It is very beautiful and
picture-like. While we sat here, S----- happened to refer to the ballad
of little Barbara Lewthwaite, and J----- began to repeat the poem
concerning her, and the gardener said that "little Barbara" had died not
a great while ago, an elderly woman, leaving grown-up children behind
her. Her marriage-name was Thompson, and the gardener believed there was
nothing remarkable in her character.
There is a summer-house at one extremity of the grounds, in deepest
shadow, but with glimpses of mountain views through trees which shut it
in, and which have spread intercepting boughs since Wordsworth died. It
is lined with pine-cones, in a pretty way enough, but of doubtful taste.
I rather wonder that people of real taste should help Nature out, and
beautify her, or perhaps rather prettify her so much as they do,--opening
vistas, showing one thing, hiding another, making a scene picturesque,
whether or no. I cannot rid myself of the feeling that there is
something false--a kind of humbug--in all this. At any rate, the traces
of it do not contribute to my enjoyment, and, indeed, it ought to be done
so exquisitely as to leave no trace. But I ought not to criticise in any
way a spot which gave me so much pleasure, and where it is good to think
of Wordsworth in quiet, past days, walking in his home-shadow of trees
which he knew, and training flowers, and trimming shrubs, and chanting in
an undertone his own verses up and down the winding walks.
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