CONCERNING THE AMERICAN 

 LANDSCAPE 



*^ T is an habitual trick of complacency 

 II with certain Americans to say that no 

 one should visit Europe until he has 

 seen the sights of this continent. Until 

 he has seen the sights! Ah, yes! The 

 traveler is a sightseer, and he must have a 

 spectacle for his money. There we have 

 the whole vulgarity of it in a word. 



This unthoughtful phrase shows what 

 such persons unconsciously take to be the 

 landscape. For them it is always Niagara 

 Falls, Old Faithful, the Big Trees, or the 

 Grand Canon. They flit about the con- 

 tinent on the fastest trains, from one great 

 sight to another. On the intervening 

 thousands of miles, they withdraw to their 

 staterooms and read the latest novels. 



If such persons are put to it they 

 always insist patriotically that we have in 

 America the finest landscape known to any 

 part of the world, just as they will claim 

 the superiority of our political system, or 



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