But it is the mere futility of sentiment to pretend that
there need be any real collision of interests here. There is space
enough in England yet for all to enjoy in their several manners, if
those who have the power would leave some unpolluted rivers, and
some unblighted fields, for the health and happiness of the
factory-hand, whose toil is for their fortunes, and whose
degradation is their shame.
Wordsworth, while indicating, with some such reasoning as this, the
true method of promoting the education of the mass of men in natural
joys, was assuredly not likely to forget that in every class, even
the poorest, are found exceptional spirits which some inbred power
has attuned already to the stillness and glory of the hills. In what
way the interests of such men may best be consulted, he has
discussed in the following passage.
"O nature a' thy shows an' forms
To feeling pensive hearts hae charms!"
"So exclaimed the Ayrshire ploughman, speaking of ordinary rural
nature under the varying influences of the seasons; and the
sentiment has found an echo in the bosoms of thousands in as humble
a condition as he himself was when he gave vent to it. But then they
_were_ feeling, pensive hearts--men who would be among the first
to lament the facility with which they had approached this region,
by a sacrifice of so much of its quiet and beauty as, from the
intrusion of a railway, would be inseparable.
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