ABSTRACT
Day by day the people perfect themselves in the art of seeing nature favourably. They are themselves a term in the equation, a note of the chord, and make discord or harmony almost at will. There is no fear for the result, if the author can but surrender themselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows the reader, so that they are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable sort of story as the people go. It is grim to think of bearded men and bitter women taking hateful counsel together about the two hall-fires at night, when the sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter wind was loose over the battlements. On shore, too, in the little nook of shelter, everything was so subdued and still, that the least particular struck in the author a pleasurable surprise.
