"
"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 houses 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 potherbs, and its borders and patches of flowers for
Sunday posies, with sometimes a choice few too much prized to
be plucked; an orchard of proportioned size; a cheesepress, 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; the little rill or
household spout murmuring in all seasons,--combine these
incidents and images together, and you have the representative
idea of a mountain cottage in this country--so beautifully
formed in itself, and so richly adorned by the hand of Nature.
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