The most perfect refreshment
Not England, but close enough: at the Montréal Botanical Garden, May 2009
“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.” — Jane Austen
I have been so happy to see Jane Austen finally getting the attention she always deserved. When I was a young mother, I loaned a copy of Pride and Prejudice to our teenage babysitter, along with an enthusiastic endorsement, and she seemed to think me naïve to assume she would read it. Please give it a chance, I thought. Apparently, quite a few people of all ages have done just that in the past two decades, generating a cottage industry of Jane-related fan fiction and movies.
On this hot summer day, I wish you a virtual retreat to a cool English meadow where you can relax in the shade, perhaps with a glass of iced tea or club soda spiked with fruit juice, and take in the green. If you have a similar setting nearby, I hope you can make time for an actual visit, not just a virtual one. In any case, this is the time of year when such perfect refreshment is just the thing to beat the heat. Pass the scones!
This post was originally published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.
- Posted in: Uncategorized
- Tagged: calming, cool, flowers, grass, green, Jane Austen, landscape, meadow, nature, serene, summer days, trees, water
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