Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/299

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wake of the merely money-grubbing human microbe. And where once the pulse was quickened to a sane and healthy delight in the grandeur of unspoilt Nature, and the mind was uplifted from sordid cares to high contemplation, we are now asked to buy an aluminium paper-knife for a shilling! Human absurdity can no further go than this. There can be little imagination left in the minds that could have tolerated the building of aluminium works where Foyers once poured music through the glen. And it is instructive to recall the action taken by the Belgian people—who are generally supposed to be very prosaic,—when some of their beautiful scenery on the river Amblève, was threatened with similar destruction. Mustering together, three to four thousand strong, they took a reduced model of the intended factory, burnt it on the spot, and threw its ashes into the river; performing such a terror-striking "carmagnole" of revolt, that the authorities were compelled to prohibit the erection of the proposed works, for fear of a general rising throughout the country. Would that such a protest had been offered by the people of Scotland against the destruction of Foyers!

And what of the pitiful ruin of Loch Katrine?—once an unspoilt gem of Highland scenery, doubly beloved for the sake of Sir Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake"? What of the submerging of "Ellen's Isle"?—the ruthless uprooting of that "entangled wood"—

Where Nature scattered, free and wild.
Each plant or flower, the mountain's child,—
Here eglantine embalmed the air,
Heather and hazel mingled there.