Mr Kipling, in his simple language, has come nearer to the truth than has Ruskin with all his felicity of phrase. It is not the associations connected with human endeavour _in the mass_ that make any particular scene to appeal, it is the associations connected with our own little selves; it is because "our hearts are small" that God has "Ordained for each one spot should prove Beloved over all."[39] But, indeed, I think that the great Darwin long ago, quite incidentally--and quite unwittingly--put his finger upon the crux of the problem. Speaking of the beauties of the landscape of the East Indian Archipelago he says: "These scenes of the tropics are in themselves so delicious, that they almost equal those dearer ones at home, to which we are bound by each best feeling of the mind."[40] The sublime and beautiful in Nature call forth our admiration, reverence, awe; it is the simple scenes, to which associations cling, that call forth our love. Nature--the sun, the sky, the earth, the sea--is always beautiful, because Nature, as Man's primæval habitat, has embedded in the memory of Man primæval associations; but for any one particular scene to arouse emotions deeper than those evoked by mere form and colour, that scene must arouse associations embedded in one's own memory or in those of one's forbears. It may be that this is a generalisation shallow and jejune. Yet I make it, remembering torrid India; wide Canadian snows; the Alps and the Jura; the Rhône; the Rhine; the Irawadi; lovely, lovable England; and those perfumed slopes of le Grand Salève, inhabited on that early morning only by myself and those grazing cows. § 57 Those mild-eyed cattle interested me. They were very gentle, very sleek, very quiet and patient; large of bone, lactiferous; and, beneath all their passivity, I should imagine they possessed potentialities of heroism and endurance unknown to their bovine fellows of the plains. And if I may judge from the features, figures, and expressions of the women of this same region, too, I should be inclined to conjecture that they were not dissimilar in character to their kine. They too are quiet-eyed, deep-bosomed, large-framed, heavy-buttocked; and in the expression of their faces there is something patient and heroic. And the youthful tender of those cattle--he too was interesting. He lay prone on the grass, his back to Mont Blanc. If he exercised his own limbs but little, he faithfully performed all the duties appertaining to that state of life into which it had pleased God to call him by springing every twenty minutes to his feet and shouting orders to his dog--the faithful sub or deputy herdsman, who kept the cattle from straying too far. I envied that youthful herdsman his pleasant occupation. Life in that mountain air must be sweet to the senses, as companionship with those gentle kine must be quieting to the mind. § 58