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It is moderation which incites us to restrain our impatience, to silence our inexplicable antipathies and to put a break on our tempestuous enthusiasms. Can one judge of the aspect of a garden while the tempest is twisting the branches of the trees, tearing off the tendrils of the climbing vines, scattering the petals of the flowers and spoiling the corollas already in full bloom?
I have been so cruel as to pluck these flowers and now they are wretched; they are as wounded as animals could be; and see how, slowly as if they were moved by a terrible fear, the petals of the flowers curve in to cover and protect the sheathes of the minute corollas that I can no longer see. Tenderly I try to raise these petals, but they resist me and I only succeed in murdering the plant. Fool!
I see a branch so covered with blue flowers that it can hardly fail to attract the bird. Now it is settled above one of the corollas, and plunges its head into it without ceasing to beat with its wings. Its cloven tongue soon sucks out the honey concealed in the flower, and its little ones will greet it when it gets back with open beaks to receive their share of the spoil."
To keep from confounding this with the airy bells and starry corollas of the tender inspiring blossoms of the work, he made them bolder, trained them to their service in solid symmetric mass, and edged the whole, both sides, with the accustomed two-inch line of solid rich maroon or blue. It is easy to see the process of mind.
A little water and spirits spared from the travelers' meal gave a slight air of restoration to these mysterious offerings, and a couple of splendid butterflies, whether attracted by the flowers or the alcoholic perfume, commenced to waltz around the bouquet; but the corollas contained no honey for their diminutive trunks, and after a slight examination they danced contemptuously away.
Through both door and window I could see their thousand clustering corollas roses, red, pink, and white the rare camelia azaleas, and jessamines the sweet-scented China-tree and farther off a little I could distinguish the waxen leaves and huge lily-like blossoms of the great American laurel the Magnolia grandiflora.
Close by the spring, but a little farther in the direction of the plain, was a vley, or pool in fact, it might have been termed a small lake and upon the quiet bosom of its water the sky-blue corollas lay sleeping in all their gorgeous beauty. Trüey, leading her little pet on a string, had gone down on the bank to look at them. She thought she could never cease gazing at such pretty things.
The wire, of iron and brass, lurked in a little drawer of the table before her. "Under her eyes, in a Venetian glass, shaped like a flower-cup on its stem, was the living model she strove to imitate. She had a passion for achievement; she attempted the most difficult things, close racemes, the tiniest corollas, heaths, nectaries of the most variegated hues.
The radiant, honeyful corollas, touching and overlapping, and rising above one another, glowed in the living light like a sunset sky one sheet of purple and gold, with the bright Sacramento pouring through the midst of it from the north, the San Joaquin from the south, and their many tributaries sweeping in at right angles from the mountains, dividing the plain into sections fringed with trees.
Flowers were before them, behind, and on every side. Their shining corollas covered the prairie as far as the eye could see. There were the rose-coloured blossoms of the wild althea, and the brilliant orange of Californian poppies glancing among the green leaves like so many balls of fire while lower upon the surface grew the humble violas, sparkling like azure gems.
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