CHAPTER IX 

 THE COUNTRY AND ITS NAMES 



LET us suppose that we are going for the first 

 time in our lives into a new country neighbour- 

 hood which we have never seen before, about 

 which we know as yet nothing, and nevertheless 

 to a place where we shall probable stay for some 

 little time and want to feel ourselves at home 

 as soon as possible. Now some people call the 

 country dull, and tell us there is nothing worth 

 seeing there and nothing to be interested in, 

 and have perhaps made us feel that it is no use 

 in trying to be happy in such a stupid place, 

 for it would be a stupid place if all that they 

 told us were true. But we must be careful 

 when we are told that something or somebody 

 is dull and stupid ; it often only means that the 

 person who is speaking to us is not very clever 

 himself, and does not know what is really 

 interesting, and has not found out the way to 

 make life worth living. 



I think the first thing we should want to 

 know about this country we had come into 

 would be its name, and after that the names 

 of its towns, villages, rivers, and later on, the 

 names of its inhabitants who were to be our 



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