ivation which at the present time people above a certain social
standing feel bound to assume. Very few ordinary persons would care to
avow that they took no interest in national politics, in games and
sport, in literature, in appreciation of nature, or in religion. As a
matter of fact the vital interest that is taken in these subjects,
except perhaps in games and sport, is far below the interest that is
expressed in them. A person who said frankly that he thought that any
of these subjects were uninteresting, tiresome or absurd, would be
thought stupid or affected, even brutal. Probably most of the people
who express a deep concern for these things believe that they are
giving utterance to a sincere feeling; but not to expatiate on the
emotions which they mistake for the real emotion in the other
departments, there are probably a good many people who mistake for a
love of nature the pleasure of fresh air, physical movement, and change
of scene. Many worthy golfers, for instance, who do not know that they
are speaking insincerely, attribute, in conversation, the pleasure they
feel in pursuing their game to the agreeable surroundings in which it
is pursued; but my secret belief is that they pay more attention to the
lie of the little white ball, and the character of bunkers, than to the
pageantry of sea and sky.

As with all other refined pleasures, there is no doubt that the
pleasure derived from the observation of nature can be, if not
acquired, immensely increased by practice. I am not now speaking of the
pursuit of natural history but the pursuit of natural emotion. The
thing to aim at, as is the case with all artistic pleasures, is the
perception of quality, of small effects. Many of the people Who believe
themselves to have an appreciation of natural scenery cannot appreciate
it except on a sensational scale. They can derive a certain pleasure
from wide prospects of startling beauty, rugged mountains, steep
gorges, great falls of water--all the things that are supposed to be
picturesque. But though this is all very well as far as it goes, it is
a very elementary kind of thing. The perception of which I speak is a
perception which can be fed in the most familiar scene, in the shortest
stroll, even in a momentary glance from a window. The things to look
out for are little accidents of light and colour, little effects of
chance grouping, the transfiguration of some well-known and even
commonplace object, such as is pr