We Become Thus, In Some Sense, A
Centre Of Beauty; We Are Provocative Of Beauty, Much As A Gentle
And Sincere Character Is Provocative Of Sincerity And Gentleness In
Others.
And even where there is no harmony to be elicited by the
quickest and most obedient of spirits, we may still embellish a
place with some attraction of romance.
We may learn to go far
afield for associations, and handle them lightly when we have found
them. Sometimes an old print comes to our aid; I have seen many a
spot lit up at once with picturesque imaginations, by a
reminiscence of Callot, or Sadeler, or Paul Brill. Dick Turpin has
been my lay figure for many an English lane. And I suppose the
Trossachs would hardly be the Trossachs for most tourists if a man
of admirable romantic instinct had not peopled it for them with
harmonious figures, and brought them thither with minds rightly
prepared for the impression. There is half the battle in this
preparation. For instance: I have rarely been able to visit, in
the proper spirit, the wild and inhospitable places of our own
Highlands. I am happier where it is tame and fertile, and not
readily pleased without trees. I understand that there are some
phases of mental trouble that harmonise well with such
surroundings, and that some persons, by the dispensing power of the
imagination, can go back several centuries in spirit, and put
themselves into sympathy with the hunted, houseless, unsociable way
of life that was in its place upon these savage hills.
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