Kensington Gardens

“ It may really be said that Kensington Gardens contain some of the finest rural scenery in England. If they were not a huge city square, they would be an admirable nobleman's park. To sit down for an hour at the base of one of the great elms and see them studding the grass around you in vistas, which, as you do not perceive their limits, may be as long-drawn as you choose to suppose them, is one of the most accessible as well as one of the most agreeable methods of spending a June afternoon. ”

“ The light of these days is very exquisite, so gently bright, without any glare,—a veiled glow. In short, it is the kindliest mood of Nature, and almost enough to compensate for chill and dreary months. Moreover, there is more of such weather here than the English climate has ever had credit for.
Kensington Gardens form an eminently beautiful piece of artificial woodland and park scenery. The old palace of Kensington, now inhabited by the Duchess of Inverness, stands at one extremity; an edifice of no great mark, built of brick, covering much ground, and low in proportion to its extent. ”

“ I do not know if Sir James Barrie is responsible for the feeling that you would not be surprised at anything that might happen in Kensington Gardens. Who would be bold enough to assert that when the last child has left the Peter Pan statue the squirrels do not come and play with their stone brothers? Kensington Gardens are the paradise of the child and the flower lover. There are ugly things in it, of course, like the Albert Memorial, though everyone does not think it ugly: I was once startled at hearing that souvenir of Victorian taste fervently admired by some fellow bus passengers. ”

“ Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington Gardens, which is the only house in the whole world that the fairies have built for humans. But no one has really seen it, except just three or four, and they have not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep in it you never see it. ”

“ THE GARDEN And like a cobbler at a bench I return to my musings why Kensington Gardens with its grand, theatrical entrance is gateway to London's poor --why the stiff Victoria and Albert monument or grand canopy to the Hemispheres has a bison for the Americas or sultry elephant of Asia fame (India being the brightest jewel in the Empress' crown) ; why other archetypal animals at their pleasure are carved in gleaming milk white when the rich at their leisure, to and fro, dine elegantly as tight buds arranged on a stem. ”

“ They had not strength enough between them to get home. They made a forced landing in the silver loneliness of Kensington Gardens. It was a fortunate place, for there is much magic there. Wherever there are children who pretend, there grows a little magic in the air, and therefore the wind of Kensington Gardens thrills with enchantment, and the Round Pond, full of much pretence of great Armadas, crossed and re-crossed with the abiding wakes of ships full of treasure and romance, is a blessed lake to magic people.
The witch bathed Harold, her broomstick, in the Round Pond. ”

“ In that oasis in the desert of aristocratic London one can obtain quite sylvan surroundings. True, the trees and vegetation are covered with a film of grime from the millions of smoking chimneys of the giant metropolis, still Kensington Gardens ever possesses a charm all its own as a clandestine meeting-place for well-born lovers and ill-born loafers, for nursemaids and soldiers, and for persons of both sexes who wish for a little quiet talk in the open air in order so often to clear a hectic atmosphere.
Such I judged to be the case between Gaston Suzor and Gabrielle Tennison. ”

“ We have also a contemporary account of the gardens as formed by William and Mary, in a “View of the Gardens near London,” dated December, 1691: “Kensington Gardens are not great, nor abounding with fine plants. The orange, lemon, myrtle, and what other trees they had there in summer, were all removed to Mr. London’s and Mr. Wise’s greenhouse at Brompton Park, a little mile from them. But the walks and grass laid very fine; and they were digging up a flat of four or five acres to enlarge the garden.” ”

“ The58 Kensington promenades were now revived, and the King and Queen accompanied by the Royal Family would pace down the walks between an avenue of bowing and smiling courtiers. Throughout this reign, and far into the next, Kensington Gardens formed a fashionable resort, and with the promenades are associated many of the great names of the eighteenth century. People were admitted to the gardens by ticket obtainable through the Lord Chamberlain. ”

“ In Kensington Gardens no one ever sits upon the grass. Not only would it be in the highest degree improper, but it would spoil one’s clothes, and everyone would stare, and take one for quite a common person. ”

“ Yet he whose heart in childhood gave his troth To pastoral dales, then set with modest farms, May learn, if judgment strengthen with his growth, That not for Fancy only, pomp hath charms; And, strenuous to protect from lawless harms The extremes of favored life, may honour both.
The two noblest of modern public gardens in England are those at Kensington and Kew. Kensington Gardens were begun by King William the III, but were originally only twenty-six acres in extent. Queen Anne added thirty acres more. The grounds were laid out by the well-known garden-designers, London and Wise. ”

“ There are the early walks through the parks and green Kensington Gardens, which now change their character of resort, and seem rural and countrylike, but yet with more life than the country; for on the benches beneath the trees, and along the sward, and up the malls, are living beings enough to interest the eye and divert the thoughts, if you are a guesser into character, and amateur of the human face,—fresh nursery-maid and playful children ”

“ The winter came closing in, and the snow fell thick upon the lanes and the gardens, on the Kensington house-tops and laurel-trees, on the old church tower, and the curate's well-worn waterproof cape, as he trudged to and fro. It fell on the old garden walls and slanting roof of Church House, with little Dolly, safe sheltered within, warming herself by the baked Dutch tiles. ”

“ No one was in the vicinity, and we were walking very slowly, for, truth to tell, I desired to delay our parting until the very last moment. Of all the leafy spots in giant London, there is none so rural, so romantic, or so picturesque in summer as that portion of Kensington Gardens lying between Queen’s Gate and the Broad Walk. ”

