Now,
while I sit writing, my windows are shaded with the scarlet runner,
morning glory, Madeira and cypress vines, so that I need no other
curtains. Then, on a level with my eye, is one mass of pink and
green--brilliant verbenas, petimas, roses and oleanders seem really to
_glow_ in the morning light. Flowers in the city are more than
beautiful, for the language they speak is so different from everything
about them. Their lives are so lovely, returning to the culturer such
wealth of beauty--and then their _odors_ seem to me instead of voices.
Often, when I am reading, and forget for a time my sweet companions, the
fragrance of a heliotrope or a jessamine greets me, causing a sense of
delight, as if a beautiful voice had whispered to me, or some sweet
spirit kissed me. With this _presence_ of beauty and purity around me, I
cannot feel loneliness or discontent.
"Our flowers are so near to us we have become really _intimate_ with
them. We know all their habits, and every insect that harms them. I love
to see the tender tendril of a vine stretch for the string that is
fastened at a little distance for its support, and then wind about it so
gladly. Every morning it is a new excitement to see long festoons of our
green curtains, variegated with trumpet-shaped morning-glories, looking
towards the sun, and mingled with them the scarlet star of the cypress
vine.
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