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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
132
At
sunrise
we
entered
the
port
of
Brindisi.
IV.
The
characteristic
motive
of
English
poetry
is
love
of
nature,
especially
of
nature
as
seen
in
the
English
rural
landscape.
From
the
"Cuckoo
Song"
of
our
language
in
its
beginnings
to
the
perfect
loveliness
of
Tennyson's
best
verse,
this
note
is
ever
sounding.
It
is
persistent
even
amid
the
triumph
of
the
drama.
Take
away
from
Shakespeare
all
his
bits
of
natural
description,
all
his
casual
allusions
to
the
life
and
aspects
of
the
country,
and
what
a
loss
were
there!
The
reign
of
the
iambic
couplet
confined,
but
could
not
suppress,
this
native
music;
Pope
notwithstanding,
there
came
the
"Ode
to
Evening"
and
that
"Elegy"
which,
unsurpassed
for
beauty
of
thought
and
nobility
of
utterance
in
all
the
treasury
of
our
lyrics,
remains
perhaps
the
most
essentially
English
poem
ever
written.
This
attribute
of
our
national
mind
availed
even
to
give
rise
to
an
English
school
of
painting.
It
came
late;
that
it
ever
came
at
all
is
remarkable
enough.
A
people
apparently
less
apt
for
that
kind
of
achievement
never
existed.
So
profound
is
the
English
joy
in
meadow
and
stream
and
hill,
that,
unsatisfied
at
last
with
vocal
expression,
it
took
up
the
brush,
the
pencil,
the
etching
tool,
and
created
a
new
form
of
art.
The
National
Gallery
represents
only
in
a
very
imperfect
way
the
richness
and
variety
of
our
landscape
work.
Were
it
possible
to
collect,
and
suitably
to
display,
the
very
best
of
such
work
in
every
vehicle,
I
know
not
which
would
be
the
stronger
emotion
in
an
English
heart,
pride
or
rapture.
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