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137
The Solitary Summer
·
Elizabeth Von Arnim
44
Now
here
I
have
had
an
experience
that
I
shall
not
soon
forget,
something
very
precious,
and
private,
and
close
to
my
soul;
a
feeling
as
though
I
had
taken
the
world
by
surprise,
and
seen
it
as
it
really
is
when
off
its
guard--as
though
I
had
been
quite
near
to
the
very
core
of
things.
The
quiet
holiness
of
that
hour
seems
all
the
more
mysterious
now,
because
soon
after
breakfast
yesterday
the
wind
began
to
blow
from
the
northwest,
and
has
not
left
off
since,
and
looking
out
of
the
window
I
cannot
believe
that
it
is
the
same
garden,
with
the
clouds
driving
over
it
in
black
layers,
and
angry
little
showers
every
now
and
then
bespattering
its
harassed
and
helpless
inhabitants,
who
cannot
pull
their
roots
up
out
of
the
ground
and
run
for
their
lives,
as
I
am
sure
they
must
long
to
do.
How
discouraging
for
a
plant
to
have
just
proudly
opened
its
loveliest
flowers,
the
flowers
it
was
dreaming
about
all
the
winter
and
working
at
so
busily
underground
during
the
cold
weeks
of
spring,
and
then
for
a
spiteful
shower
of
five
minutes'
duration
to
come
and
pelt
them
down,
and
batter
them
about,
and
cover
the
tender,
delicate
things
with
irremediable
splashes
of
mud!
Every
bed
is
already
filled
with
victims
of
the
gale,
and
those
that
escape
one
shower
go
down
before
the
next;
so
I
must
make
up
my
mind,
I
suppose,
to
the
wholesale
destruction
of
the
flowers
that
had
reached
perfection--that
head
of
white
rockets
among
them
that
washed
my
face
a
hundred
years
ago--and
look
forward
cheerfully
to
the
development
of
the
younger
generation
of
buds
which
cannot
yet
be
harmed.
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