hunger for beauty, and within doors as well as without they “delight
the spirit of man.” Opening out on the long piazza over the flower
beds, and extending almost its whole length, runs the large, light,
airy room where a group of happy people gather to pass the swiftly
flying summers here at the Isles of Shoals. This room is made first for
music; on the polished floor is no carpet to muffle sound, only a few
rugs here and there, like patches of warm green moss on the pine-needle
color given by the polish to the natural hue of the wood. There are
no heavy draperies to muffle the windows, nothing to absorb the
sound. The piano stands midway at one side; there are couches, sofas
with pillows of many shades of dull, rich color, but mostly of warm
shades of green. There are low bookcases round the walls, the books
screened by short curtains of pleasant olive-green; the high walls to
the ceiling are covered with pictures, and flowers are everywhere.
The shelves of the tall mantel are splendid with massed Nasturtiums
like a blazing torch, beginning with the palest yellow, almost white,
and piled through every deepening shade of gold, orange, scarlet,
crimson, to the blackest red; all along the tops of the low bookcases
burn the fires of Marigolds, Coreopsis, large flowers of the velvet
single Dahlias in yellow, flame, and scarlet of many shades, masses of
pure gold summer Chrysanthemums, and many more,--all here and there
interspersed with blossoming grasses for a touch of ethereal green. On
one low bookcase are Shirley Poppies in a roseate cloud. And here let
me say that the secret of keeping Poppies in the house two whole days
without fading is this: they must be gathered early, before the dew has
dried, in the morning. I go forth between five and six o’clock to cut
them while yet their gray-green leaves are hoary with dew, taking a
tall slender pitcher or bottle of water with me into the garden,
and as I cut each stem dropping the flower at once into it, so that the
stem is covered nearly its whole length with water; and so on till the
pitcher is full. Gathered in this way, they have no opportunity to lose
their freshness, indeed, the exquisite creatures hardly know they have
been gathered at all. When I have all I need, I begin on the left end
of this bookcase, which most felicitously fronts the light, and into
the glasses put the radiant blossoms with an infinite enjoyment of the
work. The glasses (thirty-two in all) themselves are beautiful: nearly
all are white, clear and pure, with a few pale green and paler rose and
delicate blue, one or two of richer pink, all brilliantly clear and
filled with absolutely colorless water, through which the stems show
their slender green lengths. Into the glasses at this end on the left I
put first the dazzling white single Poppy, the Bride, to lead the sweet
procession,--a marvelous blossom, whose pure white is half transparent,
with its central altar of ineffable green and gold. A few of these
first, then a dozen or more of delicate tissue-paperlike blossoms of
snow in still another variety (with petals so thin that a bright color
behind them shows through their filmy texture); then the double kind
called Snowdrift, which being double makes a deeper body of whiteness
flecked with softest shadow. Then I begin with the palest rose tints,
placing them next, and slightly mingling a few with the last white
ones,--a rose tint delicate as the palm of a baby’s hand; then the
next, with a faint suffusion of a blush, and go on to the next shade,
still very delicate, not deeper than the soft hue on the lips of the
great whelk shells in southern seas; then the damask rose color and all
tints of tender pink, then the deeper tones to clear, rich cherry, and
on to glowing crimson, through a mass of this to burning maroon.
The flowers are of all heights (the stems of different lengths), and,
though massed, are in broken and irregular ranks, the tallest standing
a little over two feet high. But there is no crushing or crowding.
Each individual has room to display its full perfection. The color
gathers, softly flushing from the snow white at one end, through all
rose, pink, cherry, and crimson shades, to the note of darkest red; the
long stems of tender green showing through the clear glass, the radiant
tempered gold of each flower illuminating the whole. Here and there a
few leaves, stalks, and buds (if I can bring my mind to the cutting of
these last) are sparingly interspersed at the back. The effect of this
arrangement is perfectly beautiful. It is simply indescribable, and I
have seen people stand before it mute with delight. It is like the rose
of dawn.
