The Development Of The Feeling For Nature In The Middle Ages And Modern Times Part 37

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 Inn through 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[9]

Montagu 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 Luneburg or Moser,[11] who observed ironically to Abbt (1763), after reading _Emilia_ and _La Nouvelle Heloise_: '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 h.e.l.lenic 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 erotic pastorals. He opened up again for his country the taste for wood and field, suns.h.i.+ne 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.

His _Confessions_ opened 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 the _Confessions_ he 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 and tranquillity (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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.es, 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. True to his character, he proceeded to a.n.a.lyze the charm of the episode, and decided that it was made up of the _dolce 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 pa.s.sion 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 sh.o.r.es 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 ravis.h.i.+ng panorama of the lake and its sh.o.r.es--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 sh.o.r.e in some hidden spot, and there the sound of the waves and the movements of the water, making me oblivious of all other distraction, would plunge 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 pa.s.sion--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 cla.s.sify 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 the earth 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 G.o.d, and that man and his culture are responsible for all the evil, worked out in his att.i.tude towards Nature.

He placed her upon a pedestal, wors.h.i.+pping 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.

His _Confessions_, 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 pa.s.sages about Nature in the _Confessions_ have 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 gra.s.s, no wind was stirring; the air was fresh without chilliness, the setting sun had tinged the clouds with a 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 Chambery, not far from a mountain road called the Pas d'ech.e.l.le. 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 amus.e.m.e.nt in these steep rocks lies in their causing a giddiness and swimming in my head, which I am particularly 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 Chambery, 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 Therese there was a similar idyll.

The most epoch--making event in European feeling for Nature was the appearance of _La Nouvelle Heloise_ (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 breeze of 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Heloise_ shewed 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 n.o.ble pa.s.sions 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 the twenty-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, das.h.i.+ng, 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: