Still, even here, if I were only let alone, and time
enough were given, I should have all manner of pleasures, and take
many clear and beautiful images away with me when I left. When we
cannot think ourselves into sympathy with the great features of a
country, we learn to ignore them, and put our head among the grass
for flowers, or pore, for long times together, over the changeful
current of a stream. We come down to the sermon in stones, when we
are shut out from any poem in the spread landscape. We begin to peep
and botanise, we take an interest in birds and insects, we find many
things beautiful in miniature. The reader will recollect the little
summer scene in WUTHERING HEIGHTS - the one warm scene, perhaps, in
all that powerful, miserable novel - and the great feature that is
made therein by grasses and flowers and a little sunshine: this is
in the spirit of which I now speak. And, lastly, we can go indoors;
interiors are sometimes as beautiful, often more picturesque, than
the shows of the open air, and they have that quality of shelter of
which I shall presently have more to say.
With all this in mind, I have often been tempted to put forth the
paradox that any place is good enough to live a life in, while it is
only in a few, and those highly favoured, that we can pass a few
hours agreeably.
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