rich, no poor, no high, no low. It was a world of ease, simplicity,

and beauty; now it is a scene of desolation and misery."

This is not an ingenious picture. It is the worst I ever saw. It

describes in elaborate detail what it terms a "terrestrial paradise," and

closes with the startling information that this paradise is "a scene of

desolation and misery."

I have given two fair, average specimens of the character of the

testimony offered by the majority of the writers who visit this region.

One says, "Of the beauty of the scene I can not say enough," and then

proceeds to cover up with a woof of glittering sentences a thing which,

when stripped for inspection, proves to be only an unobtrusive basin of

water, some mountainous desolation, and one tree. The other, after a

conscientious effort to build a terrestrial paradise out of the same

materials, with the addition of a "grave and stately stork," spoils it

all by blundering upon the ghastly truth at the last.

Nearly every book concerning Galilee and its lake describes the scenery

as beautiful. No--not always so straightforward as that. Sometimes the

impression intentionally conveyed is that it is beautiful, at the same

time that the author is careful not to say that it is, in plain Saxon.

But a careful analysis of these descriptions will show that the materials

of which they are formed are not individually beautiful and can not be

wrought into combinations that are beautiful. The veneration and the

affection which some of these men felt for the scenes they were speaking

579

The Innocents Abroad