Such things are worth
paying a heavy price for, because they bring a sort of aerial
distance into the mind, they touch the spirit with a hope that the
desire for beauty and perfection is not, after all, wholly
unrealisable, but that there is a sort of treasure to be found even
upon earth, if one diligently goes in search of it.
Of one thing, however, I am quite certain, and that is that travel
should not be a feverish garnering of impressions, but a delicious
and leisurely plunge into a different atmosphere. It is better to
visit few places, and to become at home in each, than to race from
place to place, guide-book in hand. A beautiful scene does not
yield up its secrets to the eye of the collector. What one wants is
not definite impressions but indefinite influences. It is of little
use to enter a church, unless one tries to worship there, because
the essence of the place is worship, and only through worship can
the secret of the shrine be apprehended. It is of little use to
survey a landscape, unless one has an overpowering desire to spend
the remainder of one's days there; because it is the life of the
place, and not the sight of it, in which one desires to have a
part.
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