A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER

I AM currently reading Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, published by Oxford University Press with the title The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals.

I have just started the book, and I am amazed by the amount of housekeeping Dorothy is doing!

Ironing -- for hours on end! She binds carpets, sews, mends old clothes, bleaches and dries the linen, nails the beds, works in the garden -- planting, weeding, gathers plants. 

In the midst of all this, Dorothy reads Shakespeare, writes letters and describes her days in the journal.

But I suppose that her major talent lies in raising the ordinary to the extraordinary, in making us see nature around her as she does, in making us interested in her simple and quiet life!

Dorothy Wordsworth is the sister of the William Wordsworth, the famous Romantic poet.

Beauty had a central place in Romantic poetry. The beauty of women, of nature, the beauty of a terrible storm. And it is my beloved John Keats who said the famous "a thing of beauty is a joy forever, its loveliness increases, it will never slide into nothingness"!