Ullswater is a beautiful lake, with steep hills walling it about, so
steep, on the eastern side, that there seems hardly room for a road to
run along the base. We passed up the western shore, and turned off from
it about midway, to take the road towards Keswick. We stopped, however,
at Lyulph's Tower, while our chariot went on up a hill, and took a guide
to show us the way to Airey Force,--a small cataract, which is claimed as
private property, and out of which, no doubt, a pretty little revenue is
raised. I do not think that there can be any rightful appropriation, as
private property, of objects of natural beauty. The fruits of the land,
and whatever human labor can produce from it, belong fairly enough to the
person who has a deed or a lease; but the beautiful is the property of
him who can hive it and enjoy it. It is very unsatisfactory to think of
a cataract under lock and key. However, we were shown to Airey Force by
a tall and graceful mountain-maid, with a healthy cheek, and a step that
had no possibility of weariness in it. The cascade is an irregular
streak of foamy water, pouring adown a rude shadowy glen. I liked well
enough to see it; but it is wearisome, on the whole, to go the rounds of
what everybody thinks it necessary to see. It makes me a little ashamed.
It is somewhat as if we were drinking out of the same glass, and eating
from the same dish, as a multitude of other people.
Within a few miles of Keswick, we passed along at the foot of Saddleback,
and by the entrance of the Vale of St.
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