color, to the maiden an emblem of love, to the
heart-broken woman a cluster of memories; to no two is it
precisely the same.

The longer we look at anything, however simple, the deeper it
penetrates into our being until it becomes a part of us. In time
we learn to know the tree that shades our porch, but years elapse
before we are on friendly terms, and a lifetime is spent before
the gnarled giant admits us to intimate companionship. Trees are
filled with reserve; when denuded of their neighbors, they stand
in melancholy solitude until the leaves fall for the last time,
until their branches wither, and their trunks ring hollow with
decay.

And if we never really see or know or understand the nature which
is about us, how is it possible that we should ever comprehend the
people we meet? What is the use of trying to know an Englishman or
a Frenchman when we do not know an American? What is the use of
struggling with the obstacle of a foreign tongue, when our own
will not suffice for the communication of thoughts? The only light
that we have is at home; travellers are men groping in the dark;
they fancy they see much, but for the most part they see nothing.
No great teacher has ever been a great traveller. Buddha,
Confucius, and Mahomet never left the confines of their respective
countries. Plato lived in Athens; Shakespeare travelled between
London and Stratford; these great souls found it quite sufficient
to know themselves and the vast universe as reflected from the
eyes of those about them. But then they are the exceptions.

For most men--including geniuses--travel and deliberate
observation are good, since most men will not observe at home.
Such is the singularity of our nature that we ignore the
interesting at home to study the commonplace abroad. We never
notice a narrow and crooked street in Boston or lower New York,
whereas a narrow and crooked street in London fills us with an
ecstasy of delight. We never visit the Metropolitan Art Museum,
but we cross Europe to visit galleries of lesser interest. We
choose a night boat down the majestic Hudson, and we suffer untold
discomforts by day on crowded little boats paddling down the
comparatively insignificant Rhine.

Every country possesses its own peculiar advantages and beauties.
There is no desert so barren, no mountains so bleak, no woods so
wild that to those who dwell therein their home is not beautiful.
The Esquimau would not exchange his blinding waste