Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/122

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A NEWPORT AQUARELLE.

in love. Love-Lane, Fairy Dell, Glen Anna, Vaucluse, and Lawton's Valley have few visitors.

It is a pity that the worldlings have found out this region of delight. Any other place would have served as well for the display of their horses and carriages, diamonds, clothes, beauty, and beaux. Why should they have chosen to erect their palatial cottages on our quiet island, to pass their idle summer in the quaint old town?

The love of nature is not always a natural gift. With the dwellers in cities, the taste is usually one which has been acquired through the influence of some country-bred or poetic mind. How many beauties of sky and wood land, flower and tree, has not Wordsworth taught us to see? Keats has led thousands of ears to note the music in the wild bird's carol, which else had hardly heeded it. Who does not see a new delight in the simple field flower after reading Burns's description of the daisy?