Vernon Lee

The Beautiful Vernon Lee

Book Excerpt: ...nt pasture for dairy-farming and water-power for both tramway and funicular, and where the necessary capital could be borrowed; and the other one hunted about for marks of stratification and upheaval, and ransacked his memory for historical data about the various tribes originally inhabiting that country."I suppose you're a painter and regretting you haven't brought your sketching materials?" said the scientific man, always interested in the causes of phenomena, even such trifling ones as a man remaining quiet before a landscape."I reckon you are one of those literary fellows, and are planning out where you can use up a description of this place"--corrected the rapid insight of the practical man, accustomed to weigh people's motives in case they may be turned to use."I am not a painter, and I'm not a writer"--exclaimed the third traveller, "and I thank Heaven I'm not! For if I were I might be trying to engineer a picture or to match adjectives, instead of merely enjoy...