"As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne's loving view"


Really there are no hills in Hingham, to speak of, except Bradley Hill
and Peartree Hill and Turkey Hill, and Otis and Planter's and Prospect
Hills, Hingham being more noted for its harbor and plains. Everybody
has heard of Hingham smelts. Mullein Hill is in Hingham, too, but
Mullein Hill is only a wrinkle on the face of Liberty Plain, which
accounts partly for our having it. Almost anybody can have a hill in
Hingham who is content without elevation, a surveyor's term as applied
to hills, and a purely accidental property which is not at all
essential to real hillness, or the sense of height. We have a stump on
Mullein Hill for height. A hill in Hingham is not only possible, but
even practical as compared with a Forest in Arden, Arden being
altogether too far from town; besides

". . . there's no clock in the forest"

and we have the 8.35 train to catch of a winter morning!


"A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees"

sounds more pastoral than apple trees around a house on a hill in
Hingham, and it would be more ideal, too, if New England weather were
not so much better adapted to apples, and if one did not prefer apples,
and if one could raise a family in a sheep-cote.