THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE 



compels our sympathy and enthusiasm. 

 And I wonder if any young American ever 

 went forth to learn and feel and dream 

 Columbia's beauties, as this Japanese ap- 

 prentice goes to study the loveliness of 

 Nippon. 



The suggestion is almost overpower- 

 ing. The very word shows us how scant 

 and superficial has always been our thought 

 of the landscape in which we live. What 

 might not one find were he to go to Amer- 

 ica's fields and lakes and mountains in this 

 spirit? Something different, indeed, from a 

 series of cheap spectacular public exhibits, 

 to be conveniently push-button photo- 

 graphed, to be sent home on souvenir post- 

 cards, or to be trapped out for a summer 

 hotel advertisement. 



No, the landscape is not a show, to be 

 seen and forgotten. It is the environment 

 in which we live. Out of it we draw breath 

 and without it there would be no breathing. 

 Through it the sun sends us his heat, and 

 the moon her pale mysterious light. We 

 walk on the landscape, we drink of it ; in it 

 we live, and move, and have our being. 

 We go a mile, and the landscape goes with 

 us. We are born into it, and not even 



101 



