Bernice

“ Was Bernice thirty-five years old? She was, Abbie—my little girl? Well, life moves by—and we hardly know it’s moving. Why, Abbie, your whole life has been lived around Bernice. [Abbie nods.] It will be now as if things had—fallen apart. ”

“ And you dance standing up straight instead of bending over a little. Probably some old lady on the side-line once told you that you looked so dignified that way. But except with a very small girl it's much harder on the man, and he's the one that counts."
"Go on." Bernice's brain was reeling.
"Well, you've got to learn to be nice to men who are sad birds. You look as if you'd been insulted whenever you're thrown with any except the most popular boys. Why, Bernice, I'm cut in on every few feet—and who does most of it? ”

“ All of Bernice went into her love for me. Those big impersonal things—they were not apart. All of Bernice—loved me. [His voice breaks, he goes to the door, starts out. Suddenly steps back—with a quick rough turn to her.] Isn’t that so, Margaret?
Margaret
I can see—what you mean, Craig.
Father
Why of course Bernice loved you. I know that.
[Craig goes outside.
[Looking after him.] I hope I didn’t send Craig away. You and he would rather not talk. Perhaps that is better. I seem to want to—gather up things that will keep Bernice. It’s so easy for the dead to slip from us. ”

“ Bernice felt a vague pain that she was not at present engaged in being popular. She did not know that had it not been for Marjorie's campaigning she would have danced the entire evening with one man; but she knew that even in Eau Claire other girls with less position and less pulchritude were given a much bigger rush. She attributed this to something subtly unscrupulous in those girls. It had never worried her, and if it had her mother would have assured her that the other girls cheapened themselves and that men really respected girls like Bernice. ”

“ For a moment they both sat silent, listening, the actor with his face looking sharp and pale in the suspense of the moment, the muscles of his lean cheeks working. The rustle of Berny’s dress sounded from the stairway and grew in volume as she slowly ascended. The two men rose to their feet.
“Come in the den for a moment, Berny,” [463] Dominick called. “There’s a gentleman here who wants to see you.”
The rustle advanced up the hall, and the portière was drawn back. Bernice, brilliantly dressed, a mauve orchid pinned on her bosom, stood in the aperture, smiling. ”

“ "Do you believe in bobbed hair?" asked G. Reece in the same undertone.
"I think it's unmoral," affirmed Bernice gravely. "But, of course, you've either got to amuse people or feed 'em or shock 'em." ”

“ If any Guests were present, then Father would play Introducer and tell them beforehand how good Kenneth was.
When given his Cue, the Lad would swell up and spring a hot One about the Swede and the Irishman, while Bernice would fuss with the Salt and wonder dimly if the Future had aught in store for her except Dialect Stuff. ”

“ Kitty calls it a regular house-party on wheels."
"I certainly envy you," answered Rob. "Miss Allison is the best chaperone that can be imagined, just like a girl herself; and Allison and Kitty are as good as a circus any day. I'll wager it didn't take much persuading to make Stanley stay over. [232] He hasn't eyes for anything or anybody but Allison."
"He had eyes for Bernice Howe the night of Katie Mallard's musicale," said Betty. "He scarcely left her."
"Do you know why?" asked Rob in an aside. They were rising from the table now, strolling out to the chairs and hammocks on the shady porch. ”

“ It was love at first sight when I saw a clump of this delightful annual. I was even more delighted to learn that the plant can be grown as a miniature. In the smaller form the cute little fellows spread out into low mounds of six or eight inches and cover themselves with blooms that last all summer. As an edging, for rock gardens, and as a cover for otherwise bare spots, they are truly charming. ”

“ No plant of ours is left to waste its life away on the fireplace mantel, where the light is too dim to read the printing on a book of matches. Granted, we might set it there for a day or so as a decoration, but we would return it to its bright window sill before it began to stretch out weakly in search of light. ”

