Someone has advanced the theory that those persons endowed with a gift for painting (either with color or with words) probably belong to a half-blind species; accustomed to living in a partial light, in a sort of misty¹ grayness, they turn their gaze inward; and when by chance they do look out their impressions are ten times more vivid than are those of ordinary people.  
To me that seems a little paradoxical.
 
But it is true that sometimes an enveloping² darkness aids one to clearer vision; as in a panorama³ building, for example, where the obscurity about the entrance prepares one better for the climax⁴, and gives the scene depicted⁵ a more real and vivid appearance.
 
In the course of my life I would without doubt have been less impressed by the ever shifting phantasmagoria of existence had I not begun my journey in a place almost without distinctive⁶ color, in a tranquil⁷ corner of the most commonplace little town, receiving an education austerely⁸ pious⁹; and where my longest journey was bounded by the forests of Limoise (as wonderful to me as a primeval forest) and by the shores of the island of Oleron, that seemed very immense when I went to it to visit my aged¹⁰ aunts.
 
But after all is said, it was in the yard about our house that I passed the happiest of my summers—it seemed to me that that was my particular kingdom, and I adored it.
 
It was in truth a beautiful yard, much more sunny and airy than the majority............