“And it is no mirage to them,” said Professor Maturin, after a pause, “and that is the best of it all to me. The strangeness of these newcomers is, indeed, refreshing, but I like better to think of them as most of them really are, or soon will be—the most genuine of Americans. They are so through choice and, often, hard endeavor; you and I, perhaps, only through accident. You know the fundamental loyalty of the typical German-American. The Spanish press of the city was staunchly American during our last war. The Turkish periodicals applauded our demonstrations against the Porte; and Hungarians, Servians, Syrians, and Persians have each formally organized for the purpose of influencing their fatherlands to become more like the land of their adoption.
“And so we come to the most valuable of all the ends of travel—the greater realization and appreciation of home. We return from other nations with relief—for there are few American emigrants—to a yet new land of fertile soil and mineral wealth; to a people varied, yet homogeneous, energetic, aggressive, ingenious, and self-reliant. We face, it is true, problems such as the world has never known before, but with unprecedented belief in idealism, morality, order, and education; not apprehensive of danger, but quick in recognizing and decisive in meeting it. Our successes in transportation, in architecture, and in material well-being in general; our achievement of the welfare of the whole people over that of section or class, of equality of opportunity for each and of benevolence toward all, have already taught the whole world new lessons of peace, tolerance, and faith in the average man. Nor do I see any reason, as we become more and more a new race, blended of many, why our good fortunes should not continue and increase. Anything else would falsify our trust in a wide and a wise humanity—and that is unthinkable.
“But, I beg your pardon,” said Professor Maturin, as I rose to say good-night, “I did not mean to take the stump; and yet, I believe that it is good sometimes to give utterance to these things which all of us feel. Nothing revives the vigor of one’s spirit like the conscious realization of being in harmony with fundamental law.”
IV
Country Life
I HAVE never seen my friend Professor Maturin in better health or spirits than he was when I met him the other evening at the Athenaeum. He had just finished dinner, and indicated that he was in the mood for talk by ordering two of the Cuban vegueras that he keeps in a private box at the club, for use on special occasions.
“I am just back from the best vacation I have ever had,” he began. “I have been spending a month with a friend up the river, at a most delightful place, built and planted about fifty years ago by his father, from memories of the villas about Florence, where he once lived. The house has window balconies, a tower, a loggia opening west and south, and a red-flagged terrace with a stone balustrade, all complete. Below this slopes a wide lawn, then many flowering shrubs, and finally splendid groupings of trees between and over which you may see the river, here at its widest. The hills beyond and the highlands to the north complete the picture.
“After breakfasting alone, at any time my fancy chose, according to the happy custom of the house, I spent whole mornings on the terrace, looking through the aisles of ancient oaks at the river, or at the heaped-up summer clouds as they drifted south. I have heard the Hudson called epic, because of its breadth and power. It is no less so in its incidental embellishments of sunlight and shadow. I often watched it from its morning silver, through all shades of reflected blue, until at night it looked like a texture of royal purple into which the moonlight and the stars were being woven. The clouds were better than any Alpine mountains. Their mass and light and dark were as definite, and they had other clouds about their peaks and oceans of vapor at their feet. In addition they changed constantly, and turned to gold and opal at evening.
“At luncheon, or shortly before, I met my host and hostess. If before, we often strolled through a catalpa avenue to a semi-circular stone seat overlooking the river, or along a pine walk to a lookout toward the highlands, or past an orchard back of the house to a certain sunset hill, for the widest view of all, where we could see the river for twenty miles. Sometimes the hostess led us to sections which she called ‘nature’s gardens,’ because of the wild flowers, of which she was particularly fond.
“About such flowers I knew so little that I would have been tempted to revive my ancient botany had I not a good while ago learned the necessity of limiting the number of one’s avocations and of resisting the temptation to rob them of time, to spend on this new thing and that. I felt the same way about the trees, which, I was told, represented every indigenous variety. I knew by name only oak and elm, beech and maple, and a few others; but I made the most of the compensations of my ignorance, by noting, with all the freshness of discovery, the characteristic angle or curve of the different boughs, the varied form, texture, and characteristic movement of branch and leaf, the innumerable greens of the foliage, and their infinite modulations under light and shade.
“I am sure that we often know too much to get the full value of our impressions. For a long time painters could not represent trees because they remembered what each leaf was like; Claude painted his landscapes from what he knew, rather than what he saw, Constable from what he loved, Turner from what he imagined. It was not until the Barbizon men lived in the forest that Rousseau caught the actual form and Corot the fragrance of nature, and Monet could paint true light and air. It is said that the most interesting writing is done by generally cultivated people concerning subjects that are new to them. The greatest enjoyment of nature often comes in the same way. It is quite possible to be ‘connoisseured out of one’s senses.’