The hut is at some distance from a house, and you do not like to
leave it, so you sleep in it.
3. The accommodation is found to be narrow, and it is unpleasant to have
one little room for everything, so you add a tent or two outside and
keep a man. Hence a complete little encampment.
Everybody considered me extremely eccentric in 1856 because I was led
into encamping; but it was an excellent thing for me in various ways. A
young man given up to such pursuits as literature and art needs a closer
contact with common realities than aesthetic studies can give. The
physical work attendant upon encamping, and the constant attention that
_must_ be given to such pressing necessities as shelter and food, give
exactly that contact with reality that educates us in readiness of
resource, and they have the incalculable advantage of making one learn
the difference between the necessary and the superfluous. I look back
upon early camping experiments with satisfaction as an experience of the
greatest educational value. Even now, in my sixth decade, I can sleep
under canvas and arrange all the details of a camp with indescribable
enjoyment, and (what is perhaps better still) I can put up cheerfully
with the very humblest accommodation in country inns, provided only that
they are tolerably clean.
The arrangements of my hut on the moor near Burnley have been described
in detail in "The Painter's Camp," so it is unnecessary to give a
minute account of them in this place.
Pages:
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273