The Snowdrop 



as rapidly and with as little effort as pos- 

 sible, for some of the most delightful 

 sensuous impressions are very transient, 

 and remain but for an instant in their full 

 intensity. Look, for example, at a bright 

 scarlet Ranunculus in the sunlight. You 

 see the scarlet for a second, and then it 

 changes into brown. You must turn your 

 eyes away before you can renew the im- 

 pression. And what is true of colour- 

 beauty is to some extent true also of 

 every other kind. This does not at all 

 interfere with the fact that the longer we 

 look the more we shall discover, and that 

 some of the deepest impressions come 

 latest. I only mean that no impression 

 can last unimpaired. Every moment we 

 may be gaining something fresh, but we 

 are also losing hold of something which 

 we had the moment before. There is a 

 good illustration of this in the difference 

 between childhood and maturity. The 

 man in most respects may see deeper than 

 the child, but he has lost the freshness 

 and vividness of childhood's first percep- 

 tions. The eye then needs to get at 

 beauty rapidly, and also needs something 

 to assist it in holding the main bearings in 

 view as it passes from part to part, or in 

 recovering them when it has lost them. 



5 



