71 



Defence Fund," said with pathos: "Will you kindly receive this 

 mite from a Birmingham working woman, in grateful remembrance 

 of a holiday in the district, whose never-to-be-forgotten beauties 

 have been a joy to her through many hours of toil in dirt and 

 smoke ?" 



In this last successful attempt to prevent the spohation of 

 Borrowdale in the eyes of the 40,000 visitors who annually pass 

 up it, and the vulgarising and disquieting of the valley to please 

 the pockets and whims of nine non-resident quarry speculators, it 

 is true that for us the railways fought in their courses. Most 

 fortunate was it for us that Sir Thomas Chambers and other City 

 magnates wished to take their wives and families in third-class 

 carriages from Chingford to High Beech, and to try their hand at 

 improving the Epping Forest scenery by constructing railway 

 embankments which should have all the appearance of being 

 " natural undulations of the ground." Most opportune for us, too, 

 was it, that the directors of the Underground Railway, 



Those [un]comfortable moles, whom, what they do, 

 Teaches the limit of the just and true, 



had obtained blow-holes for their sulphurous breath which would 

 permanently disfigure the Thames Embankment hard-by. But, 

 apart from the indignation roused against the too-powerful railway 

 monopolies, and the mischief they were likely to do in the interest 

 of the shareholder, there was evidence that Wordsworth's spirit of 

 protest against railway invasion of one of the few retiring-grounds 

 left to the old age of busy men — one of the few gathering-grounds 

 for thought and commune with 



The Motion, and the Spirit that impels 



All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 



And rolls through all things — 



one of the few recreation-grounds open to, and within easy distance 

 for, the toilers of our northern towns, — there was evidence, I 

 repeat, that that Wordsworthian spirit of protest was keenly alive, 

 and was making itself heard and felt in our midst, so that at last, 

 as the Spectator of April 14th put it, " Even the promoters of the 

 line, who persisted till they reached the Lords, felt the indignation 



