WILDFLOWERS AND HOTHOUSE-PLANTS by Henrik Ibsen
"GOOD Heavens, man, what a freak of taste! What blindness to form and feature! The girl's no beauty, and might be placed As a hoydenish kind of creature." No doubt it were more in the current tone And the tide today we move in, If I could but choose me to make my own A type of our average woman. Like winter blossoms they all unfold Their primly maturing glory; Like pot-grown plants in the tepid mould Of a window conservatory. They sleep by rule and by rule they wake, Each tendril is taught its duties; Were I worldly-wise, yes, my choice I'd make From our stock of average beauties. For worldly wisdom what do I care? I am sick of its prating mummers; She breathes of the field and the open air, And the fragrance of sixteen summers.
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