***
Still more interesting is the often quoted letter describing Dorothy
Wordsworth.
LETTER 63. TO COTTLE
Stowey (3-17 July), 1797.
My dear Cottle,
Wordsworth and his exquisite sister are with me. She is a woman indeed!
in mind I mean, and heart; for her person is such, that if you expected
to see a pretty woman, you would think her rather ordinary; if you
expected to see an ordinary woman, you would think her pretty! but her
manners are simple, ardent, impressive. In every motion, her most
innocent soul outbeams so brightly, that who saw would say,
Guilt was a thing impossible in her.
Her information various. Her eye watchful in minutest observation of
nature; and her taste, a perfect electrometer. It bends, protrudes, and
draws in, at subtlest beauties, and most recondite faults.
She and W. desire their kindest respects to you.
Give my love to your brother Amos. I condole with him in the loss of the
prize, but it is the fortune of war. The finest Greek Poem I ever wrote
lost the prize, and that which gained it was contemptible. An Ode may
sometimes be too bad for the prize, but very often too good.
Your ever affectionate friend.
S. T. C.[1]
[Footnote 1: Letter LXXIV follows 63.]
Dorothy Wordsworth's description of Coleridge whom she met now for the
first time is as follows: "You had a great loss," she wrote to a friend,
"in not seeing Coleridge.
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