It is no admission that scenery matters. Everyone talks about the importance of having a view, whether from the cottage down to the lake, from the penthouse over the city, from a hotel room to the sea or overlooking the pool. It is frequently an ephemeral magic parodied by E. M. Forster in Room with a View. Though the theme of the novel is understandably and regularly touted as the restrictive and repressed culture of Edwardian England, it was always for me rather an assessment of the dynamic of the view. Though my interpretation is less demonstrable than a young woman’s developing love for a free-spirited young man, it is not entirely void of its own romanticism.
The key to the dichotomy from the outset is the freethinking Mr. Emerson (father of his handsome son, George) who together agree to switch rooms with young Lucy Honeychurch and her chaperone Charlotte Bartlett. I cannot now recall the dismissive details of Emerson’s thesis regarding the unimportance of having a room with a view (nor are the details critical to my own); what however has lingered as indisputably as a quip by Rudyard Kipling is the insinuation that having a view does little to change the overall picture.
This too is perhaps a paradox because, dear Reader, as you may no doubt know I have often asserted the captivating allure of the view from my desk. But it is you who shall have the last laugh because I have unwittingly discovered (as Mr. Emerson suggested) that it doesn’t matter. Oh yes, I quite agree, a view is splendid. But significantly its relevance is both temporal (excuse the pun) and spiritual. To be clear, it matters at what time of day or during which season one sees the view and of course the substance of the view itself. But there is another critical element to the view, what I have conveniently called a spiritual issuance. The mystical feature of a view doesn’t derive solely from the hour of the day or the slant of the light; nor from the whispers of the wind or the wisps of the clouds in the sky, nor from the placidity or the crests of the water upon the river. Instead the beauty is in your head and within your heart. Take it from me, if you are not already convinced, looking upon a celebrated view will do nothing to transform your spirit if the resource is not already there, if it is not already growing within you. If it were otherwise, “taking the waters” would have a hugely more persuasive advantage.
Now this seeming disparagement of a lovely view is instead met to be a reminder only that the evolution of that tranquillity instilled by a lovely view will never come from outside the window or across the sky. Indeed, in order to retail the characterization more forcefully, I shall assert further that without this inner satisfaction the external rendition is topical at best. The view (whatever it may be) is the whipped cream upon the top, merely the additive to what is below. The heartiness of this proposition is to re-establish the boundaries of contentment. Without observing the priority the conclusion will be contaminated and corrupted.
“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition”
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