265. Washington, D. C. White House. Jackson. Pink and white printed plate marked on the back “Presidents House Washington,” and mark “Jacksons Warranted.” Same border as No. . White House. Washington. States. See No. 251. 266. West Point. Clews. View of West Point, with river and steamboat and row-boat. Mark on back “Picturesque Views. West Point Hudson River,” also impressed mark “Warranted Clews Staffordshire.” 267. William Penn. Treaty with Indians. Jackson. Print in black or brown on dinner service of a view with William Penn, in Quaker garb, talking with an Indian chief. At their feet a box of treasure, including a string of beads which an Indian woman is examining. Border a stencil design. Woodlands. See No. 233. XVIII. CHINA MEMORIES What fancies we weave, what dreams we dream over a piece of homely old china! Every cup, every jar in our china ingatherings, has the charm of fantasy, visions of past life and beauty, though only imagined. I like to think that the china I love has been warmly loved before—has been made a cherished companion, been tenderly handled ere I took it to be my companion and to care for it. It is much the same friendly affection that I feel for an old well-read, half-worn book; the unknown hands through which it has passed, the unseen eyes that have gazed on it, have endeared it to me. This imagined charm exists in china if it be old, though we know not a word of its past, save that it has a past and is not fresh from the potter’s wheel and the kiln. The very haze of uncertainty is favorable to the fancies of a dreamer; I summon past owners from that shadowy hiding-place; weave romances out of that cloud; build past dwelling-houses more quaint, more romantic than any in whose windows I have gazed, whose threshold I have trodden in my real china hunting. Victor Cousin says: “If beauty absent and dreamed of does not affect you more than beauty present, you may have a thousand other gifts, but not that of imagination.” If you have no imagination you may have none of these china dreams—these “children of an idle brain,” but you still may have china memories. Fair country sights does my old china bring to my eyes; soft country sounds does it bring to my ears, the sound of buzzing bees, of rustling branches, “the liquid lapse of murmuring streams,” of rippling brooks where we dipped the old blue crockery mugs and cups the day we found them, and drank the pure but sun-warmed water. When I look at this queen’s-ware creamer, I hear the sweet, clear, ear-thrilling notes of the meadow-lark, “in notes by distance made more sweet”—who sang outside of the farm-house where I first saw the dainty shell of china. Sweet scents, too, does the old china bear. When I found that old yellow Wedgwood dish in the country tavern, it was filled with tiny fragrant wild strawberries—I smell, nay, I taste them still. That flaring-topped vase was full of sweet white