Dove Cottage

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden Daffodils
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

Wordsworth wrote this beautiful poem after a walk with his sister Dorothy on April 15, 1802 and is particularly fitting as one of the featured poems at this serene, peaceful home of the creative genius. William Wordsworth lived with his sister in Dove Cottage, which then became a home for his family as well after he married Mary in 1802. The cottage had originally been a pub called the “Dove and Olive Bough,” which explains the name Dove Cottage. I have often wondered how Wordsworth found the means to work as a poet at his own leisure, and still support a family at such a time in which he lived. I learned, however, that he was left nine hundred pounds by an old friend who sought to encourage his work. William Wordsworth was definitely a free spirit; he said desks were instruments of torture, and only accepted the position of Poet Laureate on condition that Queen Victoria hold him under no constraints to write his poetry. Ironically, in the seven years he held that position, beginning in 1843, he didn’t write a single line of poetry.

I also learned some fascinating facts about the lifestyle of people in that time period. The expression “burning the candle at both ends” comes from the tallow candles used to light the rooms. A reed was laced through the center of the candle that it could be lit at both ends of the candle in addition to just the candle itself. Brushing teeth was accomplished using Dogwood, where the salt served as an abrasive and the soot as a polisher. Apparently it wasn’t very effective, however, because William’s sister, Dorothy had lost all her teeth by age thirty, and were replaced with a wooden set. The reason canopies were placed over beds was to keep spiders and other unwanted specimens from falling on the sleeping. Mary Wordsworth covered the walls of her children’s rooms with newspaper to provide additional warmth. The Wordsworth family ate two meals of porridge most days, a tradition that visiting Sir Walter Scott did not particularly enjoy. He would apparently slip out of his window into the back garden early in the morning and go to the Swan Hotel for a “proper breakfast” before returning for the dreaded porridge.