Railways. 187 



the more does that world minister to our happiness and 

 our intelligence. In the case of the railways, we are 

 recipients of an immense amount of good. There is 

 not only the interest of what is witnessed on the instant, 

 but the pleasant flow of remembrance of the various 

 localities they lead to. As, looking at the sea, we are 

 led in thought all round the world, so, looking at the 

 winged train and its pearly clouds, we visit over again 

 a thousand delicious spots, photographed on the mind, 

 and endeared by association. Here, for instance, in the 

 valley of the Irwell, we go on to the lakes of Cumber- 

 land, and its ancient and purple mountains, and anon 

 to the flowered and roofless aisles of sacred Furness. 

 Should these be places yet unknown, there are nearer 

 ones where we have been, Rivington, Summerseat, 

 Hoghton Tower, with its precipitous beechen-wood and 

 lovely walk by the river underneath; or Southshore, 

 where grow the blue eryngo and the grass of Parnassus, 

 and where, on calm September evenings, the round, red 

 setting sun pours a stream of crimson light across the 

 sea, that reaches to the last ripple of the retiring water, 

 like a path of velvet unrolled for the feet of a queen; 

 or, if the wind blow high and fresh, the grand old deep- 

 voiced waves, with their gray locks hanging dishevelled 

 over their broad bosoms, roll gloriously over the rattling 

 pebbles, change for a moment into arcades as white as 

 snow, then dissolve into a wilderness of foam. Thus to 

 make the common things of life so many centres of 

 thought, from which we can travel away to whole worlds 



