From the heights we had now reached, the sea no longer appeared, as it did from Balbec, like an undulating range of hills, but on the contrary like the view, from a mountain-peak or from a road winding round its flank, of a blue-green glacier or a glittering plain situated at a lower level. The ripples of eddies and currents seemed to be fixed upon its surface, and to have traced there forever their concentric circles; the enamelled face of the sea, imperceptibly changing colour, assumed towards the head of the bay, where an estuary opened, the blue whiteness of milk in which little black boats that did not move seemed entangled like flies. I felt that from nowhere could one discover a vaster prospect. But at each turn in the road a fresh expense was added to it and when we arrived at the Douville toll-house, the spur of the cliff which until then had concealed from us half the bay receded, and all of a sudden I saw upon my left a gulf as profound as that which I had already had in front of me, but one that changed the proportions of the other and doubled its beauty. The air at this lofty point had a keenness and purity that intoxicated me. I adored the Verdurins; that they should have sent a carriage for us seemed to me a touching act of kindness. I should have liked to have kissed the Princess. I told her that I had never seen anything so beautiful. She professed that she too loved this spot more than any other. But I could see that to her as to the Verdurins the thing that really mattered was not to gaze at the view like tourists, but to partake of good meals there, to entertain people whom they liked, to write letters, to read books, in short to live in these surroundings, passively allowing the beauty of the scene to soak into them rather than making it the object of their conscious attention.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 927
I initially tagged this section because of Proust's, typically Proustian, lovely description of a particularly beautiful stretch of ocean. I was tempted to search through the thousands of pictures I've taken over the years (and ones I'm always promising to organize and run off and frame) and cull out the best ocean shots. Sadly, that's another chore for another day, as this week is insanely busy and stressful (which probably explains why I've been up since 3:00 a.m.) so I'll just include a shot from Iceland.
In the end, I found myself fixated on the sentence that ended the paragraph. "But I could see that to her as to the Verdurins the thing that really mattered was not to gaze at the view like tourists, but to partake of good meals there, to entertain people whom they liked, to write letters, to read books, in short to live in these surroundings, passively allowing the beauty of the scene to soak into them rather than making it the object of their conscious attention." I love this description and I love the sentiment - and it always takes me back to my general view of Europeans: essentially, that they're far saner than Americans because they own less and tend to spend their money not on possessions but rather on experiences, rather that is travel or a lengthy meal with good wine and a small local (non-chain) restaurant. However, in other ways this statement is the very definition of white privilege. It's easy for the Princess to exist "above" the bourgeois tendency to snap pictures of the scenery, and instead "passively allowing the beauty of the scene to soak into them rather than making it the object of their conscious attention." True enough, and admirable, but also a lot easier to do when you own the scenery and are not just visiting it.
And, yes, I know just hypocritical it is for someone posting pictures of Iceland and Zanzibar to decry white privilege.
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