Even the omnipresent policemen or park-keepers could not
disturb the beatific impression on my mind. One feature, at all events,
of the Golden Age was to be seen in the herds of deer that encountered
you in the somewhat remoter recesses of the Park, and were readily
prevailed upon to nibble a bit of bread out of your hand. But, though no
wrong had ever been done them, and no horn had sounded nor hound bayed
at the heels of themselves or their antlered progenitors, for centuries
past, there was still an apprehensiveness lingering in their hearts; so
that a slight movement of the hand or a step too near would send a whole
squadron of them scampering away, just as a breath scatters the winged
seeds of a dandelion.
The aspect of Greenwich Park, with all those festal people wandering
through it, resembled that of the Borghese Gardens under the walls of
Rome, on a Sunday or Saint's day; but, I am not ashamed to say, it a
little disturbed whatever grimly ghost of Puritanic strictness might be
lingering in the sombre depths of a New-England heart, among severe and
sunless remembrances of the Sabbaths of childhood, and pangs of remorse
for ill-gotten lessons in the catechism, and for erratic fantasies or
hardly suppressed laughter in the middle of long sermons. Occasionally,
I tried to take the long-hoarded sting out of these compunctious smarts
by attending divine service the open air.
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