Box Hill

“ Not far from the inn on the side of Box Hill the author of The Egoist lived—lived and suffered, though he did not die young—in a small Georgian house of ugly, commonplace design, approached through a flowerless front garden hemmed in on all sides by a great box hedge that frowned gloomily down upon bewildered visitors.
It would be idle to attempt to demonstrate that passions are allayed by beautiful surroundings ”

“ The little parterre to be described, includes the sheltered town of Dorking, environed with rich lawny slopes, variegated with villas in the last taste; and little heights, from whose clustering foliage peeps the cottage roof of humble life. But the Paradise immediately at [pg 265] the foot of Box Hill is the gem of the whole scene, and is one of the most perfect pictures of rural beauty which pen or pencil can attempt. It appears like an assemblage of every rural charm in a few acres, in whose disposal nature has done much, and art but little. ”

“ You then descend into a valley, passing some delightful meadow scenery, and the showy mansion of Sir Lucas Pepys, which rises from a flourishing plantation on the left. In the valley stands Juniper Hall, late the seat of Mr. Thomas Broadwood, the piano-forte manufacturer. In the park are some of the finest cedars in England. On again ascending, you catch a fine view of Box Hill, and the amphitheatrical range of opposite hills, with one of the most magnificent parterres in nature. This is called, by old writers, the Garden of Surrey. ”

“ Heather glows in the openings of the pines, bracken brushes rain on your sleeve, bilberries ripen in the scented heat, and almost any path—though not the road—runs higher and higher to the open ground at the very top. At the top, nine hundred and sixty-five feet up, you are on the highest hill in the south-east of England.
Leith Hill is not for the multitude which climbs Box Hill. It is further from London, and further from a railway station. But it calls its own companies of travellers, and they are often large ”

“ The box-trees that name the hill are the finest in England. Box-trees love chalk, and here they drive their roots into the crown and scar of a cliff of chalk, so steep on one side down to the Mole that a stone could almost be thrown from the path round the ridge into the water. On the grass outside the box-grove the distance to the level valley below deceives even more strangely. It looks as if you could drive a golf ball straight from the hill on to the green ”

“ This celebrated eminence is situated in the north range of chalk hills, beginning near Farnham, in Surrey, and extending from thence to Folkstone, in Kent. Camden calls it White Hill, from its chalky soil; but Box Hill is its true and ancient name. The box-tree is, in all probability, the natural produce of the soil ”

“ But if strangers cannot gain the lofty beech terrace, commanding such a rich woodland prospect, and from a lane outside must be content with a tantalising peep of the rhododendron show within, they may take a public path to the Glory Wood behind the town; or, on its east side, in the valley of the Mole, they find the avenues of Betchworth Park open as a way to Brockham; while the grounds of Box Hill, and some of the finest outskirts of Leith Hill, such as the Nower park-slopes, offer free rambles. ”

“ She had shone upon him like sunlight, and passion had awakened—passion and interest and something besides. She had stormed at him like a tempest and finally had mystified him with a fog, best proof of all that hers was the womanhood for his manhood. But did he understand? The pebble rolling down a hill has as much comprehension of the force that summons it—indeed it has more, for the pebble obeys the force and Emil St. Ives did not obey. Instead he set himself squarely about and took his way back to New York with a smouldering eye ”

“ The English fire-engine is a small affair, much smaller than our steam fire-engines, having about one half the pumping capacity of the American engines; and nearly every one in London is a combined engine and hose-wagon,—the hose being carried in a box-like compartment on each side of the machine, just back of the driver's seat. ”

“ But several of the newer houses, built within the last few years, are supplied with many ingenious American time-saving devices—sliding-poles, swinging-harness, etc.,—while the horses are kept in box-stalls on the apparatus floor, in convenient running distance of the engines, all of which has considerably reduced the time consumed in turning out to an alarm. ”

