Page:Guy Mannering Vol 1.djvu/347

Rh admiration of these wild rocks was blended with familiar love, derived from early association. Despite my Dutch education, a blue hill to me is as a friend, and a roaring torrent like the sound of a domestic song that has soothed my infancy. I never felt the impulse so strongly as in this land of lakes and mountains, and nothing grieves me so much as that the duty prevents your being with me in my numerous excursions among its recesses. Some drawings I have attempted, but I succeed vilely—Dudley, on the contrary, draws delightfully, with that rapid touch which seems like magic, while I labour and botch, and make this too heavy, and that too light, and produce at last a base caricature. I must stick to the flageolet, for music is the only one of the fine arts which deigns to acknowledge me.

"Did you know that Colonel Mannering was a draughtsman?—I believe not, for he scorned to display his accomplishments to the view of a subaltern. He draws Rh