One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in our mind to sit there. One place suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising and long rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, of lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls up in the mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, we feel, should happen; we know not what, yet we proceed in quest of it. And many of the happiest hours of life fleet by us in this vain attendance on the genius of the place and moment. It is thus that tracts of young fir, and low rocks that reach into deep soundings, particularly torture and delight me.
RL Stevenson, Memories and Portraits (1887), Ch. 15: A Gossip On Romance (wr. 1882).
PICTURES:
Gustave Courbet, View of
Frankfurt am Main, 1858
Gustave Courbet, Stream In The
Forest, 1862
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