CHAPTER XI

O youth, whose skill the ice-cothurnDrives glowing now, and now restrains,On city hearths let faggots burn,But come with me to crystal plains.The scene is filled with vapouring light,As when the winter morning's primeLooks on the lake. Above it nightScatters, like stars, the glittering rime.How still and white is all around!How rings the track with new sparr'd frost!Far off the metal's cymbal soundBetrays thee, for a moment lost ...

O youth, whose skill the ice-cothurn

Drives glowing now, and now restrains,

On city hearths let faggots burn,

But come with me to crystal plains.

The scene is filled with vapouring light,

As when the winter morning's prime

Looks on the lake. Above it night

Scatters, like stars, the glittering rime.

How still and white is all around!

How rings the track with new sparr'd frost!

Far off the metal's cymbal sound

Betrays thee, for a moment lost ...

Cramer tells how Klopstock paid a long-remembered visit to Count Bernstoff at Schloss Stintenburg:

It has a most romantic situation in a bewitching part of Mecklenburg; 'tis surrounded by forest full of delightful gloom, and a large lake, with a charming little island in the centre, which wakes echoes. Klopstock is very fond of echoes, and is always trying to find them in his walks.

This illustrates the lines inStintenburg:

Isle of pious solitude,Loved playmate of the echo and the lake, etc.

Isle of pious solitude,

Loved playmate of the echo and the lake, etc.

but in this ode, as in so many of his, simple personal feeling gives way to the stilted mannerism of the bard poetry.

He wrote of Soroe,[12]one of the loveliest places in the Island of Zealand, as 'an uncommonly pleasant place'; where 'By a sacred tree, on a raised grass plot two hundred paces from the great alley, and from a view over the Friedensburg Lake towards a little wooded island ... Fanny appeared to him in the silver evening clouds over the tree-tops.'

The day on which he composedThe Lake of Zurichwas one of the pleasantest in his life. Cramer says: 'He has often told me and still tells, with youthful fervour, about those delightful daysand this excursion: the boat full of people, mostly young, all in good spirits; charming girls, his wife Herzel, a lovely May morning.'

But, unlike St Preux, he 'seemed less impressed by our scenery than by the beauty of our girls,[13]and his letters bear out the remark.[14]Yet delight in Nature was always with him: Klopstock's lofty morality pours forth all through it. Nature, love, fame, wine, everything is looked at from an ennobling point of view.'

Fair is the majesty of all thy worksOn the green earth, O Mother Nature fair!But fairer the glad faceEnraptured with their view.Come from the vine banks of the glittering lake,Or--hast thou climbed the smiling skies anew--Come on the roseate tipOf evening's breezy wing,And teach my song with glee of youth to glow,Sweet joy, like thee--with glee of shouting youths,Or feeling Fanny's laugh.Behind us far already Uto lay.At whose feet Zurich in the quiet valeFeeds her free sons: behind--Receding vine-clad hills.Uncloud'd beamed the top of silver Alps,And warmer beat the heart of gazing youths,And warmer to their fairCompanions spoke its glow.And Haller's Doris sang, the pride of song;And Hirzel's Daphne, dear to Kleist and Gleim;And we youths sang and feltAs each were--Hagedorn.Soon the green meadow took us to the coolAnd shadowy forest, which becrowns the isle.Then cam'st thou, Joy; thou cam'stDown in full tide to us;Yes, goddess Joy, thyself; we felt, we clasp'd,Best sister of humanity, thyself,With thy dear innocenceAccompanied, thyself.Sweet thy inspiring breath, O cheerful Spring;When the meads cradle thee, and their soft airsInto the hearts of youthsAnd hearts of virgins glide,Thou makest feeling conqueror. Ah! through theeFuller, more tremulous, heaves each blooming breast;With lips spell-freed by theeYoung love unfaltering pleads.Fair gleams the wine, when to the social changeOf thought, or heart-felt pleasure, it invites,And the 'Socratic' cupWith dewy roses bound,Sheds through the bosom bliss, and wakes resolves,Such as the drunkard knows not--proud resolvesEmboldening to despairWhate'er the sage disowns.Delightful thrills against the panting heartFame's silver voice--and immortalityIs a great thought....But sweeter, fairer, more delightful, 'tisOn a friend's arm to know oneself a friend....O were ye here, who love me though afar ...How would we build us huts of friendship, hereTogether dwell for ever.

Fair is the majesty of all thy works

On the green earth, O Mother Nature fair!

But fairer the glad face

Enraptured with their view.

Come from the vine banks of the glittering lake,

Or--hast thou climbed the smiling skies anew--

Come on the roseate tip

Of evening's breezy wing,

And teach my song with glee of youth to glow,

Sweet joy, like thee--with glee of shouting youths,

Or feeling Fanny's laugh.

Behind us far already Uto lay.At whose feet Zurich in the quiet valeFeeds her free sons: behind--Receding vine-clad hills.Uncloud'd beamed the top of silver Alps,And warmer beat the heart of gazing youths,And warmer to their fairCompanions spoke its glow.And Haller's Doris sang, the pride of song;And Hirzel's Daphne, dear to Kleist and Gleim;And we youths sang and feltAs each were--Hagedorn.

Behind us far already Uto lay.

At whose feet Zurich in the quiet vale

Feeds her free sons: behind--

Receding vine-clad hills.

Uncloud'd beamed the top of silver Alps,

And warmer beat the heart of gazing youths,

And warmer to their fair

Companions spoke its glow.

And Haller's Doris sang, the pride of song;

And Hirzel's Daphne, dear to Kleist and Gleim;

And we youths sang and felt

As each were--Hagedorn.

Soon the green meadow took us to the coolAnd shadowy forest, which becrowns the isle.Then cam'st thou, Joy; thou cam'stDown in full tide to us;Yes, goddess Joy, thyself; we felt, we clasp'd,Best sister of humanity, thyself,With thy dear innocenceAccompanied, thyself.

Soon the green meadow took us to the cool

And shadowy forest, which becrowns the isle.

Then cam'st thou, Joy; thou cam'st

Down in full tide to us;

Yes, goddess Joy, thyself; we felt, we clasp'd,

Best sister of humanity, thyself,

With thy dear innocence

Accompanied, thyself.

Sweet thy inspiring breath, O cheerful Spring;When the meads cradle thee, and their soft airsInto the hearts of youthsAnd hearts of virgins glide,Thou makest feeling conqueror. Ah! through theeFuller, more tremulous, heaves each blooming breast;With lips spell-freed by theeYoung love unfaltering pleads.Fair gleams the wine, when to the social changeOf thought, or heart-felt pleasure, it invites,And the 'Socratic' cupWith dewy roses bound,Sheds through the bosom bliss, and wakes resolves,Such as the drunkard knows not--proud resolvesEmboldening to despairWhate'er the sage disowns.

Sweet thy inspiring breath, O cheerful Spring;

When the meads cradle thee, and their soft airs

Into the hearts of youths

And hearts of virgins glide,

Thou makest feeling conqueror. Ah! through thee

Fuller, more tremulous, heaves each blooming breast;

With lips spell-freed by thee

Young love unfaltering pleads.

Fair gleams the wine, when to the social change

Of thought, or heart-felt pleasure, it invites,

And the 'Socratic' cup

With dewy roses bound,

Sheds through the bosom bliss, and wakes resolves,

Such as the drunkard knows not--proud resolves

Emboldening to despair

Whate'er the sage disowns.

Delightful thrills against the panting heartFame's silver voice--and immortalityIs a great thought....But sweeter, fairer, more delightful, 'tisOn a friend's arm to know oneself a friend....O were ye here, who love me though afar ...How would we build us huts of friendship, hereTogether dwell for ever.

Delightful thrills against the panting heart

Fame's silver voice--and immortality

Is a great thought....

But sweeter, fairer, more delightful, 'tis

On a friend's arm to know oneself a friend....

O were ye here, who love me though afar ...

How would we build us huts of friendship, here

Together dwell for ever.

This is of Fredensborg on an August day:

Here, too, did Nature tarry, when her handPour'd living beauty over dale and hill,And to adorn this pleasant landLong time she lingered and stood still....The lake how tranquil! From its level brimThe shore swells gently, wooded o'er with green,And buries in its verdure dimThe lustre of the summer e'en....

Here, too, did Nature tarry, when her hand

Pour'd living beauty over dale and hill,

And to adorn this pleasant land

Long time she lingered and stood still....

The lake how tranquil! From its level brim

The shore swells gently, wooded o'er with green,

And buries in its verdure dim

The lustre of the summer e'en....

