Chapter III: Preface (3)

But this is not all. Look at one of those noble faces of rock which shoot up from the restless breakers, and take note of the parallel lines of dark flints which, as if traced with a pencil, sweep in such graceful curves from base to crest of the cliffs. Alike on buttress and recess, from headland to headland, no matter how irregularly the chalk has been sculptured, these parallel lines may be followed. A feature so conspicuous in the architecture of the precipices could not escape the attention of the most casual visitor, but he only vaguely marvels at it, until geology tells him that these dark lines mark successive floors of that ancient sea--floors that gathered one over another, as generation after generation of marine creatures left their crumbling remains upon the bottom. But now they are bent up and placed on end, like books on the shelves of a library. And thus we learn that not only has this ancient sea-bed been turned into dry land, but its layers of hardened ooze have been tilted up vertically, and that it is the worn ends of these upturned layers which form the long ridges of the downs.

But science further makes known to us that beyond the cliffy margin on which we stand, there once stretched an ampler land that has long disappeared. Far over the English Channel the chalk downs once extended with their undulating summits, their smooth grassy slopes, their deep cooms and quiet bournes. That vanished land ran southward, until it ended off in a range of white precipices. The rain that fell on its surface gathered into a river that flowed northward through Freshwater Gap into the Solent. Strange to tell, perched on the top of the present cliffs, to the east of Freshwater, lie fragments of the bed of that ancient stream, consisting of gravel and silt which, as the cliffs are undermined by the waves, tumble to the beach and mingle with the gravel of to-day. In these ancient deposits are found teeth of the long-extinct mammoths which browsed the herbage on slopes that rose southward, where for many a long age the Atlantic has rolled its restless tides and breakers.

Musing on these records of a dim forgotten past, we once more turn to the last spurs of chalk and the isolated Needles. There, with eye quickened to recognise what science has to reveal, we trace on every feature of the rocky foreground, inscribed in characters that cannot be mistaken, the story of that process of destruction which has reduced the Isle of Wight to its present diminished proportions. The rains, frosts, and tempests splinter the chalk above and the waves gnaw it away below. Year by year fresh slices are cut off and strewn in fragments over the sea-floor by the unwearying surge. The Needles, once part of the down, are perceptibly less than they were a generation ago. The opposite white cliffs and downs of Dorset were at one time continuous with those of the Isle of Wight. They too, by their shattered precipices, tunnelled caverns, and isolated stacks of rock, tell the same tale of disintegration. And, thus, impressive though the scenery was before, it now acquires a new interest and significance, when every cliff and pinnacle becomes eloquent to us of a past so strange, so remote, and yet so closely linked with our own day by a chain of slow and unbroken causation.

And now, as a last illustration, let me conduct the reader in imagination to the far north-west of Scotland and place him on the craggy slopes above the upper end of Loch Maree as the sun, after a day of autumnal storm, is descending towards the distant Hebrides in a glory of crimson, green, and gold. Hardly anywhere within the compass of our islands can a landscape be beheld so varied in form and colour, so abounding in all that is noblest and fairest in our mountain scenery. To the right rises the huge mass of Slioch, catching on his terraced shoulders the full glow of sunset, and wreathing his summit with folds of delicate rose-coloured cloud. To the left, above the purple shadows that are now gathering round their base, tower the white crags and crests of Ben Eay, rising clear and sharp against the western sky. Down the centre, between these two giant buttresses, lies Loch Maree--the noblest sheet of water in the Scottish Highlands--now ablaze with the light of the sinking sun. Headland behind headland, and islet after islet rise as bars of deep violet out of that sea of gold. Yonder a group of pines, relics of the old Caledonian forest, stand boldly above the rocky knolls. Around us the naked rock undulates in endless bosses, dotted with boulders or half-buried in the deep heather that flames out with yet richer crimson in the ruddy light filling all the valley. Overhead, the banded cliffs of Craig Roy, draped with waterfalls and wet with the rains of the earlier part of the day, glow in the varying tints of sunset. We hear the scream of the eagles that still nest in these inaccessible crags; the hoarse outcry of the heron comes up from the lake; the whirr of the black-cock re-echoes down the hill-side. It might seem as if we were here out of sight and hearing of man, save that now and then the low of cattle, driven home to their stalls, falls faintly on the ear from the distant hamlet, which is fading into the gathering twilight of the glen.

At such a time and in such a scene the past speaks vividly to us, if there be human associations of a bygone time linked with the place. Here, in this remote Highland valley, we are led backward in imagination through generations of strife and rapine, clan warfare and private revenge, bravery and treachery, superstition and ignorance, far away to that early time when, in the seventh century, Maelrubha, the red priest from Ireland, preached to the savage Picts, and first brought this region within the ken of civilised men. More than twelve hundred years have since passed away, but the memory of that early missionary still lives here among the solitudes which he chose as the scene of his labours. The lake yet bears his name, and his favourite island of retirement, embowered in holly, mountain ash, and honeysuckle, contains his holy well, which, even to this day, is visited for the cure of diseases, while offerings are there made to the saint.

