A Protest against the Extension of Railways in the Lake District/Article from the Daily News
RAILWAYS AND SCENERY.
Reprinted by permission from the 'Daily News' of
17th January, 1876.
Mr. Ruskin has taught us all to delight in the 'mountain glory and the mountain gloom,' and therefore he has a right to a hearing when he thinks that these beauties of nature are endangered. It appears that there has been some talk of constructing a railway between Ambleside and Keswick, and Mr. Ruskin is distressed at the prospect. He has asked every one who shares his fears to oppose the projected railway. Many people will be ready with the ordinary sneer at sickly sentimentalism, exclusiveness, and the rest of it. The question, however, whether or no Mr. Ruskin has good reason to dislike the driving of a railway through such valleys as those of Ambleside and Grasmere is by no means to be settled in this easy way. An impression, or an opinion, may spring from sentiment without being sickly, and the sentiment which desires to keep a lovely corner of England free from noises which are hideous and sights which are certainly out of keeping with natural beauty is a healthy one enough. The projected railway may, for all that we know to the contrary, be a necessary undertaking. It may be designed to facilitate the transport of minerals and to bring a working population within reach of mines. In that case, to oppose the railway because the steam-whistle frightens the wild birds, disturbs the poet as he hunts for that difficult rhyme in the seventh line of his sonnet, or makes the artist drop his brush, would be to protect sentiment at the cost of the material prosperity of individuals, and the material prosperity of the country. Now, though the moralist may deny that material prosperity should be allowed to outweigh finer considerations, and though the artist may repine, there can be little doubt that in most cases the ordinary laws of economy must have their way. Suppose that there is a mine of pencil lead, for example, in the Valley of Ambleside, and suppose that this material is becoming rapidly exhausted, and perhaps even Mr. Ruskin would allow that a commodity so indispensable would have to be got at, even at the cost of a railway along the shores of Grasmere. Now, the country thinks that other minerals are at least as desirable as lead for drawing-pencils, and is determined to have them. It would scarcely be possible to oppose a railway constructed for the purposes indicated, and yet the results would be such as every lover of nature must regret. The streams of the Lake district are already black as ink, even near the head of Coniston Water—the brooks are poisoned, the mountain sides scarred, and broken up by a hundred hideous buildings. The hills round Grasmere would fare little better if mining operations were carried on there. It is a sad thought, but apparently an inevitable result of the discovery of valuable metals. But here, of course, the question arises, are there such veins of metal, and is the railway an economical necessity? On tins subject we have evidence which ought to be good, if a poet, revered by all men of English speech, spoke true. We have the evidence of Wordsworth.
When the Kendal and Windermere Railway was projected, Wordsworth, as every one knows, wrote a sonnet on the subject, as indeed he did on most subjects. He contrasted the pride of the old hills and their indifference to the scars which their patriotic sons inflicted on them in the process of fortification, with the disgust of the same mountains at the sound of 'that whistle.' He called on the mountains, vales, and floods 'to share the passion of a just disdain.' This was poetry, if not pantheism; but Wordsworth returned to the charge in prose, and it is what he said in that humble medium that is most to the present purpose. 'In this district,' he observed, 'the manufactures are trifling; mines it has none, and its quarries are either wrought out or superseded; the soil is light, and the cultivateable parts of the country are very limited; so that it has little to send out, and little has it also to receive.' Now if this is a true account of the state of mines and quarries—and, of course, in the discoveries of thirty years it may have been proved untrue—there is really no need for a railway in the most beautiful and secluded part of the Lake Country. It has been alleged that the district is closed to people who are too weak to take one of the most lovely and exhilarating walks in England, and too poor to hire a dog-cart, or the gig of respectability. Granting that this is so, the question arises whether they would find any consolation in railways. They would gain nothing but a hurried glance at lakes, waterfalls, trees, and the interior of tunnels, which enjoyments can be had in endless variety in most parts of this country. Any peculiar charm of