The writing of this letter marked the beginning of a friendship which lasted till Mill's death. If the book had done nothing but secure Dilke this friend, it would have been well rewarded. But rewards were not lacking. The fortunate author was crowned with a great popular success invaluable for a young man about to enter political life. Yet more important even than the prestige acquired was the sum of experience gained. APPENDIX EXTRACT FROM "LANDSCAPE," BY PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON A traveller who did not set out with the intention of word-painting, but to see how men of English race fared wherever they had settled, said that 'travellers soon learn, when making estimates of a country's value, to despise no feature of the landscape.' If Sir Charles Dilke wrote that rather from the political than the artistic point of view, it is not the less accurate in any case, for the landscape, however uninteresting it may seem, or even ugly, is never without its great influence on human happiness and destiny. The interest in human affairs which Sir Charles Dilke has in common with most men of any conspicuous ability, does not prevent him from seeing landscape-nature as well as if his travels had no other object. His description of the Great Plains of Colorado is an excellent example of that valuable kind of description which is not merely an artful arrangement of sonorous words, but perfectly conveys the character of the landscape, and makes you feel as if you had been there. "Now great roaring uplands of enormous sweep, now boundless grassy plains; there is all the grandeur of monotony and yet continual change. Sometimes the distances are broken by blue buttes, or rugged bluffs. Over all there is a sparkling atmosphere and never-failing breeze; the air is bracing even when most hot, the sky is cloudless, and no rain falls. A solitude which no words can paint, the boundless prairie swell conveys an idea of vastness which is the overpowering feature of the Plains.... The impression is not merely one of size. There is perfect beauty, wondrous fertility, in the lonely steppe; no patriotism, no love of home, can prevent the traveller wishing here to end his days. "To those who love the sea, there is here a double charm. Not only is the roll of the prairie as grand as that of the Atlantic, but the crispness of the wind, the absence of trees, the multitude of tiny blooms upon the sod, all conspire to give a feeling of nearness to the ocean, the effect of which is that we are always expecting to hail it from the top of the next hillock.... "The colour of the landscape is, in summer, green and flowers; in fall-time, yellow and flowers, but flowers ever." [Footnote: _Greater Britain_, p. 80 (popular edition).]