So far as I am aware, it is peculiar to
the little corner of country about Girvan. And that corner is
noticeable for more reasons: it is certainly one of the most
characteristic districts in Scotland, It has this movable porch by
way of architecture; it has, as we shall see, a sort of remnant of
provincial costume, and it has the handsomest population in the
Lowlands. . . .
CHAPTER V - FOREST NOTES 1875-6
ON THE PLAIN
PERHAPS the reader knows already the aspect of the great levels of
the Gatinais, where they border with the wooded hills of
Fontainebleau. Here and there a few grey rocks creep out of the
forest as if to sun themselves. Here and there a few apple-trees
stand together on a knoll. The quaint, undignified tartan of a
myriad small fields dies out into the distance; the strips blend and
disappear; and the dead flat lies forth open and empty, with no
accident save perhaps a thin line of trees or faint church spire
against the sky. Solemn and vast at all times, in spite of pettiness
in the near details, the impression becomes more solemn and vast
towards evening. The sun goes down, a swollen orange, as it were
into the sea.
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