HINDRANCES AND HELPS 



that meets the eye, as it is the crowd of sug- 

 gested images lying behind, and giving gallant 

 chase to our fancy — which gives pleasure. It 

 is not the mere palaces in the picture of Venice 

 before my eye, which delight me, but the reach 

 of imagination behind and back of them — the 

 shadowy procession of Doges— the gold cloth 

 —the Bucintoro— the plash of green water 

 kissing the marble steps, where the weeds of 

 the Adriatic hang their tresses, and the dainty 

 feet of Jessica go tripping from hall to gon- 

 dola. It is not the shaggy, Highland cattle, 

 with dewy nostrils lifted to the morning, that 

 keep my regard in Rosa Bonheur; — but the 

 aroma of the heather, and of a hundred High- 

 land traditions, — a sound — as of Bruar water, 

 — a sudden waking of all mountain memories 

 and solitudes. 



Again it must be remembered by all those 

 who have rural life in anticipation, that its 

 finer charms, and those which grow out of the 

 adornments and accessories of home, are de- 

 pendent much more upon the appreciative eye 

 and taste of the mistress than of the master. If I 

 have used the first person somewhat freely in 

 my descriptions, it has been from no oversight 

 of what is justly due to another; and I would 

 have the reader believe — what is true — that all 



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