John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

FEAR OF RAILWAYS DEFACING THE COUNTRY. 153
should be a railway to Brighton ; scarcely any one which could
be constructed would be convenient to such a multitude of
persons, or is likely to be so profitable to the subscribers. But
of the five rival lines which have been proposed, two, if not
three, and particularly Stephenson s, would, to a great degree,
annihilate the peculiar beauty of a spot unrivalled in the world
for the exquisiteness, combined with the accessibility, of its
natural scenery : the vale of Norbury, at the foot of Box Hill.
Yet into the head of hardly one Member of Parliament does it
appear to have come, that this consideration ought to weigh
one feather, even on the question of preference among a variety
of lines, in other respects probably about equal in their advan
tages. Yet these men have voted ^"11,000 of the people s
money for two Correggios, and many thousands more for a
building to put them in, and will hold fcrth by the hour about
encouraging the fine arts, and refining the minds of the people
by the pleasures of imagination. We see, by this contrast,
what amount of real taste, real wish to cultivate in the people
the capacity of enjoying beauty, or real capacity for enjoying it
themselves, is concerned in this profuse expenditure of public
money ; although
two-thirds of these men would shout in
chorus against political economists and utilitarians for
having no imagination, and despising that faculty in others.
The truth is, that in this country the sense of beauty, as a
national characteristic, scarcely exists. What is mistaken for
it is the taste for costliness, and for whatever has a costly
appearance."
The passage is a long one ; but it illustrates Mill in other
points besides his love of scenery.
I cannot help thinking that
his sweeping condemnation of Members of Parliament generally
is a little overdone.
One other anecdote is worth preserving. A number of years
ago, Piccadilly was widened by taking
Park. A row of trees was included in
a slice off the Green
the addition ; and, in
all probability, these would have been cut down. Lord Lincoln