46 Frederick Law Olmsted 



never wordy, a decided companionship was always necessary 

 to his comfort, and his silence was never churlish. 



His sensitiveness to the beauty of nature was indeed 

 extraordinary, judging from the degree in which his habits 

 were affected by it ; for he gave more time and thought to the 

 pursuit of this means of enjoyment than to all other luxuries, 

 and more than any man I have known who could not and 

 would not talk about it or in any way make a market of 

 it. 



My mother died while I was so young that I have but a 

 tradition of memory rather than the faintest recollection of 

 her. While I was a small schoolboy if I was asked if I re- 

 membered her I could say ' * Yes ; I remember playing on the 

 grass and looking up at her while she sat sewing under a 

 tree." I now only remember that I did so remember her, but 

 it has always been a delight to me to see a woman sitting 

 under a tree, sewing and minding a child. 



My [step-] mother's character was simpler than my 

 father's, but she also had a strong love of nature and her 

 taste was more cultivated and had more of her own respect. 



My father when a young man was fond of riding and 

 before I could be trusted alone on a horse was in the habit of 

 taking me sitting on a pillow before him. While still very 

 young I rode by his side. 



The happiest recollections of my early life are the walks 

 and rides I had with my father and the drives with my 

 father and [step-]mother in the woods and fields. Sometimes 

 these were quite extended, and really tours in search of the 

 picturesque. Thus before I was twelve years old I had been 

 driven over the most charming roads of the Connecticut 

 Valley and its confluents, through the White Hills and along 

 most of the New England coast from the Kennebeck to the 

 Naugatuck. We were our own servants, my father seldom 

 fully trusting strangers in these journeys with the feeding, 

 cleaning or harnessing of his horses. We rested long in 

 pleasant places ; and when at noon we took the nags out and 



