And here come into play the healthy desire of man in his primitive state, the cry for light and air, and all the beauty of nature. It is hardly a hundred years since we in Europe learned to value the landscape beauties of unspoilt nature. English writers of travels a century ago still spoke of Switzerland with aversion; it was for them a horrible, dismal mountain country. And it is easy to understand how man in his hard struggle for the necessaries of life regarded, and was forced to regard, nature around him as on the whole unfriendly and menacing. But since those times there has been a change for the better, even though it cannot be denied that many men require very specially adjusted spectacles to enable them to enjoy this or that beauty of the nature around them! Thus the landowner feels a pleasing satisfaction at the sight of his cornfields. And yet these cornfields are hardly anything else but an artificially formed bit of bare velt, on which at certain times a short-lived vegetation grows up, whilst at other times the naked soil presents itself to the eye—uninviting, stripped of all adornment, arid and empty. Thus, too, the man who loves wine feels that well-cultivated vineyards are a beautiful sight; but it may be doubted whether he would do so if, say, only cotton-pods grew on the vines! In ancient times, as Humboldt shows, with the Greeks and Romans, as a rule, only country that was “comfortable to live in” was called beautiful, not what was wild and romantic. Yet Propertius[13] and many others praise the beauty of nature left to itself, in contrast with that which is embellished by art. Then we have a long way to travel through the Middle Ages, when the Alps are described to us as “dismal” and “horrible,” till we come to the nature-studies of Rousseau, Kant, and Goethe. At first there were very few to sympathise with them. Their view gradually prevailed, in spite of many backward eddies. Thus Hegel had only one impression of the Swiss Alps, that of a performance tiresome on account of its length—a judgment not far removed from that of the Savoyard peasant who declared that people who took any interest in snow-covered mountains must be insane.
On the other hand, we find in Eastern Asia, and especially among the Japanese, from the earliest times, the most ardent love for nature, and there even the poorest knows how to adorn his home with flowers, and to turn the beauty of the landscape to similar account.
A great part of the interest felt in natural beauty is perhaps to be traced to extraneous considerations. On the other hand, here in Germany we see most of our people full of feeling for our glorious forests and for our German scenery in general. We have to face the prospect, however, of a silenced countryside—a countryside without song or music.[14] That is a matter for anxiety. Insects, birds, quadrupeds, life and movement should be a part of the landscape. This idea should continue to attract more and more adherents. German thought and feeling are altogether in unison on this subject, and it is to be hoped that the cry for the protection of the beauties of nature, for the preservation of the plant and animal worlds, and all that is picturesque in our native landscape, may continue to find expression. The League for the Preservation of the Homeland in Germany gains daily new supporters.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
BEARERS ON THE MARCH.
Men like Professor Conwentz and many others have been working for years in this direction, and carrying on a most successful propaganda. This action for the preservation of the Homeland, taken in the highest and broadest sense of the word, must tend to evoke and foster the love of nature and its beauties in ever wider circles.
In other countries, too, steady progress is being made towards the same goal, and the importance of these considerations has long been recognised. In England and in America a way has recently been found to give practical effect to the idea of the protection of the beauties of nature by measures well calculated for this end. In this connection, too, a refined æsthetic culture is gaining ground. I do not at all close my eyes to the difficulty of regulating the conditions bearing on this matter. But in this connection we must not shrink from decisive measures. Those who come after us will be the first to prize and esteem these measures at their full value.
What I have here described as something to be desired and worth striving for at home must also hold good for the whole world—the preservation of all that is characteristic, all that belongs to primitive nature, wherever it is to be found.
The beauties of nature are most abundant, and in our time they are all—all—threatened with destruction and in need of protection. Where we can save and preserve any of them, our hands should not remain idle.