See also J. A. Symonds, Studies of the Greek Poets, Vol. II, p. 257: "The Greeks and Romans paid less attention to inanimate nature than we do, and were beyond all question repelled by the savage grandeur of marine and mountain scenery, preferring landscapes of smiling and cultivated beauty to rugged sublimity or the picturesqueness of decay...."
See also W. R. Hardie, Lectures on Classical Subjects, pp. 3, 9, 17, and Friedlander, Roman Life and Manners, Vol. I. pp. 391, 392, 393, 395.
[15] Ueber die Entstehung und Entwicklung des Gefühls für das Romantische in der Natur, pp. 4, 10.
[16] Culturstudien aus drei Jahrhunderten, p. 57.
[17] Ibid., pp. 59, 60.
[18] Ueber die Entstehung und Entwicklung des Gefühls für das Romantische in der Natur, pp. 2, 3.
[19] E. B. d'Auvergne, The English Castles, pp. 216, 217.
[20] See Lettres Nouvelles addressées à Monsieur de Malesherbes (Geneva, 1780), 3rd letter, p. 43. Speaking of a lonely walk in the neighbourhood of his country house, he says: "J'allois alors d'un pas plus tranquille chercher quelque lieu sauvage dans la forêt, quelque lieu désert, où rien ne me montrant la main de l'homme ne m'annonçât la servitude et la domination, enfin quelqu' asyle où je pusse croire avoir pénétré le premier, et où nul tiers importun ne vint s'entreposer entre la nature et moi. C'était là qu'elle sembloit déployer à mes yeux une magnificence toujours nouvelle. L'or des genêts et la pourpre des bruyères frappoient mes yeux d'un luxe qui touchoit mon cœur; la majesté des arbres"—and so on in the same romantic strain for twenty lines. It is impossible to reproduce every passage I should like to quote, in order to reveal the full range of Rousseau's passion for nature and his bitter contempt of man and man's work; but the above is typical, and other equally gushing passages may be found in Les Rêveries du Promeneur Solitaire (Paris, 1882), pp. 119, 138, etc., etc.; La Nouvelle Héloise, especially the 11th letter; Les Confessions (Ed. 1889, Vol. I), Bk. VI, pp. 229, 234, 238, 245, and Bk. IV, p. 169: "... on sait déjà ce que j'entends par un beau pays. Jamais pays de plaine, quelque beau qu'il fût, ne parut tel à mes yeux. Il me faut des torrents, des rochers, des sapins, des bois noirs, des montagnes, des chemins raboteux à monter et à descendre, des précipices à mes cotés, qui me fassent peur.... J'eus ce plaisir ... en approchant de Chambéri ... car ce qu'il y a de plaisir dans mon goût pour des lieux escarpés, est qu'ils me font tourner la tête: et j 'aime beaucoup ce tournoiement pourvu que je sois en sureté."
[21] Sämmtliche Werke (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1838), Vol. XII, "Ueber naive und sentimentale Dichtung," p. 168, 169: "This kind of pleasure at the sight of Nature is not an æsthetic pleasure, but a moral one: for it is arrived at by means of an idea, and it is not felt immediately the act of contemplation has taken place, neither does it depend for its existence upon beauty of form." And, p. 189, after pointing out that the Greeks completely lacked this feeling for Nature, he says: "Whence comes this different sense? How is it that we who, in everything related to Nature, are inferior to the ancients, should pay such homage to her, should cling so heartily to her, and be able to embrace the inanimate world with such warmth of feeling? It is not our greater conformity to Nature, but, on the contrary, the opposition to her, which is inherent in our conditions and our customs, that impels us to find some satisfaction in the physical world for our awakening instinct for truth and primitive rudeness, which, like the moral tendency from which that instinct arises, lies incorruptible and indestructible in all human hearts and can find no satisfaction in the moral world."
[22] See Hegels Leben, by Karl Rosenkranz, especially pp. 475, 476 and 482, 483.