The Voice of the Machines: An Introduction to the Twentieth CenturyLee, Gerald Stanley
Philosophy
The Voice of the Machines: An Introduction to the Twentieth Century
Lee, Gerald Stanley
Machinery
This prejudice against the infinite, or desire to avoid as much as
possible all personal contact with it, betrays itself most commonly,
perhaps, in people who have what might be called the domestic feeling,
who consciously or unconsciously demand the domestic touch in a
landscape before they are ready to call it beautiful. The typical
American woman, unless she has unusual gifts or training, if she is
left entirely to herself, prefers nice cuddlesome scenery. Even if her
imagination has been somewhat cultivated and deepened, so that she
feels that a place must be wild, or at least partly wild, in order to
be beautiful, she still chooses nooks and ravines, as a rule, to be
happy in--places roofed in with gentle, quiet wonder, fenced in with
beauty on every side. She is not without her due respect and
admiration for a mountain, but she does not want it to be too large,
or too near the stars, if she has to live with it day and night; and
if the truth were told--even at its best she finds a mountain distant,
impersonal, uncompanionable. Unless she is born in it she does not see
beauty in the wide plain. There is something in her being that makes
her bashful before a whole sky; she wants a sunset she can snuggle up
to. It is essentially the bird's taste in scenery. "Give me a nest, O
Lord, under the wide heaven. Cover me from Thy glory." A bush or a
tree with two or three other bushes or trees near by, and just enough
sky to go with it--is it not enough?
The average man is like the average woman in this regard except that
he is less so. The fact seems to be that the average human being (like
the average poet), at least for everyday purposes, does not want any
more of the world around him than he can use, or than he can put
somewhere. If there is so much more of the world than one can use, or
than anyone else can use, what is the possible object of living where
one cannot help being reminded of it?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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