“ There are some very special treasures for every garden in this big family of spicy-scented plants with flowers that seem to have been fringed with pinking shears. There are impermanent perennials that flower the first year like annuals, biennials like sweet William that often self-sow, longer lived types that tuft or spread out to make low flowering mounds or mats, elusive alpines for the rock-garden connoisseur, pixies with tiny half-inch flowers, and great garden carnations. Every year new hybrids make the list longer. ”

“ They glanced at Berny with languid curiosity and then resumed a loud and voluble conversation in Spanish. A party of three Jews, an over-dressed woman and two young men—evidently visitors from another part of town—sat near them. On the opposite side there was no one. Berny slipped noiselessly into a chair at the corner table, her back against the partition that shut off the rest of the dining-room. She felt sheltered in this unoccupied angle, despite the fact that the mirror hanging opposite gave a reflection of her to any one standing in the archway. ”

“ From the Terrace in the rear of the Cathedral, the snowy peaks of the Bernese Alps are seen in a glorious panorama.
Berne, since 1849 the capital of Switzerland, sixty-eight miles by rail southwest of Basel, is situated on a lofty sandstone promontory formed by the winding Aar, which surrounds it on three sides. It is one of the best and most regularly built towns in Europe, as it is the finest in Switzerland. The houses are massive structures of freestone, resting upon shop-lined arcades. Rills of water flow through the streets. The view of the Alpine peaks from the city is magnificent. ”

“ From the balcony of our rooms at the Bellevue, the long range of the Bernese Oberland shows its white summits for a moment in the slant sunshine, and then the clouds shut down, not to lift again for two days. Yet it looks warmer on the snow-peaks than in Berne, for summer sets in in Switzerland with a New England chill and rigor.
The traveler finds no city with more flavor of the picturesque and quaint than Berne; and I think it must have preserved the Swiss characteristics better than any other of the large towns in Helvetia. ”

“ CHAPTER 6
MINIATURE HOUSE AND GREENHOUSE PLANTS
My gardening friends certainly vary as to ability, inclination, talent, and aptitude. At one extreme there is Aunt Minnie, whose green thumb injects magic into every pot and for whom every plant grows to buxom, blooming perfection. At the other end of the scale there is the poor soul who tries so hard but can’t keep a plant alive no matter what she does. Why do some plant-lovers never fail, while others never seem to win? ”

“ I love plants; and I think millions of other people do. From the windows of my commuting train I see New York tenement tenants wistfully watering morning glories that pathetically climb fire-escape trellises. More prosperous Manhattanites spend small fortunes on florists’ plants to bring the breath of green life into their sterile apartments; and their disappointment, if the plants die, is pitiable. Suburbanites have a yen to make a hobby of collecting plants. ”

“ We have frequently met with better accommodations (because cleanliness has been scrupulously attended to) in the inferior inns of Switzerland than in the most superb [298] hotels of Paris, Turin, Milan, &c. I am sorry to be obliged, however, to except those of Geneva, which are allowed by the inhabitants themselves to be all very dirty.
We walked about Berne the next morning, and gave audience to Christian's venerable father and to his sister, who came over from their farm in the neighbourhood to fetch him to spend a day with them. ”

“ If your idea of a pretty garden centers around statuesque delphiniums, precise rows of roses, bold splashes of boisterous color, you may call insipid what we find enchanting. But if your senses respond to the fresh, sharp aroma of moist woods soil, the whispering of trees, the patterns of cool shadows, the shy delicacy of the spring beauty, or the gnome-like pomposity of a Jack-in-the-pulpit, be sure to have at least a tiny woodland garden, whether you have to create a spot for it or have it naturally. Once established, it gives more refreshment for less care than any other garden I know. ”

“ The aristocratic Bernese officials of those days had under their door-bells written: “Ici on sonne et attend.” Bern is in the centre of one of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe; the country is broken, but cultivated like a garden, and so well wooded as to resemble a vast park. Every town in Switzerland possesses some feature of originality, and none are destitute of lovely and refreshing walks; but there is none richer in umbrageous roads, or where they are kept in better repair, than Bern. ”