The inner and outer life are closely blended inThe Early Grave:

Welcome, O silver moon,Fair still companion of the night!Friend of the pensive, flee not soon;Thou stayest, and the clouds pass light.Young waking May aloneIs fair as summer's night so still,When from his locks the dews drop down,And, rosy, he ascends the hill.Ye noble souls and true,Whose graves with sacred moss are strawn.Blest were I, might I see with youThe glimmering night, the rosy dawn.

Welcome, O silver moon,Fair still companion of the night!Friend of the pensive, flee not soon;Thou stayest, and the clouds pass light.

Welcome, O silver moon,

Fair still companion of the night!

Friend of the pensive, flee not soon;

Thou stayest, and the clouds pass light.

Young waking May aloneIs fair as summer's night so still,When from his locks the dews drop down,And, rosy, he ascends the hill.Ye noble souls and true,Whose graves with sacred moss are strawn.Blest were I, might I see with youThe glimmering night, the rosy dawn.

Young waking May alone

Is fair as summer's night so still,

When from his locks the dews drop down,

And, rosy, he ascends the hill.

Ye noble souls and true,

Whose graves with sacred moss are strawn.

Blest were I, might I see with you

The glimmering night, the rosy dawn.

This is true lyric feeling, spontaneous, not forced. Many of his odes, and parts of theMessias, shew great love for Nature. There is a fine flight of imagination inThe Festival of Spring:

Not into the ocean of all the worlds would I plunge--not hover where the first created, the glad choirs of the sons of light, adore, deeply adore and sunk in ecstasy. Only around the drop on the bucket, only around the earth, would I hover and adore. Hallelujah! hallelujah! the drop on the bucket flowed also out of the hand of the Almighty.When out of the hand of the Almighty the greater earth flowed, when the streams of light rushed, and the seven stars began to be--then flowedst thou, drop, out of the hand of the Almighty.When a stream of light rushed, and our sun began to be, a cataract of waves of light poured, as adown the rock a storm-cloud, and girded Orion, then flowedst thou, drop, out of the hand of the Almighty. Who are the thousandfold thousands, who all the myriads that inhabit the drop?...But thou, worm of Spring, which, greenly golden, art fluttering beside me, thou livest and art, perhaps, ah! not immortal....The storm winds that carry the thunder, how they roar, how with loud waves they stream athwart the forest! Now they hush, slow wanders the black cloud....Ah! already rushes heaven and earth with the gracious rain; now is the earth refreshed....Behold Jehovah comes no longer in storm; in gentle pleasant murmurs comes Jehovah, and under him bends the bow of peace.

When out of the hand of the Almighty the greater earth flowed, when the streams of light rushed, and the seven stars began to be--then flowedst thou, drop, out of the hand of the Almighty.

When a stream of light rushed, and our sun began to be, a cataract of waves of light poured, as adown the rock a storm-cloud, and girded Orion, then flowedst thou, drop, out of the hand of the Almighty. Who are the thousandfold thousands, who all the myriads that inhabit the drop?...

But thou, worm of Spring, which, greenly golden, art fluttering beside me, thou livest and art, perhaps, ah! not immortal....

The storm winds that carry the thunder, how they roar, how with loud waves they stream athwart the forest! Now they hush, slow wanders the black cloud....

Ah! already rushes heaven and earth with the gracious rain; now is the earth refreshed....

Behold Jehovah comes no longer in storm; in gentle pleasant murmurs comes Jehovah, and under him bends the bow of peace.

In another ode,The Worlds, he calls the stars 'drops of the ocean.'

Again, inDeathhe shews the sense of his own nothingness, in presence of the overpowering greatness of the Creator:

Ye starry hosts that glitter in the sky,How ye exalt me! Trancing is the sightOf all Thy glorious works, Most High.How lofty art Thou in Thy wondrous might;What joy to gaze upon these hosts, to oneWho feels himself so little, God so great,Himself but dust, and the great God his own!Oh, when I die, such rapture on me wait!

Ye starry hosts that glitter in the sky,

How ye exalt me! Trancing is the sight

Of all Thy glorious works, Most High.

How lofty art Thou in Thy wondrous might;

What joy to gaze upon these hosts, to one

Who feels himself so little, God so great,

Himself but dust, and the great God his own!

Oh, when I die, such rapture on me wait!

As regards our subject, Klopstock performed this function--he tuned the strings of feeling for Nature to a higher pitch, thereby excelling all his contemporaries. His poetry always tended to extravagance; but in thought, feeling, and language alike, he was ahead of his time.

The idyllic was now cultivated with increased fervour, especially by the Göttingen Brotherhood of Poets. The artificial and conventional began to wane, and Nature's own voice was heard again. The songs of Claudius were like a breath of spring.[15]His peasant songs have the genuine ring; they are hail-fellow-well-met with Nature. Hebel is the only modern poet like him.

The lovely day-star's run its course....Come, mop my face, dear wife,And then dish up....The silvery moon will look down from his placeAnd preside at our meal over dishes and grace.

The lovely day-star's run its course....

Come, mop my face, dear wife,

And then dish up....

The silvery moon will look down from his place

And preside at our meal over dishes and grace.

He hated artificiality:

Simple joy in Nature, free from artifice, gives as great a pleasure as an honest lover's kiss.

HisCradle Song to be sung by Moonlightis delightful in its naive humour (the moon was his special favourite):

Sleep then, little one. Why dost thou weep?Moonlight so tender and quiet so deep,Quickly and easily cometh thy sleep.Fond of all little ones is the good moon;Girls most of all, but he even loves boys.Down from up there he sends beautiful toys....He's old as a raven, he goes everywhere;Even when father was young, he was there.

Sleep then, little one. Why dost thou weep?

Moonlight so tender and quiet so deep,

Quickly and easily cometh thy sleep.

Fond of all little ones is the good moon;

Girls most of all, but he even loves boys.

Down from up there he sends beautiful toys....

He's old as a raven, he goes everywhere;

Even when father was young, he was there.

The pearl of his poems is the exquisiteEvening Song:

The moon hath risen on high,And in the clear dark skyThe golden stars all brightly glow;And black and hushed the woods,While o'er the fields and floodsThe white mists hover to and fro.How still the earth, how calm!What dear and home-like charmFrom gentle twilight doth she borrow!Like to some quiet room,Where, wrapt in still soft gloom,We sleep away the daylight's sorrow.

The moon hath risen on high,And in the clear dark skyThe golden stars all brightly glow;And black and hushed the woods,While o'er the fields and floodsThe white mists hover to and fro.

The moon hath risen on high,

And in the clear dark sky

The golden stars all brightly glow;

And black and hushed the woods,

While o'er the fields and floods

The white mists hover to and fro.

How still the earth, how calm!What dear and home-like charmFrom gentle twilight doth she borrow!Like to some quiet room,Where, wrapt in still soft gloom,We sleep away the daylight's sorrow.

How still the earth, how calm!

What dear and home-like charm

From gentle twilight doth she borrow!

Like to some quiet room,

Where, wrapt in still soft gloom,

We sleep away the daylight's sorrow.

Boie'sEvening Songis in the same key. None of the moonshine poets of his day expressed night-fall like this:

How still it is! How softThe breezes blow!The lime leaves lisp in whisper and echo answers low;Scarce audibly the rivulet running amid the flowerWith murmuring ripple laps the edge of yonder mystic bower.And ever darker grows the veil thou weavest o'er the land,And ever quieter the hush--a hush as of the grave....Listen! 'tis Night! she comes, unlighted by a star,And with the slow sweep of her heavy wingAwes and revives the timid earth.

How still it is! How soft

The breezes blow!

The lime leaves lisp in whisper and echo answers low;

Scarce audibly the rivulet running amid the flower

With murmuring ripple laps the edge of yonder mystic bower.

And ever darker grows the veil thou weavest o'er the land,

And ever quieter the hush--a hush as of the grave....

Listen! 'tis Night! she comes, unlighted by a star,

And with the slow sweep of her heavy wing

Awes and revives the timid earth.

Bürger sings in praise of idyllic comfort inThe Village, and Hoelty's mild enthusiasm, touched with melancholy, turned in the same direction.

My predilection is for rural poetry and melancholy enthusiasm; all I ask is a hut, a forest, a meadow with a spring in it, and a wife in my hut.

The beginning of hisCountry Lifeshews that moralizing was still in the air:

Happy the man who has the town escaped!To him the whistling trees, the murmuring brooks,The shining pebbles preachVirtue's and wisdom's lore....The nightingale on him sings slumber down;The nightingale rewakes him, fluting sweet,When shines the lovely redOf morning through the trees.Then he admires Thee in the plain, O God!In the ascending pomp of dawning day,Thee in Thy glorious sun.The worm--the budding branch--Where coolness gushes in the waving branchOr o'er the flowers streams the fountain, rests,Inhales the breadth of primeThe gentle airs of eve.His straw-decked thatch, where doves bask in the sun,And play, and hop, invites to sweeter restThan golden halls of stateOr beds of down afford.To him the plumy peopleChatter and whistle on hisAnd from his quiet handPeck crumbs or peas or grains

Happy the man who has the town escaped!

