Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-05-17
A GARDEN SPOT
Where Nature lavished Its In
finite Bounties.
THE ENGLISH LAKE DISTRICT.
The Wanderings of wakeman Limned
With q Gifted Pen-A Vivid Description
of the Birthplaces of Historic
Men and Writers.
NATURES BEAUTIES.
Special Correspondence of the Gazette.

Special Correspondence of the Gazette.
AMBLEsIDE, Eng. May "A German
writer has truly said: There can be NJ
guide to a lover OF nature but that love
itself" No pen painter who has ever
| lived or will ever live, has limned or can
ever depict in a page or 4 book the beau.
ties of the English lake region. There
never has been printed an adequate guide
and even were the best one that could be
made provided, the traveller who comes
here to see with eyes and heart would suf-
fer greater from its insufficiency than find
delight in its eXpositions. This is true
because in the first place no one with pen
or brush can produce on 4 single page or
canvas a single picture comprising mani
fold expression. 1t would be a human i'm
possibility to comprehend in any series OF
descriptions or paintings the myriad dis
tlnct and glowing scenes which the region
furnishes. And, even could this be done,
| then there would still be lacking all those
glorious promptings to emotional enjoyment
from associative interest, which the be-
| holder of the actual scene can never have
interpreted 10 him By another.
| In many years almost continuous travel
| in Europe I have never come upon any other
place which so satisfied in endless variety
of change and mood every faculty of vision
| and mind, every pure activity of thought
and memory. every tender capability of
| heart and soul. In the nearly six thousand
square miles of the region there is not a
| square foot from which cannot be contem-
| plated more than one sublime or exquisitelv
| beautiful aspect of nature. Your eye can
| nowhere sweep the horizon line without
discovering some relic of the prehistoric or
| medieval past, rife with countless wrath
| full suggestions and conjectures. Every
| lowly home within the region tells OF =
| peasantry unique, interesting, contented
and hospitable. Its towns and hamIets
| have a picturesqueness all their own. yet
| are so harmonious with their mountain
| scenery surroundings as to seem growing
| out of the very rocks upon which they
| stand. And in all things or persons one
| sees or meets there is an endless and gentle
reminder Of the high souled men and
women who were drawn here to be-
! come, through the psalms of their
| lives and pens, the exalted genii of
this wonderland of sublimity, beauty and
peace. Everywhere is scenic glory here
But the wild, sweet undertones that
tremble in every leaf and blade of grass,
that sound in every tumbling waterfall,
that are borne in every passing breeze,
form the ineXpressible witchery which
thrills the being where these
LOVING GENT DWELL.
Take simply the few miles. perhaps nine,
from Bowness north through Windermere,
Ambleside and I.ydal TO Grasmere, to illus
trate the superhuman task you would have
in attempting to convey to another what
one sees, recalls and feels, throughout the
entire lake region. You could make Il great
volume full of glorious paintings, winsome
descriptions, exquisite incidents, memories
almost as comprehensive as the wide do
main of English literature. and sweet with
tender philosophizings, and then but have
barely limited at the majestic book of nature
and Renaissance which lies open for the
enjoyment of all who come The village of
Bowness is one of the quaintest and sweet
est old nests in England. 1t is a dreamful
maze of inextricable streets, whose houses
are almost wholly covered with roses
and ivy. The east window of its square
lowered little church is one of the
Oldest in England having been taken from
that once most magnificent of all of Eng
lands ancient monastic editices, Furness
Abbey. The place is hidden beneath gi-
gantic trees on the eastern shore of the
queen of the English lakes, Windermere
Climb Brant fell behind it The lake,
Immediately beneath to the west. stretch
ing from the lower F'urness fells. in Lam
cashire, to Ambleside in Westmoreland,
forms liquid valley of blue, set with num-
berless emerald islets, its mountain shores
merging into purple depths at the far north
where grim Helvellyn lifts its curved crest
beyond the sublime isolation of mighty
Helm crag.
THE OCEAN BLUE
of Morecambe bay glints beyond the puce
sands of Lancaster to the south. Es-
thwaite and Coniston water glimmer among
the western fells, and Hard Knot and Con-
iston Old Man form mighty sentinels IN the
background in the direction of the Irish
sea. 1t is a sublime spectacle. But along
with it is the ever welcome element of soft
and tender beauty. The lever masses of
larch nearest the waters edge are like
gigantic pillows of emerald These
merge in graceful lines into the
,Hn,. f,- 1,-lt oh l.
and wave on wave above roll upwards in
noble undulations, often to the very crests
of lofty mountains; while half-seen cot |
tages peeplng from mountain sides, gray |
old chapels nesting in patches of sunlight, |
splendid halls and manor houses perched |
upon lower promontories, and countless |
pleasure craft speaking the fair waters of |
Windermere add to the exultation of an ex- |
alting solitude that happy consciousness of |
certain, II Isolate, nearneSS to man. But |
whose pen can adequately tell the calm |
which pervades these wondrous scenesl If |
silence can take on personifcation Of vast |
ness and majesty. you will be conscious of |
all that here. 1t has such intensity that |
one feels sense of existing in some upper |
world from whose face and armament |
sound has been banished. And it is so !
impressive and palpable that at times all |
objects seem but the imagery Of reality; |
all moving things as the unreal mimicry |
VI CISdItS, pcioOLS Dul tut SEdueS Oh
men.
Feast as you may at nature lavish board
the undertones are ever heard. Over yon-
der by Confston Water, gray and scowling
John Ruskin. d prisoner in his own home.
lovely Brentwood. presses his pale face
against the window paneS and stares with
strangely-ighted eyes at the wonderous
world without, but knows it not, for mad
phantasms possess his darkened mind. You
can see an 100 dales and glens which
Wordsworth loved and haunted. Near
Brentwood is Tent Lodge, where Lord
Tennyson once lived, dreamed and wrote.
Near gentle Gerald Massey wooed those
pensive spirits with whom he so wholly
lived, and in whose actual though impalpa-
bier presence he SO undeniably believed.
fhen a sturdier lot appear. Just below
Bowness TO the left. Storrs Hall is seen. 1t
was here that in 1925 such giants as the
statesman Canning. the philosopher, novel
list and poet, christopher North prof.
the laureate of England and bard |
Of the lakes, Wordsworth. and Scotland's
greatest romancer, Sir Walter Scott met
and held high mental carnival, while
iisporting like bevy of school