do not move, with such small activity as I have yet
shown in the business, because I live at Coniston (where no sound of the
iron wheels by Dunmail Raise can reach me), nor because I can find no
other place to remember Wordsworth by, than the daffodil margin of his
little Rydal marsh. What thoughts and work are yet before me, such as he
taught, must be independent of any narrow associations. All my own dear
mountain grounds and treasure-cities, Chamouni, Interlachen, Lucerne,
Geneva, Venice, are long ago destroyed by the European populace; and
now, for my own part, I don't care what more they do; they may drain
Loch Katrine, drink Loch Lomond, and blow all Wales and Cumberland into
a heap of slate shingle; the world is wide enough yet to find me some
refuge during the days appointed for me to stay in it. But it is no less
my duty, in the cause of those to whom the sweet landscapes of England
are yet precious, and to whom they may yet teach what they taught me, in
early boyhood, and would still if I had it now to learn,--it is my duty
to plead with what earnestness I may, that these sacred sibylline books
may be redeemed from perishing.

262. But again, I am checked, because I don't know how to speak to the
persons who _need_ to be spoken to in this matter.

Suppose I were sitting, where still, in much-changed Oxford, I am happy
to find myself, in one of the little latticed cells of the Bodleian
Library, and my kind and much-loved friend, Mr. Coxe, were to come to me
with news that it was proposed to send nine hundred excursionists
through the library every day, in three parties of three hundred each;
that it was intended they should elevate their minds by reading all the
books they could lay hold of while they stayed;--and that practically
scientific persons accompanying them were to look out for and burn all
the manuscripts that had any gold in their illuminations, that the said
gold might be made of practical service; but that he, Mr. Coxe, could
not, for his part, sympathize with the movement, and hoped I would write
something in deprecation of it! As I should then feel, I feel now, at
Mr. Somervell's request that I would write him a preface in defense of
Helvellyn. What could I say for Mr. Coxe? Of course, that nine hundred
people should see the library daily, instead of one, is only fair to the
nine hundred, and if there is gold in the books, is it not public
property? If there is copper or slate in Helvellyn, shal