Two things are necessary in any neighbourhood where
we propose to spend a life: a desert and some
living water.
There are many parts of the earth’s face which
offer the necessary combination of a certain wildness
with a kindly variety. A great prospect is desirable,
but the want may be otherwise supplied; even greatness
can be found on the small scale; for the mind and the
eye measure differently. Bold rocks near hand
are more inspiriting than distant Alps, and the thick
fern upon a Surrey heath makes a fine forest for the
imagination, and the dotted yew trees noble mountains.
A Scottish moor with birches and firs grouped here
and there upon a knoll, or one of those rocky seaside
deserts of Provence overgrown with rosemary and thyme
and smoking with aroma, are places where the mind
is never weary. Forests, being more enclosed,
are not at first sight so attractive, but they exercise
a spell; they must, however, be diversified with either
heath or rock, and are hardly to be considered perfect
without conifers. Even sand-hills, with their
intricate plan, and their gulls and rabbits, will
stand well for the necessary desert.
The house must be within hail of either a little river
or the sea. A great river is more fit for poetry
than to adorn a neighbourhood; its sweep of waters
increases the scale of the scenery and the distance
of one notable object from another; and a lively burn
gives us, in the space of a few yards, a greater variety
of promontory and islet, of cascade, shallow goil,
and boiling pool, with answerable changes both of
song and colour, than a navigable stream in many hundred
miles. The fish, too, make a more considerable
feature of the brookside, and the trout plumping in
the shadow takes the ear. A stream should, besides,
be narrow enough to cross, or the burn hard by a bridge,
or we are at once shut out of Eden. The quantity
of water need be of no concern, for the mind sets
the scale, and can enjoy a Niagara Fall of thirty
inches. Let us approve the singer of
’Shallow rivers, by whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.’
If the sea is to be our ornamental water, choose an
open seaboard with a heavy beat of surf; one much
broken in outline, with small havens and dwarf headlands;
if possible a few islets; and as a first necessity,
rocks reaching out into deep water. Such a rock
on a calm day is a better station than the top of Teneriffe
or Chimborazo. In short, both for the desert
and the water, the conjunction of many near and bold
details is bold scenery for the imagination and keeps
the mind alive.
