laughing spirits (in which you were never poor till now), we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with 'lusty brimmers (as you used to quote it out of hearty, cheerful 5 Mr. Cotton, as you called him), we used to welcome in the 'coming guest.' Now we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year; no flattering promises about the new year doing better for us.

Bridget is so sparing of her speech, on most occasions, 10 that when she gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I could not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor-hundred pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were 15 poorer, but we were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened 20 and knit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been to each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now complain of. The resisting power, those natural dilations of the youthful spirit, which circumstances can not straiten-with us are long since 25 passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth, a sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We must ride where we formerly walked: live better and lie softer and shall be wise to do sothan we had means to do in those good old days you speak 30 of. Yet could those days return, could you and I once more walk our thirty miles a day, could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young, and you and I be young to see them, could the good old one shilling gallery days returnthey are dreams, my cousin, now, but could you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, by our

well-carpeted fireside, sitting on this luxurious sofa-be once more struggling up those inconvenient staircases, pushed about and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblers—could I once more hear 5 those anxious shrieks of yours, and the delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed, when the topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath us-I know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so deep as I would be willing 10 to bury more wealth in than Croesus had, or the great Jew R is supposed to have, to purchase it. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that pretty insipid half-Madonna-ish chit of a lady in 15 that very blue summer-house."

Are

SUGGESTIONS: What of the length of Lamb's sentences? they usually loose or not? What effect is gained by the constantly recurring exclamatory sentences? What, by the many allusions? Name three peculiar qualities of Lamb's vocabulary.

It may be noticed that The Two Races of Men begins with a general explanation, then narrows to a particular instance. Try to follow this general order in your own theme. Use some of Lamb's words, if you can.

ADAPTED SUBJECTS

Two Races of Students.

On Being a Grind.

Red Ink.

Rooms that I Have Loved.
On the Decay of Text-books.
Afternoon Teas.

My First Acquaintance with Cæsar.
Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Been.

On Going Home at Christmas.

On College Actors and Acting.

IT

ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT

PLACES*

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

66

T is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and we have much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one side after another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful. A few months 5 ago some words were said in the Portfolio as to an austere regimen in scenery;" and such a discipline was then recommended as "healthful and strengthening to the taste." That is the text, so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery, it must be understood, is some10 thing more than a mere walk before breakfast to whet the appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly neighborhood, and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the ardor and 15 patience of a botanist after a rare plant. Day by day we

perfect ourselves in the art of seeing nature more favorably. We learn to live with her, as people learn to live with fretful or violent spouses: to dwell lovingly on what is good, and shut our eyes against all that is bleak or 20 inharmonious. We learn, also, to come to each place in the right spirit. The traveler, as Brantôme quaintly tells us, "fait des discours en soi pour se soutenir en chemin;” and into these discourses he weaves something out of all that he sees and suffers by the way; they take their tone 25 greatly from the varying character of the scene; a sharp ascent brings different thoughts from a level road; and the man's fancies grow lighter as he comes out of the wood into a clearing. Nor does the scenery any more affect *First published in The Portfolio, November, 1874.

the thoughts than the thoughts affect the scenery.

We see places through our humors as through differently colored glasses. We are ourselves a term in the equation, a note of the chord, and make discord of harmony almost at will. There is no fear for the result, if we can but sur- 5 render ourselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows us, so that we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable sort of story as we go. We become thus, in some sense, a center of beauty; we are provocative of beauty, much as a gentle and sincere 10 character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in others. And even where there is no harmony to be elicited by the quickest and most obedient of spirits, we may still embellish a place with some attraction of romance. We may learn to go far afield for associations, and handle 15 them lightly when we have found them. Sometimes an old print comes to our aid; I have seen many a spot lit up at once with picturesque imaginations, by a reminiscence of Callot, or Sadeler, or Paul Brill. Dick Turpin has been my lay figure for many an English lane. And 20 I suppose the Trossachs would hardly be the Trossachs for most tourists if a man of admirable romantic instinct had not peopled it for them with harmonious figures, and brought them thither their minds rightly prepared for the impression. There is half the battle in this preparation. 25 For instance: I have rarely been able to visit, in the proper spirit, the wild and inhospitable places of our own Highlands. I am happier where it is tame and fertile, and not readily pleased without trees. I understand that there are some phases of mental trouble that harmonize well 30 with such surroundings, and that some persons, by the dispensing power of the imagination, can go back several centuries in spirit, and put themselves into sympathy with the hunted, houseless, unsociable way of life that

was in its place upon these savage hills. Now, when I am sad, I like nature to charm me out of my sadness, like David before Saul; and the thought of these past ages strikes nothing in me but an unpleasant pity; so that I 5 can never hit on the right humor for this sort of landscape, and lose much pleasure in consequence. Still, even here, if I were only let alone, and time enough were given, I should have all manner of pleasure, and take many clear and beautiful images away with me when I left. When we 10 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 15 out from any poem in the spread landscape. We begin to peep and botanize, 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 power20 ful, 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, 25 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 favored, 30 that we can pass a few hours agreeably. For, if we only stay long enough, we become at home in the neighborhood. Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, about uninteresting We forget to some degree the superior loveliness of other places, and fall into a tolerant and sympathetic

corners.