Hard by the ancient Hall peeped out from its avenue of
elms. That was a picture as sweet as anything I have ever seen
abroad, as perfect a piece of art as could be framed, and more
perfect than anything that could be painted, because it was a piece
out of the old kindly, quiet life of the world. One ought to learn,
as the years flow on, to love such scenes as that, and not to need
to have the blood and the brain stirred by romantic prospects,
peaked hills, well-furnished galleries, magnificent buildings:
mutare animum, that is the secret, to grow more hopeful, more alive
to delicate beauties, more tender, less exacting. Nothing, it is
true, can give us peace; but we get nearer it by loving the
familiar scene, the old homestead, the tiny valley, the wayside
copse, than we do by racing over Europe on the track of Giorgione,
or over Asia in pursuit of local colour. After all, everything has
its appointed time. It is good to range in youth, to rub elbows
with humanity, and then, as the days go on, to take stock, to
remember, to wonder, "To be content with little, to serve beauty
well.
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