Apart from crowds of holiday-makers, with whom the author is in the main sympathetic, the Isle of Man is a splendid place for the quiet tourist in search of health, scenery, and antiquities. The people invest their beauty spots with legends – few are without them – which make heavy demands on the faith that can remove mountains: thus “it is said that when the Cloven Stone hears the bell of Kirk Lonen ring, the two sides clap together.”
The pleasant places which cater whole-heartedly for amusements and “attractions” are not in total effect much spoilt, though it is perhaps time to protest when the names Weeping Rocks, Wishing Stone, etc., are painted up on their respective rocks. Here is sophistication in Arcady, but it is generally done “with such an ingenuous air that it disarms criticism.” Most of the island however is innocent of “attractions.” Beautiful and neglected glens and highways are many...
From S.E.W.’s cutting review of ‘In Praise of Manxland’ by M. Fraser, in The Geographical Journal, July 1935.