JANE AUSTEN AT LYME 



THE love of beautiful scenery was not so general a 

 hundred years ago as it is now. Indeed, it is true, 

 as the great Humboldt has pointed out, that what 

 is known as " the sentimental love of Nature," is a 

 modern rather than an ancient feeling. Socrates was 

 accused of being unacquainted with even the neigh- 

 bourhood of Athens. " I am very anxious to learn," 

 he replied, "and from fields and trees I can learn 

 nothing." The Apostle Paul, though he must have 

 been familiar with some of the most enchanting scenery 

 in Europe and Asia Minor, seems to have been un- 

 moved by the beauties of Nature. There is hardly a 

 word in his thirteen epistles which shows that he had 

 the smallest susceptibility for beautiful scenery. St. 

 Bernard, having spent a day in riding along the lovely 

 shore of Lake Geneva, is said to have asked in the 

 evening where it was. There is not the slightest 

 allusion in any of Whitefield's sermons to his thirteen 

 voyages across the Atlantic. Dr. Johnson is another 

 example of the same strange indifference. " Sir," he 

 said, " when you have seen one green field, you have 

 seen all green fields. Let us walk down Cheapside." 



The foregoing remarks apply to a very great extent 

 to the novels of Jane Austen. They are singularly 

 silent on the subject of natural scenery. That Jane 

 Austen herself was a lover of the beautiful in Nature 



