I had the opportunity, and I took it, of
arranging my life in every respect exactly as I desired. It was my
design to live alone in joy; not to exclude others, but to admit them
for my pleasure and at my will. I thought that by desiring little, by
sacrificing quantity of delight for quality, I should gain much. And I
will as frankly confess that I did not succeed in capturing the
tranquillity I desired. I found many pretty jewels by the way, but the
pearl of price lay hid.
And yet it would be idle to say that I regret it. I may wish that it
had all fallen out otherwise, that things had been more comfortably
arranged, that I had been allowed to dream away the days in my
hermitage; but it was not to be; and I have at least learned that not
thus can the end be attained. The story of my failure cannot be told
here, but I hope yet to find strength and skill to tell it. At present
I have but endeavoured to catch the texture of the pleasant days,
before my visions began to fade about me. And indeed I can say
sincerely that those days were happy; but the root of the mistake was
this: I have by nature a very keen appetite for the subtle flavours of
life, a sense of beauty in simple things, a relish for the absurdities
and oddities as well as for the beauties and finenesses of temperament,
a critical appreciation of the characteristic qualities of landscapes
and buildings, a sense which finds satisfaction as well in such
commonplace things as the variety of grotesque vehicles that go to
compose a luggage train, or the grass-grown, scarped, water-logged
excavations of a brick-field, as in the sharp rock-horns of some craggy
mountain, impulsive as a frozen flame, or the soft outlines of fleecy
clouds that race over a sapphire heaven.
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