" It was well,
therefore, that he had at last consented to try the effect of travel
on his health,--not that he could hope to arrest by it such a disease
as his, but that it diverted him from the most painful of all efforts,
that of trying anew the spell which had at last failed him, and
perceiving in the disappointed eyes of his old admirers that the magic
of his imagination was a thing of the past. The last day of real
enjoyment at Abbotsford--for when Sir Walter returned to it to die, it
was but to catch once more the outlines of its walls, the rustle of
its woods, and the gleam of its waters, through senses already
darkened to all less familiar and less fascinating visions--was the
22nd September, 1831. On the 21st, Wordsworth had come to bid his old
friend adieu, and on the 22nd--the last day at home--they spent the
morning together in a visit to Newark. It was a day to deepen alike in
Scott and in Wordsworth whatever of sympathy either of them had with
the very different genius of the other, and that it had this result in
Wordsworth's case, we know from the very beautiful poem,--"Yarrow
Revisited,"--and the sonnet which the occasion also produced.
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