Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2De Quincey, Thomas
History
Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays -- 19th century
If not the people of Greece, is it then the NATURAL SCENERY of Greece
which can justify the tourist in this preference? Upon this subject
it is difficult to dispute. What a man is likely to relish in
scenery--what style or mode of the natural picturesque; and secondly,
what weight or value he will allow to his own preferences--are questions
exceedingly variable. And the latter of these questions is the more
important; for the objection is far less likely to arise against this
mode of scenery or that, since every _characteristic_ mode is relished
as a change, than universally against all modes alike as adequate
indemnifications for the toils of travelling. Female travellers are
apt to talk of 'scenery' as all in all, but men require a social
interest superadded. Mere scenery palls upon the mind, where it is the
sole and ever-present attraction relied on. It should come unbidden
and unthought of, like the warbling of birds, to sustain itself in
power. And at feeding-time we observe that men of all nations and
languages, _Tros Tyriusve,_ grow savage, if, by a fine scene, you
endeavor to make amends for a bad beef-steak. The scenery of the
Himalaya will not 'draw houses' till it finds itself on a line of good
hotels.
This difference, noted above, between the knowledge and the power of
a scenery hunter may be often seen illustrated in the fields of art.
How common is the old sapless connoisseur in pictures, who retains his
learned eye and his distinguished skill, but whose sensibilities are
as dry as summer dust to the interests of the art. On the other hand,
daily you see young people whose hearts and souls are in the forests
and the hills, but for whom the eye is perfectly untutored. If, now,
to the differences in this respect you add the extensive differences
which prevail as to the kinds of scenery, it is easy to understand how
rich in the materials for schism must be every party that starts up
on the excitement of mere scenery. Some laud the Caucasus; some the
northern and eastern valleys of Spain; some the Alpine scenery; some
the Pyrenean. All these are different; and from all alike differs again
what Mr. Mure classes as the classical character of scenery. For this,
he thinks a regular education of the eye requisite. Such an education
he himself had obtained from a residence in Italy. And, subject to
that condition, he supposes the scenery on the Eurotas (to the eastern
side of the Peloponnesus) the most delightful in Europe. We know not.
It may be so. For ourselves, the obscure sense of being or moving under
a vast superincumbency of some great natural power, as of a mighty
forest, or a trackless succession of mountainous labyrinths, has a
charm of secret force far better than any distinct scenes to which we
are introduced. Such things ought not to be. But still so it is--that
tours in search of the picturesque are peculiarly apt to break up in
quarrels. Perhaps on the same principle which has caused a fact
generally noticed, viz.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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