Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/162

 childhood I had studied their natural history, their charts, their romances; and now, at last, I was about to compare books with facts, and judge for myself of the reported wonders of the earthly paradise."

No doubt there is much to see everywhere. The poet and the naturalist will find "tropical forests in every square foot of turf." It may even be better, and especially for the most sensitive natures, to live mostly in quiet scenery, among fields and hedgerows, woods and downs; but it is surely good for everyone, from time to time, to refresh and strengthen both body and mind by a spell of sea air or mountain scenery.

On the other hand we are told, and told of course with truth, that though mountains may be the cathedrals of Nature, they are especially remote from centres of population; that our great cities are grimy, dark, and ugly; that manufactures are creeping over several of our counties, blighting them into building ground, replacing trees by chimneys, and destroying every vestige of natural beauty.

But if this be true, is it not all the more desirable that our people should have access to pictures and books, which may in some small degree, at any rate, replace what they have thus unfortunately lost. Another reason why books may help us is because we cannot all travel; and even those who can, are able after all to see but a small part of the world. Moreover, though no one who has once seen them can ever forget the Alps, the Swiss Lakes, or the Riviera, still the recollection becomes less vivid as years roll on, and it is pleasant, from time to time, to be reminded of their beauties. There is one other advantage not less important. We sometimes speak as if to visit a country and to see it were the same thing. But this is not so. It is not everyone who can see Switzerland like Ruskin or Tyndall. Their beautiful description of mountain scenery depends less on their mastery of the English language, great as that is, than on their power of seeing what is before them.

It has then been to me a matter of much interest to see which aspects of Nature have given the greatest pleasure, or have most impressed those who, either from wide experience, or from their love of Nature, may be considered best able to judge.

Humboldt tells us that—"If I might be allowed to abandon myself to the recollection of my own distant travels, I would instance, amongst the most striking scenes of Nature, the calm sublimity of a tropical night, when the stars, not sparkling, as in our northern skies, shed their soft and planetary light over the gently heaving ocean; or I would recall the deep valleys of the Cordilleras, where the tall and slender palms pierce the leafy veil around them, and waving on high their feathery and arrow-like branches, form, as it were, 'a forest above a forest'; or I would describe the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe, when a horizon layer of clouds, dazzling in whiteness, has separated the cone of cinders from the plain below, and suddenly the ascending current pierces the cloudy veil, so that the