Note 278 — 1844
Reading edition
The degree and kind of attachment which many of the yeomanry feel to their small inheritances can scarcely be over-rated. Near the house of one of them stands a magnificent tree, which a neighbour of the owner advised him to fell for profit’s sake. “Fell it!” exclaimed the yeoman, “I had rather fall on my knees and worship it.” It happens, I believe, that the intended railway would pass through this little property, and I hope that an apology for the answer will not be thought necessary by one who enters into the strength of the feeling.—W.W. 1845.
Compare the two letters on the Kendal and Windermere Railway, contributed by Wordsworth to The Morning Post in 1844, at Kendal, revised and reprinted in the same year. See The Prose Works of Wordsworth, vol. ii. pp. 383-405.—Ed.