Читать книгу Life of Octavia Hill as Told in Her Letters онлайн

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Her love of learning and writing poetry was great; and it was about this time that she wrote the following elegy on a young pigeon:

“Little one thou liest deep,

Buried in eternal sleep,

And we oft for thee repine,

While thy grave with flowers we twine.

Thou didst not live to see the sun,

For thy short life was but begun,

When silent death took all away,

Thou lovely little flower of May.”^[2]

As some of the letters given in this book will show, Octavia was somewhat inclined to exaggerate the practical as opposed to the imaginative part of her nature. As a fact the imaginative and even fanciful side of her was apparent at an early age; for on one occasion she was found to have left a party at her grandfather’s and to have seated herself on the steps in the garden. When asked what she was doing, she answered, “I am looking for the fairies!” “Have you seen any?” asked her friend, “No,” replied Octavia, and added with the cheery confidence which distinguished her, “but I am sure I shall see them.”