CONCERNING THE POPULAR TASTE IN SCENERY AND SOME HAPPY PEOPLE
We had somewhat scorned the idea of Watkins, as being one of Nature's
show-places. In fact, Watkins Glen is, so to say, so nationally beautiful
as latterly to have received a pension from the Government of the United
States, which now undertakes the conservation of its fantastic chasms and
waterfalls. Some one--I am inclined to think it was myself--once said
that he never wished to go to Switzerland, because he feared that the
Alps would be greasy with being climbed. I think it is clear what he
meant. To one who loves Nature for himself, has his own discovering eyes
for her multiform and many-mooded beauty, it is distasteful to have some
excursionist effect of spectacular scenery labelled and thrust upon him
with a showman's raptures; and, in revulsion from the hypocritical
admiration of the vulgar, he turns to the less obvious and less
melodramatic beauty of the natural world. The common eye can see Nature's
beauty only in such melodramatic and sentimental forms--dizzy chasms,
foaming waterfalls, snow-capped mountains and flagrant sunsets, just as
it can realize Nature's wildness of heart only in a menagerie. That a
squirrel or a meadow-lark, or even a guinea-pig, is just as wild as the
wild beasts in a travelling circus is outside the comprehension of the
vulgar, who really hunger after mere marvels, whatever they may be, and
actually have no eyes for beauty at all.
Thus really sublime and grandiose effects of Nature are apt to lose their
edge for us by over-popularization, as many of her scenes and moods have
come to seem platitude from being over-painted. Niagara has suffered far
more from the sentimental tourist and the landscape artist than from all
the power-houses, and one has to make a strenuous effort of detachment
from its excursionist associations to appreciate its sublimity.
Thus Colin and I discussed, in a somewhat bored way, whether we should
trouble to visit the famous Watkins Glen, as we sat over supper in a
Watkins hotel, one of the few really comfortable and cordial hotels we
met in our wanderings, and we smiled to think what the natives would have
made of our conversation. Two professional lovers of beauty calmly
discussing whether it was worth while walking half a mile to see one of
the natural, and national, wonders of America! Why, last season more than
half a million visitors kodaked it, and wrote their names on the face of
the rocks! However, a great natural effect holds its own against no
little vulgarization, and Watkins Glen soon made us forget the trippers
and the concrete footpaths and iron railings of the United States
government, in the fantasies of its weirdly channelled gorge and
mysterious busy water.
Watkins itself, despite its name, is sufficiently favoured by Nature to
make an easy annual living, situated as it is at the south end of the
beautiful Seneca Lake, and at the head of a nobly picturesque valley some
twenty miles long, with a pretty river spreading out into flashing
reed-grown flats, sheer cliffs and minor waterfalls, here and there a
vineyard on the hillside, or the vivid green of celery trenches in the
dark loam of the hollows, all the way to--Elmira! The river and the
trolley run side by side the whole charming way, and, as you near
Elmira, you come upon latticed barns that waft you the fragrance of
drying tobacco-leaves, suspended longitudinally for the wind to play
through. On the morning of our leaving Watkins, we had been roused a
little earlier than usual by mirthful sounds in the street beneath our
hotel windows. Light-hearted voices joking each other floated up to us,
and some one out of the gladness of his heart was executing a spirited
shake-down on the sidewalk--at six o'clock of a misty October morning.
Looking out, we caught an endearing glimpse of the life of the most
lovable of all professions. It was a theatrical company that had played a
one-night stand at the local opera-house the evening before, and was now
once more upon its wandering way. They had certainly been up till past
midnight, but here they were, at six o'clock of the morning, merry as
larks, gay as children, waiting for the Elmira trolley. Presently the car
came clanging up, and alongside drew up a big float, containing baggage
and rolls of scenery--all of which, to our astonishment, by some miracle
of loading known only to baggagemen, was in a few moments stowed away
into the waiting car. When the last property was shipped, the conductor
rang his bell, by way of warning, and the whole group, like a flight of
happy birds, climbed chattering into the car. "All aboard," called the
conductor, once more ringing his bell, and off they went, leaving a trail
of laughter in the morning air.
"'Beloved Vagabonds!'" said Colin, as we turned away, lonely, from our
windows, with, I hardly know why, a suspicion of tears in our eyes.