1. Forest-lands, sustaining the great mass of the magnificent vegetation of the tropics, for the most part characterized by moist and unhealthy heat, and watered by enormous rivers, or periodical rains. This country cannot, I believe, develop the mind or art of man. He may reach great subtlety of intellect, as the Indian, but not become learned, nor produce any noble art, only a savage or grotesque form of it. Even supposing the evil influences of climate could be vanquished, the scenery is on too large a scale. It would be difficult to conceive of groves less fit for academic purposes than those mentioned by Humboldt, into which no one can enter except under a stout wooden shield, to avoid the chance of being killed by the fall of a nut.
2. Sand-lands, including the desert and dry-rock plains of the earth, inhabited generally by a nomade population, capable of high mental cultivation and of solemn monumental or religious art, but not of art in which pleasurableness forms a large element, their life being essentially one of hardship.
3. Grape and wheat lands, namely, rocks and hills, such as are good for the vine, associated with arable ground forming the noblest and best ground given to man. In these districts only art of the highest kind seems possible, the religious art of the sand-lands being here joined with that of pleasure or sense.
4. Meadow-lands, including the great pastoral and agricultural districts of the North, capable only of an inferior art: apt to lose its spirituality and become wholly material.
5. Moss-lands, including the rude forest-mountain and ground of the North, inhabited by a healthy race, capable of high mental cultivation and moral energy, but wholly incapable of art, except savage, like that of the forest-lands, or as in Scandinavia.
We might carry out these divisions into others, but these are I think essential, and easily remembered in a tabular form; saying “wood” instead of “forest,” and “field” for “meadow,” we can get such a form shortly worded:—
| Wood-lands | Shrewd intellect | No art. |
| Sand-lands | High intellect | Religious art. |
| Vine-lands | Highest intellect | Perfect art. |
| Field-lands | High intellect | Material art. |
| Moss-lands | Shrewd intellect | No art. |
§ 3. In this table the moss-lands appear symmetrically opposed to the wood-lands, which in a sort they are; the too diminutive vegetation under bleakest heaven, opposed to the too colossal under sultriest heaven, while the perfect ministry of the elements, represented by bread and wine, produces the perfect soul of man.
But this is not altogether so. The moss-lands have one great advantage over the forest-lands, namely, sight of the sky.