^he Landscape Beautiful 



ON THE RELATION OF LANDSCAPE 

 TO LIFE 



^^HAT charming essayist who wrote a 

 ^^ lecture on the relation of literature to 



life did not hesitate to claim every- 

 thing for literature. He made it his thesis 

 that literature is really the whole stream 

 of life so far as the thoughts and passions 

 of mankind have any continuity through 

 the generations. It would be too much to 

 say of landscape that it is the whole of life, 

 but this is true at least, that life, as we 

 know it, could not exist apart from the 

 landscape. 



Human life has a few fundamentally 

 necessary conditions, such as food, speech, a 

 social organization, a certain conception of 

 the Infinite Power, and a ready contact with 

 the material world. I have not put litera- 

 ture in this category. This may look like 

 taking the negative against Charles Dudley 



15 