“ The package was heavy, but I must carry it lightly under my arm, as if it were only overclothes.
"I treated in return, and had it charged, [Pg 210] because I dare not attempt to get my right hand into my pocket. Jack was disposed to talk, and I feared he was just playing with me like a cat does with a mouse, but I finally got off and deposited my precious burden in my seat-box, under lock and key—then I sneaked back for the second haul. ”

“ Tom Chapin was our first captain and he meets with us now, whenever he is in town.
The village where we live is in a long, narrow [6] valley, with little Hoosac River flowing north through the center of it, until it gets beyond the mountain range. Then it turns west and hurries down into the Hudson.
Bob's Hill stands just west of the village and looks down upon the highest steeples. Over the brow of the hill and a little south are Plunkett's woods. West, straight back, a mile or more, begins the timbered slope of old Greylock, which, everybody knows, is the highest mountain in Massachusetts. ”

“ Hoosac Valley, as I have said, swings off toward the west at North Adams. That brings Williamstown on the opposite side of Greylock from where we live.
We found that out once when we went up on the mountain and came near getting lost, which you know if you have read about the doings of the Band. Almost straight down in front of us, on the east, was our village, with Bob's Hill back of it, looking flat and not like a hill at all. We could tell that it was Bob's Hill because we could see the twin stones, standing there like tiny thimbles on a table. Looking north, we could see North Adams ”

“ Always the round valley grew larger, losing its toy-like character. Its features became, not more distinct, but more detailed. Bob saw the streets of the town were pleasantly shaded by cotton woods and willows; he distinguished dwelling houses, a store, an office building, a mill building for crushing of ore. The roar of the river came up to him more clearly. As though some power had released the magic of the stream, the water now moved. Rushing foam and white water tumbled over the black and shining rocks; deep pools eddied, dark and green, shot with swirls. ”

“ Boscastle Harbour.
[185]
Strange, striking, and utterly unique is the first aspect of this village by the sea. The gorge or valley lies between two vast and precipitous hills, that yawn asunder as though they had been cleft by the spells of some giant warlock [130] of the West, like the Eildon Hill by Michael Scott. [131] As you descend the hill from the north you discover on the opposite side clusters of quaint old-fashioned houses, grotesque and gabled, that appear as though they clung together for mutual support on the slope of that perilous cliff. ”

“ The ivy has climbed up to the top, nevertheless much of the stonework is still seen. It would be a pity if it were suffered to cover the walls on all sides. Hard by a little stream shaded with trees makes its way into the loch. To the north-west rises the steep hill of Dun Buy. “Buy in Erse,” says Boswell, “signifies yellow. The hill being of a yellowish hue, has the epithet of buy.” This hue I altogether failed to discover; perhaps it is only seen in the autumn. On the bright summer’s day in which I saw the castle, it seemed to be almost unsurpassed in the pleasantness of its seat. ”

“ Field was delighted at the success of his joke, and the fact that Bok was in despair over the letters that poured in upon him added to Field’s delight.
He now asked Bok to come to Chicago. “I want you to know some of my cronies,” he wrote. “Julia [his wife] is away, so we will shift for ourselves.” Bok arrived in Chicago one Sunday afternoon, and was to dine at Field’s house that evening. He found a jolly company: James Whitcomb Riley, Sol Smith Russell the actor, Opie Read, and a number of Chicago’s literary men. ”

“ Randy considered the journey through the Box Wood one of their gayest and most entertaining adventures. The woodmen, in their brightly decorated boxes, shuffled cheerfully along beside them, stopping now and then to point with pride to their square box-like dwellings set at regular intervals under the spreading boxwood trees. The whole forest was covered by an enormous wooden box that shut out the sky and gave everything an artificial and unreal look. It was in one side of this monster box that Thun had burned the hole to admit them. ”

“ He found himself in a pocket of the cliffs, where the precipice so far drew back as to leave a clear space of four or five acres in the river bottom. Such pockets, or "coves," are by no means unusual in the inaccessible depths of the great box cañons of the Sierras. Often the traveller can look down on them from above, lying like green gems in their settings of granite, but rarely can he descend to examine them. Thankfully Bob darted to one side. ”

