AUTHOR’S PREFACE
TO THE
FIRST EDITION.
It is not without diffidence that I present to the public a series of papers which took their origin in the presence of natural scenes of grandeur or of beauty,—on the Ocean, in the forests of the Orinoco, in the Steppes of Venezuela, and in the mountain wildernesses of Peru and Mexico. Detached fragments were written down on the spot and at the moment, and were afterwards moulded into a whole. The view of Nature on an enlarged scale, the display of the concurrent action of various forces or powers, and the renewal of the enjoyment which the immediate prospect of tropical scenery affords to sensitive minds, are the objects which I have proposed to myself. According to the design of my work, whilst each of the treatises of which it consists should form a whole complete in itself, one common tendency should pervade them all. Such an artistic and literary treatment of subjects of natural history is liable to difficulties of composition, notwithstanding the aid which it derives from the power and flexibility of our noble language. The unbounded riches of Nature occasion an accumulation of separate images; and accumulation disturbs the repose and the unity of impression which should belong to the picture. Moreover, when addressing the feelings and imagination, a firm hand is needed to guard the style from degenerating into an undesirable species of poetic prose. But I need not here describe more fully dangers which I fear the following pages will shew I have not always succeeded in avoiding.
Nevertheless, notwithstanding faults which I can more easily perceive than amend, I venture to hope that these descriptions of the varied Aspects which Nature assumes in distant lands, may impart to the reader a portion of that enjoyment which is derived from their immediate contemplation by a mind susceptible of such impressions. As this enjoyment is enhanced by insight into the more hidden connection of the different powers and forces of nature, I have subjoined to each treatise scientific elucidations and additions.
Throughout the entire work I have sought to indicate the unfailing influence of external nature on the feelings, the moral dispositions, and the destinies of man. To minds oppressed with the cares or the sorrows of life, the soothing influence of the contemplation of nature is peculiarly precious; and to such these pages are more especially dedicated. May they, “escaping from the stormy waves of life,” follow me in spirit with willing steps to the recesses of the primeval forests, over the boundless surface of the Steppe, and to the higher ridges of the Andes. To them is addressed the poet’s voice, in the sentence of the Chorus—