e of the town
seemed to matter up here. I was struck with the charm of such a hotel
room--the very few ornaments, greatly cherished since they were carried
about; the books for reading, not for furniture; the bought flowers in
common glasses; and the consequent sense of selection, deliberateness,
and personality. Good heavens, I reflected, are we mortals so
cross-grained that we can thoroughly enjoy things only by contrast, and
that a sort of mild starvation is needed to whet our aesthetic appetite?

By no means. Contrast for contrast's sake is a very coarse stimulant,
and required only by very joyless natures. The real explanation of the
charm of the hotel room and its sparse properties and flowers must be
sought, I believe, in the fact that the charm of things depends upon our
power of extracting it; and that our power in this matter, as in every
other, nay, our leisure to exert it, is necessarily limited. Things, as
I before remarked, do not give themselves without some wooing; and
courtship is the secret of true possession. The world outside us, as
philosophers tell us, is not what our eyes, ears, and touch and taste
make it appear; nay, for aught we know, 'tis a mere chaos; and if, out
of the endless impressions with which outer objects keep pelting us, we
manage to pick up and appropriate a few, setting them in a pattern of
meaning and beauty, it is thanks to the activity of our own special
little self. That is the gist of Kant's philosophy; and, apart from
Kant, it is the vague practical knowledge which experience teaches us.
Hence the disappointment of all such persons as think that the beautiful
and significant things of the world ought to give them delight without
any trouble on their part: they think that it is the fault of a Swiss
mountain, or a Titian Madonna, or a poem by Browning if it does not at
once ravish their inert souls into a seventh heaven. Yet these are
people who occasionally ride, or play at golf or whist, and who never
expect the cards and the golf clubs to play the game by themselves, nor
the very best horse to carry them to some destination without riding.
Now, beautiful and interesting things also require a deal of riding, of
playing with; let us put it more courteously--of wooing.

The hotel room I have spoken of reveals the fact that we usually have
far too many pleasant things about us, to be able to extract much
pleasure from any of them; while, of course, somebody else, at the other