Three Men in a Boat / Three Men on the Bummel

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the camera for us, have changed all that. The man who plays
tennis every year at the foot of the Matterhorn, and billiards
on the summit of the Rigi, does not thank you for an elaborate
and pa<strong>in</strong>stak<strong>in</strong>g description of the Grampian Hills. To the
average man, who has seen a dozen oil pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>gs, a hundred
photographs, a thousand pictures <strong>in</strong> the illustrated journals,
and a couple of panoramas of Niagara, the word-pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g of a
waterfall is tedious.
An American friend of m<strong>in</strong>e, a cultured gentleman, who
loved poetry well enough for its own sake, told me that he had
obta<strong>in</strong>ed a more correct and more satisfy<strong>in</strong>g idea of the Lake
district from an eighteenpenny book of photographic views
than from all the works of Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth
put together. I also remember his say<strong>in</strong>g concern<strong>in</strong>g
this subject of scenery <strong>in</strong> literature, that he would thank an
author as much for writ<strong>in</strong>g an eloquent description of what he
had just had for d<strong>in</strong>ner. But this was <strong>in</strong> reference to another
argument; namely, the proper prov<strong>in</strong>ce of each art. My friend
ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed that just as canvas and colour were the wrong mediums
for story tell<strong>in</strong>g, so word-pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g was, at its best, but
a clumsy method of convey<strong>in</strong>g impressions that could much
better be received through the eye.
As regards the question, there also l<strong>in</strong>gers <strong>in</strong> my memory
very dist<strong>in</strong>ctly a hot school afternoon. The class was for English
literature, and the proceed<strong>in</strong>gs commenced with the read<strong>in</strong>g
of a certa<strong>in</strong> lengthy, but otherwise unobjectionable, poem.
The author’s name, I am ashamed to say, I have forgotten,
together with the title of the poem. The read<strong>in</strong>g f<strong>in</strong>ished, we
closed our books, and the Professor, a k<strong>in</strong>dly, white-haired old
gentleman, suggested our giv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> our own words an account
of what we had just read.
“Tell me,” said the Professor, encourag<strong>in</strong>gly, “what it is all
about.”
“Please, sir,” said the first boy — he spoke with bowed head
and evident reluctance, as though the subject were one which,