“ There is a sort of road leading out of the orchard and winding around the hill, where the walking is easy, but on that side Bob's Hill itself rises almost straight up from the orchards, and the slope is covered with slippery grass, with now and then a big stone sticking its nose out of the ground. To climb it you have to dig in with the sides and heels of your shoes and work hard.
Skinny started straight up and we after him, except Bill, who can climb faster than anybody. ”

“ The rest of the fence was lying among the grasses and goldenrod, but the box still lived, dead at the top, its leafless branches matted into a hoary gray tangle, but springing up from below in crisp green sprays, lustrous and fragrant as ever, and richly suggestive of the past that produced it. For the box implies not merely human life, but human life on a certain scale: leisurely, decorous, well-considered. It implies faith in an established order and an assured future. A beautiful box hedge is not planned for immediate enjoyment ”

“ Bob turned the next corner, finding himself in a street as deserted as any they had passed through, and with only a few houses in the block. All were mere huts. Not a person, man, woman or child, was in sight. The only signs of life were a few chickens pecking dispiritedly at the ground under a drooping pepper tree in the shade of which Bob brought the car to a stop. ”

“ It would be hard to find any place where people dwell at all lonelier than Bolt's Hill. You turn up the public road, broad and well-travelled, which leads from Whitehall to Rockville, and go up, and up, and up, till it seems as if you were going to the clouds. On one side of the road is a perpendicular wall of rock, from twenty to sixty feet high, covered with grim, black spruce-trees. On the other side, the land descends rapidly to a deep ravine, at the bottom of which runs a brawling stream, which in wet weather is increased to a roaring torrent. ”

“ Boggs's hill, back of the lady's house that taught the infant-class in Sunday-school, was a good hill. It had a creek at the bottom, and a fine, long ride, eight or ten feet, on the ice. But Dangler's hill was the boss. It was the one we all made up our minds we would ride down some day when the snow was just right. We'd go over there' and look up to the brow of the hill and say: “Gee! But wouldn't a fellow come down like sixty, though?” ”

“ I happened to be in the City of Philadelphia—I have told the story to the convention already, but I will tell it again—in the midst of an excitement that was caused by the arrival of a man in a box. I measured it myself; three feet one inch long, two feet wide, and two feet six inches deep. In that box a man was entombed for twenty seven hours.
The box was placed in the express car in Richmond, Va., and subjected to all the rough treatment ordinarily given to boxes of merchandise ”

“ We drive away through the pretty village [166] of Trevena, dip into the wooded and flowery dell of Bossiney on a steep and rather rough road, and soon run down into Boscastle among the orchards. The narrow gorge, where the village lies smothered in trees, ends in a little landlocked harbour, and high up on the hill to the left stands the church of Forrabury—the church whose bells, says the legend, are lying at the bottom of the sea with the bones of the blasphemous skipper who was bringing them to Boscastle. ”

“ Bob well knew that, even nearer the source of supplies, such mining camps as this appeared to be were most often but a collection of rude, unpainted shanties, huddled together for a temporary need. The orderly, well-kept, decent appearance of this hamlet, more like a shaded New England village than a Western camp, argued old establishment, prosperity, and self-respect. The inhabitants could be no desperate fly-by-nights, such as Saleratus Bill would most likely have sought as companions. ”

“ In Kent is Bekesbourne, and Pegwell Bay near St. Margarets in Kent, may be connoted with Backwell or Bachwell in Somerset. In Herefordshire is a British earthwork, known as Bach Camp, and on Bucton Moor in Northumberland there are two earth circles. In Devonshire is Buckland-Egg, or Egg-Buckland, and with the various Boxmoors, Boxgroves, Boxdales, and Boxleys may be connoted the Box river which passes Keynton and crosses Akeman Street. A Christmas box is a boon or a gift, a box or receptacle is the same word as pyx ”