Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-17
HAUNTS OF THE POET
So Beautiful That the Most Gifted
Pen Fails to Describe.
In THE ENGLISH LAKE DISTRICT
Nature Has Produced Little Realm Of Per-
petual Delight.
GREAT MINDS THAT REVELLED THERE

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CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DIsPATCH.1
AMBLEsIDE, ENGLAND, May 8.-A Ger
man writer has truly said: "There can be
no guide to lover of nature but that love
itself" No pen painter who has ever lived
or will ever live, has imned or can ever de-
pict in page or book the beauties 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 suffer greater from its
insuficiency than find delight in its expo
| sitions.
This is true because, in the first place, no
one with pen or brnsh can produce on a
single page or canvas a single picture COM
prising manifold expression. 1t would be a
human impossibility to comprehend in any
series of descriptions or paintings the
myriad distinct 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 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 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.
Word Painting Is Inadequate.
You could make a great volume full of
glorious paintings, winsome descriptions,
exquisite incidents, memories almost as
comprehensive as the wide domain of Eng
lish literature, and sweet with tender phil
osophizings; and then but have barely
limited at the majestic book of nature and
reminiscence which lies open for the enjoy
ment of all who come. The village of Bow
ness is one of the quaintest and sweetest old
nests in England. 1t is dreamful maze of
inextricable streets whose houses are al
most wholly covered with roses and ivy.
The east window of its square lowered little
church is one of the Oldest in England, hav-
ing been taken from that once most magni-
fcent of all of England's ancient monastic
edifces, FurMess Abbey. The place is hid
den 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, sketching
from the lower Furness Fells, in Lancashire,
to Ambleside in Westmoreland, forms
liquid valley of blue, set with numberless
emerald islets, its mountain shores merging
into purple depths at the far north, where
grim Helvellyn lifts its curved crest beyond
the sublime isolation af mighty Helm Crag.
The ocean blue of Morecambe Bay glints be-
yond the puce sands of Lancaster to the
south. Esthwaite and Coniston Water glim-
mer among the western fells, and Hard Knot
and Coniston Old Man form mighty sentinels
in the background in the direction of the
Irish sea.
Wave on Wave of Somber Fir.
1t is sublime spectacle. But along with
it is the ever welcome element of soft and
tender beauty. The lower masses of larch
nearest the waters edge are like gigantic
pillows of emerald. These merge in grace
full lines into the more somber fir, which,
bank on bank and wave on wave above roll
upward in noble undulations, often to the
very crests of lofty mountains; while half
seen cottages peeping from mountain sides,
gray old chape1s nesting in patches
of sunlight, splendid halls and manor
houses perched upon lower promontories,
and countless pleasure craft specking the
waters Of Windermere, and to the exulta-
tion of an exalting solitude that happy
consciousness of certain, if isolate, nearness
to man.
Feast as you may at natures lavish board,
the undertones are ever heard. Over yon-
der by COnistOn Water, gray and scowling
John Ruskin, prisoner in his own home,
lovely Brentwood, presses his pale face
nct ha Iy1n sta
strangely-Gghted eyes at the wondrous
world without, but knows it not, for mad
.phantasms possess his darkened mind. You
can see 100 dales and glens which Words
worth 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 impalpable presence he so
undeniably believed.
Great IntelIects at Recreation.
Then sturdier lot appear. Just below
Bowness to the left, Storrs Hall is seen. 1t
was here that in 1926 such giants as the
statesman Canning, the philosopher, novel
list and poet, christopher North (Prof.
Wilson,, 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 disporting
like bevy of school boys, and terminated
the illustrious occasion by brilliant regatta
on Windermere in charge of Wilson as
"Admiral of the Lakes" 1t would have
been worth year of ordinary namby- -pamby
life to have sat silent among them and
listened during those rare and radiant days.
Windermere, but continuation of Bow
ness, is modern. The London and North
western Railway penetrates to this point.
In the place of Bowness, which is now left
in dreamftl quiet, it has become the
southern metropolis of the region;
just as Keswick, to which you can come by
rail from the northeast, is the northern me-.
tropolis. The situation of Windermere is
enhancing. 1t is stately in splendid inns
and surrounding country seats, similar to
the grand mansions along the Hudson. The
place, with its modern suggestions and
countless arriving and departing coach-loads
of tourists sinks out of sight beneath the
giant forest trees, when you have climbed
to the summit of Orrest Head, where the
prospect is still grander than that from
Brant Fell, behind Bowness; for you are
nearer the head of the vale of Windermere,