It is just this little touch of 'the still, sad music of humanity' which is needed to crown the interest and dignity of our Highland landscape. 'What more, then, can we need or desire?' our literary critic may once more demand; 'you may go on to elaborate the details of the scene, for every part of the picture abounds in the most exquisite detail, beyond the power of pen or almost of pencil adequately to pourtray. But what can science do here, except to mar what already is perfect, or to confuse by contributing what is entirely irrelevant?'

Again I feel the force of the objection, and all the more because to combat it as I should wish to do, would involve me in geological details which would here be wholly out of place. Let me say, briefly and decidedly, that after many years of experience in every variety of landscape in this country, I know nowhere a scene which has its true inner meaning as a source of impressiveness more strikingly revealed, or which has its ordinary interest more vividly intensified by the light which geological history throws upon it.

The most cursory traveller, even as he drives rapidly along this valley, can hardly fail to observe that three distinct rocks enter into the composition of the landscape, each differing from the others in form, colour, and relative position, and each contributing its own characteristic features to the scenery. First of all a series of curiously hummocky eminences of dark grey rock mounts from the edge of the lake up the sides of Slioch, forming a kind of rude and rugged platform on which that mountain stands. Next comes a pile of brownish red sandstone, which in parallel and almost horizontal bars, like so many courses of cyclopean masonry, forms the upper and main mass of the height. And lastly, there is the bedded white rock which, hanging upon the flanks of the red sandstone, towers in the cliffs of Craig Roy on the one side of the valley and builds up almost the whole of Ben Eay on the other side. The differences and contrasts between these three kinds of material are so marked, and have obviously played so essential a part in producing the special peculiarities of the rocky landscape, that even our literary censor himself could hardly, in spite of himself, fail to note them and might venture to ask a question about them.

To answer his question as it might best be answered would be most briefly and vividly done by a true poet. I can only pretend to present the mere facts, but even such a presentation in the driest and baldest way cannot conceal their inherent marvellous interest.

Those grey bosses of rock that rise out of Loch Maree and form the base and outworks of Slioch are portions of the very oldest known land-surface of Europe, as incalculably more ancient than the rest of the Highlands, as the Highlands in turn are more ancient than the Alps or the Apennines. Their heights and hollows existed before the red sandstones were laid down. To this day, you can walk along the shore-line of the vanished lake or sea in which these sandstones accumulated, and can mark how hill after hill, and valley after valley, sank under its waters, and were buried beneath its quietly gathering sand and shingle. That primeval land-surface, slowly settling down, came at last to lie under several thousand feet of such sediment. Long subsequently, after the sand, hardened into sandstone and the gravel, consolidated into conglomerate, had been partially raised out of water, came the time when the white rock of Ben Eay and Craig Roy gathered as fine white sand on the sea-bottom. Some beds of this compacted sand are filled with millions of the burrows of sea-worms that lived in it, and higher up come bands of shale and limestone containing here and there trilobites, shells, corals, sponges and other organisms belonging to an age anterior to that of even the very oldest fossiliferous rocks of most of the rest of Britain. These sheets of marine sediment point to a period when there were no hills in north-west Scotland, for the primeval heights still lay deeply buried, and a shoreless sea spread far and wide over the region.

At length after a vast interval of time came an epoch of gigantic terrestial disturbance, when north-western Europe, from the North Cape to the south of Ireland, was convulsed; when the solid crust of the earth was folded, crumpled, and fractured, until its shattered rocks, crushed and kneaded together, acquired the crystalline characters which they now display. In the course of these tremendous displacements (to which there is no parallel in the later geological history of this country) huge slices of the earth's crust, many hundreds of feet thick and many miles long, were wrenched asunder and pushed bodily westwards, sometimes for a distance of ten miles. By this means portions of the oldest rocks of the region were torn off and planted on the top of the youngest. The whole country, thus broken up, underwent many subsequent mutations, and was finally left to be gradually worn down by the various agents that have carved the surface of the land into its present shape.

Our three groups of rock, so distinctly marked out in the landscape, thus record three successive and early chapters in the long history by which the topography of the Scottish Highlands has been brought into its existing form. Knowing what is their story, we find that every crag and scar acquires a new meaning and interest. Past and present are once more brought into such close and vivid union that while we gaze at the landscape as it stands now, its features seem to melt away into visions of what it has once been. We can in imagination clothe it with its ancient pine-forests through which the early Celtic colonists hunted the urus, the wild boar, the wolf, the brown bear, and the reindeer. We can fill up the valley with the stately glacier which once stretched along its hollow and went out to sea. We can dimly conceive the passage of the long ages of persistent decay by which mountain and glen, corry and cliff were carved into the forms which now so delight our eye.

In a memorable and often-quoted passage, Johnson wrote, 'To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.'[19] If this be a just judgment, surely we may further maintain that whatever heightens our interest in the landscapes around us, whatever quickens the imagination by presenting new views of what has long been familiar, whatever deepens our reverence by teaching us to recognise the proofs of that long orderly progress through which the land has been fashioned for our use, undoubtedly raises us in the dignity of thinking beings, stimulates the emotional side of our nature, and furnishes abundant material for the exercise of the literary and artistic faculties. Science even in her noblest inspirations, is never poetry, but she offers thoughts of man and nature which the poet, in the alembic of his genius, may transmute into purest poetic gold.

