406 Landscape Gardening 



and exquisite lawn - - rare and ilowering trees, and bushes 

 beyond - - a lustrous and odorous thicket - - a gleam of the 

 river below- "a feeling" of the mountains across the river 

 - and were at the same moment alighting at the door of the 

 elegant mansion, in which stood, what appeared to me a 

 tall, slight Spanish gentleman, with thick black hair worn 

 very long, and dark eyes fixed upon me with a searching 

 glance. He w r as dressed simply in a costume fitted for the 

 morning hospitalities of his house, or for the study, or the 

 garden. His welcoming smile was reserved, but genuine, - 

 his manner singularly hearty and quiet, marked by the easy 

 elegance and perfect savo ir fairc which would have adorned 

 the Escurial. We passed into the library. The book- 

 shelves were let into the wall, and the doors covered with 

 glass. They occupied only part of the walls, and upon the 

 space above each was a bracket with busts of Dante, Milton, 

 Petrarch, Franklin, Linnseus, and Scott. There was a large 

 bay window opposite the fireplace. The forms and colors 

 of this room were delightful. It was the retreat of an ele- 

 gantly cultivated gentleman. There were no signs of work 

 except a writing-table, with pens, and portfolios, and piles of 

 letters. 



Here we sat and conversed. Our host entered into every 

 subject gayly and familiarly, with an appreciating deference 

 to differences of opinion, and an evident tenacity of his own, 

 all the while, which surprised me, as the peculiarity of the 

 most accomplished man of the world. There was a certain 

 aristocratic hauteur in his manner, a constant sense of per- 

 sonal dignity, which comported with the reserve of his smile 

 and the quiet welcome. His intellectual attitude seemed to 

 be one of curious criticism, as if he were sharply scrutinizing 

 all that his affability of manner drew forth. No one had a 

 readier generosity of acknowledgment, and there was a nega- 

 tive flattery in his address and attention, which was very 

 subtle and attractive. In all allusions to rural affairs, and 

 matters with which he was entirely familiar, his conversation 

 was not in the slightest degree pedantic, nor positive. He 

 spoke of such things with the simplicity of a child talking of 



