Fleur-de-lys

“ Their work was alive, too, and they spent their inspiration not on the beautiful fabric of the church but on its rich furnishing. What they wrought is as far away from us as [73] the work of the Gothic builders was from them, and it is almost as unapproachable.
The iconoclasts of the Revolution wreaked their devastating zeal upon this Gloria, and upon any symbol or figure in the rich carvings of the choir that spoke of power or privilege. The church itself they spared, though you may see a device of fleur de lys on a boss of the roof vaulting spitefully disfigured by bullets. ”

“ The lateral divisions contain figures supporting escutcheons, the whole being ‘even more extremely heraldic in its decorations’ than San Pablo. The open-work, cusping at the top, looks as if made of coarse wicker-work, and is happily fast disappearing under the corrosive effects of frost and rain. The interior of San Gregorio wearies the eye with its excess of{31} heraldic decoration. The inner court, notwithstanding, is noble and spacious, with a double gallery of six arches on each side springing from spirally-fluted columns. The fleur-de-lys appear on the arms of the founder ”

“ You take a Lily-of-the-Valley from its vase, attracted irresistibly by its scent, and find it fast set in a corsetière of steel—each leaf and stalk, almost each separate blossom, wired. This gives you a horrid feeling; you idly untwist the cruel bonds, and then the poor flower droops or falls to pieces.
In the ballroom dreadful things are suffered by the Roses. Fancy a curtain all made of these lovely flowers, wired together in long trails to match the festoons that wave softly overhead! ”

“ When she left its shelter at early dawn to bathe in some sparkling stream, or seek for sweet berries in the thickets, the Flower-Elves flocked to greet her; wild roses gave her their bloom for her oval cheeks, and the violets scented her sunny hair. Wherever she passed, the moss grew a brighter green, and she had but to breathe on a gnarled old trunk, and the softest feathery fronds came to hide its ugliness. The creatures of the forest were all her friends, and took pride, as we did, in her loveliness. ”

“ Fill a tall jar with spires of larkspur of the purest blue known to garden flowers. Unless the sun shines fully on them they seem to swallow light; mingle with them some stalks of white foxgloves, Canterbury bells, or surround them with Madonna lilies, a fringe of spirea, or the slender Deutzia gracilis, more frequently seen in florists' windows than in the garden, [Pg 354] and a new meaning is given the blue flower; the black shadows disappear from its depth and sky reflections replace them. ”

“ Wild flowers alone never become commonplace. The white wood-sorrel at the foot of the oak, the violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on the wind-swept downs, they were as fresh this year as last, as dear to-day as twenty years since, even dearer, for they grow now, as it were, in the earth we have made for them of our hopes, our prayers, our emotions, our thoughts. ”

“ Our broad fields often have pleasing expanses of leafage other than green, and flowers that are as all-pervading as foliage. Many flowers of the field have their day, when each seems to be queen, a short day, but its rights none dispute. Snow of Daisies, yellow of Dandelions, gold of Buttercups, purple pinkness of Clover, Innocence, Blue-eyed Grass, Milkweed, none reign more absolutely in every inch of the fields than that poverty stricken creature, the Sorrel. William Morris warns us that "flowers in masses are mighty strong color," and must be used with much caution in a garden. ”

“ In the fields, orchards, and gardens, white flowers, yellow flowers, red flowers were common; but blue flowers were rare and retiring, as if they guarded a secret which men should come and search out. ”

“ I forsook human life for floral, and in my renouncing I gained much. In my garden there grew a single fragile flower, orchid-like in glory, but of a species quite different to any I had ever chanced upon before. ”

“ There wasn't another wild rose anywhere in the neighborhood. Roses are something like human babies. They do not like the smoky air of cities. You can coax garden roses to bloom in front door yards and parks, but wild roses stay outside, where the air is pure and sweet.
When winter came, and the gray weed-stalks rustled their dry seed-cases in the wind, the rose seemed the only live thing in the waste place. ”

“ The familiar old-time Flower de Luce, a vigorous clump of which I found in the "Attached Garden" (growing along with the Yellow Lily and the "live-forever" plants) , is with us a native product, and absolutely hardy. The smaller varieties grow wild in swamp and meadow, and are, I think, invariably, blue as the noon-day heaven. ”

“ A real lover of flowers finds it difficult to cast away a plant that has bloomed its best, even though the blossom is unsatisfactory. In my garden there are, at present, some plants that I am longing to dig up and burn. There are two climbing Roses that came by mistake in a large order and were set out. They have thriven as no others, cover a very large space on a trellis, and in June bear thousands of a most hideous, small, purplish crimson Rose. ”

“ Personally, I object to the rambler tribe of roses for any but large gardens, where in a certain sense the personality of flowers must sometimes be lost in decorative effect. A scentless rose has no right to intrude on the tender intimacies of the woman's garden, but pruned back to a tall standard it may be cautiously mingled with Madame Plantier with good effect, lending the pale lady the reflected touch of the colour that gives life. ”

“ As she sat there the scent of the lilies came more strongly than ever, and now with a curious effect. It was to the girl as if the fragrance were twining and winding about her and impelling her like leashes. All at once an impulse of yielding which was really freedom came to her. Why in the world should she not cross the little north yard, step over the low hedge, and go into that lily-garden? She knew that it would be beautiful there. She looked forth into the crystalline light and the soft plumy shade,—she would go over into the Ware garden. ”

“ The most variegated carpet of flowers I ever beheld lay unrolled before me; red, yellow, violet, blue—every colour, every tint was there; millions of magnificent prairie roses, tuberoses, asters, dahlias, and fifty other kinds of flowers. The finest artificial garden in the world sinks into insignificance when compared with this parterre of nature’s own planting. ”

