that we ever had a
happy hour. However, I assume that it is a great pleasure to recall,
even in grief, beautiful bygone scenes and joys, and trust that the
reader has a mind healthy and cheerful enough to do the same.

What constitutes a charm in many memories is often extremely varied.
Darkly shaded rooms with shutters closed in on an intensely hot
American summer day. Chinese matting on the floors--the mirrors and
picture frames covered with _tulle_--silence--the scent of magnolias
all over the house--the presence of loved ones now long dead and
gone--all of these combined form to me memory-pictures in which
nothing can be spared. The very scent of the flowers is like musk in a
perfume or "bouquet" of odors--it _fixes_ them well, or renders them
permanent. And it is all like a beautiful vivid dream. If I had my
life to live over again I would do frequently and with great care,
what I thought of too late, and now practice feebly--I would strongly
impress on my mind and very often recall, many such scenes, pictures,
times or memories. Very few people do this. Hence in all novels and
poems, especially the French, description generally smacks of
imitation and mere manufacture. It passes for "beautiful writing," but
there is always something in really unaffected truth from nature which
is caught by the true critic. I read lately a French romance which is
much admired, of this manufactured or second-hand kind. Every third
page was filled with the usual botany, rocks, skies, colors, fore and
backgrounds--"all very fine"--but in the whole of it not one of those
little touches of truth which stir us so in SHAKESPEARE, make us smile
in HERRICK or naive PEPYS, or raise our hearts in WORDSWORTH. These
were true men.

To be true we must be far more familiar with Nature than with scene
painting or photographs, and to do this we must, so to speak,
fascinate ourselves with pictures in life, glad memories of golden
hours, rock and river and greenwood tree. We must also banish
resolutely from our past all recollections of enemies and wrongs,
troubles and trials, and throw all our heart into doing so. Forgive
and forget all enmities--those of Misfortune and Fate being included.
Depend upon it that the brighter you can make your Past the pleasanter
will be your Future.

This is just the opposite to what most people do, hence the frequent
and fond quotation of pessimistic poetry. It is all folly, and worse.
One result is that in moder