Scenery

“ The scenery is wild and savage and primeval, being the stock of which beautiful landscapes are made, rather than the culture that gentler airs and more temperate winds bring upon the face of the earth nearer the sea and the equator. ”

“ What atmospheric effects, what changing lights, all beautiful, invest the outer landscape with magic, even where the scenery is tame. How rarely is it unpleasing to the eye. And it is the same when we turn our eyes inwards, and contemplate the landscape of our own selves, what glories of light flood all, what richness of foliage clothes all, how picturesque are the inequalities! ”

“ And the pictures of natural scenery, simple or mingled with art, in life or in ruins, in the various landscapes drawn from different parts of the earth and presented to the eye of the mind as in thought, we stand in the midst of them as they arise, admiring them in their own grandeur and loveliness, or finding in them a fit place for reflection and prayerful meditation, are well worth beholding, recalling, and gazing upon with quickened and cultured powers and imagination, extracting, combining and storing. ”

“ A fervid nature, a vivid imagination, and, above all, the matchless and magnificent scenery, the strangely silent people, the half-pathetic stillness of the forests, all conspired to lift me up into an atmosphere where the soul laughs at doubt and never dreams of failure. ”

“ It lacks the accompaniments of the songs of birds, the awakening hum of humanity, and the glancing of the first beams upon trees, hills, spires, and house-tops, to give it life and spirit. There is no scenery. ”

“ A commonplace observer, had such been there to mark him, would have pronounced him one passionately devoted to scenery,—a man who loved to watch the passing cloud-shadows of a landscape, enjoying with all a painter's delight the varying tints, the graceful lines, the sharp-thrown shadows, and the brilliant lights of a woodland picture ”

“ The scenery too was real scenery—not painted canvass, that required distance to give it the effect of reality: the greensward, the blue sky and bluer sea, the rocky islands, the distant hills and mountains, were painted by the hand of the greatest of all Artists ”

“ To reveal ordinary people just as they really are,--sometimes in terrific excitement, sometimes in humdrum routine,--this was his aim. Natural scenery is occasionally introduced, like the mountains in The Cossacks, to show how the spectacle affects the mind of the person who is looking at it. ”

“ True, Sir, but we are much indebted to the pencil for introducing rural scenes and scenery into our crowded cities, by which we are told, through the medium of the eye, that there are living beauties in nature which we may see. ”

“ The scenery, on either side, is exceedingly beautiful, opening occasionally, as you pass along, the most picturesque landscapes, and then completely embowering you in the shade of the luxuriant trees, that overhang the stream. ”

“ On the other hand, ordinary scenery, of familiar mountains, of calm streams of water, and of dwellings just before our eyes, may be sketched with an irregularity so charming, and with such excellent skill, as almost to rival Nature. In pictures such as these, the perspective of gentle mountain slopes, and sequestered nooks surrounded by leafy trees, are drawn with such admirable fidelity to Nature that they carry the spectator in imagination to something beyond them. ”

“ We exaggerate the praises of local scenery. In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first hillock as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. ”

“ Landscapes artistically arranged formed backgrounds for the narratives, like the scenery of a theatre. You follow with your eyes a horseman galloping along the strand; you breathe amid the heather the freshness of the wind ”

“ I will reply by an illustration from nature. When one is familiar with a landscape that is marked by bold mountains, prominent headlands, or rushing torrents, it is not difficult to describe such scenery so that it is at once recognized. ”

“ All the scenery we have yet met with is in excellent taste, and keeps itself within very proper bounds,— never getting too wild and rugged to shock the sensibilities of cultivated people, as American scenery is apt to do. ”

“ The scenery of these featureless plains is ordinarily depressing when once the novelty of being adrift on a sea of grass has passed away. There is nothing that can be termed scenery except that which once a year for a brief period the sky affords when clouds of extraordinary grandeur darken the air. ”

“ The increasing ascent and change of direction opens a series of pleasing views, and as you look now this way, now that, along the diversified flanks of the hills, you will wish for more time to wander through such beautiful scenery. ”

“ Even landscape scenery, to one habitually moved by the aspects of Nature in association with feeling, may be considered in the same predicament. We all know," he adds, "how easy it is to imagine faces in casual blots, and to fancy pictures in the fire." ”

“ Pictures of natural scenery bring all countries before our eyes in such a way that by looking at them, while reading books of travel, we may know a great deal more about lands we have never seen, and may never be able to visit. ”

“ For the scenery is of a kind which grows upon one. It shows no clamant beauties—you cannot have its charms photographed—the passing stranger may see nothing in it to detain him; but only tarry for a while amongst these green uplands, and you shall find a strange attraction in their soft outlines, in their utter quiet and restfulness. For those who are wearied with the crush and din of life, I cannot think — 63 — of a better retreat. One may wander at will amongst the breezy hills, and inhale the most invigorating air ”

“ The loveliness of a pretty bit of scenery or of a landscape may be enhanced by art, but the impressive grandeur of nature, when the feature of vast and varied expanse predominates, cannot be adequately expressed. ”

