"I cannot trample upon these tinted splendours without fear thrown in my path," he says – and indeed he comes to a sorry end soon after setting foot on it.
Visit in summer for hiking, rafting, fishing and rock climbing; in winter, some roads and trails are closed but there is the chance to enjoy the quiet splendour of the landscape without the crowds.
I still, to this day, can't think of lines such as Tennyson's "The splendour falls on castle walls" without hearing Britten's melody from his Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, so naturally do they fit together.
Nevertheless, despite not quite knowing why I was drawn to Bandar Abbas in particular, I did know I wanted to see a different side of Iran, somewhere without the refined splendour of Isfahan, the cosmopolitan buzz of Tehran, or the serene beauty of the Kurdish northwest.
Bob Higginson said it was designed for people to experience the "opulence and splendour of early steamship travel without distraction".
So can the well-meaning traveller experience the splendours of Angkor without contributing to its decline?
But as a pragmatist I'd argue that their work is as variable as anyone else's, and their new show, co-produced with the National Theatre, strikes me as vastly better than their operatic Duchess of Malfi (2010) without quite achieving the gothic splendour of The Masque of the Red Death (2007).
The bulk of Bernardo Britto's footage is unbearably tedious chatter amid time spent lounging around the inexpensive resort, without even treating us to much natural splendour.
Meredith, Splendour, and Golden Plains know they're niche and they're sticking to it, without that hotchpotch trying-to-please-everyone thing.
