ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 355 



develop itself. Still less could it do so during the perpetual state of 

 siege in the middle ages, or the constant warfare of tlie little Hellenic 

 republics, when no man could travel a few miles from home save on 

 urgent business and with due precautions. A lovely pass or a frown- 

 ing gorge can hardly become beautiful in the eyes of those who see in 

 it everywhere a lurking brigand. 



On the other hand, when traveling becomes easier, a taste for scenery 

 naturally arises. All the mental elements of the taste are already pres- 

 ent ; only their combination is wanted to complete the aesthetic growth. 

 Tastes educated and refined by the arts of the city must find beauty 

 ready to hand in much of the country. The garden and park, the 

 Italian terrace and the Versailles avenues, the ornamental grounds and 

 artificial lakes of the last century, formal as they seem to us now, show 

 the gradual growth of the taste. A view from the castle or the hall 

 becomes a desideratum. To look out upon fresh green fields and 

 trees rather than upon the walls and narrow streets of a city must 

 always have been pleasant to all but the most restrictedly anthropinis- 

 tic minds though even in our own day there are many townsmen 

 who would find more to interest them in a crowd of people than in the 

 loveliest scenery on earth. Again, only highly cultivated minds can 

 thoroughly enjoy the beauty of places which have been always famil- 

 iar from childhood : and we can hardly expect a taste for scenery to 

 develop among people who necessarily live (like all but the most civil- 

 ized) in one narrow place for all their days. Under such circum- 

 stances, the perception of its beauty can never arise. The habit of 

 making tours, at first confined to the very wealthy, but gradually 

 spreading down to the middle classes and the mass, has undoubtedly 

 had an immense effect in strengthening the love of nature. Those 

 who only know the stereotyped features of their own suburban fields, 

 often flat and unlovely, can not acquire any deep interest in scenery. 

 But when Wales and Scotland, Auvergne and Brittany, Switzerland 

 and the Tyrol are thrown open for us all, the habit of comparing, 

 observing, and admiring grows upon us unawares. Those railways 

 which Mr. Ruskin so cordially despises have probably done a thousand 

 times more for promoting a love of beauty in nature than the most 

 eloquent word-painting that was ever penned even by his own cunning 

 and graceful hand. 



If one may trust an individual experience, it is not the first water- 

 fall that charms the most. Niagara itself, when seen in early youth, 

 does not produce nearly so strong an impression as the little Swallow- 

 Fall at Bettws-y-coed in later years. The more one sees, the more one 

 learns what to expect, what to observe, Avhat to admire. Here it is 

 the wind-shaken foam-streak of the Staubbach ; there, the little dan- 

 cing cascades of the Giesbach ; and here again, the vast unbroken 

 emerald-green sheet of the Horseshoe Fall, pouring in ceaseless n^- 

 jesty into the seething turmoil of waters at its mist-begirt feet.. Each, 



