BEAUTY AND GEOGRAPHY 227 



to describe the country itself, it is of its beauty that 

 we speak. 



Natural Beauty is what attracts us to a country. 

 Its Natural Beauty is the fact about it which re- 

 mains most persistently in our memory. And it is 

 about its Natural Beauty that we are most inclined 

 to speak. Lastly, when we are in distant countries 

 it is of the Natural Beauty that we chiefly think. 

 When our thoughts go back to the home country it 

 is not on its exact measurements and configuration 

 that they dwell, but on its beauty. 



From all of which considerations I conclude that 

 any description of the Earth which excludes a 

 description of its Natural Beauty is incomplete. 

 Geography must include a description of Natural 

 Beauty. And personally I would go so far as to 

 say that the description of Natural Beauty is the 

 most important part of Geography. 



Here I must answer an objection which may be 

 raised — namely, that Natural Beauty is the concern 

 of ^Esthetics, not of Geography. An objector 

 may freely acknowledge the value and importance 

 of recognising and describing the Natural Beauty 

 of a country, but may contend that this is beyond 

 the province of Geography. It should be left to 

 poets and painters, he might say, and geographers 

 should confine themselves to the more prosaic busi- 

 ness of exact measurement, of accurate delineation, 

 of reasoning regarding the relation of the facts to 

 one another, and of explaining the facts. 



To such an objector I would reply that Geography 

 is an art as well as a science. And in parenthesis 

 I may say that I doubt whether any science can be 



