VV(1) "afraid of land or seascapes like this"

[Doug Millison]

"Some of us are afraid of dying; others of human loneliness. Profane was
afraid of land or seascapes like this, where nothing else lived but himself.
It seemed he was always walking into one: turn a corner in the street, open
a door to a weather deck and there he'd be, in alien country." (21)

Just an idle thought, but Profane's fear seems a retreat from the 
American attitude in the great landscape painting of the 19th century 
American wilderness -- exuberant, eager to explore, enraptured. Davy 
Crocket said it well (at least it's attributed to him), when asked if 
he had ever gotten lost in his wanderings, "I was never lost, but I 
was a bit bewildered at times" or something like that. Some distance 
between Profane and "Crutchfield or Crouchfield, the westwardman" (GR 
67) alone and at ease in his landscape.
-- 
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