Nor was the ancient absence of appreciation confined to scenery. Even Burke, speaking of Stonehenge, says, "Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable."
Ugly scenery, however, may in some cases have an injurious effect on the human system. It has been ingeniously suggested that what really drove Don Quixote out of his mind was not the study of his books of chivalry, so much as the monotonous scenery of La Mancha.
The love of landscape is not indeed due to Art alone. It has been the happy combination of art and science which has trained us to perceive the beauty which surrounds us.
Art helps us to see, and "hundreds of people can talk for one who can think; but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one…. Remembering always that there are two characters in which all greatness of Art consists—first, the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts; then the ordering those facts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look upon them, to the utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. And thus great Art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble life; for as the ignoble person, in his dealings with all that occurs in the world about him, first sees nothing clearly, looks nothing fairly in the face, and then allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent and unescapable force of the things that he would not foresee and could not understand: so the noble person, looking the facts of the world full in the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then deals with them in unalarmed intelligence and unhurried strength, and becomes, with his human intellect and will, no unconscious nor insignificant agent in consummating their good and restraining their evil." [7]
May we not also hope that in this respect also still further progress may be made, that beauties may be revealed, and pleasures may be in store for those who come after us, which we cannot appreciate, or at least can but faintly feel.
Even now there is scarcely a cottage without something more or less successfully claiming to rank as Art,—a picture, a photograph, or a statuette; and we may fairly hope that much as Art even now contributes to the happiness of life, it will do so even more effectively in the future.
[1] Reynolds.
[2] Shakespeare.
[3] Dryden.
[4] Haweis.