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Updated: September 30, 2025
Centuries ago there must have been a great landslip here, for the side of the mountain is quite hollowed out, and Nature has gradually covered the ugly brown rent with the thickest tapestry of her most delicate handiwork. I noticed two varieties of the maiden-hair, its slender black stem making the most exquisite tracery among the vivid greens.
But everywhere the rocks, trees, and soil are covered and crowded with the most exquisite ferns and mosses, from the great tree-fern, whose bright fronds light up the darker foliage, to the lovely maiden-hair and graceful selaginellas which are mirrored in pools of sparkling water. Everywhere, too, the great blue morning glory opened to a heaven not bluer than itself.
Thus, reaching the base of the black-and-white marble wall supporting the terrace, where, midway in its long length, it was broken by an arched grotto of rough-hewn stonework, in which maiden-hair fern rooted, the delicate fronds of it caressing the shoulders of an undraped nymph, with ever-dripping water-pitcher upon her rounded hip, Helen turned sharp to the left, and arrived at the bottom of the descending flight of steps without once looking up.
In another part was a little patch of mossy meadow, and again there were decaying logs out of which sprang various ferns in wild luxuriance, as one has seen them in deeply-shaded, low-lying woods. The maiden-hair fern was here seen ranging from leaves as large as one's thumb-nail to a species with leaves the size of pin-heads.
These, relieved by a few delicate sprays of the maiden-hair fern, formed a becoming finish to my simple costume. As I arrayed myself, and looked at my own reflection in the long mirror, I smiled out of sheer gratitude. For health, joyous and vigorous, sparkled in my eyes, glowed on my cheeks, tinted my lips, and rounded my figure.
It is related of one Sultan that when a "Bashador" remonstrated with him for not fulfilling a contract, he replied, "Am I then a Nazarene, that I should be bound by my word?" Is it Pan's breath, fierce in the tremulous maiden-hair, That bids fear creep as a snake through the woodlands, felt In the leaves that it stirs not yet, in the mute bright air, In the stress of the sun? A Nympholept.
She often went thither to wash the linen of the family beneath the shade of the two cocoa-trees, and thither too she sometimes led her goats to graze. While she was making cheeses of their milk, she loved to see them browse on the maiden-hair fern which clothes the steep sides of the rock, and hung suspended by one of its cornices, as on a pedestal.
The most abundant specimens of the floral kingdom one meets with here are red and white roses, very finely developed, pinks of all colors, violets, mignonette, heliotrope, scarlet and white poppies, pansies, and forget-me-nots. Such flowers were artistically mingled in large bouquets, with a delicate backing of maiden-hair fern, and sold for fifteen cents each.
Only very few of the garden-seeds have made their appearance, which is disappointing after all the trouble they were; but the wild flowers are beginning to come out on the prairie, small bushes of wild roses are all over; there are also very pretty sunflowers, a tree maiden-hair, several different vetches, sisters, yellow-daisies, &c.; many we cannot name, indigenous to this country we conclude.
Beryl shut her eyes and groaned; but the scene merely shifted to a dell under the shadow of Carrara hills, where olives set "Ricordo" among their silver leaves; and lemons painted "Ricordo" in their pale gold; and scarlet pomegranates and nodding violets, burning anemones and tender green of trailing maiden-hair ferns all blazoned "Ricordo."
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