" I laughed.

Kathleen Somers opened her eyes and spoke vehemently. "I've seen all
there is of it to see, in transit to better places. Seeing America
first! That can be borne. It's seeing America last that kills me. Seeing
nothing else forever, till I die."

"You don't care for just beauty, regardless," I mused.

"Not a bit. Not unless it has meant something to man. I'm a humanist,
I'm afraid."

Whether she was gradually developing remorse for my night in the
cobwebby barn, I do not know. But anyhow she grew more gentle, from this
point on. She really condescended to expound.

"I've never loved nature--she's a brute, and crawly besides. It's what
man has done with nature that counts; it's nature with a human past.
Peaks that have been fought for, and fought on, crossed by the feet of
men, stared at by poets and saints. Most of these peaks aren't even
named. Did you know that? Nature! What is Nature good for, I should
like to know, except to kill us all in the end? Don't Ruskinize to me,
my dear man."

"I won't. I couldn't. But, all the same, beauty is beauty, wherever and
whatever. And, look where you will here, your eyes can't go wrong."

"I never look. I looked when I first came, and the stupidity, the
emptiness, the mere wood and dirt and rock of it seemed like a personal
insult. I should prefer the worst huddle of a Chinese city, I verily
believe."

"You've not precisely the spirit of the pioneer, I can see."

"I should hope not. 'But, God if a God there be, is the substance of
men, which is man.' I have to stay in the man-made ruts. They're sacred
to me. I'll look with pleasure at the Alps, if only for the sake of
Hannibal and Goethe; but I never could look with pleasure at your
untutored Rockies. They're so unintentional, you know. Nature is nothing
until history has touched her. And as for this geological display
outside my windows--you'll kindly permit me to turn my back on it. It's
not peevishness." She lifted her hand protestingly. "Only, for weeks, I
stared myself blind to see the beauty you talk of. I can't see it.
That's honest. I've tried. But there is none that I can see. I am very
conventional, you know, very self-distrustful. I have to wait for a
Byron to show it to me. American mountains--poor hulking things--have
never had a poet to look at them. At least, Poe never wasted his time
that way. I don't imagine that Poe would have been much happier here
than I am. I haven't even the thrill of t