Post-Prandial Philosophy

XXI.

_WHY ENG­LAND IS BEAU­TI­FUL._

As I strolled across the moor this af­ter­noon to­wards Wa­ver­ley, I saw Jones was plant­ing out that bare hill­side of his with Dou­glas pines and Scotch firs and new strains of sil­ver birch­es. They will im­prove the land­scape. And I thought as I scanned them, “How cu­ri­ous that most peo­ple en­tire­ly over­look this con­stant bet­ter­ment and beau­ti­fy­ing of Eng­land! You hear them talk much of the way bricks and mor­tar are in­vad­ing the coun­try; you nev­er hear any­thing of this slow and silent pro­cess of plant­ing and de­vel­op­ing which has made Eng­land in­to the pret­ti­est and one of the most beau­ti­ful coun­tries in Eu­rope.”

What's that you say? “As­ton­ished to find I have a good word of any sort to put in for Eng­land!” Why, dear me, how ir­ra­tional you are! I just _love_ Eng­land. Can any man with eyes in his head and a soul for beau­ty do oth­er­wise? Eng­land and Italy--there you have the two great glo­ries of Eu­rope. Italy for towns, for art, for man's hand­icraft; Eng­land for coun­try, for na­ture, for green lanes and lush copses. Was it not one that loved Italy well who sighed in Italy--

“Oh, to be in Eng­land now that April's there?”

And who that loves Italy, and knows Eng­land, too, does not echo Brown­ing's wish when April comes round again on dusty Tus­can hill­tops? At Pe­ru­gia, last spring, through weeks of tra­mon­tana, how one yearned for the sight of yel­low En­glish prim­ros­es! Not love Eng­land, in­deed! Mil­ton's Eng­land, Shel­ley's Eng­land; the Eng­land of the sky­lark, the dog-​rose, the hon­ey­suck­le! Not love Eng­land, for­sooth! Why, I love ev­ery flow­er, ev­ery blade of grass in it. De­von­shire lane, close-​cropped down, rich wa­ter-​mead­ow, bick­er­ing brook­let: ah me, how they tug at one's heart­strings in Africa! No son of the soil can love Eng­land as those love her very stones who have come from new­er lands over sea to her ivy-​clad church-​tow­ers, her moul­der­ing cas­tles, her im­memo­ri­al elms, the berries on her hol­ly, the may in her hedgerows. Are not all these bound up in our souls with each cher­ished line of Shake­speare and Wordsworth? do they not rouse faint echoes of Gray and Gold­smith? Even be­fore I ev­er set foot in Eng­land, how I longed to be­hold my first cowslip, my first fox­glove! And now, I have wan­dered through the foot­paths that run oblique­ly across En­glish pas­tures, pick­ing mead­owsweet and frit­il­lar­ies, for half a life­time, till I have learned by heart ev­ery leaf and ev­ery petal. You think be­cause I dis­like one squalid vil­lage--“The Wen,” stout En­glish William Cob­bett de­light­ed to call it--I don't love Eng­land. You think be­cause I see some spots on the sun of the En­glish char­ac­ter, I don't love En­glish­men. Why, how can any man who speaks the En­glish tongue, and boasts one drop of En­glish blood in his veins, not be proud of Eng­land? Eng­land, the moth­er of po­ets and thinkers; Eng­land, that gave us New­ton, Dar­win, Spencer; Eng­land, that holds in her lap Ox­ford, Sal­is­bury, Durham; Eng­land of daisy and heather and pine-​wood! Are we hewn out of gran­ite, to be cold be­fore Eng­land?

Up­on my soul, your un­sea­son­able in­ter­rup­tion has al­most made me for­get what I was go­ing to say; it has made me grow warm, and drop in­to po­et­ry.

Eng­land, I take it, is cer­tain­ly the pret­ti­est coun­try in Eu­rope. It is al­most the most beau­ti­ful. I say “al­most,” be­cause I be­think me of Nor­way and Switzer­land. I say “coun­try,” be­cause I be­think me of Rome, Venice, Flo­rence. But, tak­ing it as coun­try, and as coun­try alone, noth­ing else ap­proach­es it. Have you ev­er thought why? Man made the town, says the proverb, and God made the coun­try. Not so in Eng­land. There, man made the coun­try, and beau­ti­fied it ex­ceed­ing­ly. In it­self, the land of south-​east­ern Eng­land is ab­so­lute­ly the same as the land of North­ern France--that hideous tract about Boulogne and Amiens which we tra­verse in si­lence ev­ery time we run across by Calais to Paris. Chalk and clay and sand­stone stretch con­tin­uous­ly un­der sea from Kent and Sus­sex to Flan­ders and Pi­cardy. The Chan­nel burst through, and made the Straits of Dover; but the land on ei­ther side was and still is ge­olog­ical­ly and phys­ical­ly iden­ti­cal. What has made the dif­fer­ence? Man, the planter and gar­den­er. Eng­land is beau­ti­ful by copse and hedgerow, by pine-​clad ridge and wil­low-​cov­ered hol­low, by mead­ows in­ter­spersed with great spread­ing oaks, by pas­tures where drowsy sheep, deep-​fleeced and rud­dy-​stained, hud­dle un­der the shade of an­ces­tral beech-​trees. Its love­li­ness is hu­man. In it­self, I be­lieve, the ac­tu­al con­tour of Eng­land can­not once have been much bet­ter than the con­tour of north­ern France--though nowa­days it is hard in­deed to re­alise it. Ju­di­cious plant­ing, and a con­stant eye to pic­turesque ef­fect in scenery, have made Eng­land what she is--the gar­den of Eu­rope.

