THE MONASTERY.
No. 17.— MARY AVENEL.
I have lately been reading*[1] these novels over again, with a pleasure which only those who have been placed in similar circumstances can understand. They have had the advantage of association and contrast. It has been a perpetual delight to dwell on their descriptions, and then look around and see scenes so completely their opposite, instead of the winding river, the green field, and the familiar oak and elm. I look upon the vast sea, whose dash against the rock never ceases—and on a land whose heights are covered with a wilderness of wood—and where the single trees scattered in the foreground are the cocoa nut and palm. Every page, too, has a charm almost beyond its first eager perusal—how much do they recall of the days when they were read before—how many conversations
- ↑ * I began to write these papers from memory, but the kindness of Mr. Hutton, a gentleman of Cape Coast, has since supplied me with the "Works of Sir Walter Scott."
