We turn reluctantly from this world of beauty, happy in the remembrance of what we have seen and felt, happier perhaps that so much remains unvisited in a region where every by-way and secluded dell has its own peculiar loveliness, and that we may hope to return again and yet again to explore its wonders. For the mountain climber, are there not Great Gable, Bowfell, Fairfield, Pillar Mountain in Ennerdale, steepest of all, Blen-cathara, otherwise Saddleback, with its unequalled view of Derwentwater, and Coniston Old Man, with its grand prospects over land and sea? These six are scarcely inferior in height to the imperial three,* whose names and forms are most familiar. Then the Langdales should be climbed; one or both, as a position below the loftiest in a mountain land affords the best point of view from which to apprehend the grandeur of the surrounding hills. And after the greater lakes have been duly visited, what wealth of hidden beauty is there in those retired valleys, where rivulets suddenly expand into fair still sheets of water, reflecting the mountains at whose base they lie; and what lonely grandeur in the tarns high among the hills, rarely visited by human foot, and, like Scales Tarn on Blencathara, so surrounded by wild crags as hardly ever to admit the sunlight! Excursion after excursion may be made, not only by the angler, but by those who have no taste for such sport, to these lofty miniature lakes.
Or, if the tourist delights in waterfalls, let him seek out Dungeon Ghyll in Langdale, or go up behind the inn at Ambleside to Stock Ghyll, or stop on his way through the valley to admire the two picturesque Falls at Rydal, or ramble through Gowbarrow Park, near Ullswater, as far as Airey or Ara Force, which "by Lyulph's Tower speaks from the woody glen," or let him make a special excursion to Eskdale to see Stanley Ghyll, described by some tourists as the most beautiful of all. The beauty of these cascades, and of others less famed, arises not from the volume of water, but from the picturesqueness of the glens in which they lie; these being, in almost every case, deep and narrow fissures in the rock, covered with ferns, mosses and shrubs in the utmost luxuriance. The varied tints of the rocks and of the foliage by which they are clothed give richness of colouring to the picture; and when the sunlight falls upon the dashing spray, and rainbow tints hang over the fall, the surpassing loveliness of the scene is even enhanced by the smallness of its scale.
It would hardly be possible to omit, in any notice of the Lake district, however incomplete, a reference to the great uncertainty of the weather. In the deeper valleys, especially, as Wastdale and Buttermere, the traveller is often sorely disappointed by incessant rain. Yet even this has its compensation in the increased translucency of the air, the beauty of the mountain streams and cascades, with the incomparable splendours of the parting clouds, when the sunlight has smitten them apart, and their white trains vanishing up the mountain-side are as the robes of angels. When the summer airs elsewhere are stifling, and the ground is parched, the effect of the frequent mists and showers is fully seen. For then the whole lake country is as green as an emerald; and, except in the deepest valleys, the wearied brain and limbs are refreshed by stimulating mountain airs. Such seasons perhaps are the best for a visit to the Lakes; but they are beautiful in winter too, when the snows linger on the heights, and in the early spring, when the greensward is carpeted with wild flowers, and in the autumn, when the purple, gold, and crimson clothe the woods in a royal array, while the withered Reaves elsewhere strew all the ground. "Those only know our country," say the dwellers among the lakes, "who live here all the year round." Be it so. It is good to carry in memory, into the busy, more prosaic walks of life, the glimpse, if it be no more, of all this beauty; and, after all, it is the "still sad music of humanity" that thrills the soul more deeply than the music of the whispering woods, or of the torrent down the mountain side. It was the Poet of the Lakes and Mountains who closed one of the noblest of his odes by the words:
"Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, its fears;
To me, the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
