The Vast
Stone Shows Like A Half From Which The Other Half Has Been Sharply Cleft
And Removed, That The Sense Of Its Precipitous Magnitude May
Unrelievedly Strike The Eye; And It Seems To Have In That Moment The
Whole World To Tower Up In From The Level At Its Feet.
No dictionary,
however unabridged, has language adequate to convey the notion of it.
III
ASHORE AT GENOA
The pride of Americans in their native scenery is brought down almost to
the level of the South Shore of Long Island in arriving home from the
Mediterranean voyage to Europe. The last thing one sees in Europe is the
rock of Gibraltar, but before that there have been the snow-topped
Maritime Alps of Italy and the gray-brown, softly rounded, velvety
heights of Spain; and one has to think very hard of the Palisades above
the point where they have been blasted away for road-making material if
one wishes to keep up one's spirits. The last time I came home the
Mediterranean way I had a struggle with myself against excusing our
sandy landscape, when we came in sight of it, with its summer cottages
for the sole altitudes, to some Italian fellow-passengers who were not
spellbound by its grandeur. I had to remember the Rocky Mountains, which
I had never seen, and all the moral magnificence of our life before I
could withhold the words of apology pressing to my lips. I was glad that
I succeeded; but now, going back by the same route, I abandoned myself
to transports in the beauty of the Mediterranean coast which I hope were
not untrue to my country.
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