To the left of this altar of flowers is a little table, upon which a
picture stands and leans against the wall at the back. In the picture
two Tea Roses long since faded live yet in their exquisite hues,
never indeed to die. Before this I keep always a few of the fairest
flowers, and call this table the shrine. Sometimes it is a spray of
Madonna Lilies in a long white vase of ground glass, or beneath the
picture in a jar of yellow glass floats a saffron-tinted Water Lily,
the Chromatella, or a tall sapphire glass holds deep blue Larkspurs
of the same shade, or in a red Bohemian glass vase are a few carmine
Sweet Peas, another harmony of color, or a charming dull red Japanese
jar holds a few Nasturtiums that exactly repeat its hues. The lovely
combinations and contrasts of flowers and vases are simply endless.
On another small table below the “altar” are pink Water Lilies in
pink glasses and white ones in white glasses; a low basket of amber
glass is filled with the pale turquoise of Forget-me-nots, the glass
is iridescent and gleams with changing reflections, taking tints from
every color near it. Sweet Peas are everywhere about and fill the
air with fragrance; orange and yellow Iceland Poppies are in tall
vases of English glass of light green. There is a large, low bowl,
celadon-tinted, and decorated with the boughs and fruit of the Olive on
the gray-green background. This is filled with magnificent Jacqueminot
Roses, so large, so deep in color as to fully merit the word. Sometimes
they are mixed with pink Gabrielle de Luizets and old-fashioned Damask
Roses, and the bowl is set where the light falls just as it should to
give the splendor of the flowers its full effect. In the centre of a
round table under one of the chandeliers is a flaring Venice glass as
pure as a drop of dew and of a quaintly lovely shape; on the crystal
water therein lies a single white Water Lily, fragrant snow and gold.
By itself is a low vase shaped like a Magnolia flower, with petals
of light yellow deepening in color at the bottom, where its calyx of
olive-green leaves clasps the flower. This has looking over its edge a
few pale yellow Nasturtiums of the Asa Gray variety, the lightest of
all. With these, one or two of a richer yellow (Dunnett’s Orange), the
flowers repeating the tones of the vase, and with them harmoniously
blending. A large pearly shell of the whelk tribe was given me years
ago. I did not know what to do with it. I do not like flowers in shells
as a rule, and I think the shells are best on the beach where they
belong, but I was fond of the giver, so I sought some way of utilizing
the gift. In itself it was beautiful, a mass of glimmering rainbows. I
bored three holes in its edge and suspended it from one of the severely
simple chandeliers with almost invisible wires. I keep it filled with
water and in it arrange sometimes clusters of monthly Honeysuckle
sparingly; the hues of the flowers and the shell mingle and blend
divinely. I get the same effect with Hydrangea flowers, tints and tones
all melt together; so also with the most delicate Sweet Peas, white,
rose, and lilac; with these I take some lengths of the blossoming Wild
Cucumber vine with its light clusters of white flowers, or the white
Clematis, the kind called “Traveler’s Joy,” and weave it lightly about
the shell, letting it creep over one side and, running up the wires,
entirely conceal them; then it is like a heavenly apparition afloat in
mid air. Sometimes the tender mauve and soft rose and delicate blues of
the exquisite little Rose Campion, or Rose of Heaven, with its grassy
foliage, swing in this rainbow shell, making another harmony of hues.
Sometimes it is draped with wild Morning-glory vines which are gathered
with their buds at evening; their long wiry stems I coil in the water,
and arrange the graceful lengths of leaves and buds carefully, letting
a few droop over the edge and twine together beneath the shell, and
some run up to the chandelier and conceal the wires. The long smooth
buds, yellow-white like ivory, deepen to a touch of bright rose at the
tips close folded. In the morning all the buds open into fair trumpets
of sea-shell pink, turning to every point of the compass, an exquisite
sight to see. By changing the water daily these vines last a week,
fresh buds maturing and blossoming every morning.