“ At 3 p.m. we took our seats on the diligence and were soon traveling along towards Berne, the capital city of the Swiss republic, where we arrived at 5 o'clock on the following morning.
Berne has now a population of about forty thousand. It is the capital of the canton as well as of the nation. It is built on the River Aar. Numerous quaint and ornamental fountains decorate its streets; but the buildings are dull and heavy-looking, the windows being generally small. It is what might be called an old-fashioned place. The city derives its name from the word baren, the German for bears. ”

“ The foliage always is fresh green and glossy, delightful the year round; the climbing or trailing stems are graceful and willing to be trained in just about any pattern. In the tiny-leaved miniatures there is a particular fascination in the intricate formations of lobes and points, edges which are waved or crinkled, and the markings, which may be dainty, pert, or bold. ”

“ The Bernese aristocrats were politicians from birth, so to speak, and the young men had a curious society amongst themselves, "Äusserer Stand," a society formed for the purpose of cultivating the diplomatic art and practising parliamentary oratory and tactics, especially their more formal outward side. Thus trained in bearing and ceremonial they acquired their much-admired political aplomb. Bern was French in fashion, in manners, and in language, and the German tongue was as little appreciated amongst the Bernese patricians as at the Court of Frederick the Great. ”

“ The hobbyist, with his dividends of fun, is not the only one who benefits from this new concept of light and plants. There is the home home-decorator, the woman of the house, who finds in plants the sort of ornament the entire family enjoys. She’d like the graceful lines of a vine tumbling down from the mantel, jewel-like flowering plants on the shelf of a corner cupboard, a garden of green atop the room divider between the living and dining areas. Frustratingly, she discovers that where the plants are most effective, too often they won’t grow and flourish. ”

“ In similar fourth-floor quarters on New York’s dreary 41st Street, miniature orchids and other tropicals make a flamboyant jungle. In an attic in Levittown, a cellar in Bayside, a heated garage in Westchester, plants make it look like July in January, living their life cycles over and over again without ever seeing the sun. The life they must have for existence is supplied by electricity. ”

“ MINIATURE PLANTS, BONSAI-STYLE
Only in the true Oriental bonsai do art and horticulture combine in such an extreme state of perfection—and in miniature to boot. Paintings may be as magnificent, but they’re inanimate. Ancient trees of the forest may have equal artistic virtue, but they’re not shaped by the hand of man. Living bonsai trees, sometimes centuries old, become masterpieces because, says Claude Chidamian, “they’re planted in philosophy, shaped by art, grown with love.” ”

“ There's Bernd, my beloved, my heart's own mate; and as I sat there dumb, and they all triumphed on with their self-congratulations and satisfactions, and Majestat this, and Deutschland that, for an awful moment my faith in Bernd himself began to shake. Suppose he too, he with his Prussian blood and upbringing, fell away and went over in spirit to the side of life that decorates a man in return for the absolute control of his thoughts, rewards him for the disposal of his soul? Kloster, that freest of critics, had gone over, his German blood after all unable to resist the call to slavery. ”

“ Some day he will ask for his mother; even now he may be asking for her! Berenice, [Pg 221] would he ever look with large, indulgent eyes upon that little world of yours! Alas!
“I have read my letter over to myself, Berenice, and I fear that it must sound to you very commonplace, even perhaps cold! Yet, believe me when I tell you that I have passed through a very fire of suffering, and if I am calm now it is with the calm of an ineffable despair! In my life at Oxford, and later, here in London, women have never borne any share. ”

“ Willing to live and let live, with a never-failing fund of drollery, and with a sincere dislike for work of any sort, he lounged through existence, an agreeable, genial and witty member of society. If this were all we should not need to write about him now. But with this easy-going temperament he combined a genius for poetry so peculiar and delicate, that his few works mark an epoch in Italian literature.
The best description of Berni is contained in the burlesque portrait of himself, which forms part of his Boiardo Innamorato. ”