"All that can be safely said as to the course of that memorable
morning walk is that, in that neighbourhood, a view of the sea can
only be obtained at a
considerable
elevation; also that if the words
'in _front_ the sea lay laughing' are to be taken as rigidly exact,
the poet's progress towards Hawkshead must have been in a direction
mainly southerly, and therefore from the country north of that place.
William Wordsworth
If this be so,
Wordsworth's bedroom must have been that on the proper left, with the
smaller of the two windows. The cottage faces nearly south-west. In the
upper flat there are two bedrooms to the front, with oak flooring, one
of which must have been Wordsworth's. See Note II. (p. 386) in Appendix
to this volume.--Ed.]
[Footnote R: In one of the small mountain farm-houses near
Hawkshead.--Ed.]
[Footnote S: Compare 'Paradise Lost', book viii. l. 528:
'Walks, and the melody of birds.'
Ed.]
[Footnote T: Dr. Cradock has suggested to me the probable course of that
morning walk.
"All that can be safely said as to the course of that memorable
morning walk is that, in that neighbourhood, a view of the sea can
only be obtained at a
considerable
elevation; also that if the words
'in _front_ the sea lay laughing' are to be taken as rigidly exact,
the poet's progress towards Hawkshead must have been in a direction
mainly southerly, and therefore from the country north of that place.
These and all other conditions of the description are answered in
several parts of the range of hills lying between Elterwater and
Hawkshead."
See Appendix, Note III. p. 389.--Ed.]
[Footnote U: Compare the sixth line of the poem, beginning
'This Lawn, a carpet all alive.'
(1829.) And Horace, 'Epistolae', lib. i. ep. xi. l. 28:
'Strenua nos exercet inertia.'
Ed.]
[Footnote V: The "brook" is Sawrey beck, and the "long ascent" is the
second of the two, in crossing from Windermere to Hawkshead, and going
over the ridge between the two Sawreys.