[Illustration: _The Altar and Shrine_]
Near my own seat in a sofa corner at one of the south windows stands
yet another small table, covered with a snow-white linen cloth
embroidered in silk as white and lustrous as silver. On this are
gathered every day all the rarest and loveliest flowers as they
blossom, that I may touch them, dwell on them, breathe their delightful
fragrance and adore them. Here are kept the daintiest and most delicate
of the vases which may best set off the flowers’ loveliness,--the
smallest of the collection, for the table is only large enough to hold
a few. There is one slender small tumbler of colorless glass, from
the upper edge of which a crimson stain is diffused half way down its
crystal length. In this I keep one glowing crimson Burgundy Rose, or
an opening Jacqueminot bud; the effect is as if the color of the rose
ran down and dyed the glass crimson. It is so beautiful an effect one
never wearies of it. There is a little jar of Venice glass, the kind
which Browning describes in “The Flight of the Duchess,”--
“With long white threads distinct inside,
Like the lake-flower’s fibrous roots that dangle
Loose such a length and never tangle.”
This is charming with a few rich Pinks of different shades. Another
Venice glass is irregularly bottle-shaped, bluish white with
cool sea-green reflections at the bottom, very delicate, like an
aqua-marine. It is lightly sprinkled with gold dust throughout its
whole length; toward the top the slender neck takes on a soft touch of
pink which meets and mingles with the Bon Silene or La France Rose I
always keep in it. Another Venice glass still is a wonder of iridescent
blues, lavenders, gray, and gold, all through, with a faint hint of
elusive green. A spray of heaven-blue Larkspur dashed with rose is
delicious in this slender shape, with its marvelous tints melting into
the blue and pink of the fairy flowers.
A little glass of crystal girdled with gold holds pale blue
Forget-me-nots; sometimes it is rich with orange and yellow Erysimum
flowers. In a tall Venetian vase of amber a Lilium auratum is superb.
A low jar of opaque rose-pink, lost at the bottom in milky whiteness,
is refreshing with an old-fashioned Damask Rose matching its color
exactly. This is also exquisite with one pink Water Lily. The
pink variety of the Rose Campion is enchanting in this low jar. A tall
shaft of ruby glass is radiant with Poppies of every shade of rose and
lightest scarlet, with the silvery green of a few oats among them. A
slender purple glass is fine with different shades of purple and lilac
Sweet Peas, or one or two purple Poppies, or an Aster or two of just
its color, but there is one long gold-speckled Bohemian glass of rich
green which is simply perfect for any flower that blows, and perfect
under any circumstances. A half dozen Iceland Poppies, white, yellow,
orange, in a little Japanese porcelain bottle, always stand on this
beautiful table, the few flecks of color on the bottle repeating their
tints. I never could tell half the lovely combinations that glow on
this table all summer long.
By the wide western window a large vase of clear white glass, nearly
three feet high, stands full of spears of timothy grass taller than the
vase, the tallest I can find, springing stately and high, their heavy
green tops bending the fine strong stems just enough for consummate
grace. These are mixed with lighter branching grasses, and down among
the grass stalks are thrust the slender stalks of tall Poppies of
every conceivable shade of red; the whole is a great sheaf of splendor
reaching higher than the top of the window. This is really imposing; it
takes the eye with delight.
[Illustration: _A Favorite Corner_]
All summer long within this pleasant room the flowers hold carnival
in every possible combination of beauty. All summer long it is kept
fresh and radiant with their loveliness,--a wonder of bloom, color,
and fragrance. Year after year a long procession of charming people
come and go within its doors, and the flowers that glow for their
delight seem to listen with them to the music that stirs each blossom
upon its stem. Often have I watched the great red Poppies drop their
fiery petals wavering solemnly to the floor, stricken with arrows of
melodious sound from the matchless violin answering to the touch of
a master, or to the storm of rich vibrations from the piano. What
heavenly music has resounded from those walls, what mornings and
evenings of pleasantness have flown by in that room! How many people
who have been happy there have gone out of it and of the world forever!
