l not the public
burn or hammer it out--and they say they will, of course--in spite of
us? What does it signify to _them_ how we poor old quiet readers in this
mountain library feel? True, we know well enough,--what the nine hundred
excursionist scholars don't--that the library can't be read quite
through in a quarter of an hour; also, that there is a pleasure in real
reading, quite different from that of turning pages; and that gold in a
missal, or slate in a crag, may be more precious than in a bank or a
chimney-pot. But how are these practical people to credit us,--these,
who cannot read, nor ever will; and who have been taught that nothing is
virtuous but care for their bellies, and nothing useful but what goes
into them?

263. Whether to be credited or not, the real facts of the matter, made
clear as they are in the following pages, can be briefly stated for the
consideration of any candid person.

The arguments in favor of the new railway are in the main four, and may
be thus answered.

1. "There are mineral treasures in the district capable of development."

_Answer._ It is a wicked fiction, got up by whosoever has got it up,
simply to cheat shareholders. Every lead and copper vein in Cumberland
has been known for centuries; the copper of Coniston does not pay; and
there is none so rich in Helvellyn. And the main central volcanic rocks,
through which the track lies, produce neither slate nor hematite, while
there is enough of them at Llanberis and Dalton to roof and iron-grate
all England into one vast Bedlam, if it honestly perceives itself in
need of that accommodation.

2. "The scenery must be made accessible to the public."

_Answer._ It is more than accessible already; the public are pitched
into it head-foremost, and necessarily miss two-thirds of it. The Lake
scenery really begins, on the south, at Lancaster, where the Cumberland
hills are seen over Morecambe Bay; on the north, at Carlisle, where the
moors of Skiddaw are seen over the rich plains between them and the
Solway. No one who loves mountains would lose a step of the approach,
from these distances, on either side. But the stupid herds of modern
tourists let themselves be emptied, like coals from a sack, at
Windermere and Keswick. Having got there, what the new railway has to do
is to shovel those who have come to Keswick to Windermere, and to shovel
those who have come to Windermere to Keswick. And what then?

3. "But cheap and swift trans