Of course there are parts of the coun­try which owed, and still owe, their beau­ty to their wild­ness--Dart­moor, Ex­moor, the West Rid­ing of York­shire, the Sur­rey hills, the Peak in Der­byshire. Yet even these de­pend more than you would be­lieve, when you take them in de­tail, on the art of the forester. The view from Lei­th Hill em­braces John Eve­lyn's woods at Wot­ton: the larch­es that cov­er one Ju­ra-​like gorge were set there well with­in your and my mem­ory. But else­where in Eng­land the hand of man has done ab­so­lute­ly ev­ery­thing. The Amer­ican, when he first vis­its Eng­land, is charmed on his way up from Liv­er­pool to Lon­don by the exquisite air of an­tique cul­ti­va­tion and soft ru­ral beau­ty. The very sward is moss-​like. Thor­ough­ly wild coun­try, in­deed, un­less bold and moun­tain­ous, does not of­ten please one. It is apt to be bare, unattrac­tive, and des­olate. Wit­ness the Veldt, the Steppes, the prairies. You may go through miles and miles of the States and Cana­da, where the wild­ness for the most part rather re­pels than de­lights you. I do not say ev­ery­where; in places the wilder­ness will blos­som like a rose; bog­gy mar­gins of lakes, fall­en trunks in the for­est over­grown with wild flow­ers, make scenes unattain­able in our civilised Eng­land. Even our rough­est scenery is com­par­ative­ly man-​made: our heaths are game pre­serves; our wood­lands are thinned of su­per­flu­ous un­der­brush; our moors are re­lieved by de­lib­er­ate plan­ta­tions. But Eng­land in her own way is unique and un­ri­valled. Such parks, such greensward, such grassy lawns, such wood­ed tilth, are whol­ly un­known else­where. Com­pare the blank fields and long poplar-​fringed high roads of cen­tral France with our De­von or our War­wick­shire, and you get at once a just mea­sure of the vast, the un­speak­able dif­fer­ence.

And man has done it all. Alone he did it. Of­ten as I take my walks abroad--and when I say abroad I mean in Eng­land--I see men at work dot­ting about ex­otics of var­ie­gat­ed fo­liage on some bar­ren hill­side, and I say to my­self, “There, be­fore my eyes, goes on the beau­ti­fy­ing of Eng­land.” Thir­ty years ago, the North Downs near Dork­ing were one bare stretch of white chalky sheep-​walk; half of them still re­main so; the oth­er half has been plant­ed ir­reg­ular­ly with copses and spin­neys, which serve to throw up and en­hance the beau­ty of the un­al­tered in­ter­vals. Beech and larch in au­tumn tints set off smooth patch­es of grass and ju­niper. With­in the last few years, the downs about Leather­head have been sim­ilar­ly di­ver­si­fied. Much of the love­li­ness of ru­ral Eng­land is due, one must frankly con­fess, to the big land­lords. Though the great hous­es love us not, we must al­low at least that the great hous­es have cared for the trees in the hedge-​rows, and for the tim­ber in the mead­ows, as well as for the covert that shel­tered their pheas­ants, their fox­es, and their game­keep­ers. But al­most as much of Eng­land's charm is due to in­di­vid­ual small own­ers or oc­cu­piers. 'Tis they who have plant­ed the grounds about vil­la or cot­tage; they who have stocked the sweet old gar­dens of yew and box, of hol­ly­hock and pe­ony; they who have giv­en us the care­less rus­tic grace of the En­glish vil­lage. Still, one way or an­oth­er, man has done it all, whether in grange or in manor-​house, in pala­tial es­tate or in labour­er's hold­ing. Look at the French or Bel­gian ham­let by the side of the En­glish one; look at the French or Bel­gian farm by the side of our En­glish wealth in wood­ed glen or shel­tered home­stead. Bricks and mor­tar are _not_ cov­er­ing the whole of Eng­land. That is on­ly true of the squalid purlieus and out­liers of Lon­don, whith­er Lon­don­ers grav­itate by mu­tu­al at­trac­tion. If you _will_ go and live in a dingy sub­urb, you can't rea­son­ably com­plain that all the world's sub­ur­ban. Be­ing the most cheer­ful of pes­simists, a dweller in the coun­try all the days of my life, I have no hes­ita­tion in ex­press­ing my pro­found con­vic­tion that with­in my mem­ory more has been done to beau­ti­fy than to ugli­fy Eng­land. On­ly, the beau­ti­fi­ca­tion has been qui­et and un­ob­tru­sive, while the ugli­fi­ca­tion has been ob­vi­ous and con­cen­trat­ed. It takes half a year to jer­ry-​build a dingy street, but it takes a decade for new­ly-​plant­ed trees to give the wood­land air by im­per­cep­ti­ble stages to a stretch of coun­try.