nent
man-trap in the idea of being modern. So that the moral of this
matter is the same as that of the other; that these things should
raise in us, not merely the question of whether we like them,
but of whether there is anything very infallible or imperishable
about what we like. At least the essentials of these things endure;
and if they seem to have remained fixed as effigies, at least they
have not faded like fashion-plates.

It has seemed worth while to insert here this note on the philosophy
of sight-seeing, however dilatory or disproportionate it may seem.
For I am particularly and positively convinced that unless these things
can somehow or other be seen in the right historical perspective
and philosophical proportion, they are not worth seeing at all.
And let me say in conclusion that I can not only respect the sincerity,
but understand the sentiments, of a man who says they are not
worth seeing at all. Sight-seeing is a far more difficult and
disputable matter than many seem to suppose; and a man refusing it
altogether might be a man of sense and even a man of imagination.
It was the great Wordsworth who refused to revisit Yarrow;
it was only the small Wordsworth who revisited it after all.
I remember the first great sight in my own entrance to the Near East,
when I looked by accident out of the train going to Cairo, and saw far
away across the luminous flats a faint triangular shape; the Pyramids.
I could understand a man who had seen it turning his back and retracing
his whole journey to his own country and his own home, saying, "I will go
no further; for I have seen afar off the last houses of the kings."
I can understand a man who had only seen in the distance Jerusalem
sitting on the hill going no further and keeping that vision for ever.
It would, of course, be said that it was absurd to come at all,
and to see so little. To which I answer that in that sense
it is absurd to come at all. It is no more fantastic to turn
back for such a fancy than it was to come for a similar fancy.
A man cannot eat the Pyramids; he cannot buy or sell the Holy City;
there can be no practical aspect either of his coming or going.
If he has not come for a poetic mood he has come for nothing; if he has
come for such a mood, he is not a fool to obey that mood. The way
to be really a fool is to try to be practical about unpractical things.
It is to try to collect clouds or preserve moonshine like money.
Now there is much