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foxes, jays
and such-like, and doubtless in former days included wolves, boars,
roe-deer and stags, beings which, as Walt Whitman truly remarks, do
not worry themselves about their souls.
With this question, however, we need not concern ourselves. To me,
after stumbling by chance on the little church in that solitary woodland
place, the story of its origin was accepted as true; no doubt it had come
down unaltered from generation to generation through all those
centuries, and it moved my pity yet was a delight to hear, as great
perhaps as it had been to listen to the beautiful chimes many times
multiplied from the wooded hill. And if I have a purpose in this book,
which is without a purpose, a message to deliver and a lesson to teach,
it is only this--the charm of the unknown, and the infinitely greater
pleasure in discovering the interesting things for ourselves than in
informing ourselves of them by reading. It is like the difference in
flavour in wild fruits and all wild meats found and gathered by our own
hands in wild places and that of the same prepared and put on the table
for us. The ever-varying aspects of nature, of earth and sea and cloud,
are a perpetual joy to the artist, who waits and watches for their

appearance, who knows that sun and atmosphere have for him
revelations without end. They come and go and mock his best efforts;
he knows that his striving is in vain--that his weak hands and earthy
pigments cannot reproduce these effects or express his feeling--that, as
Leighton said, "every picture is a subject thrown away." But he has his
joy none the less; it is in the pursuit and in the dream of capturing
something illusive, mysterious, and inexpressibly beautiful.
Chapter Two
: On Going Back
In looking over the preceding chapter it occurred to me that I had
omitted something, or rather that it would have been well to drop a
word of warning to those who have the desire to revisit a place where
they have experienced a delightful surprise. Alas! they cannot have that
sensation a second time, and on this account alone the mental image
must always be better than its reality. Let the image--the first sharp
impression--content us. Many a beautiful picture is spoilt by the artist
who cannot be satisfied that he has made the best of his subject, and
retouching his canvas to bring out some subtle charm which made the
work a success loses it altogether. So in going back, the result of the
inevitable disillusionment is that the early mental picture loses
something of its original freshness. The very fact that the delightful
place or scene was discovered by us made it the shining place it is in
memory. And again, the charm we found in it may have been in a
measure due to the mood we were in, or to the peculiar aspect in which
it came before us at the first, due to the season, to atmospheric and
sunlight effects, to some human interest, or to a conjunction of several
favourable circumstances; we know we can never see it again in that
aspect and with that precise feeling.
On this account I am shy of revisiting the places where I have
experienced the keenest delight. For example, I have no desire to revisit
that small ancient town among the hills, described in the last chapter; to
go on a Sunday evening through that narrow gorge, filled with the
musical roar of the church bells; to leave that great sound behind and

stand again listening to the marvellous echo from the wooded hill on
the other side of the valley. Nor would I care to go again in search of
that small ancient lost church in the forest. It would not be early April
with the clear sunbeams shining through the old leafless oaks on the
floor of fallen yellow leaves with the cuckoo fluting before his time;
nor would that straggling procession of villagers appear, headed by an
old man in a smock frock with a big book in his hand; nor would I hear
for the first time the strange history of the church which so enchanted
me.
I will here give an account of yet another of the many well-remembered
delightful spots which I would not revisit, nor even look upon again if I
could avoid doing so by going several miles out of my way.
It was green open country in the west of England--very far west,
although on the east side of the Tamar--in a beautiful spot remote from
railroads and large towns, and the road by which I was travelling (on
this occasion on a bicycle) ran or serpentined along the foot of a range
of