CHISWIGK HOUSE 



pondered the matter, and with all the picturesque accretions and 

 variations that the vivid fancy of youth chose to add, we discussed 

 them in family conclave. 



Immediately the spirit of adventure rife in the boys, met the 

 spirit of romance uppermost in the girls ; and finally, without 

 consulting our elders, or even telling them of our dreams, we 

 resolved to make a real pilgrimage, in order to verify the truth of 

 the rumours, and the accuracy of our own imaginings. 



When I think of it now, I remember that we did not even know 

 in what direction the garden lay, and whether the golden gates 

 were in the Moon, or in Middlesex. We asked nobody, for we had 

 youth's self-confidence, and if any well-meaning person had 

 voluntarily told us that what we were seeking was actually within 

 a mile or two of our own garden, it would not have shaken our 

 faith in our distant objective, for we should not have believed 

 him ! We never doubted that sooner or later we should arrive 

 at our goal. For Ghiberti's famous bronze gates before referred to, 

 the gates of the Baptistery at Florence, were not more real and 

 beautiful in the eyes of Michael Angelo, when he pronounced them 

 " worthy to be the gates of Paradise," than, to our vivid fancy, was 

 the undiscovered entrance to the mysterious undiscovered country 

 we sought. 



Therefore, on several consecutive holiday afternoons, when, on 

 the principle that there is safety in numbers, we were left to our 

 own devices, we sallied forth, a joyous band of brothers, sisters, and 

 school-mates, in search of the wonderful gates, and the Paradise 

 to which they, like Ghiberti's, were the fitting portal. But we never 

 found them, for they lay close to home ; and in our wanderings 

 we had overshot the mark, and passed them by ; and when at 

 last, after four futile attempts made all " on our own," we con- 

 descended to ask the way the way to the " Golden Gates " 

 no one had ever heard of them ! 



And well might it be so, for the gates were the gates of Chiswick 

 House, and they were not golden at all ! but of wrought-iron, 

 gilded. They are beautiful, nevertheless, and have an interesting 

 history. Originally they were the gates of Heathfield House, 

 Turnham Green, which, after changing hands more than once, 

 was purchased by George Elliot, Lord Heathfield, the defender of 

 Gibraltar, who died there in 1790. 



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