CLIMATE, SEASONS, ETC. 



1818. 



Jan. 15. appears little. After living within a few hundreds 

 of yards of Westminster Hall and the Abbey Church 

 and the Bridge, and looking from my own windows 

 into St. James s Park, all other buildings and spots 

 appear mean and insignificant. I went to-day to 

 see the house I formerly occupied. How small ! 

 It is always thus : the words large and small are 

 carried about with us in our minds, and we forget 

 real dimensions. The idea, such as it was received, 

 remains during our absence from the object. When 

 I returned to England, in 1800, after an absence 

 from the country parts of it, of sixteen years, the 

 trees, the hedges, even the parks and woods, seemed 

 so small ! It made me laugh to hear little gutters, 

 that I could jump over, called Rivers ! The 

 Thames was but a &quot; Creek I &quot; But, when, in about 

 a month after my arrival in London, I went to 

 Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my sur 

 prise ! Every thing was become so pitifully small ! 

 I had to cross, in my post-chaise, the long and dreary 

 heath of Bagshot. Then, at the end of it, to mount 

 a hill, called Hungry Hill ; and from that hill I 

 knew that I should look down into the beautiful 

 and fertile vale of Farnham. My heart fluttered 

 with impatience, mixed with a sort of fear, to see 

 all the scenes of my childhood ; for I had learnt 

 before, the death of my father and mother. There 

 is a hill, not far from the town, called Crooksbury 

 Hill, which rises up out of a flat, in the form of a 

 cone, and is planted with Scotch fir trees. Here 

 I used to take the eggs and young ones of crows and 

 magpies. This hill was a famous object in the 

 neighbourhood. It served as the superlative degree 

 of height. &quot; As high as Crooksbury Hill &quot; meant, 

 With us, the utmost degree of height. Therefore, 

 the first object that my eyes sought was this hill. 

 / could not believe my eyes ! Literally speaking, I 

 for a moment, thought the famous hill removed, 

 and a little heap put in its stead ; for I had seen in 

 New Brunswick, a single rock, or hill of solid rock, 

 ten times as big, and four or five times as high ! 

 The post-boy, going down hill, and not a bad road, 

 whisked me, in a few minutes to the Bush Inn, from 

 the garden of which I could see the prodigious sand 

 hill, where I had begun my gardening works. What 

 a nothing ! But now came rushing into my mind, 

 all at once, my pretty little garden, my little blue 

 smock-frock, my little nailed shoes, my pretty 



