With great ditches on each side, filled with tall
grass as high as yourself, if you chose to get down into it. But I
used to jump across, to get wild hawthorn and rose and honeysuckle and
wall-flowers, and make great bunches of them. And then the buttercups
and daisies and violets in the green grass! For in the lanes there was
not a sign of earth,--all high, green grass. The sun shining so hot
that you could go in your house-dress but for the properness of it.
But I cannot explain and you cannot imagine; you must go to the place
and look for yourself, and then you will know all about it. The parks
are not level at all, but are nothing but high hills all
together,--dear!--so lovely to run down and roll over on, and skip
rope and jump!
My father began to express his wishes in regard to provision for our
aunt in case of his death; to burn old letters; and to impart to my
mother and Una all that he particularly desired to say to them, among
other things his dislike of biographies, and that he forbade any such
matter in connection with himself in any distance of the future. This
command, respected for a number of years, has been, like all such
forcible and prophetic demurs, most signally set aside. It would take
long to explain my own modifications of opinion from arguments of
fierce resistance to the request for a biographical handling of him;
and it matters, no doubt, very little. Such a man must be thoroughly
known, as great saints are always sooner or later known, though
endeavoring to hide their victories of holiness and charity.
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