Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson
page 26 of 182 (14%)
page 26 of 182 (14%)
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twenty-four years old.
[Note 1: _It is a difficult matter_, etc. The appreciation of nature is a quite modern taste, for although people have always loved the scenery which reminds them of home, it was not at all fashionable in England to love nature for its own sake before 1740. Thomas Gray was the first person in Europe who seems to have exhibited a real love of mountains (see his _Letters_). A study of the development of the appreciation of nature before and after Wordsworth (England's greatest nature poet) is exceedingly interesting. See Myra Reynolds, _The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry between Pope and Wordsworth_ (1896).] [Note 2: _This discipline in scenery._ Note what is said on this subject in Browning's extraordinary poem, _Fra Lippo Lippi_, vs. 300-302. "For, don't you mark? We're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see."] [Note 3: _Brantôme quaintly tells us, "fait des discours en soi pour se soutenir en chemin."_ Freely translated, "the traveller talks to himself to keep up his courage on the road." Pierre de Bourdeille, Abbé de Brantôme, (cir. 1534-1614), travelled all over Europe. His works were not published till long after his death, in 1665. Several complete editions of his writings in numerous volumes have appeared in the nineteenth century, one edited by the famous writer, Prosper Mérimée.] |
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