But we have lingered by the side of this northern lake, with its noble curtain of mountains, and the sun meanwhile has sunk in a glory of flame beneath the faint outline of the Hebrides; the last flush of crimson has faded from the sky and the twilight is deepening into night adown the valley. In leaving the scene, if I have succeeded in showing how we have it in our own power to quicken the influence of scenery on the imagination, we may I trust take with us the full conviction that there is no landscape so fair which may not be endued with fresh interest if the light of scientific discovery be allowed to fall upon it. Bearing this light with us in our wanderings, whether at home or abroad, we are gifted, as it were, with an added sense and an increased power of gathering some of the purest enjoyment which the face of Nature can yield.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] _Fortnightly Review_, April, 1893.

[8] Herodotus, vii. 129.

[9] Diod. Sic., iv. 18. See also Lucan, _Pharsalia_, vi. 345.

[10] Diod. Sic., iv. 18, who allows his readers to choose which version of the legend they prefer.

[11] See Strabo, x. 458. Diodorus also (iv. 35), giving a similar interpretation of the legends, tells us how Hercules hollowed out a new bed for the Achelous, thereby reclaiming a vast tract of exceedingly fertile land.

[12] Diod. Sic., iv. 18.

[13] Fouqué, _Santorin et ses Eruptions_, chap. iii.

[14] _Carm._ I., iv. 7.

[15] See this subject fully discussed by Grote, _History of Greece_, vol. i.

[16] Book vii. 129, see _ante_ p. 37.

[17] Book ix. 429.

[18] See Grimm's _Deutsche Mythologie_, i. 502.

[19] _Tour in the Hebrides_, p. 346.

III

Landscape and Literature[20]

The several races of mankind are marked off from each other by certain bodily and mental differences which, there can be no doubt, have been largely determined by the diverse geographical conditions of the surface of the globe. We may be disposed to put aside the first origin of these racial differences, as a problem which may for ever remain insoluble. Yet we cannot refuse to admit that in the disposition of land and sea, in the form and trend of coast-lines, in the grouping of mountains, valleys, and plains, in the disposition and flow of rivers, in the arrangement of climates, and in the distribution of vegetation and animals, a series of influences must be recognized which have unquestionably played a large part in the successive stages of human development.

Though no record of the earliest of these stages has probably survived, some of the later steps in the progress of advancement may not be beyond the reach of investigation. The connection, for example, between the circumscribing topography and geology of a country, and the mythological creed of its inhabitants offers a tempting field of inquiry, in which much may yet be gleaned. Who can doubt that the legends and superstitions of ancient Greece took their form and colour in no small measure from the mingled climates, varied scenery, and rocky structure of that mountainous land, or that the grim titanic mythology of Scandinavia bears witness to its birth in a region of rugged snowy uplands, under gloomy and tempestuous skies?[21]

If the primeval efforts of the human imagination were thus stimulated by the more impressive features of the outer world, it is natural to believe that the same external influences would continue to exert their power during the later mental development of a people. In particular, it seems reasonable to anticipate that such potent causes would more or less make themselves felt in the growth of a national literature. The songs and ballads of the plains might be expected to present some marked diversities from those of the mountains. There may, of course, be risks of error in generalisations of this kind, especially where the writings of distinct races are compared with each other. But the risks may be reduced if we confine ourselves to the consideration of a single country and a single literature. Such at least is the task which I have undertaken on the present occasion. I propose to discuss the leading types of scenery that distinguish the British Isles, and to inquire how far it may be possible to trace from each of them an influence upon the growth of English literature as shown in our poetry.

Under the term scenery may be included those variations in the general aspect of the land that arise from the combined effects of three main geographical elements--topography, climate, and vegetation. Of these three factors, we are mainly concerned with the first, but the other two will necessarily obtrude themselves continually on our attention.

Although geological details are not essential for the inquiry before us, nevertheless some knowledge of them will be found of service in enabling us to recognise more clearly the essential features of a landscape, and to discriminate the real nature and extent of the diversities between the landscapes of different parts of the country. The fundamental elements of the scenery depend upon the nature and structure of the rocks that come to the surface, and the manifold varieties of external form arise from the constant succession of different geological formations.

The evolution of the scenery of these islands has been a long-continued process, wherein the chief part has been played by the air, rain, rivers, frost, and the other superficial agencies which are continually at work in wearing down the surface of the land. Each different kind of rock has yielded in its own fashion to the agents of destruction. Those rocks which have offered least resistance have been worn down into hollows and plains. Those of a more durable nature have been left standing up as ridges, hills, or mountains. The composition of the rocks has likewise governed the nature of the soils and the distribution of vegetation. Chalk, for instance, forms long ridges of grassy and bushless down. Sandy and gravelly tracts are marked by heather and pine-trees. Volcanic rocks often rise into isolated crags with verdant slopes below. Granite lifts itself into mountains and rocky moorlands, with cliffs, corries and 'tors' and long trails of naked scree.

For the purposes of the present Lecture, I will arrange the scenery of this country in three leading types: