2 Chit-chat. 



Von Os. Secluded from the cold and callous world without : 

 its toils and tumults, noises and nonsenses ; which, by fancy 

 and reflection, the quiet mind may convert into playthings. I 

 have just now been shutting my eyes, and comparing the 

 uproar of these woods to the distant swells and falls of the 

 troubled and tumbling ocean. I once caught a glimpse of 

 Caernarfon Castle ; its tall towers glimmering in the hectic 

 light of a wet and stormy sunbeam. 



Dov. Poor Joe Warren 



Von Os. Oh ! long and late beloved ; oh \ early lost ; — 

 " his bright and brief career is o'er." 



Dov. Ay. Poor Joe 



Von Os. whose warm heart and brilliant fancy would 



frequently play off more jets of joyance in a momentary con- 

 versation, than we could pump into a day's discourse, 



Dov. felt intense delight while listening to my descrip- 

 tions of scenery, after any of my long summer excursions. One 

 evening after tolerating, to some length, my attempt to give 

 him something like an outline of The Trossachs — the strange, 

 abrupt, wild, and beautiful succession of stupendous wonders 

 in those roaring and romantic passes in Perthshire ; — laying 

 down his pipe, he suddenly sprung up, exclaiming, — " Come 

 into the garden, and I will show you how to see a Trossach" 



Von Os. What I amid the mills and machinery of Strath- 

 Morda, as ye called it? 



Dov. Even there. Hard by, you know, there is a pro- 

 digious overshot dam of a millpool on the Morda. He now 

 bade me keep my eyes absolutely and constantly shut, and, 

 taking my arm, walked me slowly about the garden, colour- 

 ing, as he well could do, with his cannie and courteous voice, 

 and painter's powers, the outline I had just been sketching. 

 Von Os. Excellent ! I begin to see them now myself. 

 Dov. Sometimes, on suddenly turning the corner of a walk, 

 he would squeeze his kind hand close on one of my ears ; and, 

 on turning another corner, would suddenly take it off: so that, 

 what with the powerful torrent, mingled with the various 

 noises of the distant mills and machinery, his glowing descrip- 

 tions, and soul-enkindling names, I soon found myself among 

 the uproar and ecstasies of those romantic regions : soon, 

 under the sprays of dangling birches, entered those awful and 

 tremendous portals, on narrow paths of rocks, with narrower 

 skylight of fleecy blue, meeting the white and stunning tor- 

 rents, tumbling and tearing among their massy and ponderous 

 fragments, overhung with dismal crags, mantled with oak and 

 old birches, that wave their venerable tresses over deep and 

 dark abysms, and insulated rocks shaggy w T ith long hoary 



