W H Hudson

Afoot in England W H Hudson

My own plan, which may be recommended only to those who go out for pleasure-who value happiness above useless (otherwise useful) knowledge, and the pictures that live and glow in memory above albums and collections of photographs-is not to look at a guide-book until the place it treats of has been explored and left behind. The practical person, to whom this may come as a new idea and who wishes not to waste any time in experiments, would doubtless like to hear how the plan works. He will say that he certainly wants all the happiness to be got out of his rambles, but it is clear that without the book in his pocket he would miss many interesting things: Would the greater degree of pleasure experienced in the others be a sufficient compensation? I should say that he would gain more than he would lose; that vivid interest and pleasure in a few things is preferable to that fainter, more diffused feeling experienced in the other case. Again, we have to take into account the value to us of the mental pictures gathered in our wanderings. For we know that only when a scene is viewed emotionally, when it produces in us a shock of pleasure, does it become a permanent possession of the mind; in other words, it registers an image which, when called up before the inner eye, is capable of reproducing a measure of the original delight. Produced by Cygnus-Digital.com