15. But France is a country on a large scale. Low, but long, hills sweep
away for miles into vast uninterrupted champaigns; immense forests
shadow the country for hundreds of square miles, without once letting
through the light of day; its pastures and arable land are divided on
the same scale; there are no fences; we can hardly place ourselves in
any spot where we shall not see for leagues around; and there is a kind
of comfortless sublimity in the size of every scene. The French cottage,
therefore, is on the same scale, equally large and desolate looking;
but we shall see, presently, that it can arouse feelings which, though
they cannot be said to give it sublimity, yet are of a higher order than
any which can be awakened at the sight of the English cottage.

16. Again, every bit of cultivated ground in England has a finished
neatness; the fields are all divided by hedges or fences; the fruit
trees are neatly pruned; the roads beautifully made, etc. Everything is
the reverse in France: the fields are distinguished by the nature of the
crops they bear; the fruit trees are overgrown with moss and mistletoe;
and the roads immeasurably wide, and miserably made.

17. So much for the character of the two cottages, as they assimilate
with the countries in which they are found. Let us now see how they
assimilate with the character of the people by whom they are built.
England is a country of perpetually increasing prosperity and active
enterprise; but, for that very reason, nothing is allowed to remain till
it gets old. Large old trees are cut down for timber; old houses are
pulled down for the materials; and old furniture is laughed at and
neglected. Everything is perpetually altered and renewed by the activity
of invention and improvement. The cottage, consequently, has no
dilapidated look about it; it is never suffered to get old; it is used
as long as it is comfortable, and then taken down and rebuilt; for it