The fountain of
Juventus does not play steadily in these parts; but there it plays,
and possibly nowhere else.
CHAPTER XIII - ROADS - 1873
No amateur will deny that he can find more pleasure in a single
drawing, over which he can sit a whole quiet forenoon, and so
gradually study himself into humour with the artist, than he can ever
extract from the dazzle and accumulation of incongruous impressions
that send him, weary and stupefied, out of some famous picture-
gallery. But what is thus admitted with regard to art is not
extended to the (so-called) natural beauties no amount of excess in
sublime mountain outline or the graces of cultivated lowland can do
anything, it is supposed, to weaken or degrade the palate. We are
not at all sure, however, that moderation, and a regimen tolerably
austere, even in scenery, are not healthful and strengthening to the
taste; and that the best school for a lover of nature is not to the
found in one of those countries where there is no stage effect -
nothing salient or sudden, - but a quiet spirit of orderly and
harmonious beauty pervades all the details, so that we can patiently
attend to each of the little touches that strike in us, all of them
together, the subdued note of the landscape.
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