“Romance and poetry, like ivy, lichens, and wall-flowers, need Ruin to make them grow.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Despite a spattering of recent storms, summer holds on.
In a re-blooming butterfly weed.
In a hot and humid night.
In a hanging fern from which flows a fountain of foliage, still spilling upward and outward.
And in a silly toga, perfectly breathable and cleverly vented, tied just loosely enough to allow for a quick change into skinny-dipping attire.
“Thus coarsely does the world translate all finer griefs that meet its eye! It is more a coarse world than an unkind one.” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘The Marble Faun’
“The whole statue – unlike anything else that ever was wrought in that severe material of marble – conveys the idea of an amiable and sensual creature, easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not incapable of being touched by pathos. It is impossible to gaze long at this stone image without conceiving a kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were warm to the touch, and imbued with actual life. It comes very close to some of our pleasantest sympathies.” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘The Marble Faun’
“And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but rather a poet’s reminiscence of a period when man’s affinity with Nature was more strict, and his fellowship with every living thing more intimate and dear.” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘The Marble Faun’
