ies.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] "Added to this the authorities of the University, the appointed
guardians of those who form great part of the attendants on my sermons,
have shown a dislike to my preaching. One dissuades men from coming, the
late Vice-Chancellor threatens to take his own children away from the
church."--_Apologia pro Vita Sua_, p. 133. John Henry Newman, D.D.
Longmans, 1879.

CHAPTER V

THE PALACE GARDEN

"Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine."--BLAKE.

By the autumn of 1842 the removal from Oxford to Chichester had been
accomplished. The Bishop and his family were installed in the palace,
which was to be their home for twenty-eight years. A new life was
beginning for Bessie, and one which, when the inevitable pain of parting
from old friends was over, she learnt to love very dearly. She had a
keen imaginative delight in the beauties of nature. She loved to hear of
clouds and sunset; of sunrise and the dawn, of green fields, of hills
and valleys. She loved the outer air, flowers, and the song of birds;
and she had passed the first sixteen years of her life in a house in the
High Street, Oxford. She was very proud of the architectural beauty of
Oxford, and always thought it a distinction to belong to Oxford; but her
whole heart was soon in the home at Chichester.

The Bishop's palace has a beautiful old-fashioned garden, of which the
city wall forms the west and part of the southern boundary. A sloping
mound leads from the garden to within a few feet of the top of the wall,
and there is a green walk around the summit. There are grassy plots,
umbrageous trees, flowering shrubs, roses, roses everywhere; and there
are birds that sing all the long day in the spring-time. The black-cap
was a special favourite of Bessie's and of the Bishop's. A garden door
in the palace opens upon a straight gravel walk, with a southern aspect,
leading towards the western boundary wall. On the southern side of the
walk lies the garden, on the north a bank of lilacs, laburnums, and
shrubs. Here Bessie could walk alone; she needed no companion, no guide.
It was a new pleasure to her, and one of which she never grew weary. The
song of birds, the hum of insects, the rustle of the trees, all made the
garden a fairy palace of delight. A sister remembers how one summer
morning at three o'clock she found Bessie standing at her bedside
begging her to get up and dress, and go with her to the garden "