be made of her charms! He should have left his pencil and note-book at home; fixed his eye, as he walked, with a reverent attention on all that surrounded him, and taken all into a heart that could understand and enjoy.

Then, after several days had passed by, he should have interrogated his memory as to the scene.

He would have discovered that while much of what he had admired was preserved to him, much was also most wisely obliterated.