“As much pleasure and more profit than half the young men of the present day,” replied a middle-aged English gentleman, who was a kinsman of the St. Georges, and called them cousins. “In my time travelling was undertaken on a very different system to what it is now. The English youth then travelled to frequent, what Lord Bacon says are ‘especially to be seen and observed, the Courts of Princes.’ You all travel now, it appears, to look at mountains and catch cold in spouting trash on lakes by moonlight.” “But, my dear sir!” said the Baron, “although I grant you that the principal advantages of travel must be the opportunity which it affords us of becoming acquainted with human nature, knowledge, of course, chiefly gained where human beings most congregate, great cities, and, as you say, the Courts of Princes; still, one of its great benefits is, that it enlarges a man’s experiences, not only of his fellow-creatures in particular, but of nature in general. Many men pass through life without seeing a sunrise: a traveller cannot. If human experience be gained by seeing men in their undress, not only when they are conscious of the presence of others, natural experience is only to be acquired by studying nature at all periods, not merely when man is busy and the beasts asleep.” “But what is the use of this deep experience of nature? Men are born to converse with men, not with stocks and stones. He who has studied Le Sage will be more happy and more successful in this world than the man who muses over Rousseau.” “I agree with you. I have no wish to make man an anchorite. But as to the benefit of a thorough experience of nature, it appears to me to be evident. It increases our stock of ideas.” “So does everything.” “But it does more than this. It calls into being new emotions, it gives rise to new and beautiful associations; it creates that salutary state of mental excitement which renders our ideas more lucid and our conclusions more sound. Can we too much esteem a study which at the same time stimulates imagination and corrects the judgment?” “Do not you think that a communion with nature is calculated to elevate the soul,” said Lady Madeleine, “to--?” “So is reading your Bible. A man’s soul should always be elevated. If not, he might look at mountains for ever, but I should not trust him a jot more.”