uld be more
pleasing and original than a little frank brusquerie. However, though
much pleased with my answer, I set out with the rest of the company.

The Princess's favourite spot of all was at the very bottom of the lower
garden, where a little bridge spanned a narrow piece of swamp. The view
there was very restricted, yet very intimate and pleasing. We are so
accustomed to confound art with nature that, often enough, phenomena of
nature which are never to be met with in pictures seem to us unreal, and
give us the impression that nature is unnatural, or vice versa; whereas
phenomena of nature which occur with too much frequency in pictures seem
to us hackneyed, and views which are to be met with in real life,
but which appear to us too penetrated with a single idea or a single
sentiment, seem to us arabesques. The view from the Princess's favourite
spot was as follows. On the further side of a small lake, over-grown
with weeds round its edges, rose a steep ascent covered with bushes and
with huge old trees of many shades of green, while, overhanging the lake
at the foot of the ascent, stood an ancient birch tree which, though
partly supported by stout roots implanted in the marshy bank of the
lake, rested its crown upon a tall, straight poplar, and dangled its
curved branches over the smooth surface of the pond--both branches and
the surrounding greenery being reflected therein as in a mirror.

"How lovely!" said the Princess with a nod of her head, and addressing
no one in particular.

"Yes, marvellous!" I replied in my desire to show that had an opinion
of my own on every subject. "Yet somehow it all looks to me so terribly
like a scheme of decoration."

The Princess went on gazing at the scene as though she had not heard me,
and turning to her sister and Lubov Sergievna at intervals, in order to
point out to them its details--especially a curved, pendent bough, with
its reflection in the water, which particularly pleased her. Sophia
Ivanovna observed to me that it was all very beautiful, and that she and
her sister would sometimes spend hours together at this spot; yet it was
clear that her remarks were meant merely to please the Princess. I have
noticed that people who are gifted with the faculty of loving are
seldom receptive to the beauties of nature. Lubov Sergievna also seemed
enraptured, and asked (among other things), "How does that birch tree
manage to support itself? Has it stood there long?" Yet the n