OLD HOUSES. 



WHEN journeying in the country, who has not occa- 

 sionally felt that the sight of the finest houses and the 

 most highly ornamented grounds does not affect the 

 mind with the greatest pleasure ? We are soon tired of 

 objects, however beautiful, that produce no other effect 

 than to excite an agreeable visual sensation. Something 

 that affords a pleasing exercise for the sympathies and 

 the imagination must be blended with all scenes of 

 beauty, or they soon become vapid and uninteresting. 

 When we first enter the interior of a spacious dome, 

 which is surrounded with colored glass windows, the 

 physical sensation of beauty thus produced may detain 

 us a few moments with extreme pleasure. But a fre- 

 quent repetition of these visits would cause the spectacle 

 to become tiresome, because it excites the eye without 

 affecting the mind. The very opposite effect would be 

 produced by visiting a gallery of paintings, because 

 there is no end to the ideas and images which these 

 works of genius may suggest. 



In like manner, when travelling among the scenes of 

 nature and art, many a highly ornamented house passes 

 before our eyes without making any better impression 

 upon the mind than that which is produced by examin- 

 ing the plates of fashions in the window of a tailor's shop. 

 As we proceed farther into the country we presently en- 

 counter a scene that awakens a different class of emotions, 

 that seem to penetrate more deeply into the soul. An old 

 house, containing two stories in front, with the back roof 



