*
For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood,
and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent
on what we see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful
things with all the ardour and patience of a botanist after
a rare plant. Day by day we perfect ourselves in the art
of seeing nature more favourably. We learn to live with
her, as people learn to live with fretful or violent
spouses: we dwell lovingly on what is good, and shut our
eyes against all that is bleak or inharmonious. We learn,
also, to come to each place in the right spirit. The
traveller, as Brantome quaintly tells us, 'fait des
discours en soi pour se soutenir en chemin.'
*
There is no end, indeed, to making books or experiments, or
to travel, or to gathering wealth. Problem gives rise to
problem. We may study for ever, and we are never as
learned as we would. We have never made a statue worthy of
our dreams. And when we have discovered a continent, or
crossed a chain of mountains, it is only to find another
ocean or another plain upon the farther side. In the
infinite universe there is room for our swiftest diligence
and to spare. It is not like the works of Carlyle, which
can be read to an end. Even in a corner of it, in a
private park, or in the neighbourhood of a single hamlet,
the weather and the seasons keep so deftly changing that
although we walk there for a lifetime there will be always
something to startle and delight us.
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