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page 52 
  
which it is ever seen. Nor will it be too fanciful or  
refined to remark, that there is a pleasing harmony between  
a tall chimney of this circular form, and the living column  
of smoke, ascending from it through the still air. These  
dwellings, mostly built, as has been said, of rough unhewn  
stone, are roofed with slates, which were rudely taken from  
the quarry before the present art of splitting them was  
understood, and are, therefore, rough and uneven in their  
surface, so that both the coverings and sides of the house  
have furnished places of rest for the seeds of lichens,  
mosses, ferns, and flowers. Hence buildings, which in their  
very form call to mind the processes of nature, do thus,  
clothed in part with a vegetable garb, appear to be received 
into the bosom of the living principle of things, as it acts 
and exists among the woods and fields; and, by their colour  
and their shape, affectingly direct the thoughts to that  
tranquil course of nature and simplicity, along which the  
humble-minded inhabitants have, through so many generations, 
been led. Add the little garden with its shed for bee-hives, 
its small bed of pot-herbs, and its border and patches of  
flowers for Sunday posies, with sometimes a choice few too  
much prized to be plucked; an orchard of proportioned size;  
a cheese-press, often supported by some tree near the door;  
a cluster of embowering sycamores for summer shade; with a  
tall fir, through which the winds sing when other trees are  
leafless; 
  
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