hen it is freshly broken. So that
a limestone landscape is apt to be dull, and cold in general tone, with
some aspect even of barrenness. The sandstones are much richer in
vegetation: there are, perhaps, no scenes in our own island more
interesting than the wooded dingles which traverse them, the red rocks
growing out on either side, and shelving down into the pools of their
deep brown rivers, as at Jedburgh and Langholme; the steep oak copses
climbing the banks, the paler plumes of birch shaking themselves free
into the light of the sky above, and the few arches of the monastery
where the fields in the glen are greenest, or the stones of the border
tower where its cliffs are steepest, rendering both field and cliff a
thousandfold more dear to the heart and sight. But deprived of
associations, and compared in their mere natural beauty with the ravines
of the central ranges, there can be no question but that even the
loveliest passages of such scenery are imperfect and poor in foreground
color. And at first there would seem to be an unfairness in this, unlike
the usual system of compensation which so often manifests itself
throughout nature. The higher mountains have their scenes of power and
vastness, their blue precipices and cloud-like snows: why should they
also have the best and fairest colors given to their foreground rocks,
and overburden the human mind with wonder; while the less majestic
scenery, tempting us to the observance of details for which amidst the
higher mountains we had no admiration left, is yet, in the beauty of
those very details, as inferior as it is in scale of magnitude?

Sec. 7. I believe the answer must be, simply, that it is not good for man
to live among what is most beautiful;--that he is a creature incapable
of satisfaction by anything upon earth; and that to allow him habitually
to possess, in any kind whatsoever, the utmost that earth can give, is
the surest way to cast him into lassitude or discontent.

If the most exquisite orchestral music could be continued without a
pause for a series of years, and children were brought up and educated
in the room in which it was perpetually resounding, I believe their
enjoyment of music, or understanding of it, would be very small. And an
accurately parallel effect seems to be produced upon the powers of
contemplation, by the redundant and ceaseless loveliness of the high
mountain districts. The faculties are paralyzed by the abundance, and
cease,