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At Ambleside there is many a pleasant resting-place in which to recall the pleasures and sum up the impressions of the journey, and to dwell, as many love to do, upon the associations of one and another great name by turns with almost every part of the district. First and foremost is Wordsworth, the poet of nature;—the great “Lake Poet,” only because nature here is at her loveliest,—who from his home at Grasmere, and afterwards at Rydal Mount, gave utterance, more richly, truly, deeply, than any writer of his generation, of man’s delight in the Creator s work. The association of his name with his beloved lake country is imperishable. Many years ago De Quincey wrote, with reference to Wordsworth’s earlier poems, “The very names of the ancient hills—Fairfield, Seat Sandal, Helvellyn, Blen-cathara, Glaramara; the names of the sequestered glens—such as Borrowdale, Martindale, Mardale, Wastdale, and Ennerdale; but, above all, the shy pastoral recesses, not garishly in the world’s eye, like Windermere or Der-wentwater, but lurking half unknown to the traveller of that day—Grasmere, for instance, the lovely abode of the poet himself, solitary, and yet sowed, as it were, with a thin diffusion of humble dwellings—here a scattering, and there a clustering, as in the starry heavens—sufficient to afford, at every turn and angle, human remembrances and memorials of time-honoured affections, or of passions (as the ‘Churchyard amongst the Mountains’ will amply demonstrate), not wanting even in scenic and tragical interest—these were so many local spells upon me, equally poetic and elevating with the Miltonic names of Valdarno and Vallombrosa.”*
The spell remains, though some of the aspects of the scenery have changed. Grasmere, for instance, is no longer a “shy pastoral recess,” but the stream of life that daily pours through the valley cannot impair its beauty. This of all the lakes possesses, when the wind is still, the supreme charm of perfect stillness and transparency. We have seen it when it was absolutely impossible to distinguish its richly-wooded banks, or the island near its centre, from their reflection in the unrippled water. The unclouded blue of the heavens was mirrored, as in fathomless depths. It was a “sea of glass like unto crystal.” It may be hoped that this loveliness will be uninvaded by anything which would mar its perfection. We know that Wordsworth pathetically protested against the invasion of the railway; but on the height which the Windermere station occupies, at the very portal of this beautiful land, it in no degree interferes with the enjoyment of the scenery, while facilitating the access of multitudes who could not otherwise share the delight. The railway station at the foot of the lake, that on the border of Coniston, and even that at Keswick, are, so to speak, outside the magic circle; but we can fully sympathise with Mr. Ruskin and others who have employed such strenuous efforts to resist every threatened or possible inroad. The very compactness of the region, and the ease with which, when once reached, it may be traversed throughout, might lead the most impatient traveller to be satisfied with the existing means of swift access. When the border is gained, let him proceed leisurely, and enjoy. If young, the stagecoach travelling, which is here so common, may yield him an unfamiliar, though old-fashioned kind of delight. To judge from our own youthful recollections, as well as from the literature of a past generation, there was, in favourable circumstances of scenery and weather, an exhilaration in such journeys which never is or can be known in the rapid rush through railway cuttings, and over high embankments, behind the “Erebus” or “Phlegethon,” at the rate of fifty miles an hour! And many an elderly or middle-aged man almost unconsciously exults in the renewal of his youth in that grand coach-drive from Windermere over Dunmail Raise to Keswick.
Notes
* Works, vol. ii. p. 124.