To him the whistling trees, the murmuring brooks,

The shining pebbles preach

Virtue's and wisdom's lore....

The nightingale on him sings slumber down;

The nightingale rewakes him, fluting sweet,

When shines the lovely red

Of morning through the trees.

Then he admires Thee in the plain, O God!

In the ascending pomp of dawning day,

Thee in Thy glorious sun.

The worm--the budding branch--

Where coolness gushes in the waving branch

Or o'er the flowers streams the fountain, rests,

Inhales the breadth of prime

The gentle airs of eve.

His straw-decked thatch, where doves bask in the sun,

And play, and hop, invites to sweeter rest

Than golden halls of state

Or beds of down afford.

To him the plumy people

Chatter and whistle on his

And from his quiet hand

Peck crumbs or peas or grains

HisWinter Songruns:

Summer joys are o'er,Flow'rets bloom no more;Wintry joys are sweeping,Through the snow-drifts peeping;Cheerful evergreenRarely now is seen.No more plumèd throngCharms the woods with song;Ice-bound trees are glittering,Merry snow-birds twittering,Fondly strive to cheerScenes so cold and drear.Winter, still I seeMany charms in thee,Love thy chilly greeting,Snow-storms fiercely beating,And the dear delightsOf the long, long nights.

Summer joys are o'er,Flow'rets bloom no more;Wintry joys are sweeping,Through the snow-drifts peeping;Cheerful evergreenRarely now is seen.

Summer joys are o'er,

Flow'rets bloom no more;

Wintry joys are sweeping,

Through the snow-drifts peeping;

Cheerful evergreen

Rarely now is seen.

No more plumèd throngCharms the woods with song;Ice-bound trees are glittering,Merry snow-birds twittering,Fondly strive to cheerScenes so cold and drear.

No more plumèd throng

Charms the woods with song;

Ice-bound trees are glittering,

Merry snow-birds twittering,

Fondly strive to cheer

Scenes so cold and drear.

Winter, still I seeMany charms in thee,Love thy chilly greeting,Snow-storms fiercely beating,And the dear delightsOf the long, long nights.

Winter, still I see

Many charms in thee,

Love thy chilly greeting,

Snow-storms fiercely beating,

And the dear delights

Of the long, long nights.

Hoeltz was the most sentimental of this group; Joh. Heinrich Voss was more robust and cheerful. He put his strength into his longer poems; the lyrics contain a great deal of nonsense. An extract fromLuisewill shew his idyllic taste:

Wandering thus through blue fields of flax and acres of barley, both paused on the hill-top, which commands such a view of the whole lake, crisped with the soft breath of the zephyr and sparkling in sunshine; fair were the forests of white barked birch beyond, and the fir-trees, lovely the village at the foot half hid by the wood. Lovely Luise had welcomed her parents and shewn them a green mound under an old beech tree, where the prospect was very inviting. 'There we propose,' said she, to unpack and to spread the breakfast. Then we'll adjourn to the boat and be rowed for a time on the water,' etc.

We find the same taste, often expressed in a very original way, in both the brothers Stolberg. In Christian Stolberg'sElegy to Hangwitz, for instance, another poem has these lines:

Thither, where 'mong the trees of life,Where in celestial bowersUnder your fig-tree, bowed with fruitAnd warranting repose,Under your pine, inviting shady joy,Unchanging bloomsEternal Spring!

Thither, where 'mong the trees of life,

Where in celestial bowers

Under your fig-tree, bowed with fruit

And warranting repose,

Under your pine, inviting shady joy,

Unchanging blooms

Eternal Spring!

Friedrich Stolberg was a very prophet of Nature; in his odeNaturehe says:

He who does not love Nature cannot be my friend.

His prayer may serve as the motto of his day:

Holy Nature, heavenly fair,Lead me with thy parent care;In thy footsteps let me treadAs a willing child is led.When with care and grief opprest,Soft I sink me on thy breast;On thy peaceful bosom laid,Grief shall cease, nor care invade.O congenial power divine,All my votive soul is thine.Lead me with thy parent care,Holy Nature, heavenly fair!

Holy Nature, heavenly fair,

Lead me with thy parent care;

In thy footsteps let me tread

As a willing child is led.

When with care and grief opprest,

Soft I sink me on thy breast;

On thy peaceful bosom laid,

Grief shall cease, nor care invade.

O congenial power divine,

All my votive soul is thine.

Lead me with thy parent care,

Holy Nature, heavenly fair!

He, too, sang the moon; but Klopstock's influence seems to have carried him to higher flights than his contemporaries. He wrote in fine language of wild scenery, even sea and mountains, which had played no part in German poetry before.

Thou boundless, shining, glorious sea,With ecstasy I gaze on thee;Joy, joy to him whose early beamKisses thy lip, bright ocean stream.Thanks for the thousand hours, old sea,Of sweet communion held with thee;Oft as I gazed, thy billowy rollWoke the deep feelings of my soul.

Thou boundless, shining, glorious sea,

With ecstasy I gaze on thee;

Joy, joy to him whose early beam

Kisses thy lip, bright ocean stream.

Thanks for the thousand hours, old sea,

Of sweet communion held with thee;

Oft as I gazed, thy billowy roll

Woke the deep feelings of my soul.

There are beautiful notes, reminding one of Goethe, in hisUnsterbliche Jüngling, Ode to a Mountain Torrent.

Immortal youth!Thou streamest forth from rocky caves;No mortal sawThe cradle of thy might,No ear has heardThy infant stammering in the gushing Spring.How lovely art thou in thy silver locks!How dreadful thundering from the echoing crags!At thy approachThe firwood quakes;Thou easiest down, with root and branch, the firThou seizest on the rock,And roll'st it scornful like a pebble on.Thee the sun clothes in dazzling beams of glory,And paints with colours of the heavenly bowThe clouds that o'er thy dusky cataracts climb.Why hasten so to the cerulean sea?Is not the neighbourhood of heaven good?Not grand thy temple of encircling rocks?Not fair the forest hanging o'er thy bed?Hasten not so to the cerulean sea;Youth, thou art here,Strong as a god,Free as a god,Though yonder beckon treacherous calms below,The wavering lustre of the silent sea,Now softly silvered by the swimming moon,Now rosy golden in the western beam;Youth, what is silken rest,And what the smiling of the friendly moon,Or gold or purple of the evening sun,To him who feels himself in thraldom's bonds?Here thou canst wildly streamAs bids thy heart;Below are masters, ever-changeful minds,Or the dead stillness of the servile main.Hasten not so to the cerulean sea;Youth, thou art here,Strong as a god,Free as a god.

Immortal youth!

Thou streamest forth from rocky caves;

No mortal saw

The cradle of thy might,

No ear has heard

Thy infant stammering in the gushing Spring.

How lovely art thou in thy silver locks!

How dreadful thundering from the echoing crags!

At thy approach

The firwood quakes;

Thou easiest down, with root and branch, the fir

Thou seizest on the rock,

And roll'st it scornful like a pebble on.

Thee the sun clothes in dazzling beams of glory,

And paints with colours of the heavenly bow

The clouds that o'er thy dusky cataracts climb.

Why hasten so to the cerulean sea?

Is not the neighbourhood of heaven good?

Not grand thy temple of encircling rocks?

Not fair the forest hanging o'er thy bed?

Hasten not so to the cerulean sea;

Youth, thou art here,

Strong as a god,

Free as a god,

Though yonder beckon treacherous calms below,

The wavering lustre of the silent sea,

Now softly silvered by the swimming moon,

Now rosy golden in the western beam;

Youth, what is silken rest,

And what the smiling of the friendly moon,

Or gold or purple of the evening sun,

To him who feels himself in thraldom's bonds?

Here thou canst wildly stream

As bids thy heart;

Below are masters, ever-changeful minds,

Or the dead stillness of the servile main.

Hasten not so to the cerulean sea;

Youth, thou art here,

Strong as a god,

Free as a god.

Here we have, with all Klopstock's pathos, a love for the wild and grandiose in Nature, almost unique in Germany, in this time of idyllic sentimentality. But the discovery of the beauty of romantic mountain scenery had been made by Rousseau some time before, for Rousseau, too, was a typical forerunner, and his romances fell like a bomb-shell among all the idyllic pastoral fiction of the day.

Rousseau was one of those rare men who bring about a complete change in the culture of their time by their revolutionary originality. In such beings the world's history, so to speak, begins again. Out of touch with their own day, and opposed to its ruling taste and mode of thought, they are a law unto themselves, and naturally tend to measure all things by themselves, while their too great subjectivity is apt to be increased by a morbid sophistry of passion and the conviction of the prophet.

