If one lives in the country, one may get fine thoughts by contact with Nature.

In great cities one is developed and stimulated by art, music, literature, and contact with clever people.

But a mill-village is one vast expanse of mediocrity and prosaicness, and it would take a bigger nature than Peter's to recognize the beautiful in such a life.

In truth, he is as limited, as exact, and as unimaginative as the machines of his own village.

Peter has no romance in him; hence he will never find it, nor increase it in this world.