Wordsworth's poetry expresses the inmost soul of those lovely lakes and mighty hills, and no writer can hope to tread, save remotely and with reverent humility, in the footsteps of that magician. You understand Wordsworth better, however, and you love him more dearly, for having rambled over his consecrated ground. There was not a day when I did not, in some shape or another, meet with his presence. Whenever I was alone his influence came upon me as something unspeakably majestic and solemn. Once, on a Sunday, I climbed to the top of Place Fell[17] [which is 2154 feet above the sea-level, while Scawfell Pike is 3210, and Helvellyn is 3118], and there, in the short space of two hours, I was thrice cut off by rainstorms from all view of the world beneath. Not a tree could I find on that mountain-top, nor any place of shelter from the blast and the rain, except when crouching beside the mound of rock at its summit, which in that country they call a "man." Not a living creature was visible, save now and then a lonely sheep, who stared at me for a moment and then scurried away. But when the skies cleared and the cloudy squadrons of the storm went careering over Helvellyn, I looked down into no less than fifteen valleys beautifully coloured by the foliage and the patches of cultivated land, each vale being sparsely fringed with little gray stone dwellings that seemed no more than card-houses, in those appalling depths. You think of Wordsworth, in such a place as that,--if you know his poetry. You cannot choose but think of him. "Who comes not hither ne'er shall know How beautiful the world below."