Edinburgh--with its two lesser heights, the Castle and the Calton Hill,
its spires and towers piercing through the smoke, and Arthur's Seat lying
crouched behind, like a guardian no longer very needful, taking his
repose beside the well-beloved charge, which is now, so to speak, able to
take care of itself without him--lay at our right hand. From the lawn
and drawing-room windows we could see all these varieties of landscape.
The color was sometimes a little chilly, but sometimes, also, as animated
and full of vicissitude as a drama. I was never tired of it. Its color
and freshness revived the eyes which had grown weary of arid plains and
blazing skies. It was always cheery, and fresh, and full of repose.

The village of Brentwood lay almost under the house, on the other side of
the deep little ravine, down which a stream--which ought to have been a
lovely, wild, and frolicsome little river--flowed between its rocks and
trees. The river, like so many in that district, had, however, in its
earlier life been sacrificed to trade, and was grimy with paper-making.
But this did not affect our pleasure in it so much as I have known it to
affect other streams. Perhaps our water was more rapid; perhaps less
clogged with dirt and refuse. Our side of the dell was charmingly
_accidenté_, and clothed with fine trees, through which various paths
wound down to the river-side and to the village bridge which crossed the
stream. The village lay in the hollow, and climbed, with very prosaic
houses, the other side. Village architecture does not flourish in
Scotland. The blue slates and the gray stone are sworn foes to the
picturesque; and though I do not, for my own part, dislike the interior
of an old-fashioned hewed and galleried church, with its little family
settlements on all sides, the square box outside, with its bit of a spire
like a handle to lift it by, is not an improvement to the landscape.
Still a cluster of houses on differing elevations, with scraps of garden
coming in between, a hedgerow with clothes laid out to dry, the opening