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. There is
no fear for the result, if we can but surrender ourselves
sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows us, so that
we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some
suitable sort of story as we go.
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