When We Hasten
To The Fruition, When THERE Is Changed To HERE, All Is Afterwards
As It Was Before, And
We stand in our indigent and cramped estate,
and our soul thirsts after a still ebbing elixir.' It is
To this
wandering and uneasy spirit of anticipation that roads minister.
Every little vista, every little glimpse that we have of what lies
before us, gives the impatient imagination rein, so that it can
outstrip the body and already plunge into the shadow of the woods,
and overlook from the hill-top the plain beyond it, and wander in
the windings of the valleys that are still far in front. The road
is already there - we shall not be long behind. It is as if we were
marching with the rear of a great army, and, from far before, heard
the acclamation of the people as the vanguard entered some friendly
and jubilant city. Would not every man, through all the long miles
of march, feel as if he also were within the gates?
CHAPTER XIV - ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES - 1874
It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and
we have much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one
side after another generally end by showing a side that is
beautiful. A few months ago some words were said in the Portfolio
as to an 'austere regimen in scenery'; and such a discipline was
then recommended as 'healthful and strengthening to the taste.'
That is the text, so to speak, of the present essay. This
discipline in scenery, it must be understood, is something more
than a mere walk before breakfast to whet the appetite. 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 rye 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: to 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 soutenir en
chemin'; and into these discourses he weaves something out of all
that he sees and suffers by the way; they take their tone greatly
from the varying character of the scene; a sharp ascent brings
different thoughts from a level road; and the man's fancies grow
lighter as he comes out of the wood into a clearing. Nor does the
scenery any more affect the thoughts than the thoughts affect the
scenery. We see places through our humours as through differently
coloured glasses. We are ourselves a term in the equation, a note
of the chord, and make discord or harmony almost at will.
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