Page:A protest against the extension of railways in the Lake District - Somervell (1876).djvu/30

 could best appreciate these inaccessible spots would be the last to desire that the grand solitude or peaceful beauty of the places they can reach should be abolished to make attainable those which they cannot.

We have no right to charge it scornfully upon our working classes that the number of such appreciative persons is small. The blame must rest, not so much upon them, as upon the circumstances of their daily life, in places where God's light is darkened, and His work destroyed, by the hands of men; in homes which they fly, not to, but from, upon their holidays. One wonders, indeed, upon what extent of actual observation is founded that singular creed of the Daily News, expressed, as it is, with almost Athanasian fervour:—'We are bound to believe that every one appreciates mountain glories, that he would not be found among them if he did not like them.' Alas! it is not so yet. But if, recognizing the beneficent and helpful power of noble scenery, we desire to widen the sphere of its influence so that, of all who shall be found among mountains, it may be truly said that they love them, let us not think to accomplish our purpose by making railways through their solitudes, and turning their hamlets into towns. If we are ever to raise men to communion with the powers of nature,—to develope in them the 'wise passiveness' of the 'heart that watches and receives' her lore—it will not be merely by giving