We were off early in the morning, and before we had gone two miles met
a party from Quebec who--must have been driving nearly all night to
give the black flies an early breakfast. Before long a slow rain set
in; we saw another party who had taken refuge in a house in a grove.
When the rain had become so brisk that we began to think of seeking
shelter ourselves, we passed a party of young men and boys--sixteen of
them--in a cart turning back to town, water-soaked and heavy (for the
poor horse had all it could pull), but merry and good-natured. We
paused awhile at the farmhouse where we had got our hay on going out,
were treated to a drink of milk and some wild red cherries, and when
the rain slackened drove on, and by ten o'clock saw the city eight
miles distant, with the sun shining upon its steep tinned roofs.

The next morning we set out by steamer for the Saguenay, and entered
upon the second phase of our travels, but with less relish than we
could have wished. Scenery hunting is the least satisfying pursuit I
have ever engaged in. What one sees in his necessary travels, or doing
his work, or going a-fishing, seems worth while, but the famous view
you go out in cold blood to admire is quite apt to elude you. Nature
loves to enter a door another hand has opened; a mountain view, or a
waterfall, I have noticed, never looks better than when one has just
been warmed up by the capture of a big trout. If we had been bound for
some salmon stream up the Saguenay, we should perhaps have possessed
that generous and receptive frame of mind-that open house of the heart
--which makes one "eligible to any good fortune," and the grand scenery
would have come in as fit sauce to the salmon. An adventure, a bit of
experience of some kind, is what one wants when he goes forth to admire
woods and waters,--something to create a draught and make the embers of
thought and feeling brighten. Nature, like certain wary game, is best
taken by seeming to pass by her intent on other matters.