TRAVEL.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 75, 21 December 1907, Page 13

TRAVEL.

• 9 n e .thing lam 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 1 few placesj and to become at home; in" each,, than - to race 'from place to place; guide-book in hand.' A beautiful scene dobs not yield up its secrets; to'.the / eye of tho collectori What one wants- is '-not • definite I impressions,' biit 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 ;or the - ; shrine be apprehended.' It ■is of little use ,to i survey, a- landscape, unless one has an-overpowering desire, to spend the remainder of one's days there; because it is the life of tho places-and not the/sight of it, in which, one. desires to have "a part; . Above: all,; one , must rjiot lot one's memories sleep as in ; a.'dusty. JumberTroom of the mind. In : a'quiet firelit. hour one mnst..draw near,-and scrutinise them'; afresh,: and ask'oneself what remains. ; • ■; . . I -thrill to see tho-stately..rooms of Abbots-: Jord, .with all their sham.feudal, decorations,' 'tbo little staircase ,by rthich Scott stole away to his solitary work/'thc folded clothes, the shapeless hat, tho tf&ly .shoes laid . nway,. in:-:th.e iglass caSo; tho'plantations where lie walked . with his shrewd bailiff, tho Jilace where he - stopped so often -on tho shoulder of the. slopojj.to..look, a# the liildou Hills,' the rooms: wherp he sat,broken and bereaved man,.yet:with so gallant/a spirit,'to wrestle with-sorrow and adr'ersity. - I.wept,' : l .am not ashamed: to say, aft Abbotsford, at the sight of the rolling his'silvery flood pjst lawiig 'and'shvubberies, to think' of that /.indly, b'ravo, and/honourable heart, and his passionate: love of' all the goodly and cheerful ioys of life earth: ' Or, again, it.wjas a solemn -dayfor -'mo- to pass from tho'humble tenement where' Coleridge lived, at Nether Stowey, -before • the eloud af.'sad h'abit had darkened his horizon, and tirncd hi'm away from the wells of poetry.'into the'''deserts of metaphysical speculation, to 1 Tijid, if lie could, -sonio medicine for .his Hbrtvired spirit.- I walked with a holy awe along" tho leafy lanes to Alfoxden, where; the /.beautiful house nestles in the : green combo aniorig its' "oaks, thinking how-hero,'-and /here, .Wordsworth and Coleridge; . had valked together in the glad days of youth,Vand planned, in obscurity and se-. eluded ijoy, the fresh and lovely lyrics of their n.itin-primo. , . rturn,US :cfflJoss, moro eagerly/to scones . like these/than to scenes of historical, and political traditio}, because there hangs for me a. glory abo.it' the scene of , : tho conception : &nd Igenesi.. of beautiful -imaginative work that is unlike any glory that the earth holds*-;'-. .

Travel/ is onp of the expedients .to which busy -.nieii resort, in order that thoy miiy forget their existence. I do not venture to think_ this exactly culpable, but I'feel suro that .it is a pity that pcoplo do lioti do less and think more; • If a man asks what good conies from thinking, I can only retort by asking, what good comes from the multiplication of unnecessary activity. I am quite ■as : much at a loss as aiiyono else to say ;what is the object of life; but I do not feel any doubt that we are not' sent into • the world to be in a fuss. Like tho lobster in ('The Waters-Babies," I cry; "Let me alone ; I want to think 1" because I believe that that occupation is .at least as profitable as many others. And then, too, without ling more than'a few milts from my door, I;can', seo- things fully as enchanting as I can see by ranging Europe.—A. C. Benson in th'fi "Cornhill.". '.