Yet still the summers come, the flowers bloom, are gathered and adored,
not without wistful thought of the eyes that will see them no more.
Still in the sweet tranquil mornings at the piano one sits playing,
also with a master’s touch, and strains of Schubert, Mozart, Schumann,
Chopin, Rubinstein, Beethoven, and many others, soothe and enchant the
air. The wild bird’s song that breaks from without into the sonata
makes no discord. Open doors and windows lead out on the vine-wreathed
veranda, with the garden beyond steeped in sunshine, a sea of exquisite
color swaying in the light air. Poppies blowing scarlet in the wind, or
delicately flushing in softest rose or clearest red, or shining white
where the Bride stands tall and fair, like a queen among them all. A
thousand varied hues amid the play of fluttering leaves: Marigolds
ablaze in vivid flame; purple Pansies,--a myriad flowers, white, pink,
blue, carmine, lavender, in waves of sweet color and perfume to the
garden fence, where stand the sentinel Sunflowers and Hollyhocks,
gorgeously arrayed and bending gently to the breeze; Sunflowers with
broad faces that seem to reflect the glory of the day; the Hollyhocks,
tall spikes of pale and deep pink, white, scarlet, yellow, maroon, and
many hues. Over the sweet sea of flowers the butterflies go wavering on
airy wings of white and gold, the bees hum in the Hollyhocks, and the
humming-birds glitter like jewels in the sun; but whether these their
winged lovers go or come, the flowers do not care, they live their
happy lives and rejoice, intent only on fulfilling Heaven’s will, to
grow and to blossom in the utmost perfection possible to them. Climbing
the trellis, the monthly Honeysuckle holds its clusters high against
the pure sunlit sky, glowing in beauty beyond any words of mine to
tell. Charming people sit within the pleasant room among its flowers,
listening to the delicious music; others are grouped without in the
sun-flecked shadow of the green vines, where the cool air ripples
lightly in the leaves; lovely women in colors that seem to have copied
the flowers in the garden, and all steeped in sweet dreams and fugitive
fancies as delicate as the perfumes that drift in soft waves from the
blossoms below. Beyond the garden the green grassy spaces sloping to
the sea are rich with blossoming thickets of wild Roses, among the
bleached white ledges, blushing fair to see, and the ocean beyond
shimmers and sparkles beneath the touch of the warm south wind.
Enchanting days, and evenings still more so, if that were possible!
With the music still thrilling within the lighted room where the
flowers glow under the lamplight, while floods of moonlight make more
mystic the charmed night without. The thick curtain of the green vine
that drapes the piazza is hung over its whole surface with the long
drooping clusters of its starry flowers that lose all their sweetness
upon the air, and show from the garden beneath like an immense airy
veil of delicate white lace in the moonlight,--a wonderful white glory.
Through the windows cut in this living curtain of leaves and flowers we
look out over the sea beneath the moon--is anything more mysteriously
beautiful?--on glimmering waves and shadowy sails and rocks dim in
broken light and shade; on the garden with all its flowers so full of
color that even in the moonlight their hues are visibly glowing. The
fair creatures stand still, unstirred by any wandering airs, the Lilies
gleam, and the white stars of the Nicotiana, the white Poppies, the
white Asters that just begin to bloom, and the tall milky clusters of
the Phlox: nothing disturbs their slumber save perhaps the wheeling of
the rosy-winged Sphinx moth that flutters like the spirit of the night
above them as they dream.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The garden suffers from the long drought in this last week of July,
though I water it faithfully. The sun burns so hot that the earth dries
again in an hour, after the most thorough drenching I can give it. The
patient flowers seem to be standing in hot ashes, with the air full of
fire above them. The cool breeze from the sea flutters their drooping
petals, but does not refresh them in the blazing noon. Outside the
garden on the island slopes the baked turf cracks away from the heated
ledges of rock, and all the pretty growths of Sorrel and Eyebright,
Grasses and Crowfoot, Potentilla and Lion’s-tongue, are crisp and dead.
