In preceding chapters I have not said much about that Limoise which was the scene of my initiation¹ into nature and its wonders. My entire childhood is intimately connected with that little corner of the world, with its ancient forests of oak trees, and its rocky moorlands covered here and there with a carpet of wild thyme and heather.  
For ten or twelve glorious summers I went there to spend my Thursday holidays, and I dreamed of it during the dreary³ intervening days of study.
 
In May our friends the D——-s and Lucette went to their country home and remained until vintage time, usually until after the first October frost,—and regularly every Wednesday evening I was taken there.
 
Nothing in my estimation was so delightful⁴ as that journey to Limoise. We scarcely ever went in a carriage, for it was not more than three and a half miles distant; to me, however, it seemed very far, almost lost in the woods. It lay toward the south, in the direction of those distant, sunny lands I loved to think of. (I would have found it less charming had it been towards the north.)
 
Every Wednesday evening, at sunset, the hour therefore varying with the month, I left home accompanied by Lucette's elder brother, a grown boy of eighteen or twenty, who seemed to me a man of mature age. As far as I was able I tried to keep pace with him, and, in consequence, I was obliged to go more rapidly than when I walked with my father and sister; we went through the quiet streets lying near the ramparts, and passed the sailors' old barracks, the sounds of whose bugles⁵ and drums reached as far as my attic⁶ museum when the south wind blew; then we passed through the fortifications by the most ancient of its gray gates,—a gate almost abandoned, and used now principally by peasants with flocks of sheep and droves of cattle,—and finally we arrived at the road that led to the river.
 
A mile and a half of straight road stretched before us, and this path lay between stunted⁷ old trees yellow with lichens⁸ whose branches were blown to the left by the force of the sea-winds that almost constantly came from the west, sweeping⁹ over the broad and level meadows that lay between us and the ocean.
 
To those who have a conventionalized idea of country beauty, and to whom a charming landscape means a river winding¹⁰ its way between poplars, or a mountain crowned by an old castle, this level road would look very ugly.
 
But I found it exquisite¹¹ in spite of its straight lines. Upon the left there was nothing to be seen but grassy¹² meadow land over which herds¹³ of cattle strayed. And before us, in the distance, something that resembled a line of ramparts shut in the plains sadly: it was the edge of a rocky plateau at whose base flowed the river. The far bank of this river was higher than the side that we were on, and was, in some respects, of a different character, but for the most part it was as flat and monotonous¹⁴. And it is just this sameness that has so much charm for me, an attraction appreciated seemingly by few others. The great level plains with their calm and tranquil¹⁵ straight lines are deeply and profoundly inspiring.
 
There is nothing in our vicinity that I love any better than the old road; perhaps I have an affection for it because during my school-boy days I built so many castles-in-Spain upon those flat plains where, from time to time, I find them again. It is one of the few spots that has not been disfigured by factories, docks and railways. It seems a spot that belongs peculiarly to me, and certainly no one has the power to contest my spiritual right to it.
 
The sum of the charm of the sensuous¹⁷ world dwells in us, is an emanation from ourselves; it is we who diffuse¹⁸ it, each person for himself according to his power, and we have it back again in the measure of our out-giving. But I did not comprehend early enough the deep meaning of this well-known truth. . . . During my childhood and youth the charm seemed to reside in the thing itself, to have its habitation in the old walls and the honeysuckle of my garden; I thought it lay along the sandy shores of the Island and upon the grassy meadows and rocky moorland about me. Later on, in pouring out my admiration¹⁹ every where, as I did, I drew too heavily upon the well-spring—I exhausted²⁰ it at the source. And, alas²¹! I find the land of my childhood, to which I will no doubt return to die, changed and shrunken, and only for a moment, in certain spots, am I able to recreate the illusions I have lost;—there I am for the most part weighed down by the crushing memories of bygone days. . . .
 
As I was saying before my digression, every Wednesday evening I walked with a light and joyous²² step along the road that led towards those distant rocks lying at the boundary of the plains, I went gayly towards that region of oak trees and mossy stones in which Limoise was situated,—my imagination greatly magnified it in those days.
 
The river we had to cross was at the end of the straight avenue of lichened²³ trees so harried²⁴ by the west winds. The river was very changeable, being subject to the tides and to all the moods of the neighboring ocean. We crossed in a ferry-boat or a yawl, always having for our oarsmen old sailors with bleached²⁵ beards and sunburnt faces whom we had known from earliest childhood.
 
When we reached the other bank, the rocky one, I always had a curious optical illusion: it seemed to me that the town from which we had come, and whose gray ramparts we still could see, suddenly drew very far away from us, for in my young head distances exaggerated themselves strangely. Upon this side all was different, the soil, the grass, the wild flowers and even the butterflies that hovered²⁶ over them; nothing here was like those approaches to our town in whose fens²⁷ and meadows I took my daily walk. And the differences, which perhaps others would not have noticed, thrilled and charmed me, for it had been my habit to spend, perhaps to waste, my time in observing the infinitesimally small things in nature, and I had often lost myself in contemplation of the lowliest mosses²⁸. Even the twilights of these Wednesday evenings had about them something distinctive³⁰ and peculiar¹⁶ which I cannot express; generally we reached the far shore just as the sun was setting, and we watched it, from the height of the lonely plateau, disappear behind the tall meadow-grass through which we had but newly come, and as it sunk its great ruddy dish seemed uncommonly³¹ large.
 
After crossing the river we turned off the high-road and took an unfrequented way that led through a region called “Chaumes,” a very beautiful place at that time but horribly profaned³² to-day.
 
“Chaumes” lay at the entrance of a village whose ancient church we saw in the distance. As it was public property it had kept intact its native wildness. This “Chaumes” was a sort of table-land composed of a single stone, and this rock, which undulated slightly, was covered with a carpet of short, dry fragrant³³ plants that snapped under our feet; and a whole world of tiny gayly-colored butterflies and tinier moths³⁴ fluttered among the rare and delicate flowers growing there.
 
Sometimes we passed a flock of sheep guarded by a shepherd much more countrified looking and tanned than those seen in the meadows about our t............