text, so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline in
scenery,[2] 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 neighborhood, 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: 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 Brantôme quaintly tells us, "_fait des discours en soi pour se
soutenir en chemin_";[3] 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 though differently
colored 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. We become thus, in some sense, a centre of beauty; we
are provocative of beauty,[4] 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