Among the Climbing Roses...

 AMONG the CLIMBING ROSES 
                    ( excerpts from the novel by Selma Lagerlof 1858-1940 She was the First woman Author to win the Nobel Peace Prize)

 I could wish that the people with who I have spent my summer would let their glance fall on these lines. Now when the cold, dark nights have come, I should like to carry their thoughts back to that bright, warm season....

 I should like to remind them of the climbing roses that enclosed the veranda, of the delicate, somewhat thin foliage of the clematis.....

 which in the sunlight as well as in the moonlight was drawn in dark grey shadows,

 on the light grey stone floor.....

 and threw a light lace-veil over everything,

 Other summers remind me of fields of clover, or of birch woods, or of apple trees and berry bushes,

 But that summer took its character from the climbing roses.

 The bright, delicate buds , that could resist neither wind nor rain, the light, waving, pale green shoots, the soft, bending stems, the exuberant richness of blossoms, the gaily humming hosts of insects....

 all follow me and rise up before me in their glory,

 when I think of that summer, that rosy, delicate, dainty summer.....

 Now, when the time for work has come,  people often ask me how I passed my summer.

 Then everything glides from my memory.....

 and it seems to me as if I had sat day in and day out on the veranda, behind the climbing roses, and breathed in fragrance and sunshine....
                          
 "Among the Climbing Roses" ( exceprts) by Selma Lagerlof  .
                       From  ( you guessed it) "1000 Beautiful Things. 1948. Chicago"

Photographs 2017 M  Woods