"With new greene, and maketh small flours
To springen here and there in field and in mede
So very good and wholsome be the shoures
That it renueth that was old and deede."

The Floure and the Leafe, ca 1490, author unknown
🌸🌿

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"Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with excitement and wonder and delight. She was standing inside the secret garden."
(The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett)

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"All grown-ups were once children...but only few of
them remember it..."

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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"I tell you: one must still have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star." (Nietzsche)

🎨Albrecht Dürer "Melencolia I" (1514)

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“The doom of the Elves is to be immortal, to love the beauty of the world, to bring it to full flower with their gifts of delicacy and perfection, to last while it lasts, never leaving it even when 'slain', but returning”.
— J.R.R. Tolkien

🖼

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The mist has left the greening plain,
The dew-drops shine like fairy rain,
The coquette rose awakes again
Her lovely self adorning.
The Wind is hiding in the trees,
A sighing, soothing, laughing tease,
Until the rose says "Kiss me, please” –PaulLaurenceDunbar

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This week’s Bookworm Sat explores children’s lit. One of my all-time favourites is Burnett’s The Secret Garden: ❤️🌹🌳

“However many years she lived, Mary always felt that she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow.” (🎨By C. Robinson)

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".. the fairies just came & breathed on the Princess's garden, & everything that was bright to see & sweet to smell grew up in it." 🌷

The Other Side of the Sun: Fairy Stories by Evelyn Sharp, ca 1900, (public domain)
🪄

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Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!

Kenneth Grahame
The Wind in the Willows

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“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

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"And all the spirits sang now together:
In death and blood,
In ruin and tears,
Find the Seven.
Listen now, attend and see,
Tell us, poor thing, are you not glad?
Find the Seven."
(C. de Coster "The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel")

🎨 Arthur Rackham (1916)

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Swan Lake by Lisbeth Zwerger 
“With a flash, the lake was bathed in a shimmering light, and before him stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“I am the Swan Queen,” she said. “I am the swan that you tried to kill.”

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"Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest." 
Beatrix Potter,creator of the beloved tale of Peter Rabbit, the book, which was also illustrated by Potter.

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"Out of a fired ship, which by no way
But drowning could be rescued from the flame,
Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came
Near the foes' ships, did by their shot decay;
So all were lost, which in the ship were found,"

- John Donne - A Burnt Ship

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“The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.”
- Lord Byron

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“Writing is the painting of the voice.”
– Voltaire

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'The Vampire; or, The Bride of the Isles,' by James Robinson Planché (1820), was inspired by John Polidori's 'The Vampyre' (1819). Planché created a vampire-trap, a stage mechanism to give entry and exit to the vampire. I discovered this play thanks to

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“Without knowledge, life is no more than the shadow of death.”

~ Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière

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'La Fl. Would you prevent me from cursing misers?
Har. No; but I will prevent you from prating and from being insolent. Hold your tongue, will you?
La Fl. I name nobody.
Har. Another word, and I'll thrash you.'
Moliere, The Miser.

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