t House, where Tennyson once lived (and found it
"outrageous quiet"), and a mile farther on we came to Brantwood.

The road curves in to the back of the house--which, by the way, is the
front--and the driveway is lined with great trees that form a complete
archway. There is no lodge-keeper, no flowerbeds laid out with square and
compass, no trees trimmed to appear like elephants, no cast-iron dogs,
nor terra-cotta deer, and, strangest of all, no sign of the lawn-mower.
There is nothing, in fact, to give forth a sign that the great Apostle of
Beauty lives in this very old-fashioned spot. Big boulders are to be seen
here and there where Nature left them, tangles of vines running over old
stumps, part of the meadow cut close with a scythe, and part growing up
as if the owner knew the price of hay. Then there are flowerbeds, where
grow clusters of poppies and hollyhocks (purple, and scarlet, and white),
prosaic gooseberry-bushes, plain Yankee pieplant (from which the English
make tarts), rue and sweet marjoram, with patches of fennel, sage, thyme
and catnip, all lined off with boxwood, making me think of my
grandmother's garden at Roxbury.

On the hillside above the garden we saw the entrance to the cave that Mr.
Ruskin once filled with ice, just to show the world how to keep its head
cool at small expense. He even wrote a letter to the papers giving the
bright idea to humanity--that the way to utilize caves was to fill them
with ice. Then he forgot all about the matter. But the following June,
when the cook, wishing to make some ice-cream as a glad surprise for the
Sunday dinner, opened the natural ice-chest, she found only a pool of
muddy water, and exclaimed, "Botheration!" Then they had custard instead
of ice-cream.

We walked up the steps, and my friend let the brass knocker drop just
once, for only Americans give a rat-a-tat-tat, and the door was opened by
a white-whiskered butler, who took our cards and ushered us into the
library. My heart beat a trifle fast as I took inventory of the room; for
I never before had called on a man who was believed to have refused the
poet-laureateship. A dimly lighted room was this library--walls painted
brown, running up to mellow yellow at the ceiling, high bookshelves, with
a stepladder, and only five pictures on the walls, and of these three
were etchings, and two water-colors of a very simple sort;
leather-covered chairs; a long table in the center, on which were strewn
sundry