The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-08-28
THE LOVE OF NATURE.
One Writer Presents Proof That II Is
an Acquired Taste.

81 often wonder" said the high,
school principal, how many of the
people who are travelling across our
own continent and the sea to view.
mature at her widest appreciate the
fact that their enjoyment of her hand
/ iwork in most awesome aspects is a
result due rather to long training and
education than any innate sense OF
the beautiful and the aesthetic. There,
was a time. and not so many centuries
ago, when the attitude Of cultivated
men and women toward nature was
quite different from what 1t is today.
The eighteenth century looked askance
at what the nineteenth and the TWEEN
tieth go to no. end of trouble. In con-
venience, and expense to pay the warm
est sort of tribute and 1.-THE highest
admiration.
without being able to lay my hands
on the passage, i remember that Adj
Olson speaks somewhere, / believe in
his letters. about the barbarous ana
abhorrent scenery of the Alps. Me-
caulay. writing about the Celtic wilds
of Scotland. tells us that 1T excited
nothing but contempt and loathings
Wood, water. and Graz, he Observes
were in no wise different then from
what they are now, when they are be-
ing visited by no end of those who
come to sketch or merely to praise ana
see. The Trosachs wound as now be-
tween gigantic walls of rock tapes
tried with broom and wild roses: Foy-
ers came headIong down through the
brentwood with the same leap and
the same raor with which he still rush
es to Loeb Ness. and. in defiance OF
the sun of June. the snowy scalp or
Ben Cruachan rose. as It still rises
over the willowy islets of Loeb Awe,
Yet none of these sights had power
until recent period to attract single
poet or painter from more opulent ana
more tranquil regions.
"In 1880 Capt. Burt, an English
traveller of intelligence and cultivatinos
wrote of the mountains Of Inverness
shire. with the feeling and the senti-
ment common to his age. that they
were monstrous excresences. the De-
forr1ity of which made the sterile
plains seem lovely by comparison IN
fine weather he found them still more
the more disagreeable did those mis-
shapen masses of gloomy brown ana
dirty purple effect the eye. The tame
and subdued beauties o. Hicnmono
Even. Oliver Goldsmith, poet
though he was, and alive to the beau
ties of nature when tanned ana suDou-
ed. was repealed by the scenery OF the
highlands, and declared that he found
Infinitely more pleasing the .conven-
tionaI and sober LeYdens the vast ex-
panse OF verdant meadow tne Viilas
with their statues and Grottoes, tne
trim flower beds. and the rectangular
avenues or the district that COM
prises Loeb Katrine and Locn Aomono,
which today calls forth explanations
of rapture from the most common
place and the most matter-of-fact and
businessHke travellers. the poet could
write: Shall 1 tire you with . ae-
scription of this unfruitfnl country,
where 1 must lead you over their hills
all brown with heath or their valleys
scarce able to feed a rabbitf Every
part Of the country presents tine same
dismal landscape. No grove or Drcok
lends its music to cheer the stranger.
savs. Il was wholly taken up in OBJ
serving the face of the country.
Nothing can equal its beauty. Where
ever I turned my eyes ana houses,
elegant gardens. statues, Erottoes. and
vistag presented themselves. Scotland
and this country bear the highest con-
trast. there hills and rocks Intercept
every prospect; here 1t Is all con-
tinued plain
'And so one might go on quoting
indefinitely to show our love for ma
ture, like many OF our other senti-
ments. has been instilied and cultivat-
ed, and how all OF as IN one way or
another are but the children of our
age and our time.'-ChicaGo News.