“I’m so glad I didn’t die on the various occasions I have earnestly wished I might,
for I would have missed a lot of lovely weather.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Solitary Summer
Elizabeth is glad for unfulfilled wishes.
Tag Archives: Elizabeth von Arnim
Trial by plants.
“Well, trials are the portion of mankind, and gardeners have their share, and in any case it is better to be tried by plants than persons, seeing that with plants you know that it is you who are in the wrong, and with persons it is always the other way about—and who is there among us who has not felt the pangs of injured innocence, and known them to be grievous?”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and Her German Garden
The glad blowing of the wind.
“But while admiring my neighbour, I don’t think I shall ever try to follow in her steps, my talents not being of the energetic and organising variety, but rather of that order which makes their owner almost lamentably prone to take up a volume of poetry and wander out to where the kingcups grow, and, sitting on a willow trunk beside a little stream, forget the very existence of everything but green pastures and still waters, and the glad blowing of the wind across the joyous fields.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and Her German Garden
Steppingstones in the garden.
“Humility,
and the most patient perseverance,
seem almost as necessary in gardening
as rain and sunshine,
and every failure must be used
as a stepping-stone
to something better.”
-Elizabeth von Arnim
Gladsome Lights 