I.
I have determined to find some pleasure in my walks; have come out alone by the first path that offered itself, and walk straight on as chance may lead. Provided you have noted two or three prominent points, you are sure of finding the way back. You can now enjoy the unexpected, and discover the country. To know where you are going and by what way is certain boredom; the imagination deflowers the landscape in advance. It works and builds according to its own pleasure; then when you reach your goal all must be overturned; that spoils your disposition; the mind keeps its bent, and the beauty it has fancied prejudices that which it sees; it fails to understand this, because it is already taken up with another. I suffered a most grievous disenchantment when I saw the sea for the first time: it was a morning in autumn; flecks of purplish cloud dappled the sky; a gentle breeze covered the sea with little uniform waves. I seemed to see one of those long stretches of beet-root that are found in the environs of Paris, intersected by patches of green cabbages and bands of russet barley. The distant sails looked like the wings of homeward-bound pigeons. The view seemed to me confined; the artists, in their pictures, had represented the sea as greater. It was three days before I could get back the sensation of immensity.
