A
Scottish moor with birches and firs grouped here and there upon a knoll,
or one of those rocky sea-side 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 brook-side, 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.

Given these two prime luxuries, the nature of the country where we are
to live is, I had almost said, indifferent; after that, inside the
garden, we can construct a country of our own. Several old trees, a
considerable variety of level, several well-grown hedges to divide our
garden into provinces, a good extent of old well-set turf, and thickets
of shrubs and evergreens to be cut into and cleared at the new owner's
pleasure, are the qualities to be sought for in yo