He maintained that this sentimental staring at a mountain or woodland landscape, this going into ecstasies over a green meadow or a bleak snow-field, this adoration of the rosy tints of sunrise and sunset, and all the other species of modern nature-worship, were nothing more or less than a disguised form of commonplace, thoughtless indolence, and as such certainly not to be condemned, particularly by so zealous a defender of _dolce far niente_ as himself. But they must not suppose that this particular form of idleness was the highest and worthiest of human conditions; at the best the benefit which the mind and soul derived from it was not greater than if one should look over a book of pictures, or listen for hours to dance-music. Let them drivel as much as they liked about the sublimity, beauty, and poetry of Nature, she is and remains merely the scenery, and the stage of this world first begins to repay the price of admission when human figures make their appearance upon it. He did not envy the simplicity of a man who would be willing to sit in the parquet all the evening, staring at the empty scene, studying the woodland or mountain decorations, and listening to the voice of the orchestra. To this the enthusiastic admirers of Nature always responded: It was well known that his ill-will toward Nature arose from the fact that no provision had been made for a comfortable sofa and a French cook at all the beautiful spots. He never made the slightest attempt to defend himself against these hits, but, on the contrary, he maintained in all seriousness, and with much ingenuity, his argument that a thinking being could derive more enjoyment of Nature, and a deeper insight into the greatness and splendor of the creation, from a _pate de foie gras_ than from watching a sunrise on the Rigi, with sleepy eyes, empty stomach, and half-frozen limbs enveloped in a ridiculous blanket--a melancholy victim, like his neighbors, to Alpine insanity. Whereupon he would cite the ancient races who had never known such an exaggerated estimate of landscape Nature, and yet, for all that, had possessed the five senses in enviable purity and perfection, and had been very intellectual besides. It is true, they had not known the celebrated "Germanic sentiment;" but there was every probability that the decline of the arts dated from the uprisal and spread of this epidemic, for which reason it was particularly out of place for artists to favor this sort of _Berghuberei_ (as the Munichers call the country fever), with the exception, of course, of those who get their living by it--the landscape, animal, and peasant painters--a degenerate race of whom Fat Rossel never spoke without drawing down the corners of his mouth.