time, and on this account alone the mental image must always
be better than its reality. Let the image--the first sharp
impression--content us. Many a beautiful picture is spoilt by
the artist who cannot be satisfied that he has made the best
of his subject, and retouching his canvas to bring out some
subtle charm which made the work a success loses it
altogether. So in going back, the result of the inevitable
disillusionment is that the early mental picture loses
something of its original freshness. The very fact that the
delightful place or scene was discovered by us made it the
shining place it is in memory. And again, the charm we found
in it may have been in a measure due to the mood we were in,
or to the peculiar aspect in which it came before us at the
first, due to the season, to atmospheric and sunlight effects,
to some human interest, or to a conjunction of several
favourable circumstances; we know we can never see it again
in that aspect and with that precise feeling.

On this account I am shy of revisiting the places where I have
experienced the keenest delight. For example, I have no
desire to revisit that small ancient town among the hills,
described in the last chapter; to go on a Sunday evening
through that narrow gorge, filled with the musical roar of the
church bells; to leave that great sound behind and stand again
listening to the marvellous echo from the wooded hill on the
other side of the valley. Nor would I care to go again in
search of that small ancient lost church in the forest. It
would not be early April with the clear sunbeams shining
through the old leafless oaks on the floor of fallen yellow
leaves with the cuckoo fluting before his time; nor would that