§ 55
It is a complex, it is a profound enigma, this of the appeal of the beauty of nature to the senses and emotions of man. For Beauty, we must remember, is not an attribute of the external thing. Beauty is in the soul that feels, the mind that thinks, the memory that remembers. That is beautiful which brings to mind and memory and soul, ecstatic thrill, exalted feeling. That is beautiful which makes for the preservation and propagation and (which should make for the) elevation of the race.—And this is why Beauty is of various kinds. There is a Beauty of the senses, and there is a beauty of the soul—as there is a terrestrial Aphrodite, and an Aphrodite uranian.[38] Though why the earthly and the heavenly Aphrodites should not join hands, I do not know. Perhaps it is only when they do join hands—when there is at one and the same time a spiritual obsession and a physical oblation—that Beauty becomes transfigured before us, reveals her divine nature radiant through fleshly vestments. Ah! this occurs only when we are on the Mount.
§ 56
After all, did John Ruskin really get to the bottom of this matter of the appeal of Nature to the heart of man? Is the beauty of any particular scene due to the generic fact that "those ever-springing flowers and ever-flowing streams had been dyed by the deep colours of human endurance, valour, and virtue"? If my theory is right that beauty is subjective, not objective; that the connecting link between the natural object and the emotion which it evokes is that of memory or association, surely we must seek for a more particular, a more personal explanation than this of Ruskin his "human endurance, valour, and virtue." Well, I too have lounged a whole morning on a mountain top not far from the spot of which Ruskin wrote. Before me was the valley of the Arve; behind me, the valley of the Rhône: both, from that height of vision, and on that perfect day, breathing prosperity and peace. Square mile after square mile of fertile land lay under my eyes: farms and vineyards, fields and meadows, all watered by winding streams. Dotted about, here in groups, there discrete, were the tiled roofs of cottages; and all through the verdure, in long white curves with an occasional tangent, here hidden by boscage, there emerging in the sunlight, ran the good white roads of France. The sweet grass on which I lay was thickly strewn with flowers, and the air brought scents sweet as softest music heard afar. To right and left in the middle distance rose Alpine peaks—light green at their bases, dark green in the zone of the pines, lifting grey or green or purple masses towards the clouds; and straight in front, some seven leagues away, stretched the rugged jagged snow-capped chain of Mont Blanc.
It was early morning, and it was one of those perfect summer days when, as one lay supine, one could actually perceive the filmy clouds vanish into invisibility; while, as an addition to the blessings of the scene, there came to my ear the tinkling bells of the cattle.
And the region was thick with the memories of human endurance, valour, and virtue. Cæsar's legions strode that soil. Long before Cæsar came, marauding bands had met and fought. And, since Cæsar's time, owing to the fortunes of war, war in which man fought hand-to-hand with man—opposed shield to javelin, discharged the feathered arrow, or pointed arquebus and carronade—the very ground on which I walked had changed owners innumerable.
It would be difficult to choose a more appealing scene.—And yet, if I probe my own heart to the core, if I tell my inmost thought, to me a sunny—or even, for that matter, a misty—scene in pastoral England—Surrey or Bucks or Berks, Kent or Devon, Sussex or Herts, where you will—rouses more poignant emotions than all the plain of Haute Savoie backed by the Chaine du Mont Blanc.
Mr Kipling, in his simple language, has come nearer to the truth than has Ruskin with all his felicity of phrase. It is not the associations connected with human endeavour in the mass that make any particular scene to appeal, it is the associations connected with our own little selves; it is because "our hearts are small" that God has
"Ordained for each one spot should prove