The record-union., 1891-05-17
BOWNESS And WINDERMERE.
Description of the Witching Re-
giOn Roundabout.
The Old Home OF Harriet Martineau
and Resorts of DIR. Arnold, First
Master of Rugby, of Mrs. Hemens,
Tennyson and Many Others Famous
in English Literature.
Especial Correspondence of SUNDAY UNION
Copyright, 1911
AMBLEsIDE (Eng.), May 4, 1891.

Especial Correspondence of SUNDAY UNION,
Copyright, 1891
AMBLEsIDE (Eng.), May 4, 1891.
A German writer has truly said: 'There
can be no guide to a lover of nature
but that love itself" No pen painter who
has ever lived or will ever live, has
Imned or can ever depict in page or a
book the beauties of the English lake
region. There never has been printed an
adequate guide; and even were the best
one could be made provided. the traveller
who comes here to see with eyes and
heart, would suffer greater from its in
suffciency than find delight in it's ex-
plorations. This is true because in the
first place no one with pen or brush can
produce on a single page or canvas a
single picture comprising manifold ex-
preston. 1t would be human impossi-
bility to comprehend in any series of de-
scriptions or paintings the myriad dis
tinct and glowing scenes which the
region furnishes. And, even could this
be done, then there would still be lack
ing all those glorious promptings to
emotional enjoyment from associative in
terest which the beholder of the actual
scene can never have interpreted to him
by another.
In many years. almost continuous
travel in Europe have never come upon
any other place which so satisfied in end
less 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 5000 square miles of the region
there is not a square foot from which can
not be contemplated more than one sub
lime or eXquisitely 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 wraithful suggestions
and conjectures. Every lowly home
within the region tells of peasantry
unique, interesting, contented and hos
pltable. Its towns and hamlets have a
picturesqueness all their own, yet are so
harmonious with their mountain scenery
surroundings as to seem to be growing
out of the rocks upon which they stand
And in all things or persons one sees or
meets, there is an endless and gentle re-
minder of high-souled men and women
who were drawn here to become, through
the psalms OF their lives and pens, the
exalted genii of this wonderland of sub
Unity, beauty and peace. Everywhere is
scenic glory here. But the wild, sweet
undertones that tremble in every limb
and blade of grass, that sound in every
tumbling waterfall, that are borne in
every passing breeze, form the inexpress-
ible witchery which thrill the being
where these loving genii dwell.
Take simply the few miles, perhaps
nine, from Bowness north through Win
dermere, Ambleside and Rydal TO Gras-
mere, TO illustrate 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 great volume full of glori-
GUS paintings, winsome descriptions. eX-
qulsite incidents, memories almost as
comprehensive as the wide domain of
English literature, and sweet with tender
philOsophizings and then but have
barely hinted at the majestic book of
nature and reminiscence which lies open
for the enjoyment of all who come. The
village of Bowness is one of the quaintest
and sweetest old nests in England. 1t is
dreamtul maze of ineXtricable streets
whose houses are almost wholly covered
with roses and ivy. The east window of
Its square-towered little church is one of
the Oldest in England, having been taken
from that once most magnificent of all of
England'S ancient monastic edifices,
Furness Abbey. The place is hidden
beneath gigantic 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 Furness Fells, in
Lancashire, to Ambleside, in Westmore-
land, forms liquid valley of blue, set
with numberless emerald islets, its
mountain shores merging into purple
depths at the far north, where grim
Helyellyn lifts it's curved crest beyond
the sublime isolation of mighty Helm
Crag. The ocean blue of Morecambe
Bay glints beyond the puce sands of Lam
caster to the south. Esthwaite and Con-
lston Water glimmer among the western
fells, and Hard Knot and Coniston Old
Man form mighty sentinels in the back
ground in the direction Of the Irish Sea.
1t is a sublime spectacle. But along with
1t is the ever welcome element of soft and
tender beauty. The lower masses of
1arch nearest the waters edge are like
gigantic pillows Of emerald. These
merge in graceful lines into the more
somber fir, which, bank on bank, and
wave on wave above roll upwards in
noble undulations, often to the very
crests of lofty mountains; while half
seen cottages peeping from mountain
sides, gray old chapels nesting in
patches Of sunlight, splendid halls and
manor-houseS perched upon lower
promontories, and countless pleasure
craft specking the fair waters of Winder-
mere, add TO the exultation of an exalting
solitude that happy consciousness of GER
tain, II isolate, nearness TO man. But
whose pen can adequately tell the calm
which pervades these wondrous scenes I?
If silence can take on personification of
vastness and majesty, you win be con-
scious of all that here. 1t has such in
tensity that one feels sense of existing
in some upper world from whose face
and armament sound has been banished.
And 1t is so impressive and palpable that
at times all objects seem but the imagery
OF reality; all moving things as the un-
real mimicry of dreams; all persons but
the shades Of men.
Feast as you may at natures lavish
board, the undertones are ever heard.
over yonder by Coniston Water, gray
and scowling John Ruskin, a prisoner in
his own home, lovely Brentwood. presses
his pale face against the window -panes
and stares with strangely-lighted eyes at
the wondrous world without, but knows
II not, for mad phantasms possess his
darkened mind. You can see an hundred
dales and glens which Wordsworth loved
and haunted. Near Brentwood is Tent
Lodge, where Lord Tennyson once lived,
dreamed and worked. Near, Gerald
Massey wooed those pensive spirits with
whom he SO wholly lived, and in whose
actual though impalpable presence he so
undeniably believed. Then a sturdier
lot appear. Just below BowneSs 60 the
left, Storrs Hall is seen. 1t was here that
in 1875 such giants as the statesman Cam
ming, the philosopher, novelist and poet,
"Christopher North" professor Wilson,,
the laureate of England and bard of the
lakes, Wordsworth, and Scotland's great
est romancer, Sir Walter Scott, met and
held high mental carnival, while disport-
ing like bevy of schoolboys, and termi-
mated the illustrious occasion by a brill
liant regatta on Windermere in charge of
wilson as Admiral of the Lakes" 1t
would have been worth n year of ordina-
ry namby- -pamby life 10 have sat silent
among them and listened during those
rare and radiant DAYS