way we approached it twenty years ago, from Coniston over Walna Scar, is the way Mr. Wordsworth still recommends as the most beautiful.  We went on some distance beyond the chapel, and every new turning and opening among the hills allured us on, till at last the Poet was obliged to exercise the word of command, that we should proceed no further.  The return is always a flat thing, so I shall not detail it, except that we reached our respective homes in good time; and I hope I shall never cease to think with gratitude and pleasure of the kindness of my honoured guide through the lovely scenes he has rescued from obscurity, although it happily still remains an unvitiated region, ’which stands in no need of the veil of twilight to soften or disguise its features:  as it glistens in the morning’s sun it fills the spectator’s heart with gladsomeness.’

November 21.—­My mother and I called at Rydal last Saturday, to see the Wordsworths after their autumnal excursion.  We found him only at home, looking in great vigour and much the better for this little change of scene and circumstance.  He spoke with much interest of a communication he had had from a benevolent surgeon at Manchester, an admirer of his, who thinks that a great proportion of the blindness in this country might be prevented by attention to the diseases of the eye in childhood.  He spoke of two very interesting blind ladies he had seen at Leamington, one of whom had been at Rydal Mount a short time before her ‘total eclipse,’ and now derived the greatest comfort from the recollection of these beautiful scenes, almost the last she looked on.  He spoke of his own pleasure in returning to them, and of the effect of the first view from ‘Orrest Head,’ the point mentioned in his ‘unfortunate[250] sonnet, which has,’ he said, ’you are aware, exposed me to the most unlooked for accusations.  They actually accuse me of desiring to interfere with the innocent enjoyments of the poor, by preventing this district becoming accessible to them by a railway.  Now I deny that it is to that class that this kind of scenery is either the most improving or the most attractive.  For the very poor the great God of Nature has mercifully spread out His Bible everywhere; the common sunshine, green fields, the blue sky, the shining river, are everywhere to be met with in this country; and it is only an individual here and there among the uneducated classes who feels very deeply the poetry of lakes and mountains; and such persons would rather wander about where they like, than rush through the country in a railway.  It is not, therefore, the poor, as a class, that would benefit morally or mentally by a railway conveyance; while to the educated classes, to whom such scenes as these give enjoyment of the purest kind, the effect would be almost entirely destroyed.’

[250] See the Sonnet and Letters on the Furness Railway (vol. ii. p. 321).  G.

Wednesday, 20th Nov.—­A most remarkable halo was seen round the moon soon after five o’clock to-day; the colours of the rainbow were most brilliant, and the circle was entire for about five minutes.