the meres and hills they would necessarily miss, while they would carry along with them the noise, the turmoil, the unsightly cuttings which are necessary accompaniments and conditions of speedy travel elsewhere, but are surely uncalled for by the side of Grasmere. Of course, if the invalids get their railway the country people will be able to use it, and will journey from Ambleside to Keswick much quicker than they used to do. At the same time they will lose the healthy exercise or the beautiful drive. Perhaps they are wiser than the Virgilian rustics, and know the blessings they enjoy; perhaps they do not appreciate them, and think that speed is as necessary in their beautiful country as it is on the road from Glasgow to London. Even granting that a Keswick man will be able to go to Ambleside in a very short time, does that argument make the railway desirable? Wordsworth observed, in his letters to a daily paper in 1844, that 'the staple of this country is, in fact, its beauty and its character of seclusion and retirement.' Cannot England afford herself the luxury of one district where she can enjoy this peaceful beauty? Are her men and women become so weak that they cannot walk in England the distances which would seem so short in Switzerland? Every one knows that this is not the case. The frosty Caucasus and the high Alps are the playing-ground of Englishmen and Englishwomen, and it is really curious if they cannot walk a few miles at home. To be spared a walk of that sort is almost all they could gain by the railway, if the railway has no other raison d'être than to save horse hire and shoe leather.
When Wordsworth wrote his letters in 1844, he had to combat the charge of selfish exclusiveness. Why, it was asked, should he, the patron of the poor when the poor chanced to be idiot boys and leech gatherers, try to prevent the intelligent poor from sharing his enjoyment? He had done for the Lakes what Clough was afraid of doing to his Highland waterfall, 'made it a lion, and got it at last into guide books.' Why did he wish to prevent the working classes from seeing his lion? Wordsworth's answer came to this: first, that he did not prevent them, for the Lakes were already within easy reach of all; secondly, that the public had not been educated up to enjoying the Lakes and mountains. A Manchester man had told him that a beautiful detached rock near his house was 'a hugly lump.' People should not rush into his solitude and spoil it, and then talk about ugly lumps. He thought that the people should take walks in the fields, near their homes, where they could study botany and be out of the way. It was impossible that they could appreciate Grasmere, and their appearance annoyed and disturbed the poetic few, the county families, and the faithful peasantry. This view of Wordsworth's, which admits of being stated in a rather cynical way, is not one that could be seriously put forward any longer. 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, and that, at all events, he will never learn to appreciate them while he potters about a field in the rural neighbourhood of Birmingham. Moreover, fields near large towns are rather less easy to get at than Ambleside itself. If there are two voices—one of the sea, and the other of the mountains—as Wordsworth tells us, and if these voices have so many noble and moral remarks to make, as he implies, every one has a right to hear them, and a right to be taken cheaply into places where they may be heard. But there is nothing of exclusiveness in the opposition to the railway which Mr. Ruskin dislikes, because the Lakes are already of very easy access to all persons. A glance at the map in Bradshaw's topographical compilation shows that the Lake Country is cross-hatched with railroads. The traveller can go by train, rejoicing, to Windermere, to Coniston Water, to Derwentwater, and close to Ullswater. Surely he might walk or ride to Wastwater, and Thirlmere, and Grasmere. He will be all the better for it if he does, and if he cannot, he will lose little by losing all that he would see from the window of a train. Where no valid economical reason presents itself, the country can surely afford herself a breathing place, a quiet country where Nature has her own way, and where her voices can be heard without disturbing and alien sounds. It is not true economy, as Mr. Mill not only allowed but urgently insisted, but selfish waste, to destroy, without pressing cause, the beauty of mountains that breathe of freedom, and the purity of fertilizing streams. The desert places of the earth have played a great and worthy part in human history; the wilderness has been a resting-place for the greatest minds and the weariest. Surely England can afford to indulge herself in this little corner of not uncomfortable desert, this wilderness where the wayside inns offer better fare than wild honey.