summer noon
* It may be interesting to the lovers of literature to hear that my accomplished friend Mrs. Trollope was `` raised , '' as her friends the Americans would say , upon this spot . Her father , the Rev. William Milton , himself a very clever man , and an able mechanician and engineer , held the living of Heckfield for many years . It is difficult to imagine anything which more completely realises the poetical fancy , that the pillars and arches of a Gothic cathedral were borrowed from the interlacing of the branches of trees planted at stated intervals , than this avenue , in which Nature has so completely succeeded in outrivalling her handmaiden Art , that not a single trunk , hardly even a bough or a twig , appears to mar the grand regularity of the design as a piece of perspective . No cathedral aisle was ever more perfect ; and the effect , under every variety of aspect , the magical light and shadow of the cold white moonshine , the cool green light of a cloudy day , and the glancing sunbeams which pierce through the leafy umbrage in the bright summer noon , are such as no words can convey . Separately considered , each tree -LRB- and the north of Hampshire is celebrated for the size and shape of its elms -RRB- is a model of stately growth , and they are now just at perfection , probably about a hundred and thirty years old . There is scarcely perhaps in the kingdom such another avenue . On one side of this noble approach is the garden , where , under the care of the skilful and excellent gardener , Mr. Cooper , so many magnificent dahlias are raised , but where , alas !