Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 10
General
Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 10
Scottish Borders (Scotland) -- Fiction
It is a lovely spot, Grassyvale--"beautiful exceedingly." But its beauty
is of a quiet, unimposing description; the characteristic feature of the
landscape which would strike the eye of a spectator who surveyed it from
the highest neighbouring eminence, is simply--repose. There are no
mountains, properly so called, within a circuit of many miles--none of
those natural pyramids which, in various parts of our beloved land of
mountain and of flood, of battle and of song, rise in majestic grandeur,
like columns of adamant to support the vault of heaven. The nearest are
situated at such a distance that they appear like clouds, and might
readily be mistaken for such, but for their death-like stillness, and
the everlasting monotony of their outline. No waterfalls hurl their
bolts of liquid crystal into dark, frowning, wave-worn chasms, which had
echoed to the thunder of their fall since the birth of time. There is no
far-spreading forest--no yawning ravine, with "ebon shades and
low-browed rocks"--no beetling cliff or precipice, "shagged" with
brushwood, as Milton hath it. There is nothing of the grand, the
sublime, the terrible, or the magnificent--there is only quiet; or, if
the terms do not sound affected to "ears polite," modest, unassuming
beauty, such as a rainbow, were it perpetually present in the zenith,
might form a characteristic and appropriate symbol of. Nature has not
here wrought her miracles of beauty on a Titanic scale. What, then, is
so attractive about Grassyvale? it will be asked. We are not sure but we
may be as much stultified with this question as was the child in
Wordsworth's sweet little poem, "We are Seven" (which the reader may
turn up at leisure, when the propriety of the comparison will be seen),
and may be forced, after an unsuccessful attempt to justify ourselves
for holding such an opinion, to maintain, with the same dogmatic
obstinacy, it is beautiful. But the length of our story compels us to
exclude a description of the landscape which we had prepared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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