Nature

Another quote from Emerson's Nature:

But this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty, is the least part. The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon, and 't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who ever could clutch it? Go forth to find it, and it is gone: 't is only a mirage as you look from the windows of diligence.

This is a remarkable statement. He says that beauty diminishes if we seek it too eagerly - that it is better if it surprises us in the normal course of our day. I wonder if this applies to the rest of life - that our appreciation of life comes down to the management of expectations?