United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I imagined with a vividness impossible to describe what Horace would think if I answered him squarely and honestly, if I were to say: "I've been down in the marshes following my nose enjoying the thorn apples and the wild geraniums, talking with a woodpecker and reporting the morning news of the woods for an imaginary newspaper."
Domini sat on a low chair in the shadow cast by a great jamelon tree. At her feet was a bush of vivid scarlet geraniums, against which her white linen dress looked curiously blanched.
Bill heard the words "lime-light" and "large sheet," and thought they must be planning a magic-lantern exhibition, but was puzzled by catching the word "turnip." At last, as he was rounding the corner of the bed of geraniums, he distinctly heard Mr. Bartram ask, "They cut the man's head off, didn't they?" Then they were talking about the ghost, after all!
"Did you ever see geraniums and heliotropes growing in such luxuriance?" asked one of the ladies. "Only in my own state," replied a Californian. "There the plants grow to immense size and bloom in profusion." "Do not forget charming Funchal," said another.
You may have flowers the year round, if you live on the coast, or in the warm valleys where no Jack Frost comes with his icy breath to kill the tender plants. In such genial climates roses and geraniums bloom all year, and only rest when the gardener cuts them back; and most of the shrubs and trees in parks and gardens are always fresh and green.
One evening he sulked at some saucy remark of hers; he sitting in the chimney corner with his arms on his knees, and his head bent forwards, lazily gazing into the wood-fire on the hearth, and luxuriating in rest after a hard day's labour; she sitting among the geraniums on the long, low window-seat, trying to catch the last slanting rays of the autumnal light to enable her to finish stitching a shirt-collar for Will, who lounged full length on the flags at the other side of the hearth to Michael, poking the burning wood from time to time with a long hazel- stick to bring out the leap of glittering sparks.
Cap'n Bradley boasts a garden, too. It is just across the lane from his front door. There are three varieties of flowers in it nasturtiums, portulacas, and bright red geraniums. The portulacas grow around the border, then come the nasturtiums, and finally the taller geraniums in the centre.
Her splendid delicate dress, all rosy folds, skirt over skirt of drapery falling softly into each other, made her clear skin dazzle in the midst of them; and the masses of vivid geraniums here and there without their leaves were not too gorgeous for her bearing, nor for her hair, in whose rich darkness geraniums also glowed, long wreaths curling down into her neck."
Even the red Geraniums, who did not usually give themselves airs, and were known to have a great many poor relations themselves, curled up in disgust when they saw him, and when the Violets meekly remarked that though he was certainly extremely plain, still he could not help it, they retorted with a good deal of justice that that was his chief defect, and that there was no reason why one should admire a person because he was incurable; and, indeed, some of the Violets themselves felt that the ugliness of the little Dwarf was almost ostentatious, and that he would have shown much better taste if he had looked sad, or at least pensive, instead of jumping about merrily, and throwing himself into such grotesque and silly attitudes.
After that, when asked if he did not feel afraid he would lose money through the Carroll wedding, he said something about the general esteem in which people should be held who patronized local industries, in his thick German-English, grinned, and shambled back, his fat hips shaking like a woman's, to his hot-houses, and pottered around his geraniums and decorative palms.
Word Of The Day