Such pretension is especially to be avoided in the
mountain cottage: it can never lie too humbly in the pastures of the
valley, nor shrink too submissively into the hollows of the hills; it
should seem to be asking the storm for mercy, and the mountain for
protection: and should appear to owe to its weakness, rather than to its
strength, that it is neither overwhelmed by the one, nor crushed by the
other.
51. Such are the chief attributes, without which a mountain cottage
cannot be said to be beautiful. It may possess others, which are
desirable or objectionable, according to their situation, or other
accidental circumstances. The nature of these will be best understood by
examining an individual building. The material is, of course, what is
most easily attainable and available without much labor. The Cumberland
and Westmoreland hills are, in general, composed of clay-slate and
gray-wacke, with occasional masses of chert[7] (like that which forms
the summit of Scawfell), porphyritic greenstone, and syenite. The chert
decomposes deeply, and assumes a rough brown granular surface, deeply
worn and furrowed. The clay-slate or gray-wacke, as it is shattered by
frost, and carried down by torrents, of course forms itself into
irregular flattish masses. The splintery edges of these are in some
degree worn off by the action of water; and, slight decomposition taking
place on the surface of the clay-slate, furnishes an aluminous soil,
which is immediately taken advantage of by innumerable lichens, which
change the dark gray of the original substance into an infinite variety
of pale and warm colors.
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