“ Or seek the trees earlier in the night; for the trees of Kensington Gardens are not deprived of the delicate dusk, though the first twilight has too much of day in it, and the touching restoration does not begin until the paths are vague and colour is absorbed and effaced by the influence of the local sky. London passes away from the trees while the June north-west is still luminous, but barely luminous, and going out so fast that to watching eyes it seems to flash softly while it darkens, as though summer lightning were at play under the horizon ”

“ I delighted to walk in Kensington Gardens. As I passed along the broad central walk, I saw a group on the lawn before the Palace.... The Duchess of Kent and her daughter, whose years then numbered nine, were breakfasting in the open air.... What a beautiful characteristic, it seemed to me, of the training of this royal girl, that she should not have been taught to shrink from the public eye; that she should not have been burdened with a premature conception of her probable high destiny; that she should enjoy the freedom and simplicity of a child’s nature ”

“ THE BALLAD-MONGER--FETTER LANE
In Kensington Gardens, you will find romance. Many a real, many a legendary, person has found it there. It will always be found there so long as this great City of London remains a hive for the millions of human bees that pass in and out of its doors, swarming or working, idling or pursuing in silent and unconscious obedience to a law which not one of them will ever live to understand. ”

“ That is how I feel, that is how I speak to myself in these first days of my embassy in London. I escape from the melancholy which besets me beneath my roof only by saturating myself with a less weighty melancholy in Kensington Gardens. These gardens, at least, have not changed; the trees alone have grown taller; in them, ever solitary, the birds build their nests in peace. ”

“ All through the night the exquisite little house stood there in the Figs taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept until the dream was quite finished, and woke feeling deliciously cosy just as morning was breaking from its egg, and then she almost fell asleep again, and then she called out, ‘Tony,’ for she thought she was at home in the nursery. As Tony made no answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof, and it opened like the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw all around her the Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow. ”

“ Kensington gardens, beautiful as they are, have no seclusion so perfect as this.
[71] in life we cling still closer to the recollections of our infancy; the cheerful man loves to dwell over the scenes and frolics of his boyish days; and we are stricken to the very heart by the removal or change of these pleasant localities; the loss of an old servant, an old building, or an old tree, is felt like the loss of an old friend. The paths, and fields, and rambles of our infancy are endeared to us by the fondest and the purest feelings of the mind ”

“ Four o'clock comes sounding across the ivy-wall, the notes strike mellow and distinct above the hum of human insects out and about. Half Lady Sarah's district is sunning itself on the door-steps, children are squatting in the middle of the road. The benches are full in Kensington Gardens, so are the steamers on the river. To these people walking in their garden there comes the creaking sound of a large wheelbarrow, and at the turn of the path they discover Mr. Penfold superintending a boy and a load of gravel. Mr. Penfold is a cheerful little man, with gloomy views of human nature. ”

“ You must see for yourselves that it will be difficult to follow our adventures unless you are familiar with the Kensington Gardens, as they now became known to David. They are in London, where the King lives, and you go to them every day unless you are looking decidedly flushed, but no one has ever been in the whole of the Gardens, because it is so soon time to turn back. The reason it is soon time to turn back is that you sleep from twelve to one. ”

“ The mere sense of his grasp in her own covered the ground of loss just as much as the ground of gain. His presence was like an object brought so close to her face that she couldn't see round its edges. He himself, however, remained showman of the spectacle even after they had passed out of the Park and begun, under the charm of the spot and the season, to stroll in Kensington Gardens. ”

“ When he got close enough to make sure, he found that his beautiful figure belonged to a somewhat pretty, middle-aged lady, who had brought a bag of scraps with her to feed the ducks. The world grew empty again. He passed on, in a sort of dream. He only knew he was in Kensington Gardens; and that once or twice he had walked with her down those broad alleys in the happy summer-time of flowers, and sunshine, and the scent of limes. Now there was a pale blue mist in the open glades; and a gloomy purple instead of the brilliant green of the trees ”

“ Anybody might have entered the gardens, I suppose; but only well-dressed people were there not, of the upper classes, but shop-keepers, clerks, apprentices, and respectability of that sort. It is pleasant to think that the people have the freedom, and therefore the property, of parks like this, more beautiful and stately than a nobleman can keep to himself. The extent of Kensington Gardens, when reckoned together with Hyde Park, from which it is separated only by a fence of iron rods, is very great, comprising miles of greensward and woodland. ”

“ If Kensington Gardens are to be touched at all—and, not being sacred groves, there is no reason why they should not be, faute de mieux—a transverse tunnelling from Kensington High Street to Queen's Road would do the trick. ”

“ There were exactly forty drawings and paintings to be seen upon the sparsely-covered walls, which had been draped for the occasion with coarsely-woven linen of a dull olive-green, and about half of these were drawings and studies, small in point of size, executed in chalk and pastels.
The greater part of these represented ordinary scenes of London outdoor life—a deserted corner of Kensington Gardens, with tall soot-blackened trees lifting their stately tracery of dark branches into the sky; a reach of the wide, muddy river, with a gaunt bridge looming through the fog ”

“ Very likely if they said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended to be something else. This is one of their best tricks. They usually pretend to be flowers, because the court sits in the Fairies' Basin, and there are so many flowers there, and all along the Baby Walk, that a flower is the thing least likely to attract attention. They dress exactly like flowers, and change with the seasons, putting on white when lilies are in and blue for bluebells, and so on. ”

“ If the gardens are to be a public accommodation, surely so trifling an expence can be no object. A greater number of seats in the gardens is very desirable."— (Times, April 24, 1795.)
"The public in general, and the ladies in particular, are much obliged to the Ranger of Hyde Park, for having taken the hint given in this paper towards their accommodation, by ordering a new gate to be made, as an entrance into Kensington Gardens. This convenience was yesterday much noticed, as there is now one gate for the entrance, and another for leaving the gardens, which were extremely crowded. ”