The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-09-15
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR.

II LETTER FROM THE EDITOh.
4 LAKE WINDERMERE, Aug. Is, 1853.
e A correspondent of the New York Tribune,
9 inditiDg a letter in sight Of the White Mount
aims, wonders why Americans should 60 abroad
to see fine scenery, when they have so much at
home Let them go; they will then learn to
appreciate home treasures That American
must be curiously constituted who can find
anything abroad to make him regret that his
home is in the New World. AS to natural
scenery he will be surprised, at times to see
how much poetry has been lavshed here upon
what among us would pass almost unnoticed.
That the English should fall into raptures
about the Rhine is not to be wondered at
they have no river like it-but leaving out of
view few ruins which look quite picturesque
in an album, voyage on the Rhine, to an
American familiar with the Hudson, Ohio, and
Upper Mississippi, must be comparatively tame;
while the miserable little steamers, and the
mean fare, will soon impel him to betake him
self to the railway. Very young persons, and
green old ones, fresh from the pages of Byron,
and tourists determined to make book, may
grow extatc over the " vine-cad hills" of the
Rhine, and in devotional murmurs, quote some
thing about its "exulting and Astounding
waters; :" but single day on its bosom will
entirely satisfy those of our oountrymen not
given to illusions. With no part of our journey
on the continent were we 30 well pleased as
with our four days ride through Switzerland,
amidst the Jura mountains, and in sight, ocoa-
sionally, of the Alps. The air was pure, the
sky brilliant the road perfect, the sights were
grand. 1t constantly suggested our last years
trip through the White Mountains. The time
will come, when full exploration Of those
mountains and the construction of beautiful
roads will attract as many sight-seers as now
throng the Alpine passes
Lake Ieman, at Geneva, has been immortal
lied in song; it is "a very creditable perform
ance,p as heard a Londoner say of the richest
piece of carved oak in Warwick Castle, but we
have many lakes far more beautiful II is not
G to be compared, for instance, with Lake Win
nepiseogee, on the shores of which we left the
Tribune correspondent, railing at his country
men for their bad taste
Talking of travel on the Rhine | suppose
that the crowd Of voyagers generally embraces
fair average of the better classes of Germans,
and other continentals but, if this be so, | am
at loss to understand in what consists the pc
cuar refinement of European manners, dwelt
upon by a German writer on Americans and
their institutions, quoted q few weeks ago by
the Tribune. If to speak in boisterous tones,
to elbow ladies in rude haste, to smoke on the
quarter. deck till the fumes are so thick as al
most to darken even the " yine-cla hills" and
to expectorate as freely as a backwoodsman-
who, by the way, is not accustomed to select
the quarterback or ladies' saloon for that 0pe-
ration be evidences of refinement We had
plenty of refined people on our Rhine steamers.
Sometimes, indeed, they went so far as to light
their cigars at the dinner table before the des-
sert was disposed Of
The scenery of England is that of gentle
beauty or, to adopt a word in common use
here, it is all very "nice" The hedges are
pretty-the green, thick, soft turf is pretty
the trees are pretty-the cottages, of stone
rough from the quarry, are pretty-the tiny
streams and mimic waterfalls are pretty-the
undulatons of the country are pretty - and
their everything looks perfectly clean and trim
The lawns, the meadows the fields, are all
clean" tidy as wo say-no weeds briers
, loose stones, scattered timber, worm fences
neglected corners We have travelled from
Liverpool to London, from London to Folke-
stone, from London to bennington, to Birming-
: ham, to York, TO Edinburgh across to GIas.
: cow, to Loeb Lomond 20, and from Glasgow
: down TO Carlisle, to the heart of this lake re-
{ gion, whose waters and mountains have been
, discoursed upon so much and so sweetly by
{ Wordsworth Southey Coleridge, and Wilson
o that they are more familiar to some Americans
& than their own mountains and lakes But
U what were all this scenery about me- if it had
not been mmortalized by gifted men Poetry
IN has invested every feature Of it, however min.
70 ute, with an Eden charm, all its own. Not
u bill, not rayine, not pond, not little cave,
n not small heap of earth surrounded by water,
10 WIN" H'' NV " h"hi'i nus not received the
d. baptism of genius, The unknown man who
A. passes me in the street is non entity but give
70 him name, and he is an identity-how we
y seem now to know him Oar poets should de.
Of vote themselves particularly to getting up a
N nomenclature for all the fine points of scenery
SO in their country, and embalm them in song
a We have hundreds of hills which among the
Be- English, would be transformed into mountains,
N and beautiful ponds which would here be Gle.
W waited to the rank of lakes or lochs. We do
:. not know the value Of our possessions till we
~ come abroad, Everything with us is on grand
O, scale. There are no such rivers, lakes, inland
IS seas ranges of mountains, forests prairies, in
Europe az in our country nor has it generally
'e such u sky and such an atmosphere as W,
:, = have. In England, what they call a clear da,
Al would be with us hazy one. Here the mos
4 beautiful prospect is often Obscurcd, ifnot hid
" den, by the vile smoke from the myriad facto
: res and furnaces, everywhere at work TIL
a. smoke Of their torment going up forever an
Of ioDever, or rather spreading abroad, for the Al