About in the centre of the garden
there was an actual, homely-looking, small dwelling-house, where perhaps
the overlookers of the place live. Now this might be wrought, in an
imaginative description, into a pleasant sort of a fool's paradise, where
all sorts of unreal delights should cluster round some suitable
personage; and it would relieve, in a very odd and effective way, the
stern realities of life on the outside of the garden-walls. I saw a
little girl, simply dressed, who seemed to have her habitat within the
grounds. There was also a daguerreotypist, with his wife and family,
carrying on his business in a shanty, and perhaps having his home in its
inner room. He seemed to be an honest, intelligent, pleasant young man,
and his wife a pleasant woman; and I had J-----'s daguerreotype taken for
three shillings, in a little gilded frame. In the description of the
garden, the velvet turf, of a charming verdure, and the shrubbery and
shadowy walks and large trees, and the slopes and inequalities of ground,
must not he forgotten. In one place there was a maze and labyrinth,
where a person might wander a long while in the vain endeavor to get out,
although all the time looking at the exterior garden, over the low hedges
that border the walks of the maze. And this is like the inappreciable
difficulties that often beset us in life.
I will see it again before long, and get some additional record of it.
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