My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

286 MY LIFEpairs only being fastened together by a spike throughthem, the waste of material in such a fence beingcompensated by the reduction of the labour, since thetimber itself was often looked upon as a nuisance tobe got rid of before cultivation was possible. Thisfact of timber being in the way of cultivation and ofno use till cut down, led to the very general clearingaway of all the trees from about the house, so that it isa comparatively rare thing, except in the easterntowns and villages, to find any old trees that havebeen left standing for shade or for beauty.For these and for similar causes acting throughthe greater part of North America, there results amonotonous and unnatural ruggedness, a want ofharmony between man and nature, the absence of allthose softening effects of human labour and humanoccupation carried on for generation after generationin the same simple way, and in its slow and gradualutilization of natural forces allowing the renovatingagency of vegetable and animal life to conceal allharshness of colour or form, and clothe the wholelandscape in a garment of perennial beauty.Over the larger part of America everything is rawand bare and ugly, with the same kind of uglinesswith which we also are defacing our land and destroyingits rural beauty. The ugliness of new rows ofcottages built to let to the poor, the ugliness of themean streets of our towns, the ugliness of our " blackcountries " and our polluted streams. Both countriesare creating ugliness, both are destroying beauty ;butin America it is done on a larger scale and with amore hideous monotony. The more refined amongthe Americans see this themselves as clearly as wesee it. One of them has said, "A whole huge continenthas been so touched by human hands that,