and imagination, could not have put into the district
what it did not possess. The beauty that he saw was really there,
only it required a poetic soul to discover and reveal it. The spirit of
the poet put itself in touch with the spirit of the district and elicited
from the district what was already in it. The spirit of Wordsworth
and the spirit of the district acted and reacted upon one another and
came into harmony with one another. And as he had the capacity for
communicating to others what he himself had seen, we are now able
to see in the Lakeland beauties which our forefathers had scarcely
known.

This is why I suggest to you that Natural Beauty should be
considered as a legitimate part of Geography. And if you will look
about you, you will note that Natural Beauty is having an increasing
effect upon the movements of men. There is a very definite
relationship between the Beauty of the Earth and her human
inhabitants. The Poet Laureate builds his house on the top of Boar's
Hill not because the soil is specially productive up there so that he
may be able to grow food, for the soil is rather poor; not because
water is easily available, for it is very difficult to get, as he found
when his house took fire; not because of the climate, for the climate
is just as good a hundred feet lower down; not because it is easily
accessible to Oxford, for a big climb up the hill is entailed every
time he returns from that city--not for any of these reasons did he
build his house there, but because of the view which he obtains from
that spot. It was Natural Beauty which drew, the Poet Laureate to
Boar's Hill, as it was Natural Beauty which drew Tennyson to
Blackdown to build Aldworth with a view all over the Surrey hills
and the Sussex Downs.

It is this same spell of Natural Beauty, too, which is drawing people
all over England to build their houses on the most beautiful spots.
Our great country-seats--the pride of England--are usually placed
where the natural scenery is finest. Humbler dwellings whenever the
owner has the opportunity of making a choice are for a similar
reason built wherever a beautiful view, however limited, may be
obtained. Whole towns even are built on spots where the
surroundings are most beautiful, or, at any rate, if for some other
reason they were located where they are they tend to spread in the
direction of most beauty. Dartmouth was originally built where it is
because that site made an excellent por