If it had not been for the narrow open space between the oak tree and the summer-house, the little lawn would even now have been as black as night; as it was, a sort of misty-gray twilight, increased, perhaps, by the thin vapors rising from the tranquil pool, filled all its precincts; and beyond these, stretching away in long perspective until the arch at the further end seemed dwindled to the size of a needle's eye, was the long aisle of gloomy foliage, as massive and impenetrable to any ray of light as the stone arches of a Gothic cloister. The only thing that conveyed an idea of gayety or life, to the cold and tomb-like scenery, was the glimpse of bright sunshine which lay on the open garden at the extremity of the elm-walk, with the gaudy and glowing hues, indistinctly seen in the distance, of some summer flowers. Yet even this was not all unmixed with something of melancholy, for the contrast of the gay sunbeams and bright flowers only rendered the gloom more apparent, and like a convent-garden, seemed to awaken cravings after the joyous world without, diminishing nothing of the sorrow and monotony within. But I was not in those days much given to moralizing, or to the investigation of my own inward feelings. I had come thither to inquire, to see, to learn, to find out things--not causes. And perceiving at one glance that my first impression was correct, that the grass-plots were recently mown, the gravel-walks newly rolled, and spotless of weeds, the tall yew hedges assiduously clipped into the straightest and most formal lines; that every thing, in short, displayed the most heedful tendance, the neatest cultivation, with the exception of the summer-pavilion, which evidently was devoted to decay, I became but the more satisfied that there was some mystery, and the more resolute to probe it to the core. It was quite clear that when that garden was laid out, and that avenue planted, how many years ago the giant size of the old elms denoted, the summer-house was the meaning of the whole design. The avenue had no object but to lead to it, the little lawn no purpose but to receive it. Doubly strange, therefore, did it seem that these should be kept up in all their trimness, that suffered to fall into decay. It was the tragedy of Hamlet, with Hamlet's part omitted! I stood for a little while wondering, and half overcome by a sort of indescribable fanciful superstition. A cloud had come over the sun, the nightingales had ceased to sing, and there was not a sound of any kind to be heard, except the melancholy murmur of the summer air in the tree-tops. In a moment, however, the transitory spell was shaken off, and, once more the bold and reckless schoolboy, I turned to the performance of my self-imposed task.