All things begin again to pine and suffer for the healing touch of the
rain.
Toward noon on this last day of the month the air darkens, and around
the circle of the horizon the latent thunder mutters low. Light puffs
of wind eddy round the garden, and whirl aloft the weary Poppy petals
high in air, till they wheel like birds about the chimney-tops.
Then all is quiet once more. In the rich, hot sky the clouds pile
themselves slowly, superb white heights of thunder-heads warmed with
a brassy glow that deepens to rose in their clefts toward the sun.
These clouds grow and grow, showing like Alpine summits amid the
shadowy heaps of looser vapor; all the great vault of heaven gathers
darkness; soon the cloudy heights, melting, are suffused in each other,
losing shape and form and color. Then over the coast-line the sky
turns a hard gray-green, against which rises with solemn movement and
awful deliberation an arch of leaden vapor spanning the heavens from
southwest to northeast, livid, threatening, its outer edges shaped like
the curved rim of a mushroom, gathering swiftness as it rises, while
the water beneath is black as hate, and the thunder rolls peal upon
peal, as faster and faster the wild arch moves upward into tremendous
heights above our heads. The whole sky is dark with threatening purple.
Death and destruction seem ready to emerge from beneath that flying
arch of which the livid fringes stream like gray flame as the wind
rends its fierce and awful edge. Under it afar on the black level water
a single sail gleams chalk-white in the gloom, a sail that even as we
look is furled away from our sight, that the frail craft which bears
it may ride out the gale under bare poles, or drive before it to some
haven of safety. Earth seems to hold her breath before the expected
fury. Lightning scores the sky from zenith to horizon, and across
from north to south “a fierce, vindictive scribble of fire” writes
its blinding way, and the awesome silence is broken by the cracking
thunder that follows every flash. A moment more, and a few drops like
bullets strike us; then the torn arch flies over in tattered rags, a
monstrous apparition lost in darkness; then the wind tears the black
sea into white rage and roars and screams and shouts with triumph,--the
floods and the hurricane have it all their own way. Continually the
tempest is shot through with the leaping lightning and crashing
thunder, like steady cannonading, echoing and reëchoing, roaring
through the vast empty spaces of the heavens. In pauses of the tumult
a strange light is fitful over sea and rocks, then the tempest begins
afresh as if it had taken breath and gained new strength. One’s whole
heart rises responding to the glory and the beauty of the storm, and is
grateful for the delicious refreshment of the rain. Every leaf rejoices
in the life-giving drops. Through the dense sparkling rain-curtain
the lightning blazes now in crimson and in purple sheets of flame.
Oh, but the wind is wild! Spare my treasures, oh, do not slay utterly
my beautiful, beloved flowers! The tall stalks bend and strain, the
Larkspurs bow. I hold my breath while the danger lasts, thinking only
of the wind’s power to harm the garden; for the leaping lightning and
the crashing thunder I love, but the gale fills me with dread for my
flowers defenseless. Still down pour the refreshing floods; everything
is drenched: where are the humming-birds? The boats toss madly on the
moorings, the sea breaks wildly on the shore, the world is drowned and
gone, there is nothing but tempest and tumult and rush and roar of
wind and rain.
The long trailing sprays of the Echinocystus vine stretch and strain
like pennons flying out in the blast, the Wistaria tosses its feathery
plumes over the arch above the door. Alas, for my bank of tall Poppies
and blue Cornflowers and yellow Chrysanthemums outside! The Poppies are
laid low, never to rise again, but the others will gather themselves
together by and by, and the many-colored fires of Nasturtiums will
clothe the slope with new beauty presently. The storm is sweeping past,
already the rain diminishes, the lightning pales, the thunder retreats
till leagues and leagues away we hear it “moaning and calling out of
other lands.” The clouds break away and show in the west glimpses of
pure, melting blue, the sun bursts forth, paints a rainbow in the east
upon the flying fragments of the storm, and pours a flood of glory over
the drowned earth; the pelted flowers take heart and breathe again,
every leaf shines, dripping with moisture; the grassy slopes laugh in
sweet color; the sea calms itself to vast tranquillity and answers back
the touch of the sun with a million glittering smiles.
