"
To those who love to deduce the character of a population from the
character of their race and surroundings the peasantry of Cumberland
and Westmoreland form an attractive theme. Drawn in great part from
the strong Scandinavian stock, they dwell in a land solemn and
beautiful as Norway itself, but without Norway's rigour and penury,
and with still lakes and happy rivers instead of Norway's inarming
melancholy sea. They are a mountain folk; but their mountains are no
precipices of insuperable snow, such as keep the dwellers in some
Swiss hamlet shut in ignorance and stagnating into idiocy. These
barriers divide only to concentrate, and environ only to endear;
their guardianship is but enough to give an added unity to each
group of kindred homes. And thus it is that the Cumbrian dalesmen
have afforded perhaps as near a realization as human fates have yet
allowed of the rural society which statesmen desire for their
country's greatness. They have given an example of substantial
comfort strenuously won; of home affections intensified by
independent strength; of isolation without ignorance, and of a
shrewd simplicity; of an hereditary virtue which needs no support
from fanaticism, and to which honour is more than law.
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