" It was not so hot of the sun as summers
I have known, but there were so many gentle and loving winds about, with
never point or knife-edge in them, that it seemed all the housework of
the universe was being done by ladies. Then the way the odours went and
came on those sweet winds! and the way the twilight fell asleep into the
dark! and the way the sun rushed up in the morning, as if he cried, like
a boy, "Here I am! The Father has sent me! Isn't it jolly!" I saw more
sun-rises that year than any year before or since. And the grass was so
thick and soft! There must be grass in heaven! And the roses, both wild
and tame, that grew together in the wilderness!--I think you would like
to hear about the wilderness.
When I grew to notice, and think, and put things together, I began to
wonder how the wilderness came there. I could understand that the
solemn garden, with its great yew-hedges and alleys, and its oddly cut
box-trees, was a survival of the stately old gardens haunted by ruffs and
farthingales; but the wilderness looked so much younger that I was
perplexed with it, especially as I saw nothing like it anywhere else. I
asked my uncle about it, and he explained that it was indeed after an old
fashion, but that he had himself made the wilderness, mostly with his own
hands, when he was young. This surprised me, for I had never seen him
touch a spade, and hardly ever saw him in the garden: when I did, I
always felt as if something was going to happen.
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