“ The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships. ”

“ Let her, if possible, extend her acquaintance with wild natural scenery of every kind and character, endeavoring in each species of scenery to distinguish those features which are expressive and harmonious from those which are unaffecting or incongruous ”

“ For one minute the feeling may arise 'is that all'—the next, the grandeur of the scene has won its way to the mind and taken captive the imagination. Sit for an hour and the feeling will grow, while to revisit it day after day for a week will intensify wonder and admiration at the marvellous scene. ”

“ An eye for the Sublime and the Beautiful, the power of graphically describing natural scenery, a vivid perception of the peculiarities of national manners, habits, and institutions, will at once be acknowledged to be the first requisites. ”

“ There is a serene and settled majesty in woodland scenery, that enters into the soul, and dilates and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations. ”

“ Adieu to Fountains—but the scene will never leave my mental vision, which will retain as tenaciously, also, the recollection of those whose company enabled me to enter into the spirit of the scene, as I never can when alone. ”

“ A moment was needed to recover one’s moral equipoise, as well as for the unpractised eye to adjust itself to the vastness of the landscape, and to the multitude of objects, strange objects, everywhere confronting it. ”

“ The scene, in short, has about it that solemn impressive repose which irresistibly arrests the fancy, and sets it to dress up into fantastic shapes the massive clouds that float in the western sky, to picture grim forms amid the misty shadows of the valley, or to dwell half dreaming upon the memories of the past, that come crowding through the mind in quick succession. ”

“ He paused to look again over the scene, and, as far as the eye could reach, and that, moonlight as it was, was many miles, the country was diversified with hill and dale, meadow and ploughed land; the open fields, and the darker woods, and the silvery stream that ran at no great distance, all presented a scene that was well calculated to warm the imagination, and to give the mind that charm which a cultivated understanding is capable of receiving. ”

“ For there are not only the funny people and the pretty people acting out their little drama in the foreground—there is the scene in which they act, and the middle distance, and the background beyond, and the sky itself; beautiful rough landscapes and seascapes and skyscapes, winds and weathers, boisterous or sunny seas, rain and storm and cloud—all the poetry of nature, that he feels most acutely while his little people are being so unconsciously droll in the midst of it all. ”

“ Outward nature, inner life and passion, town and country, all the features of human nature, as exhibited in every grade of life—from the cottage to the throne—are in him expressed with a truth and a natural strength, that awake in us precisely the same sensations as nature itself. ”

“ Natural historians, architects, painters, and poets ought to come hither for new knowledge and new inspiration. Air and light, the vegetation above ground, and the caverns below it, are full of life and beauty! ”

“ A very commonplace scene, indeed. But what scene was ever commonplace in the descending sunlight, when colour has awakened from its noonday sleep, and the long shadows awe us like a disclosed presence? ”

“ The beauty of the place seemed unearthly in its excess: the distance we were at from all signs of civilization, the sea at our feet, its murmurs or its roaring for ever in our ears,—all these things led the mind to brood over strange thoughts, and, lifting it from everyday life, caused it to be familiar with the unreal. ”

“ It is a noble landscape, where every feature is bold, and throughout which light and shade alternate in broad, effective masses, showing that you are gazing on a scene of great extent, and taking in miles of country with your eye. ”

“ Every quality of landscape that has a name would then be visible in her at once—all that is delicate or graceful, all that is quiet, or wild, or romantic, or desolate, or cheerful, or luxuriant, or fresh. ”

“ We have since, with much attention, noticed the lines of nature, when most beautiful,—have watched the clouds, how they have arched valleys, and promoted a correspondence of sentiment,—and how, in woods, the receding and approaching lines of circles have made the meetings and the hollows, which both make space, and are agreeable. We are not setting forth our line of beauty. ”

“ Often in a landscape we first single out particular objects,—this old oak,—that cascade,—that ruin,—and derive from them, an individual joy; then relapsing, we view the landscape as a whole, and seem, to be surrounded by a kind of atmosphere of thought, the result of the combined influence of all. ”

“ Imagination loses itself among the still paths of this ideal country.{23} Bluish backgrounds blend with the sky, and the whole landscape, reproduced in the waters of a tranquil river, forms a scene that no tongue can describe. ”

“ As I look out upon the landscape that lies before my window, and see the men and women working in the fields, and the fields smiling to man’s husbandry, when I see no marks of the spoiler, and recognize that each one is safe in his person and secure in his possessions, then it is I see peace, and think of my poor country with a sigh, and, oh, with what reflections. ”

“ They were altogether free from that vulgar habit of comparing scene with scene which so poisons the eye to all true perception of natural beauty,—as though the one great end were to graduate all the various scenes of nature in the list of a competitive examination. ”

“ Here, there, happy in flight, intoxicated in pause, from object to object, point to point, now in the meadow, now on the heights, now lingering to penetrate the groves and observe the processions, then lost in efforts to pursue the paths and streams which trended mazily into dim perspectives to end finally in— Ah, what might be a fitting end to scene so beautiful! ”