Of this type, unchecked by a broad sense of humanity, full of subversive wilfulness, and not only untrained in moderation, but degenerating into crass exaggeration, Rousseau was the first example.

Hellenism, the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, had only produced forerunners. What in Petrarch was a tendency, became an established condition in Rousseau: the acedia reached its climax. All that went on in his mind was so much grit for his own mill, subject-matter for his observation, and therefore of the greatest value to him. He lived in introspection, a spectator of his own struggles, his own waverings between an ideal of simple duty and the imperious demands of a selfish and sensuous ego. His passion for Nature partially atoned for his unamiable and doubtful character; he was false in many ways; but that feeling rang true--it wasthe best part of him, and of that 'idealism of the heart' whose right of rule he asserted in an age of artificiality and petty formalism. Those were no empty words in his third letter to Malesherbes:

'Which time of my life do you suppose I recall most often and most willingly in my dreams? Not the pleasures of youth; they were too few, too much mixed with bitterness, and they are too far away now. It is the time of my retreat, of my solitary walks--those fast-flying delicious days that I passed all alone by myself, with my good and simple Thérèse, my beloved dog, my old cat, with the wild birds and the roes of the forest, with all Nature and her inconceivable Maker.

'When I got up early to go and watch the sunrise from my garden, when I saw a fine day begin, my first wish was that neither letters nor visitors might come to break its charm....

'Then I would seek out some wild place in the forest, some desert spot where there was nothing to shew the hand of man, and so tell of servitude and rule--some refuge which I could fancy I was the first to discover, and where no importunate third party came between Nature and me....

'The gold broom and the purple heather touched my heart; the majestic trees that shaded me, the delicate shrubs around, the astonishing variety of plants and flowers that I trod under foot, kept me alternately admiring and observing.'

His writings shew that with him return to Nature was no mere theory, but real earnest; they condemned the popular garden-craft and carpet fashions, and set up in their place the rights of the heart, and free enjoyment of Nature in her wild state, undisturbed by the hand of man.

It was Rousseau who first discovered that the Alps were beautiful. But to see this fact in its true light, we must glance back at the opinions of preceding periods.[1]

Though the Alpine countries were the arena of all sorts of enterprise, warlike and peaceful, in the fifteenth century, most of the interest excited by foreign parts was absorbed by the great voyages of discovery; the Alps themselves were almost entirely omitted from the maps.

To be just to the time, it must be conceded that security and comfort in travelling are necessary preliminaries to our modern mountain rapture, and in the Middle Ages these were non-existent. Roads and inns were few; there was danger from robbers as well as weather, so that the prevailing feelings on such journeys were misery and anxiety, not pleasure. Knowledge of science, too, was only just beginning; botany, geology, and geognosy were very slightly diffused; glacier theories were undreamt of. The sight of a familiar scene near the great snow-peaks roused men's admiration, because they were surprised to find it there; this told especially in favour of the idyllic mountain valleys.

Felix Fabri, the preacher monk of Ulm, visited the East in 1480 and 1483, and gave a lifelike description of his journeys through the Alps in his second account. He said[2]:

'Although the Alps themselves seem dreadful and rigid from the cold of the snow or the heat of the sun, and reach up to the clouds, the valleys below them are pleasant, and as rich and fruitful in all earthly delights as Paradise itself. Many people and animals inhabit them, and almost every metal is dug out of the Alps, especially silver. 'Mid such charms as these men live among the mountains, and Nature blooms as if Venus, Bacchus, and Ceres reigned there. No one who saw the Alps from afar would believe what a delicious Paradise is to be found amid the eternal snow and mountains of perpetual winter and never-melting ice.'

Very limited praise only extended to the valleys!

In the sixteenth century we have the records ofthose who crossed the Alps with an army, such as Adam Reissner, the biographer of the Frundsberg, and mention their 'awe' at sight of the valleys, and of those who had travelled to Italy and the East, and congratulated themselves that their troublesome wanderings through the Alps were over. Savants were either very sparing of words about their travels, or else made rugged verses which shewed no trace of mountain inspiration. There were no outbursts of admiration at sight of the great snow-peaks; 'horrible' and 'dreadful' were the current epithets. The æsthetic sense was not sufficiently developed, and discount as we will for the dangers and discomforts of the road, and, as with the earlier travellers to the East, for some lack of power of expression, the fact remains that mountains were not appreciated. The prevalent notion of beautiful scenery was very narrow, and even among cultured people only meant broad, level country.

B. Kiechel[3](1585) was enthusiastic about 'the beautiful level scenery' of Lichfeld, and found it difficult to breathe among the Alps. Schickhart wrote: 'We were delighted to get away from the horrible tedious mountains,' and has nothing to say of the Brenner Pass except this poor joke: 'It did not burn us much, for what with the ice and very deep snow and horribly cold wind, we found no heat.' The most enthusiastic description is of the Lake of Como, by Paulus Jovius (1552), praising Bellagio,'[4]In the seventeenth century there was some admiration for the colossal proportions of the Alps, but only as a foil to the much admired valleys.

J.J. Grasser wrote of Rhoetia[5]: 'There are marble masses projecting, looking like walls and towers in imitation of all sorts of wonderful architecture. The villages lie scattered in the valleys, here and there the ground is most fruitful. Thereis luxuriance close to barrenness, gracefulness close to dreadfulness, life close to loneliness. The delight of the painter's eye is here, yet Nature excels all the skill of art. The very ravines, tortuous foot-paths, torrents, alternately raging and meagre, the arched bridges, waves on the lakes, varied dress of the fields, the mighty trees, in short, whatever heaven and earth grant to the sight, is an astonishment and a pastime to the enraptured eye of the wanderer.'

But this pastime depended upon the contrast between the charming valleys and the dreadful mountains.

Joseph Furttenbach (1591) writing about the same district of Thusis, described 'the little bridges, under which one hears the Rhine flowing with a great roar, and sees what a horrible cruel wilderness the place is.' In Conrad Gessner'sDe admiratione Montium(1541)[6]a passage occurs which shews that even in Switzerland itself in the sixteenth century one voice was found to praise Alpine scenery in a very different way, anticipating Rousseau. 'I have resolved that so long as God grants me life I will climb some mountains every year, or at least one mountain, partly to learn the mountain flora, partly to strengthen my body and refresh my soul. What a pleasure it is to see the monstrous mountain masses, and lift one's head among the clouds. How it stimulates worship, to be surrounded by the snowy domes, which the Great Architect of the world built up in one long day of creation! How empty is the life, how mean the striving of those who only crawl about on the earth for gain and home-baked pleasures! The earthly paradise is closed to them.'

Yet, just as after Rousseau, and even in the nineteenth century, travellers were to be found who thought the Alps 'dreadful' (I refer to Chateaubriand's 'hideux'), so such praise as this found no echo in its own day.

But with the eighteenth century came a change.Travelling no longer subserved the one practical end of making acquaintance with the occupations, the morals, the affairs generally, of other peoples; a new scientific interest arose, geologists and physicists ventured to explore the glaciers and regions of perpetual snow, and first admiration, and then love, supplanted the old feeling of horror.

Modern methods began with Scheuchzer's (1672-1733)Itinera Alpina. Every corner of the Alps was explored--the Splugen, Julier, Furka, Gotthard, etc.--and glaciers, avalanches, ores, fossils, plants examined. Haller, as his verses shew, was botanist as well as theologian, historian, and poet; but he did not appreciate mountain beauty.

Brockes to some extent did. He described the Harz Mountains in the Fourth Book of hisEarthly Pleasure in God (Irdisches Vergüngen in Gott); and in hisObservations on the Blankenburg Marblehe said: 'In many parts the rough mountain heights were monstrously beautiful, their size delights and appals us'; and wound up a discussion of wild scenery in contrast to cultivated with: 'Ponder this with joy and reverence, my soul. The mountain heights wild and beautiful shew us a picture of earthly disorder.'[7]It was very long before expressions of horror and fear entirely disappeared from descriptions of the Alps. In Richardson'sSir Charles Grandisonwe read: 'We bid adieu to France and found ourselves in Savoy, equally noted for its poverty and rocky mountains. We had left behind us a blooming Spring, which enlivened with its verdure the trees and hedges on the road we passed, and the meadows already smiled with flowers.... Every object which here presents itself is excessively miserable.' Savoy is 'one of the worst countries under Heaven.'

