The very fact that the delightful place or scene was discovered by us made it the shining place it is in memory.

And again, the charm we found in it may have been in a measure due to the mood we were in, or to the peculiar aspect in which it came before us at the first, due to the season, to atmospheric and sunlight effects, to some human interest, or to a conjunction of several favourable circumstances; we know we can never see it again in that aspect and with that precise feeling.
On this account I am shy of revisiting the places where I have experienced the keenest delight.

For example, I have no desire to revisit that small ancient town among the hills, described in the last chapter; to go on a Sunday evening through that narrow gorge, filled with the musical roar of the church bells; to leave that great sound behind and stand again listening to the marvellous echo from the wooded hill on the other side of the valley.

Nor would I care to go again in search of that small ancient lost church in the forest.

It would not be early April with the clear sunbeams shining through the old leafless oaks on the floor of fallen yellow leaves with the cuckoo fluting before his time; nor would that straggling procession of villagers appear, headed by an old man in a smock frock with a big book in his hand; nor would I hear for the first time the strange history of the church which so enchanted me.
I will here give an account of yet another of the many well-remembered delightful spots which I would not revisit, nor even look upon again if I could avoid doing so by going several miles out of my way.
It was green open country in the west of England--very far west, although on the east side of the Tamar--in a beautiful spot remote from railroads and large towns, and the road by which I was travelling (on this occasion on a bicycle) ran or serpentined along the foot of a range of low round hills on my right hand, while on my left I had a green valley with other low round green hills beyond it.