16 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE chap. 



idyll " My Winter Garden " tries to persuade 

 himself that he was glad he had never 

 travelled, " having never yet actually got to 

 Paris." Monotony, he says, " is pleasant in 

 itself ; morally pleasant, and morally useful. 

 Marriage is monotonous ; but there is much, 

 I trust, to be said in favour of holy wedlock. 

 Living in the same house is monotonous ; 

 but three removes, say the wise, are as bad 

 as a fire. Locomotion is regarded as an evil 

 by our Litany. The Litany, as usual, is 

 right. ' Those who travel by land or sea ' are 

 to be objects of our pity and our prayers ; 

 and I do pity them. I delight in that same 

 monotony. It saves curiosity, anxiety, ex- 

 citement, disappointment, and a host of bad 

 passions." 



But even as he writes one can see that 

 he does not convince himself. Possibly, he 

 admits, " after all, the grapes are sour " ; and 

 when some years after he did travel, how 

 happy he was! At last, he says, trium- 

 phantly, "At last we too are crossing the 

 Atlantic. At last the dream of forty years, 

 please God, would be fulfilled, and I should 