Addison,[8]on the other hand, wrote of the Alps from Ripaille: 'It was the pleasantest voyage in the world to follow the windings of this river Innthrough such a variety of pleasing scenes as the course of it naturally led us. We had sometimes on each side of us a vast extent of naked rocks and mountains, broken into a thousand irregular steps and precipices ... but, as the materials of a fine landscape are not always the most profitable to the owner of them, we met with but little corn or pasturage,' etc. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu[9]wrote from Lyons, Sept. 25, 1718: 'The prodigious aspect of mountains covered with eternal snow, clouds hanging far below our feet, and the vast cascades tumbling down the rocks with a confused roaring, would have been solemnly entertaining to me, if I had suffered less from the extreme cold that reigns here.'

On the whole, Switzerland was little known at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Many travellers still measured the value of scenery entirely by fertility, like Keyssler,[10]who praised garden-like level country such as that round Mantua, in contrast to the useless wild Tyrolese mountains and the woods of Westphalia; and Lüneburg or Moser,[11]who observed ironically to Abbt (1763), after readingEmiliaandLa Nouvelle Héloise: 'The far-famed Alps, about which so much fuss has been made.'

Rousseau was the real exponent of rapture for the high Alps and romantic scenery in general. Isolated voices had expressed some feeling before him, but it was he who deliberately proclaimed it, and gave romantic scenery the first place among the beauties of Nature. He did not, as so many would have it--Du Bois Reymond, for example--discover our modern feeling for Nature; the great men of the Renaissance, even the Hellenic poets, fore-ran him; but he directed it, with feeling itself in general, into new channels.[12]

In French literature he stood alone; the descriptions of landscape before him were either borrowed blossoms of antiquity or sentimental and eroticpastorals. He opened up again for his country the taste for wood and field, sunshine and moonlight, for the idyllic, and, above all, for the sublime, which had been lost under artificiality and false taste.

The primitive freshness, the genuine ring of his enthusiasm for country life, was worth all the laboured pastorals and fables of previous periods of literature.

HisConfessionsopened not only the eyes of France, but the heart.

A Swiss by birth, and living in one of the most beautiful parts of Europe, Rousseau was devotedly fond of his home on the Lake of Geneva. As a boy he loved to leave the city and rove in the country.

He describes how once on a Sunday in 1728 he wandered about, forgetting the time. 'Before me were fields, trees, flowers; the beautiful lake, the hill country, and high mountains unfolded themselves majestically before my eyes. I gloated over the beautiful spectacle while the sun was setting. At last, too late, I saw that the city gates were shut.'

From that time on he felt more drawn to Nature than to men. In the Fourth Book of theConfessionshe says, speaking of 1732:

'A view of the Lake of Geneva and its beautiful banks has had even in my idea a particular attraction that I cannot describe, not arising merely from the beauty of the prospect, but something, I know not what, more interesting which affects and softens me. 'Every time I have approached the Vaudois country, I have experienced an impression composed of the remembrance of Mademoiselle de Warens, who was born there; of my father, who lived there; of Mademoiselle de Wulson, who had been my first love; and of several pleasant journeys I had made there in my childhood, mingled with some nameless charm, more powerfully attractive than all the rest. When that ardent desire for a life of happiness andtranquillity (which ever follows me, and for which I was born) inflames my mind, 'tis ever to the country of Vaud, near the lake, on those charming plains, that imagination leads me. An orchard on the banks of that lake, and no other, is absolutely necessary; a firm friend, an amiable woman, a cow, and a little boat; nor could I enjoy perfect happiness on earth without these concomitants.... On my way to Vevey I gave myself up to the soft melancholy ... I sighed and wept like a child.'

He clung to Nature, and most of all when surrounded by human beings; a morbid impulse to flee from them was always present as a negative element in the background of his love for her. His Fifth Reverie, the most beautiful one, shews this.

He had gone to the Peter Island on the Lake of Bienne. So far as he knew, no other traveller had paid any attention to the place; but that did not disturb his confidence in his own taste.

'The shores of the Lake of Bienne are wilder and more romantic than those of the Lake of Geneva, because the rocks and woods come nearer to the water; but they are not less radiant. With less cultivation and fewer vineyards, towns, and houses, there are more green fields and shady sheltered spots, more contrasts and irregularities. As there are no good carriage roads on these happy shores, the district is little frequented by travellers; but it is interesting for the solitary contemplation of those who like to intoxicate themselves at their leisure with Nature's charms, and to retire into a silence unbroken by any sound but the eagle's cry, the intermittent warbling of birds, and the roar of torrents falling from the mountains,'

Here he had a delightful Robinson Crusoe existence. The only other human beings were the Bernese manager with his family and labourers. He counted his two months among the happiest of his life, and would have liked to stay for ever. Trueto his character, he proceeded to analyze the charm of the episode, and decided that it was made up of thedolce far niente, solitude, absence of books and writing materials, dealing with simple folk, healthy movement in the open air, field labour, and, above all, intercourse with Nature, both in admiring and studying her. He was seized with a passion for botanizing, and planned a comprehensive Flora Petrinsularis, dividing the whole island into quarters, so that no part might escape notice.

'There is nothing more strange than the ravishment, the ecstasy, I felt at each observation I made upon vegetable structure and organization.

'I would go by myself, throw myself into a boat when the water was calm, and row to the middle of the lake, and then, lying full-length in the boat with my eyes to the sky, I would let myself drift, sometimes for hours, lost in a thousand confused but delicious reveries.... Often when the sunset reminded me that it was time to return, I found myself so far from the island that I was forced to pull with all my strength to get back before night-fall. At other times, instead of wandering about the lake, I amused myself by skirting the green shores of the island where the limpid water and cool shade often invited to a bathe.... When the lake was too rough for rowing, I would spend the afternoon scouring the island, botanizing right and left. I often sat down to dream at leisure in sunny, lonely nooks, or on the terraces and hillocks, to gaze at the superb ravishing panorama of the lake and its shores--one side crowned by near mountains, the other spread out in rich and fertile plains, across which the eye looked to the more distant boundary of blue mountains.... When evening fell, I came down from the higher parts of the mountains and sat by the shore in some hidden spot, and there the sound of the waves and the movements of the water, making me oblivious of all other distraction, wouldplunge me into delicious reverie. The ebb and flow of the water, and the sound of it, restrained and yet swelling at intervals, by striking eye and ear without ceasing, came to the aid of those inner movements of the mind which reverie destroys, and sufficed to make me pleasantly conscious of existence without the trouble of thinking.... There is nothing actual in all this to which the heart can attach itself; even in our most intense enjoyment there is scarcely a moment of which the heart can truly say "I should like it to stay for ever."'

One thinks of Faust: 'O moment! tarry awhile, thou art so fair!'

However, at the close of the Reverie he admits that he has often had such moments--moments free from all earthly passion--on the lake and on the island. His feeling was increased by botanical knowledge, and later on in life the world of trees and plants became his one safe refuge when pursued by delusions of persecution.

The Seventh Reverie has a touching account of his pleasure in botany, of the effect of 'earth in her wedding-dress, the only scene in the world of which eyes and heart never weary,' the intoxicating sense that he was part of a great system in which individual detail disappears, and he only sees and hears the whole.

'Shunning men, seeking solitude, no longer dreaming, still less thinking, I began to concern myself with all my surroundings, giving the preference to my favourites...brilliant flowers, emerald meadows, fresh shade, streams, thickets, green turf, these purified my imagination.... Attracted by the pleasant objects around, I note them, study them, and finally learn to classify them, and so become at one stroke as much of a botanist as one need be when one only studies Nature to find ever new reasons for loving her.

'The plants seem sown in profusion over theearth like the stars in the sky, to invite man, through pleasure and curiosity, to study them; but the stars are far off; they require preliminary knowledge ... while plants grow under our very feet--lie, so to speak, in our very hands.'

He had a peaceful sense of being free from his enemies when he was pursuing his botany in the woods. He described one never-to-be-forgotten ramble when he lost himself in a dense thicket close to a dizzy precipice, where, save for some rare birds, he was quite alone. He was just feeling the pride of a Columbus in the discovery of new ground, when his eye fell upon a manufactory not far off. His first feeling was a flash of delight at finding himself again among men; but this gave way to the more lasting and painful one, that even among the Alps there was no escape from his tormentors.

Years later, when he knew that he would never revisit the spot, the leaves in his herbarium would carry him back to it in memory.

So strong a personal attachment to Nature, solitude, and retirement had not been known before; but it was thrown into this high relief by the morbid dread of man and hatred of culture, which formed a constant dark background to his mind. It was a state of mind which naturally led to intense dislike of formal French gardens and open admiration of the English park. He rejected all the garnish of garden-craft, even grafted roses and fruit trees, and only admitted indigenous plants which grew outdoors.[13]It is greatly due to his feeling for English Park style that a healthier garden-craft gained ground in Germany as well as France. The foremost maxim of his philosophy and teaching, that everything is good as it comes from the bosom of mother Nature, or rather from the hand of God, and that man and his culture are responsible for all the evil, worked out in his attitude towards Nature.

