But we might have
gone in, we now find, and Mrs. Wordsworth likes very much to see
people. So this intelligent man led us through the pretty gardens and
grounds, up and up and up innumerable steps in successive short
flights, through many wickets, till I began to think we could never
reach our goal. Finally we came to a spot of constant shade where was
a singularly shaped rock--a kind of slab--thrusting itself out from
the wall, in which a brass plate was inserted with an inscription by
Wordsworth, which we read. It expressed that he had pleaded for this
rock as often as he had for other natural objects.
The gardener opened a wicket, after passing the deep, shady nook, and
said, "This is Mr. Wordsworth's garden." I looked about and saw
troops of flowers, and sought for the white fox-glove, which was a
favorite of his, and found it; and the air was loaded with a fine
perfume, which I discovered to be from large beds of mignonette. In
those paths he walked and watched and tended his plants and shrubs.
Presently, after so much mounting of steps, and threading of
embowered paths and lanes of flowers, we were ushered into the grounds
immediately around the actual house. And the man first took us upon
that memorable terraced lawn, in great part made by Wordsworth's own
hands. It is circular, and the turf, like thick-piled velvet, yielding
to the feet and of delicious green--smooth and soft. Perhaps it is
thirty feet in diameter, and double, with a very high step.
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