ooms in Chatsworth or Blenheim. A middling sort of place
with a Philistine character, vulgar upholstery, and vulgar pictures or
engravings, is really dangerous, because these things often attract
attention in the intervals of labor and occupy it in a mean way. An
artist is always the better for having something that may profitably
amuse and occupy his eye when he quits his picture, and I think it is a
right instinct which leads artists to surround themselves with many
picturesque and beautiful things, not too orderly in their arrangement,
so that there may be pleasant surprises for the eye, as there are in
nature.

For literary men there is nothing so valuable as a window with a
cheerful and beautiful prospect. It is good for us to have this
refreshment for the eye when we leave off working, and Montaigne did
wisely to have his study up in a tower from which he had extensive
views.

There is a well-known objection to extensive views, as wanting in
snugness and comfort, but this objection scarcely applies to the
especial case of literary men. What we want is not so much snugness as
relief, refreshment, suggestion, and we get these, as a general rule,
much better from wide prospects than from limited ones. I have just
alluded to Montaigne,--will you permit me to imitate that dear old
philosopher in his egotism and describe to you the view from the room I
write in, which cheers and amuses me continually? But before describing
this let me describe another of which the recollection is very dear to
me and as vivid as a freshly-painted picture. In years gone by, I had
only to look up from my desk and see a noble loch in its inexhaustible
loveliness, and a mountain in its majesty. It was a daily and hourly
delight to watch the breezes play about the enchanted isles, on the
delicate silvery surface, dimming some clear reflection, or trailing it
out in length, or cutting sharply across it with acres of rippling blue.
It was a frequent pleasure to see the clouds play about the crest of
Cruachan and Ben Vorich's golden head, gray mists that crept upwards
from the valleys till the sunshine suddenly caught them and made them
brighter than the snows they shaded. And the leagues and leagues of
heather on the lower land to the southward that became like the aniline
dyes of deepest purple and blue, when the sky was gray in the
evening--all save one orange-streak! Ah, those were spectacles never to
be forgotten, splendors of light and g