He placed her upon a pedestal, worshipping her,and the Creator through her, and this made him the first to recognize the fact that study of Nature, especially of botany, should be an important factor in the education of children.

HisConfessions, the truest photographs of a human character in existence, shew at once the keenest introspection and intense love for Nature. No one before Rousseau had been so aware of his own individuality--that is, of himself, as a being--who in this particular state only exists once, and has therefore not only relative but absolute value. He gave this peculiarity its full value, studying it as a thing outside himself, of which every detail was important, watching with great interest his own change of moods, the fluctuations of that double self which now lifted him to the ideal, now cast him down to the lowest and commonest. His relation to Nature was the best thing about him, and when he was happy, as he was for the first time in the society of Mademoiselle de Warens, Nature seemed lovelier than ever.

The scattered passages about Nature in theConfessionshave a youthful freshness:

'The appearance of Aurora seemed so delightful one morning, that, putting on my clothes, I hastened into the country to see the rising of the sun. I enjoyed that pleasure to its utmost extent. It was one week after midsummer: the earth was covered with verdure and flowers; the nightingales, whose soft warblings were almost over, seemed to vie with each other, and, in concert with birds of various kinds, to bid adieu to spring and hail the approach of a beautiful summer's day.'

He loved rambling over hill and dale, even by night; thus, when he was at Lyons:

'It had been a very hot day, the evening was delightful, the dew moistened the parched grass, no wind was stirring; the air was fresh without chilliness, the setting sun had tinged the clouds witha beautiful crimson, which was again reflected by the water, and the trees bordering the terrace were filled with nightingales that were constantly answering each other's songs. I walked along in a kind of ecstasy, surrendering my heart and senses to the enjoyment of so many delights, and sighing only from regret at enjoying them alone. Absorbed in this pleasing reverie, I lengthened my walk till it grew very late, without perceiving I was tired. At length I threw myself on the steps of a kind of niche in a terrace wall. How charming was that couch! The trees formed a stately canopy, a nightingale sat directly over me, and with his soft notes lulled me to rest. How delicious my repose! my awakening more so. It was broad day; on opening my eyes, I saw the water, the verdure, and an adorable landscape before me.'

At the end of the Fourth Book he states his idea of beautiful scenery:

'I love to walk at my ease and stop at leisure ... travelling on foot in a fine country with fine weather ... and having an agreeable object to terminate my journey. It is already understood what I mean by a fine country; never can a flat one, though ever so beautiful, appear such to my eyes. I must have torrents, fir trees, black woods, mountains to climb or descend, and rugged roads with precipices on either side to alarm me. I experienced this pleasure to its utmost extent as I approached Chambéry, not far from a mountain road called the Pas d'Échelle. Above the main road, hewn through the solid rock, a small river runs and rushes into fearful chasms, which it appears to have been millions of ages in forming. The road has been hedged by a parapet to prevent accidents, and I was thus enabled to contemplate the whole descent and gain vertigoes at pleasure, for a great part of my amusement in these steep rocks lies in their causing a giddiness and swimming in my head, which I amparticularly fond of, provided I am in safety. Leaning therefore on the parapet, I remained whole hours, catching from time to time a glance of the froth and blue water whose rushing caught my ear, mingled with the cries of ravens and other birds of prey that flew from rock to rock and bush to bush at 600 feet below me.'

His preference was for the wild and sublime, and he was glad that this was not a popular taste; but he could write glowing descriptions of more idyllic scenery and of village life.

He said of a day at the Charmettes, a property near Chambéry, with his beloved friend Madame de Warens, at the end of 1736:

'I arose with the sun and was happy; I walked and was happy; I saw Madame de Warens and was happy; I quitted her and still was happy. Whether I rambled through the woods, over the hills, or strolled along the valley; read, was idle, worked in the garden, or gathered fruits, happiness continually accompanied me.'

He offered his morning prayer from a hill-top, and in the evening, before he left, stooped to kiss the ground and the trees, gazing till they were out of sight at the places where he had been so happy.

At the Hermitage with Thérèse there was a similar idyll.

The most epoch--making event in European feeling for Nature was the appearance ofLa Nouvelle Héloise(1761). The book overflows with Rousseau's raptures about the Lake of Geneva. St Preux says:

'The nearer I drew to Switzerland, the greater were my emotions. That instant in which I discovered the Lake of Geneva from the heights of Jura, was a moment of ecstasy and rapture. The sight of my country, my beloved country, where a deluge of pleasure had overflowed my heart; the pure and wholesome air of the Alps, the gentle breezeof the country, more sweet than the perfumes of the East; that rich and fertile spot, that unrivalled landscape, the most beautiful that ever struck the eye of man, that delightful abode, to which I found nothing comparable in the vast tour of the globe; the mildness of the season, the serenity of the climate, a thousand pleasing recollections which recalled to my mind the pleasures I had enjoyed;--all these circumstances together threw me into a kind of transport which I cannot describe, and seemed to collect the enjoyment of my whole life into one happy moment.'

La Nouvelle Héloiseshewed the world three things in quite a new light: the inner consciousness which was determined to give feeling its rights again, though well aware that 'a feeling heart is an unhappy gift from heaven'; the taste for solitude, 'all noble passions are formed in solitude'; and closely bound up with these, the love of romantic scenery, which it described for the first time in glowing language.

Such expressions as these of St Preux were unheard of at that time: 'I shall do my best to be free quickly, and able to wander at my ease in the wild places that to my mind make the charm of this country.' 'I am of opinion that this unfrequented country deserves the attention of speculative curiosity, and that it wants nothing to excite admiration but a skilful spectator'; and 'Nature seems desirous of hiding her real charms from the sight of men, because they are too little sensible of them, and disfigure them when within their reach; she flies from public places; it is on the tops of mountains, in the midst of forests, on desert islands, that she displays her most affecting charms.'

Rousseau certainly announced his views with all the fervour of a prophet proclaiming a newly-discovered truth. The sketch St Preux gives of the country that 'deserved a year's study,' in thetwenty-third letter to Julia, is very poetic. He is ascending a rocky path when a new view breaks upon him:

One moment I beheld stupendous rocks hanging ruinous over my head; the next, I was enveloped in a drizzling cloud, which arose from a vast cascade that, dashing, thundered against the rocks below my feet. On one side a perpetual torrent opened to my view a yawning abyss, which my eyes could hardly fathom with safety; sometimes I was lost in the obscurity of a hanging wood, and then was greatly astonished with the sudden opening of a flowery plain.

He was always charmed by 'a surprising mixture of wild and cultivated Nature':

Here Nature seems to have a singular pleasure in acting contradictory to herself, so different does she appear in the same place in different aspects. Towards the east, the flowers of spring; to the south, the flowers of autumn; and northwards, the ice of winter. Add to that the illusions of vision, the tops of the mountains variously illumined, the harmonious mixture of light and shade....

After climbing, he reflects:

Upon the top of mountains, the air being subtle and pure, we respire with greater freedom, our bodies are more active, our minds more serene, our pleasures less ardent, and our passions much more moderate. Our meditations acquire a degree of sublimity from the grandeur of the objects around us. It seems as if, being lifted above all human society, we had left every low terrestrial sentiment behind.

He can find no words to express 'the amazing variety, magnitude, and beauty of a thousand stupendous objects, the pleasure of gazing at an entire new scene ... and beholding, as it were, another Nature and a new world.'

Earlier in the year he wrote his letters to Julia upon a block of stone in his favourite wild spot, and the wintry landscape harmonized with his feelings:

I run to and fro, climb the rocks and explore my whole district, and find everything as horrible withoutas I experienced it within. There is no longer any verdure to be seen, the grass is yellow and withered, the trees are stripped of their foliage, and the north-east blast heaps snow and ice around me. In short, the whole face of Nature appears as decayed to my outward senses as I myself from within am dead to hope and joy.

Julia, too, is enthusiastic about places, where 'no vestiges are seen of human toil, no appearance of studied and laborious art; every object presents only a view of the tender care of Nature, our common mother.'

When St Preux knows that she returns his love, his sympathy for Nature overflows:

I find the country more delightful, the verdure fresher and livelier, the air more temperate, and the sky more serene than ever I did before; even the feathered songsters seem to tune their tender throats with more harmony and pleasure; the murmuring rills invite to love-inspiring dalliance, while the blossoms of the vine regale me from afar with the choicest perfumes ... let us animate all Nature, which is absolutely dead without the genial warmth of love.

St Preux escorts his old love to the Meillerie, and it was with his description of this that Rousseau unrolled the full charm of mountain scenery, and opened the eyes of his readers to see it.

