The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851Various
History
The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
them; and there is another, from the hill of St. Catharine, near Rouen,
that is quite as extraordinary.
The greater natural freedom that exists in an ordinary American
landscape, and the abundance of detached fragments of wood, often
render the views of this country strikingly beautiful when they are of
sufficient extent to conceal the want of finish in the details, which
require time and long-continued labor to accomplish. In this particular
we conceive that the older portions of the United States offer to the
eye a general outline of view that may well claim to be even of a
higher cast, than most of the scenery of the old world.
There is one great charm, however, that it must be confessed is nearly
wanting among us. We allude to the coast. Our own is, with scarcely
an exception, low, monotonous and tame. It wants Alpine rocks, bold
promontories, visible heights inland, and all those other glorious
accessories of the sort that render the coast of the Mediterranean the
wonder of the world. It is usual for the American to dilate on the size
of his bays and rivers, but objects like these require corresponding
elevation in the land. Admirable as is the bay of New-York for the
purposes of commerce, it holds but a very subordinate place as a
landscape among the other havens of the world. The comparison with
Naples that has so often been made, is singularly unjust, there not
being two bays of any extent to be found, that are really less alike
than these. It was never our good fortune to see Constantinople or Rio
de Janeiro, the two noblest and most remarkable scenes of this kind,
as we have understood, known to the traveller. But we much question
if either will endure the test of rigid and severe examination better
than the celebrated Gulf of Napoli. The color of the water, alone, is
a peculiar beauty of all the Mediterranean bays: it is the blue of
the deep sea, carried home to the very rocks of the coast. In this
respect, the shores of America, also, have less claim to beauty than
those of Europe, generally. The waters are green, the certain sign of
their being shallow. Similar tints prevail in the narrow seas between
Holland and England. The name of Holland recalls a land, however, that
is even lower than any portion of our own with which we are acquainted.
There are large districts in Holland that are actually below the level
of the high tides of the sea. This country is a proof how much time,
civilization, and persevering industry, may add even to the interest
of a landscape. While the tameness of the American coast has so little
to relieve it or to give it character, in Holland it becomes the
source of wonder and admiration. The sight of vast meadows, villages,
farm-houses, churches, and other works of art, actually lying below the
level of the adjacent canals, and the neighboring seas, wakes in the
mind a species of reverence for human industry. This feeling becomes
blended with the views, and it is scarcely possible to gaze upon a
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