ust be greasy with being climbed, and it says much for
such stock pieces in nature's repertoire, that, in spite of all the wear
and tear of sentimental travellers, the mock-admiration of generations,
the batteries of amateur cameras, the Riviera, the English lakes, the
Welsh mountains, the Highlands of Scotland, and other tourist-trodden
classics of the picturesque, still remain haunts of beauty and joys
forever. God's masterpieces do not easily wear out.

Every country does something supremely well, and England may be said to
have a patent for a certain kind of scenery which Americans are the
first to admire. English scenery has no more passionate pilgrim than the
traveller from the United States, as the visitors' books of its various
show-places voluminously attest. Perhaps it is not difficult, when one
has lived in both countries, to understand why.

While America, apart from its impressive natural splendours, is rich
also in idyllic and pastoral landscape, it has, as yet, but little
"countryside." I say, as yet, because "the countryside," I think I am
right in feeling, is not entirely a thing of nature's making, but
rather a collaboration resulting from nature and man living so long in
partnership together. In England, with which the word is peculiarly, if
not exclusively, associated, God is not entirely to be credited with
making the country. Man has for generations also done his share.

It is perhaps not without significance that the word "countryside"
was not to be found in Webster's dictionary, till a recent edition.
Originally, doubtless, it was used with reference to those rural
districts in the vicinity of a town; as one might say the country side
of the town. Not wild or solitary nature was meant, but nature
humanized, made companionable by the presence and occupations of man; a
nature which had made the winding highway, the farm, and the pasture,
even the hamlet, with its church tower and its ancient inn, one with
herself.

The American, speeding up to London from his landing either at Liverpool
or Southampton, always exclaims on the gardenlike aspect, the deep, rich
greenness of the landscape. It is not so much the specific evidences of
cultivation, though those, of course, are plentifully present, but a
general air of ripeness and order. Even the land not visible under
cultivation suggests immemorial care and fertility. We feel that this
land has been fought over and ploughed over, nibbled over by shee