They were climbing a mountain top on the Savoy side of the lake:

This solitary spot formed a wild and desert nook, but full of those sorts of beauties which are only agreeable to susceptible minds, and appear horrible to others. A torrent, occasioned by the melting of the snow, rolled in a muddy stream within twenty paces of us, and carried dust, sand, and stones along with it, not without considerable noise. Behind us, a chain of inaccessible rocks divided the place where we stood from that part of the Alps which they call the Ice house.... Forests of gloomy fir trees afforded us a melancholy shade on the right, while on the left was a large wood of oak, beyond which the torrent issued; and beneath, that vast body of water which thelake forms in the bay of the Alps, parted us from the rich coast of the Pays de Vaud, crowning the whole landscape with the top of the majestic Jura.

Rousseau's influence upon feeling in general, and feeling for Nature in particular, was an extraordinary one, widening and deepening at once.

By his strong personal impulse he impelled it into more natural paths, and at the same time he discovered the power of the mountains.

He brought to flower the germ which had lain dormant in Hellenism and the Renaissance; and although his readers imbibed a sickly strain of morbid sentimentality with this passion for the new region of feeling, the total effect of his individuality and his idealism was to intensify their love for Nature. His feelings woke the liveliest echo, and it was not France alone who profited by the lessons he taught.

He was no mountaineer himself, but he pointed out the way, and others soon followed it. Saussure began his climbing in 1760, exploring the Alps with the indomitable spirit of the discoverer and the scientist's craving for truth. He ascended Mont Blanc in 1787, and only too soon the valleys of Chamounix filled with tourists and speculators. One of the first results of Rousseau's imposing descriptions of scenery was to rouse the most ardent of French romance writers, Bernardin de St Pierre; and his writings, especially his beautiful pictures of the Ile de France, followed hard in the wake ofLa Nouvelle Héloise.

InPaul and Virginiavivid descriptions of Nature were interwoven with an idyllic Robinson Crusoe romance:

Within this enclosure reigns the most profound silence. The waters, the air, all the elements are at peace. Scarcely does the echo repeat the whispers of the palm trees spreading their broad leaves, the long points of which are gently agitated by the winds. A soft light illumines the bottom of this deep valley,on which the sun shines only at noon. But even at break of day the rays of light are thrown on the surrounding rocks, and their sharp peaks, rising above the shadows of the mountain, appear like tints of gold and purple gleaming upon the azure sky.

Like Rousseau, St Pierre held that 'to take refuge in the wildest and most desert places is an instinct common to all feeling and suffering beings, as if rocks were ramparts against misfortune, and Nature's calm could appease the sorrows of the soul'[14]; but he differed in caring for Nature far more for her own sake, and not in opposition to culture and a detested world. He wrote too, not as a philosopher proclaiming a new gospel, but as a poet[15]; the poetry of Nature had been revealed to French literature.

St Pierre drew the beauty of the tropics in a poem, and George Forster'sVoyage round the World[16]shewed how quickly Rousseau's influence told upon travels. It was a far cry from the Crusaders and discoverers to the highly-cultured Forster, alive to everything that was good and beautiful, and able to express it. He was the first to describe countries and peoples from both the scientific and artistic standpoint--a style of writing which Humboldt perfected, and some later writers, Haeckel, for example, inIndischen Briefen, have carried on with success.

To quote Forster:

The town of Santa Cruz in Madeira was abreast of us at six in the afternoon. The mountains are here intersected by numerous deep glens and valleys. On the sloping ground we observed several country houses pleasantly situated amidst surrounding vineyards and lofty cypresses, which gave the country altogether a romantic appearance. Early on the 29th we were agreeably surprised with the picturesque appearance of the city of Funchal....

In October 1772, off South Africa:

The night was scarcely begun when the water all round us afforded the most grand and astonishing sightthat can be imagined. As far as we could see, the whole ocean seemed to be in a blaze. Every breaking wave had its summit illuminated by a light similar to that of phosphorus, and the sides of the vessel, coming in contact with the sea, were strongly marked by a luminous line.... There was a singularity and a grandeur in the display of this phenomenon which could not fail of giving occupation to the mind, and striking it with a reverential awe, due to omnipotence.The ocean was covered to a great extent with myriads of animalcules; these little beings, organized, alive, endowed with locomotive power, a quality of shining whenever they please, of illuminating every body with which they come in contact ... all these ideas crowded upon us, and bade us admire the Creator, even in His minutest works.... I hope I shall not have formed too favourable an opinion of my readers, if I expect that the generality will sympathize with me in these feelings.

The ocean was covered to a great extent with myriads of animalcules; these little beings, organized, alive, endowed with locomotive power, a quality of shining whenever they please, of illuminating every body with which they come in contact ... all these ideas crowded upon us, and bade us admire the Creator, even in His minutest works.... I hope I shall not have formed too favourable an opinion of my readers, if I expect that the generality will sympathize with me in these feelings.

In Dusky Bay:

We glided along by insensible degrees, wafted by light airs past numerous rocky islands, each of which was covered with wood and shrubberies, where numerous evergreens were sweetly contrasted and mingled with the various shades of autumnal yellow. Flocks of aquatic birds enlivened the rocky shores, and the whole country resounded with the wild notes of the feathered tribe.... The view of rude sceneries in the style of Rosa, of antediluvian forests which clothed the rock, and of numerous rills of water which everywhere rolled down the steep declivity, altogether conspired to complete our joy.

Cascade Cove in New Zealand:

This waterfall at a distance of a mile and a half seems to be but inconsiderable on account of its great elevation; but, after climbing about 200 yards upwards, we ... found a view of great beauty and grandeur before us. The first object which strikes the beholder is a clear column of water eight or ten yards in circumference, which is projected with great impetuosity from the perpendicular rock at the height of 100 yards. Nearly at the fourth part of the whole height this column meeting a part of the same rock, which now acquires a little inclination, spreads on itsbroad back into a limpid sheet of about twenty-five yards in width. Here its surface is curled, and dashes upon every little eminence in its rapid descent, till it is all collected in a fine basin about sixty yards in circuit, included on three sides by the natural walls of the rocky chasm, and in front by huge masses of stone irregularly piled above each other. Between them the stream finds its way, and runs foaming with the greatest rapidity along the slope of the hill to the sea. The whole neighbourhood of the cascade ... is filled with a steam or watery vapour.... We ... were struck with the sight of a most beautiful rainbow of a perfectly circular form, produced by the meridian rays of the sun refracted in the vapour of the cascade.The scenery on the left consists of steep brown rocks fringed on the summits with overhanging shrubs and trees; the enchanting melody of various birds resounded on all sides, and completed the beauty of this wild and romantic spot.

The scenery on the left consists of steep brown rocks fringed on the summits with overhanging shrubs and trees; the enchanting melody of various birds resounded on all sides, and completed the beauty of this wild and romantic spot.

He described: 'A waterspout, a phenomenon which carried so much terrific majesty in it, and connected, as it were, the sea with the clouds, made our oldest mariners uneasy and at a loss how to behave.'

He begins his diary of August 1773 with O'Taheite:

It was one of those beautiful mornings which the poets of all nations have attempted to describe, when we saw the isle of O'Taheite within two miles before us. The east wind, which had carried us so far, was entirely vanished, and a faint breeze only wafted a delicious perfume from the land, and curled the surface of the sea. The mountains, clothed with forests, rose majestic in various spiry forms, on which we already perceived the light of the rising sun ... everything seemed as yet asleep; the morning scarce dawned, and a peaceful shade still rested on the landscape....This spot was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, and could not fail of bringing to remembrance the most fanciful descriptions of poets, which it eclipsed in beauty; we had a prospect of the plain below us, and of the sea beyond it. In the shade of trees, whose branches hung over the water, we enjoyeda pleasant gale, which softened the heat of the day; and, amidst the solemn uniform noise of the waterfall, which was but seldom interrupted by the whistling of birds, we sat down....We could have been well pleased to have passed the whole day in this retirement ... however, feasting our eyes once more with the romantic scenery, we returned to the plain.

This spot was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, and could not fail of bringing to remembrance the most fanciful descriptions of poets, which it eclipsed in beauty; we had a prospect of the plain below us, and of the sea beyond it. In the shade of trees, whose branches hung over the water, we enjoyeda pleasant gale, which softened the heat of the day; and, amidst the solemn uniform noise of the waterfall, which was but seldom interrupted by the whistling of birds, we sat down....

We could have been well pleased to have passed the whole day in this retirement ... however, feasting our eyes once more with the romantic scenery, we returned to the plain.

It was such descriptions as these which stimulated Humboldt. There is a breath of poetry in his writings; hisViews of NatureandCosmosgive ample proof that love of Nature and knowledge of Nature can condition and deepen each other.

