The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

156 LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON. [chap. xiv.
Darlington project unquestionably exercised very great influence
upon the future history of railway locomotion.
Of this railway Edward Pease was the projector. A thought-
ful and sagacious man, ready in resources, possessed of indomi-
table energy and perseverance, he was eminently qualified to
undertake what appeared to many the desperate enterprise of
obtaining an Act of Parliament to construct a railway through
a rather unpromising district. One who knew him in 1818 said,
" he was a man who could see a hundred years ahead." When
the writer last saw him, in the autumn of 1854, Mr. Pease was
in his eighty-eighth year ; yet he still possessed the hopefulness
and mental vigour of a man in his prime.. Hale and hearty,
full of interesting reminiscences of the past, he yet entered with
interest into the life of the present, and displayed a warm sym-
pathy for all current projects calculated to render the lives of
men happier. Still sound in health, his eye had not lost its
brilliancy, nor his cheek its colour ; and there was an elasticity
in his step which younger men might have envied. His vigorous
judgment and genuine native shrewdness, together with that
courageous strength and tenacity of purpose which made him,
when once convinced, stand by the railway project upon which
he had set his heart, when all the world called him schemer and
fool, had not yet departed from him ; and he could now afford to
crack a lively joke at the prejudiced blindness of those who had
so long made him the subject of their ridicule. Pointing to a
fine prospect from his drawing-room window, extending to the
wooded knolls on the further side of the valley, the numerous
full-grown trees within sight, gay in all the gorgeous livery of
autumn, Mr. Pease observed :— " What changes happen in a
single lifetime ! Look
at those fine old trees ; every one of them
has been planted by my own hand. When I was a boy I.was
fond of planting, and my father indulged me in my pastime. I
went about with a spade in my hand, planting trees everywhere
as far as you can see : they grew whilst I slept ; and now see
what a goodly array they make! Ay," continued he, "but
EAiLVfATS are a far more extraordinary growth even than these.
They have grown up not only since 1 was a boy, but since I
became a man, Wheij I started the Stockton and Darlington