Elizabeth and Her German Garden

84 pages

This books goes along with "The Solitary Summer."
In fact, this one was written first.
They are both written in diary format.
While "The Solitary Summer" takes place in one summer, this book contains an entire year.

I loved this book.
I preferred "Solitary Summer," but they are both beautiful.

In the first part of this one, Countess von Arnim talks about her attempts at gardening. Of course, she doesn't do the actual gardening work (that would be scandalous!), rather she gives orders to the gardener. In the second part, she has 2 guests that stay for about 3 months. One of them she likes, the other... not so much.

It is said that Lucy Maud Montgomery read these books, and it is where she got the term "kindred spirits." I don't know how accurate that is, but I read it several places on the internet.

If you liked LMM, you would probably love these.

I am in love with Elizabeth von Arnim! She is definitely a kindred spirit :-)

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"there were days last winter when I danced for sheer joy out in my frost-bound garden, in spite of my years and children. But I did it behind a bush, having a due regard for the decencies."


(while watching owls in the garden) "They say the same thing over and over again so emphatically that I think it must be something nasty about me; but I shall not let myself be frightened away by the sarcasm of owls."


The people round about are persuaded that I am, to put it as kindly as possible, exceedingly eccentric, for the news has travelled that I spend the day out of doors with a book, and that no mortal eye has ever yet seen me sew or cook. But why cook when you can get some one to cook for you?


(on gardening) It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it is a blessed sort of work, and if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business of the apple.


What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them!

The garden is the place I go to for refuge and shelter, not the house. In the house are duties and annoyances, servants to exhort and admonish, furniture, and meals; but out there blessings crowd round me at every step—it is there that I am sorry for the unkindness in me, for those selfish thoughts that are so much worse than they feel; it is there that all my sins and silliness are forgiven, there that I feel protected and at home,


I long more and more for a kindred spirit—it seems so greedy to have so much loveliness to oneself—but kindred spirits are so very, very rare; I might almost as well cry for the moon.


A woman's tongue is a deadly weapon and the most difficult thing in the world to keep in order, and things slip off it with a facility nothing short of appalling at the very moment when it ought to be most quiet.


When I got to the library I came to a standstill,—ah, the dear room, what happy times I have spent in it rummaging amongst the books, making plans for my garden, building castles in the air, writing, dreaming, doing nothing!



It cannot be right to be the slave of one's household gods, and I protest that if my furniture ever annoyed me by wanting to be dusted when I wanted to be doing something else, and there was no one to do the dusting for me, I would cast it all into the nearest bonfire and sit and warm my toes at the flames with great contentment.


I don't like Duty—everything in the least disagreeable is always sure to be one's duty.


It is much easier, and often more pleasant, to be a warning than an example


We were meant to be happy, and to accept all the happiness offered with thankfulness—indeed, we are none of us ever thankful enough, and yet we each get so much, so very much, more than we deserve.


don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbour in the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything is possible


Cultured individuals do not, as a rule, neglect to teach their offspring to read, and write, and say their prayers, and are apt to resent the intrusion of an examining inspector into their homes;


listening to the marvellous silence, and letting its blessedness descend into my very soul.


Every paradise has its serpent, however, and this one is so infested by mosquitos


Very well, I suppose I am eccentric, since even my husband says so; but if my eccentricities are of such a practical nature as to result later in the biggest cauliflowers and tenderest lettuce in Prussia, why then he ought to be the first to rise up and call me blessed.


2010 total: 19
currently reading: Murder on a Girl's Night Out (bath-tub book), Shutter Island, & Curse of the Pharoahs