It is in scenery such
as this that we find ourselves in the right temper to seek out small
sequestered loveliness. The constant recurrence of similar
combinations of colour and outline gradually forces upon us a sense
of how the harmony has been built up, and we become familiar with
something of nature's mannerism. This is the true pleasure of your
'rural voluptuary,' - not to remain awe-stricken before a Mount
Chimborazo; not to sit deafened over the big drum in the orchestra,
but day by day to teach himself some new beauty - to experience some
new vague and tranquil sensation that has before evaded him. It is
not the people who 'have pined and hungered after nature many a year,
in the great city pent,' as Coleridge said in the poem that made
Charles Lamb so much ashamed of himself; it is not those who make the
greatest progress in this intimacy with her, or who are most quick to
see and have the greatest gusto to enjoy. In this, as in everything
else, it is minute knowledge and long-continued loving industry that
make the true dilettante. A man must have thought much over scenery
before he begins fully to enjoy it.
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