Memories of Farringford

Abstract

I do not remember ever to have found such seclusion as was here possible. It seemed as if every tree that grew had felt a kind of personal responsibility to keep the intruder out. The very walks in the lime-tree alleys were ungravelled and hushed, and when one came upon the lawn it seemed more velvet soft and mossy silent than woodland lawns are wont to be. As for the house itself, it was so swathed in magnolia and heavy ivy garniture that it seemed part of the woodland itself, and it was not till one came from under the cedars and caught sight of the glass conservatory that one was sure that here mortal as well as immortal had his dwelling.

Memories of the Tennysons (Glasgow: James MacLehose, 1900) pp. 93–116, 120–21, 138–48.