It was natural that, coming to reside in the Lake country, I should endeavour to find out what of Wordsworth's memory among the men of the Dales still lingered on. how far he was still a moving presence among them, how far his works had made their way into the cottages and farm-houses of the valleys.
But if a certain love of the humorous induced me to enter into or follow up conversations with the few still living among the peasants who were in the habit of seeing Wordsworth in the flesh, there was also a genuine wish to endeavour to find out how far the race of Westmoreland and Cumberland farm-folk—the 'Matthews' and the 'Michaels' of the poet as described by him—were real or fancy pictures, or how far the characters of the dalesmen had been altered in any remarkable manner by tourist influences during the thirty-two years that have passed since the aged poet was laid to rest.
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