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There is one "new" rhododendron, which the writer saw recently in such a situation, but of which he does not recollect the name, which has masses of wax-like, pale sulphur flowers, which are mirrored in a miniature pool set almost at its foot. This half-wild flower garden pertains mainly to the banks of the brook gully, and not to the banks of the brook itself.
Imagine a girl influenced for ten years, ten of her softest most wax-like years, by a Fritzing, taught to love freedom, to see the beauty of plain things, of quietness, of the things appertaining to the spirit, taught to see how ignoble it is, how intensely, hopelessly vulgar to spend on one's own bodily comforts more than is exactly necessary, taught to see a vision of happiness possible only to those who look to their minds for their joys and not to their bodies, imagine how such a girl, hearing these things every afternoon almost of her life, would be likely to regard the palace mornings and evenings, the ceremonies and publicity, all those hours spent as though she were a celebrated picture, forced everlastingly to stand in an attitude considered appropriate and smile while she was being looked at.
These minute symmetrical forms, this wax-like texture, these marvellous rows of coloured, enamel-like encrustation, have been selected from almost endless and limitless possible variations, and have been accumulated and maintained there as they are in all their beauty, by survival of the fittest by natural selection.
The husband and wife passed into the garden between borders of boxwood, beyond which nodded the heads of Angy's carefully tended, out-door "children" her roses, her snowballs, her sweet-smelling syringas, her wax-like bleeding-hearts, and her shrub of bridal-wreath. "Jest a minute," she murmured, as Abe would have hastened on to the gate.
One would have thought she slept, had it not been for the rigidity of her stiffened limbs, and the wax-like pallor of her face and hands. Right across her form, almost covering it from view, a man lay prone, as though he had fallen there lifeless indeed he might have been dead also for any sign he showed to the contrary.
Bella, by a kind of instinctive movement, rose, and holding out her arms, took the baby that the nurse might be at liberty to attend to the mother. It was a strange moment. The little creature had ceased moaning, and lay quite tranquil, its tiny face looking whiter and more wax-like under the shadow of the heavy crape veil which hung partly over it.
Of course I "confounded myself" in asseverations to the contrary; and Madame, running into the little salon, brought thence a pretty basket, filled with fine hothouse fruit, rosy, perfect, and tempting, reposing amongst the dark green, wax-like leaves, and pale yellow stars of, I know not what, exotic plant.
On both sides a fringe of dark forest-trees flung out long branches extending half-way across the stream. The water flowed darkly underneath. Huge lilies stood out from the banks their broad, wax-like leaves trailing upon the glassy ripple. Here and there were pools fringed with drooping willows and belts of green tule.
Gorgo sat by the bed of her apparently lifeless father, gazing fondly at the worn and wax-like features, and listening to his breathing, now soft and easy and again painful and convulsive, as it fluttered through his nostrils. She held his cold damp hand tightly clasped, or stroked it gently, or now and then, when his closed eyelids quivered, raised it tenderly to her lips.
She and Agafia were never apart. It was curious to see them together. Agafia, all in black, with a dark handkerchief on her head, her face emaciated and of a wax-like transparency, but still beautiful and expressive, would sit erect on her chair, knitting stockings.
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