Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

Ordered Sotttk 139
carrying burthens on their heads ; of tropical
effects, with canes and naked rock and sun-
light ; of the' relief of cypresses ; of the
troubled, busy-looking groups of sea-pines,
that seem always as if they were being
wielded and swept together by a whirlwind ;
of the air coming, laden with virginal per-
fumes, over the myrtles and the scented
underwood ; of the empurpled hills standing
up, solemn and sharp, out of the green-gold
air of the east at evening.
There go many elements, without doubt,
to the making of one such moment of intense
perception ; and it is on the happy agreement
of these many elements, on the harmonious
vibration of many nerves, that the whole
delight of the moment must depend. Who
can forget how, when he has chanced upon
some attitude of complete restfulness, after
long uneasy rolling to and fro on grass or
heather, the whole fashion of the landscape
has been changed for him, as though the sun
had just broken forth, or a great artist had
only then completed, by some cunning touch.