Author: Alice Morse Earle

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 106

ISBN-13: 9781230235288

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ...shines through it. Whenever it is seen, against the light or with the light, it is a flame, and warms the wind like a blown ruby." There is one quality of the Oriental Poppies which is very palpable to me. They have often been called insolent--Browning writes of the " Poppy's red affrontery "; to me the Poppy has an angry look. It is wonderfully haughty too, and its seed-pod seems like an emblem of its rank. This great green seed-pod stands one inch high in the centre of the silken scarlet robe, and has an antique crown of purple bands with rilling of lilac, just like the crown in some ancient kingly portraits, when the bands of gold and gems radiating from a great jewel in the centre are filled with crimson or purple velvet. Around this splendid crowned seed-vessel are rows of stamens and purple anthers of richest hue. We must not let any scarlet flower be dropped from the garden, certainly not the Geranium, which just at present does not shine so bravely as a few years ago. The general revulsion of feeling against " bedding out" has extended to the poor plants thus misused, which is unjust. I find I have spoken somewhat despitefully of the Coleus, Lobelia, and Calceolaria, so I hasten to say that I do not include the Geranium with them. I love its clean color, in leaf and blossom; its clean fragrance; its clean beauty, its healthy growth; it is a plant I like to have near me. It has been the custom of late to sneer at crimson in the garden, especially if jts vivid color gets a dash of purple and becomes what Miss Jekyll calls "malignant magenta." It is really more vulgar than malignant, and has come to be in textile products a stamp and symbol of vulgarity, through the forceful brilliancy of our modern aniline dyes. But this purple...