The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1905-03-24
Old WORLD SCENERY
THE VARYING PHASES or THE LAND.
scAPes or EUROPE.


msn and mn English scene - The
Details That Count
A friend OF mine insists that nature
plagiarIzes herself In every township.
He denies that she speaks "a various
language" as Bryant assumes, and
says he has discovered Holland scenery
IN Westchester county. A vermonter
tells me be found Green mountain
Views in eastern Cuba II IL true that
In Its elements one landscape In very
like another: there are only a few
types OF scenery. as there are only
few types Of physlognomy. And yet 30
vivid IL the response Of the mind to
single novel feature that 1t is seized
upon ut once by the observer and re.
menibcred an the characteristic thing.
Highly diversified as II Is. II Ii posi-.
bic to indicate by the use Of a very few
details the characteristic scenery Of
Europe. as found when Travelled
through IT, Wild nature Is pretty much
the same everywhere. with such modl-
hcatlons as tropic, temperate or arc.
tic climate imposes. BIt where the
hand OF man * ,1slbl,, upon II OF where
II is animated by his presence scene
takes ut once those national variations
that enable you to Identify II as French.
En,,t,nu -. ftntg.u
tested this for myself when crossing
the frontier OF Germany into Russia. of
Russia into Poland, OF Austria into
Germany again. Beyond the Nlemen
the broad armed windmills grew
scsrcer. the storks gradually disap-
peared from the fields, the peasants
seen at work there-lt was the harvest
season. wore red and blue and mauve
blouses instead Of the dull German col
ors. The fields themselves seemed wet
ter. the crops scantier and the methods
Of handling them more primitive. That
was Russia.
Travelling westward few weeks
later. the dubious and garish church
domes. with their gitterlng Greek
crosses. dropped below the horizon,
and spired Gothic churches, surmount-
ed by the Latin cross. took their places.
The struggling wooden villages, with
their shlngled roofs and nnpayed dirt
streets, for all the world like town
OF the American west. gave way TO
compact little gray hamlets, the green
rnoss ON their matched roofs telling OF
a more ancient occupancy. The fields
again showed careful and intelligent
husbandry. and IN the towns at the
railroad stations ! saw caps, long ga
bardines. slender figures and bearded
anaemic faces OF the Semitic type.
That was Poland.
A fortnight later was riding over
a hilly but smiling country, with vii
lagos every half mile, their brown
tiled. white walled cottages covered
with grapevlncs and set among fruit
trees; with neat little railroad sta
tions and beer gardens about them;
with straw hated women taking In the
late crops from the fields; with yellow
monasteries crownlng the hills and
shovel hated priests In the foreground.
II needed no diyinatlon TO discover
that this was nm Austrian, not Ger
man. landscape.
Every distinctive line In English
scenery-and TaIne thinks every dis
tInctive line In English literature-was
written by the moist climate. It gives
the turf and foliage their dense green.
leads water course through every
field. frInges the brooks with shrub
berry, bathes the landscape In q soft
and broodlng atmosphere, robs II alto
gether OF that daguerreotype sharpness
which invests the landscapes Of Amerl-
ca and makes any nature poem by an
Englishman mlsft for the new world
The sun shines upon Britain through
a cloud. When first crossed TO
France, after living some months in
London, the thing that impressed me
above all else was the perfect sunshine
that flooded the fields. 1t got into my
notebook as a new thing. II Is the
only difference worth speaking Of be-
tween an English and Norman land
scape, II you except the mistletoe
clumps In the forks of the Norman
trees. The people and the villages are
much alike.
entered Italy over the Bremen pass
from the Tyrol The transition is
breathless with the swiftness OF the
change from pine to palm. dramatic
with the memories OF the African and
northern hordes that have stood ON
that mountain wall and seen Italy at
their feet. For Tyrolese landscape 1t
suffices to streak the farther hills with
snow, place village Of wide eaved
cottages, low rooted and covered with
stones. In the foreground. have a jolly
peasant In too brief trousers swinging
his hat at you from the hillside and
fll the air with the sound Of running
water land murmurlng of lnnumerabie
bees" For an Italian landscape at
least for the Lombard landscapes,
which | know the best--you must have
the grapevlnes hanging in festoons
from the mulberry trees. the corn
standing between the trees and the
blue, swift water from the Alps NOV