88 Idle Days in Patagonia. 
cultivation. The greatest drawbacks and difficulties 
encountered have this charm strongest in them, and 
are robbed by it of half their power to discourage the 
mind. 
The young enthusiast, hurrying about London to 
speak his farewells and look after his outfit, will 
perhaps laugh at this, for his delusion is still dear 
to him. But I am not discouraging him; I am, on 
the contrary, telling him of a rill of pure water out 
there where he is going, where, for many years to 
come, he will refresh himself every day, and learn 
to feel (if not to think and to say) that it is the 
sweetest rill in existence. 
It is rough living with unsubdued, or only par- 
tially subdued, Nature, but there is a wonderful 
fascination in it. The patient, leaden-footed, but 
always obedient drudge, who goes forth uncom- 
plainingly, albeit often with a sullen face, about her 
work, day after day, year after year; who never 
rebels, never murmurs against her bad task-mastér 
Man, although sometimes the strength fails her so 
that she cannot complete the appointed task—this is 
Nature at home in England. How strange to see this 
stolid, immutable creature transformed beyond the 
seas into a flighty, capricious thing, that will not be 
wholly ruled by you, a beautiful wayward Undine, 
delighting you with her originality, and most lovable 
when she teases most ; a being of extremes, always 
either in laughter or tears, a tyrant anda slave alter- 
nately ; to-day shattering to pieces the work of yes- 
terday ; now cheerfully doing more than is required 