It is not surprising that in the flood of scientific 'Travels' which followed, especially in imitation of Forster, there were some that laid claim to a wonderful grade of feeling. For example, the description of a day at the Equator by von Spix and v. Martius in their Travels in Brazil in 1817 to 1820:

In these seas the sun rises from the ocean with great splendour, and gilds the clouds accumulated in the horizon, which in grand and various groups seem to present to the eye of the spectator continents with high mountains and valleys, with volcanoes and seas, mythological and other strange creations of fancy.The lamp of day gradually rises in the transparent blue sky; the damp grey fogs subside; the sea is calm or gently rises and falls, with a surface smooth as a mirror, in a regular motion. At noon a pale, faintly shining cloud rises, the herald of a sudden tempest, which at once disturbs the tranquillity of the sea. Thunder and lightning seem as if they would split our planet; but a heavy rain of a salt taste, pouring down in the midst of roaring whirlwinds, puts an end to the raging of the elements, and several semi-circular rainbows, extended over the ocean like gay triumphal arches, announce the peaceful termination of the great natural phenomenon. As soon as the air and sea have recovered their equilibrium, the sky again shews its transparent azure.... As the sun gradually sinks in the clouded horizon, the sea and sky assume a new dress, which is beyond description sublime and magnificent. The most brilliant red, yellow, violet, ininfinite shades and contrasts, are poured out in profusion over the azure of the firmament, and are reflected in still gayer variety from the surface of the water. The day departs amid continued lightning on the dusky horizon, while the moon in silent majesty rises from the unbounded ocean into the cloudless upper regions. Variable winds cool the atmosphere; numerous falling stars, coming particularly from the south, shed a magic light; the dark-blue firmament, reflected with the constellations on the untroubled bosom of the water, represents the image of the wholly starry hemisphere; and the ocean, agitated even by the faintest breeze of the night, is changed into a sea of waving fire.... The variety of the light and foliage of the trees, which is seen in the forests, on the slopes of the mountains: the blending of the most diverse colours, and the dark azure and transparency of the sky, impart to the landscapes of the tropical countries a charm to which even the pencil of a Salvator Rosa and a Claude cannot do justice....Except at noon, when all living creatures in the torrid zone seek shade and repose, and when a solemn silence is diffused over the scene, illumined by the dazzling beams of the sun, every hour of the day calls into action another race of animals.... When the sun goes down, most of the animals retire to rest ... myriads of luminous beetles now begin to fly about likeignes fatui, and the blood-sucking bats hover like phantoms in the profound darkness of the night.... The traveller does not here meet with the impressions of those sublime and rugged high Alps of Europe, nor, on the other hand, those of a meaner nature; but the character of these landscapes combines grandeur with simplicity and softness....He who has not personally experienced the enchantment of tranquil moonlight nights in these happy latitudes can never be inspired, even by the most faithful description, with those feelings which scenes of such wondrous beauty excite in the mind of the beholder.A delicate transparent mist hangs over the country, the moon shines brightly amid heavy and singularly grouped clouds, the outlines of the objects illuminated by it are clear and well defined, while a magic twilight seems to remove from the eye those which are in shade. Scarce a breath of air is stirring, and the neighbouring mimosas, that have folded up their leaves to sleep, stand motionless beside the dark crowns ofthe manga, the jaca, and the ethereal jambos; or sometimes a sudden wind arises and the juiceless leaves of the acaju rustle, the richly flowered grumijama and pitanga let drop a fragrant shower of snow-white blossoms; the crowns of the majestic palms wave slowly over the silent roof which they overshade, like a symbol of peace and tranquillity.Shrill cries of the cicada, the grasshopper, and tree frog make an incessant hum, and produce by their monotony a pleasing melancholy.... Every half-hour different balsamic odours fill the air, and other flowers alternately unfold their leaves to the night.... While the silent vegetable world, illuminated by scores of fireflies as by a thousand moving stars, charms the night by its delicate effluvia, brilliant lightnings play incessantly on the horizon, and elevate the mind in joyful admiration to the stars, which, glowing in solemn silence in the firmament above the continent and ocean, fill the soul with a presentiment of still sublimer wonders.

The lamp of day gradually rises in the transparent blue sky; the damp grey fogs subside; the sea is calm or gently rises and falls, with a surface smooth as a mirror, in a regular motion. At noon a pale, faintly shining cloud rises, the herald of a sudden tempest, which at once disturbs the tranquillity of the sea. Thunder and lightning seem as if they would split our planet; but a heavy rain of a salt taste, pouring down in the midst of roaring whirlwinds, puts an end to the raging of the elements, and several semi-circular rainbows, extended over the ocean like gay triumphal arches, announce the peaceful termination of the great natural phenomenon. As soon as the air and sea have recovered their equilibrium, the sky again shews its transparent azure.... As the sun gradually sinks in the clouded horizon, the sea and sky assume a new dress, which is beyond description sublime and magnificent. The most brilliant red, yellow, violet, ininfinite shades and contrasts, are poured out in profusion over the azure of the firmament, and are reflected in still gayer variety from the surface of the water. The day departs amid continued lightning on the dusky horizon, while the moon in silent majesty rises from the unbounded ocean into the cloudless upper regions. Variable winds cool the atmosphere; numerous falling stars, coming particularly from the south, shed a magic light; the dark-blue firmament, reflected with the constellations on the untroubled bosom of the water, represents the image of the wholly starry hemisphere; and the ocean, agitated even by the faintest breeze of the night, is changed into a sea of waving fire.... The variety of the light and foliage of the trees, which is seen in the forests, on the slopes of the mountains: the blending of the most diverse colours, and the dark azure and transparency of the sky, impart to the landscapes of the tropical countries a charm to which even the pencil of a Salvator Rosa and a Claude cannot do justice....

Except at noon, when all living creatures in the torrid zone seek shade and repose, and when a solemn silence is diffused over the scene, illumined by the dazzling beams of the sun, every hour of the day calls into action another race of animals.... When the sun goes down, most of the animals retire to rest ... myriads of luminous beetles now begin to fly about likeignes fatui, and the blood-sucking bats hover like phantoms in the profound darkness of the night.... The traveller does not here meet with the impressions of those sublime and rugged high Alps of Europe, nor, on the other hand, those of a meaner nature; but the character of these landscapes combines grandeur with simplicity and softness....

He who has not personally experienced the enchantment of tranquil moonlight nights in these happy latitudes can never be inspired, even by the most faithful description, with those feelings which scenes of such wondrous beauty excite in the mind of the beholder.

A delicate transparent mist hangs over the country, the moon shines brightly amid heavy and singularly grouped clouds, the outlines of the objects illuminated by it are clear and well defined, while a magic twilight seems to remove from the eye those which are in shade. Scarce a breath of air is stirring, and the neighbouring mimosas, that have folded up their leaves to sleep, stand motionless beside the dark crowns ofthe manga, the jaca, and the ethereal jambos; or sometimes a sudden wind arises and the juiceless leaves of the acaju rustle, the richly flowered grumijama and pitanga let drop a fragrant shower of snow-white blossoms; the crowns of the majestic palms wave slowly over the silent roof which they overshade, like a symbol of peace and tranquillity.

Shrill cries of the cicada, the grasshopper, and tree frog make an incessant hum, and produce by their monotony a pleasing melancholy.... Every half-hour different balsamic odours fill the air, and other flowers alternately unfold their leaves to the night.... While the silent vegetable world, illuminated by scores of fireflies as by a thousand moving stars, charms the night by its delicate effluvia, brilliant lightnings play incessantly on the horizon, and elevate the mind in joyful admiration to the stars, which, glowing in solemn silence in the firmament above the continent and ocean, fill the soul with a presentiment of still sublimer wonders.

Travels by sea were described at much greater length and with much more effusion than travels by land; one might infer from the silence of the people who moved about in Europe in the eighteenth century, that no love of Nature existed. The extreme discomfort of the road up to a hundred years ago may account for this silence within Germany.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote in 1716 of Saxon Switzerland:

We passed by moonshine the frightful precipices that divide Bohemia from Saxony, at the bottom of which runs the river Elbe ... in many places the road is so narrow that I could not discern an inch of space between the wheels and the precipice....

and her husband declared that

he had passed the Alps five times in different places, without having gone a road so dangerous.

Scherr relates that in the late autumn of 1721 a citizen of Schwabisch-Gmünd travelled to Ellwangen, a distance of eight hours' posting.

Before starting, he had a mass performed in St John's Church 'for the safe conclusion of the coming journey.' He set off one Monday with his wife and a maid in a two-horse vehicle called a small tilt waggon (Planwägelchen), but in less than an hour the wheels stuck in mud, and the whole party had to get out and push the carriage, up to their knees in filth. In the middle of the village of Boebingen the driver inadvertently drove the front left wheel into a manure hole, the carriage was overturned, and the lady of the party had her nose and cheek badly grazed by the iron hoops.

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