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page 52
which it is ever seen. Nor will it be too fanciful or
refined to remark, that there is a pleasing harmony between
a tall chimney of this circular form, and the living column
of smoke, ascending from it through the still air. These
dwellings, mostly built, as has been said, of rough unhewn
stone, are roofed with slates, which were rudely taken from
the quarry before the present art of splitting them was
understood, and are, therefore, rough and uneven in their
surface, so that both the coverings and sides of the house
have furnished places of rest for the seeds of lichens,
mosses, ferns, and flowers. Hence buildings, which in their
very form call to mind the processes of nature, do thus,
clothed in part with a vegetable garb, appear to be received
into the bosom of the living principle of things, as it acts
and exists among the woods and fields; and, by their colour
and their shape, affectingly direct the thoughts to that
tranquil course of nature and simplicity, along which the
humble-minded inhabitants have, through so many generations,
been led. Add the little garden with its shed for bee-hives,
its small bed of pot-herbs, and its border and patches of
flowers for Sunday posies, with sometimes a choice few too
much prized to be plucked; an orchard of proportioned size;
a cheese-press, often supported by some tree near the door;
a cluster of embowering sycamores for summer shade; with a
tall fir, through which the winds sing when other trees are
leafless;
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