Though the outside bank of flowers is wrecked and the tall Poppies
prone upon the ground, those inside the garden are safe because I took
the precaution to run two rows of wire netting up and down through the
beds for their support. So, when the winds are cruelly violent, the
tall, brittle stalks lean against this light but strong bulwark and are
unhurt.
After the storm, in the clear, beautiful morning, before sunrise I
went as usual into the garden to gather my flowers. To and fro, up and
down over the ruined bank I passed; the wind blew cool and keen from
the west, though the sky was smiling. The storm had beaten the flowers
flat all over the slope; in scarlet and white and blue and pink and
purple and orange bloom they were prostrate everywhere, leaves, stalks,
blossoms, and all tangled and matted in an inextricable confusion.
Swiftly I made my way through it, finding a foothold here and there,
and stooping for every freshly unfolded cup or star or bell whose bud
the tempest had spared. As I neared the little western gate with my
hands full of blossoms to enter the garden on my way to the house, I
was stopped still as a statue before a most pathetic sight. There,
straight across the way, a tall Poppy plant lay prone upon the ground,
and clinging to the stem of one of its green seed-pods sat my precious
pet humming-bird, the dearest of the flock that haunt the garden,
the tamest of them all. His eyes were tightly closed, his tiny claws
clasped the stem automatically, he had no feeling, he was rigid with
cold. The chill dew loaded the gray-green Poppy leaves, the keen wind
blew sharply over him,--he is dead, I thought with a pang, as I shifted
my flowers in a glowing heap to my left arm, and clasped the frozen
little body in the palm of my right hand. It was difficult to disengage
his slender wiry claws from their close grip on the chilly stalk, but
he never moved or showed a sign of life as I took him off. I held him
most tenderly in my closed hand, very careful not to crush or even
press his tiny perishing body, and breathed into the shut hollow of
my palm upon him with a warm and loving breath. I was so very busy,
there were so many things to be done that morning, I could not stop
to sit down and nurse him back to life. But I held him safe, and as I
went up and down the garden paths gathering the rest of my flowers,
I breathed every moment into my hand upon him. Ten, fifteen, twenty
minutes passed; he made no sign of life. Alas, I thought, he is truly
dead; when all at once I felt the least little thrill pass through
the still, cold form, an answering thrill of joy ran through me in
response, and more softly, closely, tenderly yet I sent my warm breath
to the tiny creature as I still went on with my work. In a few minutes
more I began to feel the smallest fluttering pulse of life throbbing
faintly within him; in yet a few moments more he stirred and stretched
his wings, comforting himself in the genial heat. When at last I felt
him all alive, I took a small shallow basket of yellow straw, very
small and light, and in it put a tuft of soft cotton wool, filled a
tiny glass cup with sugar and water, honey-thick, placed it in the
basket by the cotton, then gently laid the wee bird on the warm fluff.
His eyes were still closed, but he moved his head slowly from side to
side. The sun had risen and was pouring floods of light and heat into
the garden. I carried the basket out into the corner where the heavenly
blue Larkspurs stood behind the snow-whiteness of the full blossoming
Lilies, and among the azure spikes I hung the pretty cradle where the
sunbeams lay hottest and brightest on the flowers. The wind, grown
balmy and mild, rocked the tall flower-spikes gently, the basket swayed
with them, and the heat was so reviving that the dear little creature
presently opened his eyes and quietly looked about him. At that my
heart rejoiced. It was delightful to watch his slow return to his old
self as I still went on with my work, looking continually toward him to
see how he was getting on. The ardent sunbeams sent fresh life through
him; suddenly he rose, an emerald spark, into the air, and quivered
among the blue flowers, diving deep into each winged blossom for his
breakfast of honey.