Morning journal and courier., 1891-05-16

ACotAlAS HI potCACS Ol splcuuIu halls and manor-housss perched upon low CT promontories, and countless pleasure craft speaking the fair waters of Winder- mere, add to the exultation of an sxalting solitude that happy consciousness of cer- tain, if isolate, nearness to man. But whose pen can adequately tell the calm which pervades these wondrous scenesi If silence can take on personihcation of vastness and majesty, you will be con- scious of all that here. It has such inten- sity that one feels a 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 ss the unreal mimicry of dreams; all persons but the shades of men.
 Feast as you may at natures lavish board, the undertones are ever heard. Over wonder 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 strange-lighted eyes at the wondrous world without, but knows it not, for mad phantasms possess his dark ened mind. You can see an hundred dalss and glens which Wordsworth loved and haunted Near Brentwood is Tent Lodge, where Lerd 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 undeni ably believed. Then a sturdier lot appear. Just below Bowness to the left Storrs Hall is seen. It was here that in 1895 such giants as the statesman Canning, the philosopher, novelist and poet, .Christo- pher North" Professor Wilson, the laure- ate of England and bard of the lakes, Wordsworth, and Scotland's greatest TO- msncer, Sir Walter Scott, met and held high mental carnival, while disporting like bevy of school boys, and terminated the illustrious occasion by & brilliant re- gatta an Windermere in charge of Wilson as Admiral of the Lakes" It would have been worth year of ordinary nam by-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 dreamful 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 entrancing. It 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 be meath 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 Bow ness; for you are nearer the head of the ala oc al ing mountain walls are highest, and the noble lake itself makes the broadest ex- panses.
 and coach horn, the undertones are even here. From Orrest Head, the haunts of every poet or prose writer of the region, save those of Coleridge and Shelley about Keswick, are again visible, Windermere with it's glorious foreground of foliage is seen in it's entire length. Range after range of Lake mountains rise beyond it to the vest The valley of Ambleside lays like half-defned glen of purple to the north, darkening at it's edges, changing to livid green along the higher ranges, the crags of Helm, Fairfield and Nab Scar forming great peaks of sun-kissed splen- dor above. A mass of mountain tops and misty passes lie towards Ullswater in the northeast. Along the ridges, towards the Yorkshire moors, one purple furrow shows where was laid the plot of Robert Elsmere," in Longsleddale. Besides, here are the woods and waters of Elleray No Cumbrian home ever held bigger frame, greater heart or a loftier and tenderer soul than the mansion of Elleray. The place is now just as it was when it was ''Christopher North's" earthly paradise, with several roofs shelving away there in the lustre of loveliest ichens, each roof with its own assortment of doves and pigeons preening their pinions in the morning pleasaunce;" and the giant syca- more, of which Professor Wilson himself said, "not even in the days of the Druids could there have been such another tree, y still shelters Elleray with its mighty arms.
 But six miles to the north of the village of Windermere lies Ambleside, more an cient, in that it was once an important Roman station, than any other village of the lake region. Like Bowness, the entire place is hidden in masses of foliage and | bloom. Numberless tiny mountain streams tumble through it, and one turns | the wheel of the quaintest and most pie turesque old water-mill in England. Here | in few moments walk one comes to the | famous Stock Ghyll Force; and to the east l and higher still rises the huge ridge oi l Wansfell, with "its visionary majesties ot | light" as Wordsworth sang. From its summit grander prospects meet the eye than at Bowness or Windermere. Yet | with all the entrancing excursions among l the scenic glories roundabout, more pill 1 grims come to Ambleside because one wo | man gave it's name to the whole world | That woman was Harriet Martineau
 "Sceptic" some called her. She held that she had passed the boundaries of scepti cism and dwelt in life of absolute faith No one need grieve for her "views,n wher they resulted in so grand and diligent | life. No woman ever lived who accom-
 plished more actual literary labor, or il that labor did more for the worlds pro gress and humanity at large. Her olt home ''The Knoll" is not stone's throw from the highway, but is so embedded il foliage as to be invisible from it. Just { few steps through a massive gateway, ove | drive shadowy from laurel, hawthorn
 beeches and holly, brings you to a sum. terrace afame with flowers; and theI facing about, the outlines of the house ar gradually traced through masses of iv.
 pushing to the very caves. The gray olt
 Westmoreland stone can only here ant
 there be seen. The large bay windows ar
 and passion flowers. And the huge chim news and gables hint of the houses of Eliz
 abeth's time The older villagers say tn light of Ambleside went out when the,
 bore Harriet Martineau's body to it's gray
 in the old cemetery at Birmingham. Bu
 it seems to me her good and kindly fac
 must still be shining thete with the bios
 sons from those great y-windows.
 Just before you reached Ambleside 70,
 could turn aside few steps from tn
 highway and see in Dove Nest the forme
 home of Mrs. Hemans. Immediately op
 posite the Knoll, where lived Miss Martin
 eau, though hidden by the majestic tree
 which line the banks of the Rothay river
 is another fine old mansion, Fox Howe
 where the great Dr. Arnold passed tn
 happiest hours of his life. Then to tn
 right of the highway, not a mile from tn
 Knoll, is Rydal Mount, Wordsworth
 home, described in the preceding article
 A little beyond, almost at the edge of Ky
 dal Water, haunt of the herons, standin
 close against the highway beneath th
 shadows of Nab Scar, is Nab Cottage
 where Hartley Coleridge dwelt. The
 Grasmere Lake, shut in by Fairfield, weir
 Dumnail Raise, and the mighty Pikes C | Tanodale ia spread before you and in fh