Page:A protest against the extension of railways in the Lake District - Somervell (1876).djvu/20

 not only with a view to the circumstances of his own day, but plainly foreseeing the revival of the attempt to penetrate to the heart of the district, in the future. It is meet then, at a time when such an attempt appears imminent, that we should, in any endeavour to rouse public interest in the fate of the district, begin with some notice of what was thus written in 1844.

Wordsworth felt that he had to deal with three classes of opponents, each in its own way raising the cry of selfishness against him. There was first the herd of speculators and money-makers who sought to bring into discredit all who stood in the way of their gains; second, 'they who are dazzled by the application of physical science to the useful arts, and indiscriminately applaud what they call the spirit of the age as manifested in this way; and, lastly, those persons who are ever ready to step forward in what appears to them to be the cause of the poor, but not always with becoming attention to particulars.' It is to the latter classes that Wordsworth addresses himself.

Showing, first how the taste for what is called picturesque natural scenery is peculiarly a modern one, he insists further on its rarity; and observes that however desirable it may be that every one should possess it, such a taste cannot be implanted at once, but must be gradually developed. Then, after illustrating the assertion that 'the features of nature which go to the composition of