THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE 



paintings to compare with ours. Then 

 there are our New England winters (not 

 unknown to poetry), and our Arizona sum- 

 mers, and the springtime in Coronado and 

 Palm Beach. 



Think of the fields! There are the 

 cotton fields of Alabama, the wheat fields 

 of Kansas, the rolling grass fields of Ver- 

 mont, and the orchard-covered hillsides of 

 New York State. They all cry aloud and 

 clap their hands for joy. That painter 

 would be immortal who could truly picture 

 one of them. I have spent certain happy 

 days in the fields of England; I have stood 

 on the rolling fields of Alsace, when the 

 grain fields stretching away toward the 

 Moselle seemed like the choicest lands of 

 Paradise; but if I have a dispassionate judg- 

 ment left in me, I must still prefer the 

 Shenandoah Valley and the banks of the 

 Hudson. 



And then what lakes are ours! Su- 

 perior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario 

 — the pentateuch of the continent. Besides 

 them we have thousands of others, — 

 Cayuga, Seneca, and Oneida; Champlain 

 and George; Memphremagog and Winne- 

 pesaukee; Okechobee and the Great Dismal 



105 



