The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-01-21

How is one to determine the beautiful in
a country and TO pronounce one country
more beautiful than another and perhaps
outrivaling all? By individual opinion
and taste or by international jury? Ii a
jury were chosen would the verdict be
unanimous? Could we expect twelve
ladies and gentlemen-for ladies would
have to serve on grave question of taste
to agree on what is pretty in scenery, what
is picturesque in villages and suburbs. as
signing this share to nature and that credit
to man. and unhesitatingly give the palm
to one land supremacy blest with per-
fections to please the eye? In place of
fierce dissenson, and each dsputant pre-
pared to claim the award for his own
country quite eonscientiously The Ital-
ian, the Swiss. the Norwegian, the Rhine
lander. the Dutch, the English, Scotch and
Irish. the American, the Persian. the
Hindoo, the Japanese and Chinese would
all logically lay down canons of criticism
Tor their own guidance and abide by them
very tenaciously. and some umpire from
No Mans Land would have to play the
part of impartial autocrat of taste.
No International jury of this kind has
ever assembled and never will. but when
such jury is formed to criticize pictures
and give the painters medals everybody
knows that great amount of wrangilng
and Jealousy is the inevitable result.
Naturally the patriotic function of liking
| ones own country best dictates much OF
the preference one has for the pretty or
beautiful. A Swiss is unhappy without
mountains and a HOllander cannot bear
that anything should be Invisible and con-
siders his polders beautiful because he can
see across them as over table. 1t is lor-
fu1FN IN hat I'm ont
does exist Only few people are In
position To travel much and the ability
they have TO make comparisons does not
appear to add materially 10 their happl-
ness. Some travellers have been able TO
depict scenery diametrically different In
the same glowing language, inasmucb that
what they write about beetle-lnfesieo
Brazil or ant-tOrmented Africa makes the
reader long to go thither as 10 Paradise
But countries which are still in primeval
| iuxuriance and struggle. and man nlmseli
is but little advanced in the arts OF life,
are not fairly to be compared with old
| lands where civilization or mans handl-
work has been modifying the aspect oil
| things during many centuries.
Grant Allen. novelist. essayist ana ex-
positor of science. has, in postprandial
| philosophy paper. ventured his Individual
opinion that England is the prettest coun-
try in Europe. and he almost goes the
length of saying that 10 is also the most
beautiful. But he haits at that conclusion
and remembers views Of Norway and Swift
zerland. He confines his laudalion to "coun-
try" for when cities arise for comparison
he has visions of Rome, Venice and Flor
ence. Taking England as country" alone
he holds that no other equals it.
Have you ever thought why r' he asks.
MAN made the town." says the proverb.
land God made the country. Not so in
England. There man made the country,
haa NH Ia Rnn
pares England in the southeast with the
northeast of France. GeoOgically the land
is the same. Why is the one hldeous,
gloomy and dreary. from BOulogne to Paris,
from the Belgian frontier TO Paris, and the
uther charming in every direction?
What" he asks, has made the differ
euce? Man, the planter and gardener.
England is beautified by copse and hedge
row, by pine-clad ridge and wiilOw-cov-
cred hollow, by meadows interspersed
with great spreading oaks, by pastures
where drowsy sheep huddle under the
shade of ancestral beech trees. Its lowell
ness is human. In itself l believe the
actual contour of England cannot once
have been better than the contour of
Northern France-though nowadays it is
hard TO realize it. Judici0uS planting and
a constant eye to picturesque effect in
scenery have made England what she
is-the garden OF Europe"
The American. he remarks, as he makes
the run from Liverr col to London, is
charmed with "the exquisite air of unique
cultivation and soft rural beauty" And
he goes on to say: "ThoroughIy wild
country. indeed. unless bold and noun
famous. does not often please one. 1t is
apt 10 be bare, unattractive and desolate
Witness the veldt, the steppes, the
prairies. You may go through miles and
miles Of the States and Canada where the
wilderness rather repeIs than delights you.
l do not say everywhere; in places the
wilderness will blossom like a rose; boggy
margins of lakes. fallen trunks in the
forest overgrown with wild flowers, make
scenes unattaiDable in our civilized Eng
land. England in her own way is
unique and unrivaled. Such parks, such
gree1swards, such grassy lawns, such
wooded filth are wholly unknown else
where"
Many besides Grant Allen have re-
marked on the garden-like aspect of Eng
land. Everywhere, from Derbyshir south
ward, In the west and in the east, the char-
acterlsiics of country beautfied prevail.
Inc ROADS are not straight as in France
nor dotted with sentinel Lombardy pop
lars like printers marks of exclamation.
Ihey curve out and in and wind over the
blils, following the contour of the land
ana rarely cutting through the steep places
narsnly. oaks, chestnut, willows, planes.
tines and aiders occur frequently in pic
NrtNSAuO anu TIE distance
| always appears to be thickIy wooded.
although in reality the plantations of wood
are not extensive, and much of the charm
| comes from the trees left TO grow in the
| cornhelds and from the hawthorn hedges.
broken here and there with tufts of
hawthorn trees.
Inc fields are small, so that one of fifty
acres is really large. and those of ten or
| twenty acres are not diminutive. Round
them all run the hedges of hawthorn. not
allowed 20 grow rank and struggling. but
cut close with bill-hooks and thickened.
untll IN summer they form good nesting
cover for innumerable birds. and are the
pest OF all Enclosures for stock at pasture
or TO Keep stock from poaching or stray
ing: Ihe road itself may be rutty and
oadiy macadamized. but not if it Is a main
road. In wet country ditch, rich In
garden OF weeds for the botanist, lines
each side, and good margin of pasture is
allowed between the ditch and. the travel
ing center. on which the tinker's donkey
always has wholesome browsing, and the
tinker himself. with unkempt swarm of
cnlidren and dark eyed women folks,
pHches camp and boils his kettle.
This love of hedgerows, woodland and
curves instead of straight lines is charac.
terlstlc OF England. You do not find il in