“ But somehow, after they had worked in the sweet-scented earth for a while and had seen others working, the light of the sun and the freshness of the air made them feel in better humor; the wind blew away their evil fancies and their headaches, and because there was so much talk and wondering about the magic of the Blue Flower they became interested, and wanted to see what it would do for them when it blossomed. Scarcely any of them had ever tried to make a flower grow before and they gradually thought of it a great deal. ”

“ There are white varieties of almost every garden flower that blooms between the last frost of spring and winter ice. The snowdrop of course is white and the tiny little single English violet of brief though unsurpassing fragrance; we have white crocuses, white hyacinths, narcissus, lilies-of-the-valley, Iris, white rock phlox, or moss-pink, Madonna and Japan lilies, gladiolus, white campanulas of many species, besides the well-known Canterbury bells, white hollyhocks, larkspurs, sweet Sultan, poppies, phloxes, and white annual as well as hardy chrysanthemums. ”

“ Miss Florence—yes, I knew you would feel so, mother. Does it not make your head feel better to see such a beautiful flower? Now you will not look so longingly at the flowers in the market, for we have a rose that is handsomer than any of them. Why, it seems to me it is worth as much to us as our whole little garden used to be. Only see how many buds there are! ”

“ Pluck your rose and bring it indoors, and place it side by side with other blossoms—yellow flag and blue periwinkle, and shining yellow marsh-marigold, and poppy and cornflower—and it has no lustre, and is no more to the soul than a flower made out of wax or paper. ”

“ You will not find it in new gardens, I fear; but in those delightful shady nooks and corners where the old-fashioned flowers seem to come and go just as they please, there it is to be found, coming up year after year in all its beauty, and yet, though so lovely, meekly drooping its velvet petals, upon which tear-drops are ever resting.
It has been said that it droops thus in humiliation, because its pride was once rebuked; but I do not think that aught so lovely could be [84] unduly proud! Even the acknowledged queen of the garden, the stately Rose, is gentle in her beauty ”

“ But it is not merely the naturalist who experiences this emotion; it is common to the larger part of humanity. Savages deck their bodies with flowers just as craftsmen and poets weave them into their work; the cottager cultivates his little garden, and the town artisan cherishes his flower-pots. However alien one's field of interest may be, flowers still make their appeal. I recall the revealing thrill of joy with which, on a certain day, a quite ordinary day nearly forty years ago, my eye caught the flash of the red roses amid the greenery of my verandah in the Australian bush. ”

“ If the weather be dry, yet not frosty, it is well to settle the soil above the roots by means of a heavy watering. If the roses are to form a bed, they may, if dwarfs, be planted at an average distance of about eighteen inches apart.
But a bed of roses, beautiful as it is, is but one expression of the culture of these precious flowers. Over walls, trellises, arches and arbours they should be allowed to trail and climb at will, showing the graceful curves of briar stem, as well as the beautiful flowers themselves. ”

“ Among the pleasant sights of this mid-summertide, perhaps the pleasantest of all is the great thicket of wild Roses growing within the wire network that bounds the tennis-lawn on the garden side. The east, shining full upon it every morning, brings forth hundreds of new-blown Roses. Very often, as you pass into their sweet presence from under the Plane trees, the air is redolent of a subtle perfume—not always, though, nor every day, for Roses are capricious of their scent. ”

“ But the sight of that glorious plant rising proudly from amidst the greenery of its forest setting will be for us more than any picture. And its being "wild" has the same fascination for us that a flower that is "wild," and not garden grown, has for a child. In a florist's shop we may see lilies even more beautiful than this, but the enjoyment we get from seeing the florist's production bears no comparison whatever with the enjoyment we get from seeing this lily in a distant Himalayan forest where not so many white men ever go. We often have experiences which perceptibly age us. ”

“ To most people, and more particularly to most women, one of the chief uses or functions of a garden is to provide flowers to be cut for the decoration of rooms. But I hold that a flower cut from its plant and placed in a vase is as a scalp on the walls of a wigwam—a trophy showing how one more beautiful plant has been defeated and victimised by its powerful and tasteless owner. ”

“ The strong shoots of last year will produce a large cluster of flowers from almost every eye, and as a profuse flowering double white climbing rose we have seen none to surpass it. It grows freely, the foliage and wood pure green, leaves much nerved. ”

“ I have a picture of her coming towards me with her arms full of flowers, burying her face lovingly among the velvet petals, and raising it again, the sweetest flower of all. How radiantly outshone her eyes, and her face, delicate as a cameo, seemed to have stolen the fairest tints of the lily and the rose.
Starry vines screened the porch, and everywhere were swinging baskets of silver birch, brimming over with the delicate green of smilax or clouded in an amethystine mist of lobelias. ”

“ I think the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed until they hang from the branches and walls and creep over the ground—almost like a strange gray mist. Some of them have died but many—are alive and when the summer comes there will be curtains and fountains of roses. I think the ground is full of daffodils and snowdrops and lilies and iris working their way out of the dark. ”

“ I have tried to formalize my roses these ten years past, but how can I, for my yellow brier (Harrison's) has followed its own sweet will so long that it makes almost a hedge. The Madame Plantiers of mother's garden are stalwart shrubs, like many other nameless bushes collected from old gardens hereabout, one declining so persistently to be uprooted from a particularly cheerful corner that it finds itself in the modern company of Japanese iris, and inadvertently sheds its petals to make rose-water of the birds' bath. ”

“ In some parts it is a general favourite, and may be seen in almost every garden; such patronage is well merited, as it not only enlivens the garden at a dead season, but it heralds spring time and furnishes long sprigs of wallflower-scented blossom as cut bloom, which shows to advantage by gaslight. ”