Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1905 (Heft 11))

never seen; they speak to us in a language without words, but so distinctly,
that having once heard we never forget and always retain a longing to hear
them again.
Now, to what can we ascribe this music we all feel when we are in
Holland? Certainly to no association with our homes, or with that which
we love, or with what we have seen before, for no other spot looks like those
lowlands; nor can we say that the cause is on account of any attachment to
Holland, for we need never have been there; she enraptures us the first
instant we see her. Whence, then, comes this fascination? Before attempting
to answer, let us ask if it is only the country of our Knickerbocker ancestors
that has the power to thus entrance us? Yes, if we mean in this very
particular way, but most decidedly no, if we mean, by entrancing, the power
to lead us into dreamland, for there are a thousand things and spots on this
earth that take us out of ourselves into the land of dreams and desire.
When we walk into the great forest we are spellbound by those gigantic tree-
trunks that are twisted and contorted into shapes almost human, by the deep
and mysterious shadows whose gloom whispers of something awful that has
once happened, that may happen again. A dark pool by the roadside will
hold us with its subtle reflections, the little flowers in the field at the edge of
the woods raise our hopes and lead us to imagine joys to come, the pale
moon tells of gentle sorrow or perhaps its rays sparkle with mirth; the night,
the twilight, and the dawn, each have their own language, and when we hear
the storm and the wind and the little brook we can hardly but believe
that their voices are human. But all in nature does not move us equally
deeply, and some objects and moments seem without power to arouse
within us what we call our poetical emotions; and of the productions of
man, it seems that only the most primitive aflfect our sensibilities. Our
cities are mostly commonplace, and when we do see a beautiful piece of
architecture it does not impress us as being part human. Our skyscrapers
are ugly and our factory-districts dreary deserts—yet factory-districts should
seem to contain sufficient elements to arouse great interest; they are
teeming with life and character, saturated with color and tone and great
shadows, and the ponderous smoke certainly lends itself to the thought
and imagination. And lastly, when we enter a railroad-yard we feel that
life indeed is horrible.
Why is all this? The answer is far for us to seek. We must move back
thousands and thousands of years to those days when we were wild savages,
when we ran naked, lived in the woods, when we howled even more than we
do now, and when the chase was our means of subsistence. At that time we
dwelt in huts made of branches of trees covered with hides and bark. In
the dawn and evening our minds were alert with expectancy; it was the
hour of the chase. The night was our favorite time for murdering enemies
and for enemies to murder us; we lurked behind trees awaiting an
opportune moment for the onslaught; we suspected every shadow to
contain death. We danced war-dances around a camp-fire with flaring
torches, and were familiar with sights of strongly illuminated faces seen