Like all strong passions, these local attachments are extremely
inconvenient, and it would be better for a man to be without them; but
all reasoning on such subjects is superfluous.

Hollins is situated in the middle of a small but very pretty estate,
almost entirely bounded by a rocky and picturesque trout-stream, and so
pleasantly varied by hill and dale, wood, meadow, and pasture, that it
appears much larger than it really is. In my boyhood it seemed an
immensity. My cousins and I used to roam about it and play at Robin Hood
and his merry men with great satisfaction to ourselves. We fished and
bathed in one of the pools, where our ships delivered real broadsides of
lead from their little cannons. These boyish recollections, and an early
passion for landscape beauty, made Hollins seem a kind of earthly
Paradise to me, and the idea of going to live there, instead of in a row
of houses in a manufacturing town, filled me with the most delightful
anticipations. My uncle put workmen in the house to prepare it, and on
every opportunity I walked there to see what they were doing. Even at
that age I knew much more about architecture than my elders, being
perfectly familiar with the details of the old halls, and so I was
constantly losing temper at what seemed to me the evident stupidity of
the masons. There was an old master-mason, who did not like me and my
criticisms, and he swore at me freely enough, in an explicit Lancashire
manner. One day, simply by the eye, I perceived that he was four inches
out in a measurement, and told him of it, when he swore frightfully. He
then took his two-foot rule, and finding himself in the wrong, swore
more frightfully than ever. This was my first experience in the
thankless business of art-criticism, and it was the beginning of a false
position, in which I often found myself in youth, from knowing more
about some subjects than is usual with boys.