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Show I SCENERY COMPARED. i THE MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN. The One Is Everywhere Affected hy Man and Art The Other Is Primeval and Virgin Vir-gin Luxury May Suit English Scenery, but Not So With Us. Having lately visited England after a long absence, my mind since my return has been busy with the subject of the relations re-lations between our scenery and that of the old world I visited a dull part of Hampshira On leaving the house where I was staying it was necessary to get up to an early breakfast to catch a train. Two young soldiers, very pleasant and friendly fellows, who went away at the same time, were in the cab with me. Reference was made to the scenery, and one of them, who had been in America, said, "You Americans may not always sav vou admire England, but in your hearts you know there is nothing like it. " I looked out of the cab window at the flat and very rolled out landscape, cut up into squares and plots by iron fences, which, however, with its sparse oaks standing here and there, was not without a classic grace, and thought of the fresh and magic outlines of the Virginia Vir-ginia mountains. But the hour was much too early and too drowsy to allow of any expression of dissent. It is an old question, that between the scenery of the two worlds. It is simple enough, however, with an obvious answer. Here it is primeval and virgin nature; there, nature affected by man and art The difference between European and American trees and woodlands is significant sig-nificant of this. Early in September an acquaintance took me to look at a remarkable re-markable oak on his place in Essex, which he said had been thought by some persons to be a relic of the ancient British Brit-ish forest. This oak, which was not very high, threw its powerful arms straight out in all directions over a wide space of ground. Certainly such a tree could not have stood in an aboriginal forest There would not have been sufficient sun to produce so great an amount of leafage, and there would have been no room for such a vast lateral extension. It so happened that only a few months before, in June perhaps, I had seen in , Tennessee a good deal of a forest which was almost virgin. The trees went straight upward to a great height, the boles being clean of branches a long distance from the ground, and the leafage leaf-age scant, except at the top, where it received re-ceived the ran. I rode into the middle of this forest. The trees were often so close together that it would have been hard for a horse to go between them, and my horse followed the bed of a stream which was so shallow that it scarcely more than wet his fetlocks, the rhododendrons being very thick on each side of ma Halting in the midst of the level floor of the forest, it was an impressive im-pressive scene which I found. The pale, lofty trunks stood everywhere parallel, and with a stately decorum and regularity, regular-ity, except where, half way up the adjacent ad-jacent mountain side, some tumbling trees, leaning at angles against their surrounding fellows, which had arrested arrest-ed them in falling, varied the universal propriety with a noble confusion, the gray trunks looking like mighty fallen pillars of a ruined templa It is true that our 6cenery is not very rich in its associations of human history. This source of interest we have here only to a slight degree. But the landscape land-scape has its own history. Is it not well to consider that history? Is not scenery made more impressive by the study of those sublime changes which have prepared pre-pared the world which we see, and may not the disclosures of men of science, so far as the unlearned are capable of comprehending com-prehending them, be brought to the service serv-ice of the sense of natural beauty? Another contrast there may be in the scenery of the two lands. There is this to be said of English scenery it is suitable suit-able to the luxury and comfort of English Eng-lish country lifa It is appropriate to the English flesh pots. There are plenty of country houses throughout England in which material comforts are of the best, and which at certain seasons contain con-tain much agreeable company of both sexes. I had some experience of such a house in Surrey. The library was excellent. excel-lent. For a wonder the weather was good, the ephemeral British sunshine remaining all day on the southern walls and really lavish among those flowers of the garden you do not know by name. Easily detained by such an existence, you are not inclined to anything more active than some kind of pleasant reading read-ing and are likely to lose your place at that, while your gaze rests upon the hills to the west. To such a life and such a state of mind the vague, soft aspect as-pect of the Surrey hills was most suitable suita-ble two impalpable ranges of hills, alluring al-luring to the eyes. Essences they seemed seem-ed rather than substance or matter, and unreal, save in their gentle emerald emer-ald coloring. And they were always lying ly-ing there, quivering as in a dream a mirage which did not go away. If there is an agreement between luxury lux-ury and English scen?ry, my sentiment is that, on the contrary, luxury docs not suit our scenery. An iron foundry, Etrange to say, does no harm. A forge, a factory by the side of a pond filled with water lilies 3 have now in mind the New England landscape these are not unsuitable. But a fine house in some way is, and my sense of incongruity incongru-ity extends as well to those mansions which a friend describes as Queen Anne in the front and Mary Ann in the rear. Architecture, both private and public, should be 6uch as is suited to the local requirements and history. A white spire, for instance, marking such a church as New England farmers have built for generations, what an eloquent object in a wide and undulating view! E. S. Xadal in Century. |