How I Found Livingstone Travels, Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo by William Makepeace Thackeray







 -   A mere
map, drawn in words, gives the mind no notion of that exquisite
nature.  What do mountains become in - Page 127
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A Mere Map, Drawn In Words, Gives The Mind No Notion Of That Exquisite Nature.

What do mountains become in type, or rivers in Mr. Vizetelly's best brevier?

Here lies the sweet bay, gleaming peaceful in the rosy sunshine: green islands dip here and there in its waters: purple mountains swell circling round it; and towards them, rising from the bay, stretches a rich green plain, fruitful with herbs and various foliage, in the midst of which the white houses twinkle. I can see a little minaret, and some spreading palm-trees; but, beyond these, the description would answer as well for Bantry Bay as for Makri. You could write so far, nay, much more particularly and grandly, without seeing the place at all, and after reading Beaufort's "Caramania," which gives you not the least notion of it.

Suppose the great Hydrographer of the Admiralty himself can't describe it, who surveyed the place; suppose Mr. Fellowes, who discovered it afterwards - suppose, I say, Sir John Fellowes, Knt., can't do it (and I defy any man of imagination to got an impression of Telmessus from his book) - can you, vain man, hope to try? The effect of the artist, as I take it, ought to be, to produce upon his hearer's mind, by his art, an effect something similar to that produced on his own by the sight of the natural object. Only music, or the best poetry, can do this. Keats's "Ode to the Grecian Urn" is the best description I know of that sweet old silent ruin of Telmessus.

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