CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES. 679 



He feels the romantic, almost poignant interest of the line of the trees which maintain 

 themselves against the elements at the limit of altitude. The charm of intermingling 

 of field and woodland in the Lake Country he traces skilfully to the progressive 

 agricultural settlement which followed ' the veins of richer, dryer, or less stony soil.' 

 With equal acuteness he indicates how the peculiar economic character of the district 

 has resulted in innumerable lanes and paths which provide the rambler with ' an ever 

 ready guide ' to ' the hidden treasure of its landscapes.' 



Although preferring the harmonies of occupation and environment displayed in a 

 highland community of small owners before all other aspects of the scenery of 

 civilisation, Wordsworth pays discriminating tribute to the unique contribution made 

 by wealthy inheritors of landed estate in the preservation of trees beyond economic 

 prime for sheer love of their beauty in venerable age. He notes the geological con- 

 ditions to which the water of the EngUsh Lakes owes the remarkable clearness that 

 makes their depths a magic mirror to lead the mind into ' recesses of feeling otherwise 

 impenetrable.' He does not, however, discover the peculiarities of the watery image 

 which are the source of this mental effect. We must remember that Wordsworth 

 was making a beginning only in the science of scenery, and that with the advantage 

 of another hundred years of accumulated knowledge wo can better his instruction. 

 But even so it is remarkable that we should now be taking up the aesthetics of scenery 

 very nearly from the point where he left it, joining hands across a hundred years, 

 rather than proceeding from the mainly orographical studies of scenery produced in 

 the latter part of the nineteenth century. 



The ' Guide ' proper and the ' Description ' are followed by the third section of the 

 book, which is on ' Changes, and rules of taste for preventing their bad effects.' 

 Wordsworth dates a more general appreciation of the wilder aspects of scenery from 

 about the year 1 775. Thereafter the country of the EngUsh Lakes not only attracted 

 visitors, but also, owing to its economic conditions, offered more opportunities for 

 settlement by villa residents than districts parcelled out in great estates. The epoch 

 of railway construction followed, with the result that the changes in the English Lake 

 District in Wordsworth's middle and later life were comparable to those which, owing 

 to the development of motor traffic and the extension of house building, now affect 

 rural England as a whole. Wordsworth points out to the newly-arrived resident that 

 the liking for ' strong lines of demarcation ' and emphatic contiast is due to want of 

 practice, and that if he will pause to study his rural surroundings ' a new habit of 

 pleasure will be formed the opposite of this, arising out of the perception of the fine 

 gradations by which in Nature one thing passes away into another.' The rule that 

 a house situated in mountain scenery should be so designed as to take its place quietly 

 in the landscape is enforced by the penetrating remark that owing to the scale of the 

 view ' a mansion can never laecome principal in the landscape ' as it may ' where 

 mountains subside into hills of moderate elevation.' 



This example of Wordsworth's _^aiV for noting the relation of the object of attention 

 to its environment is curiously paralleled by his observation of the effect of the echo 

 of the cuckoo's call from the steep sides of the Rydal 'V^alley. The sound, he says, 

 ' takes possession ' of the valley, an expression which is implicit with suggestion of the 

 important fact that the view is made impressive by any agent which imparts unity to- 

 objects the multiplicity of which often prevents the landscape from appearing to the 

 mind as a picture. Here I pause to remark that the sounds and scents of the country- 

 side belong to its scenery. If we did not make the letter c soft in the word scenery 

 we should be less apt to forget that the word has no derivational connection with 

 ' seeing.' The visual is no doubt the leading aspect of scenery, but ssthetically we 

 are bound to take account of the simultaneous impression of the natural environment, 

 or scene, upon the other senses. It follows that the societies which concern themselves 

 with the preservation of scenic beauty are within their province in combating un- 

 necessary mechanical noise. 



When changes come, Wordsworth is not always apt in recognising a new harmony. 

 His failure to observe the rhythmic reinforcement of rocky pinnacles by trees of 

 pointed form diminishes the efficacy of his protest against the introduction of the 

 larch. His preference for informal lines may have been partly innate but was 

 increased out of measure by intellectual associations, which do so much to cramp the 

 proper functioning of the eye. Thus in the letter to .Sir George Beaumont, dealing 

 with the laying-out of grounds, written so early as 1805, which is included as an 

 appendix in Mr. de Selincourt's recent collation of the editions of the ' Guide,' 

 Wordsworth assumes that every person of taste would prefer that the whole garden 



