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As a rule, the open spaces in a country village are subject to no other criticism than that of neglect; but the exceptions are not rare where an attempt at improvement has resulted in a sort of cemetery look that gives any thing but a cheerful, pleasure-ground aspect.
I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me, to whom the sun was servant, who had not gone into society in the village, who had not been called on. I saw their park, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding's cranberry-meadow.
As we entered the park, I talked in a high style of my old friendship with Lord Mountstuart , and said, 'I shall probably be much at this place. The Sage, aware of human vicissitudes, gently checked me: 'Don't you be too sure of that. He made two or three peculiar observations; as when shewn the botanical garden, 'Is not every garden a botanical garden? When told that there was a shrubbery to the extent of several miles: 'That is making a very foolish use of the ground; a little of it is very well. When it was proposed that we should walk on the pleasure-ground; 'Don't let us fatigue ourselves.
He understood it in a moment, and next morning the trap was at the door at the specified time. Before I left Stockholm I made a careful and elaborate panoramic sketch of the city, as a companion to the one I had made of Genoa from the harbour a year before. I made this one from the summit of the King's Park, which is the favourite pleasure-ground of the people.
Seated in this lovely pleasure-ground, the gift of the empress Maria Theresa, with its cool shade all about us, we noted the long avenues and the paths winding amid stalwart trees and verdant shrubbery, the dark foliage ineffectually veiling the gleaming statuary and the sheen of bright fountains, "the stone basin with its clear depth, the thick-planted trees which framed this tremulous and rippled mirror," the groups of happy people filling the seats in secluded nooks or loitering in the cool mazes and listening to the music, we noted all this, and felt that Miss Bronté had revealed it to us long ago.
Not far from the pump, and between it and us, was an open green door, which led into a garden or pleasure-ground, and though I could see nothing to alarm me, my quick ear distinguished suspicious sounds in that direction. "In with you!" exclaimed Whiskerandos, impatiently. "Don't keep me here, dying with thirst at the hole."
On the right was a sort of barrack, with a South American Flag and the Union Jack, flying from the same staff, where the little English colony could all come together, if they saw occasion. It was a walled square of building, with a sort of pleasure-ground inside, and inside that again a sunken block like a powder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps down to the door.
After five months' imprisonment at Cahors, he was taken out and marched, as already related, to the citadel of Montpellier. The citadel adjoins the Peyrou, a lofty platform of rock, which commands a splendid panoramic view of the surrounding country. It is now laid out as a pleasure-ground, though it was then the principal hanging-place of the Languedoc Protestants.
An ancient family residence ought to be a primary object; and though the situation of Dunvegan be such that little can be done here in gardening, or pleasure-ground, yet, in addition to the veneration required by the lapse of time, it has many circumstances of natural grandeur, suited to the seat of a Highland Chief: it has the sea islands rocks, hills, a noble cascade; and when the family is again in opulence, something may be done by art.
I thought the pleasure-ground finer than anything so much grander than Lord St. Erme's; but this! Did you keep it to the last to surprise me! 'I forgot it, said Arthur, laughing to see her look shocked. 'It is not in my line. The natives never have any sport out of a show-place. 'It is simply a bore, said Theodora, 'a self-sacrifice to parade.
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