This photo was among a set of 1938 photos of Baltimore, Maryland, by John Vachon, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all four pictures).
“Resident of Dover, Delaware,” July 1938, by John Vachon.
“Morning mail, Omaha, Nebraska,” November 1938, by John Vachon.
“On the porch of a general store in Hinesville, Georgia,” April 1941, by Jack Delano.
And this.
A repeat from December 2012. . . . I love this bleary little photo.
Paul and Henri at Cornusson, Parisot Commune, in the Pyrenees, France, ca. 1870 — like yesterday’s post — by Eugène Trutat, via the Bibliothèque de Toulouse Commons on flickr.
As from the house your mother seesYou playing round the garden trees,So you may see, if you will lookThrough the windows of this book,Another child, far, far away,And in another garden, play.But do not think you can at all,By knocking on the window, callThat child to hear you. He intentIs all on his play-business bent.He does not hear; he will not look,Nor yet be lured out of this book.For, long ago, the truth to say,He has grown up and gone away,And it is but a child of airThat lingers in the garden there.— Robert Louis Stevenson, “To Any Reader”
The walled garden of Chalet Magazin, Ax-les-Thermes, France,” July 1906, by Eugène Trutat, via Bibliothèque de Toulouse Commons on flickr.
From over the wall I could hear the laughter of women
in a foreign tongue, in the sun-rinsed air of the city. . . .
. . . the sound filled up the garden and lifted
like bubbles spilling over the bricks that enclosed them. . .
— Mary-Sherman Willis, from “The Laughter of Women“
On a weekend walk in the southern suburbs of Stuttgart, I paused near a bus stop to admire the long uncut grass between the sidewalk and the street.
(Click on any of the thumbnails above to scroll through larger versions of the photos.)
Many public green spaces in the area have been left unmown this spring, and they could hardly be more beautiful.
Sumer is i-cumin in—
Lhude sing, cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wude nu.
Sing, cuccu![Summer has arrived,
Loudly sing, cuckoo!
The seed grows
and the meadow blooms
And the wood springs anew,
Sing, cuckoo!]— Anonymous, from “Sumer is i-cumin in“
ADDENDUM: I just realized that today this blog is four years old. Thanks for visiting!
The Lodge on Mount Toxaway, Sapphire, North Carolina, ca. 1902, by William Henry Jackson, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all photos here).
The Lodge was part of the Toxaway System of Hotels, created by a group of Pittsburgh entrepreneurs who began to built resorts in the Sapphire area in the 1890s.
By 1903, they had dammed the Toxaway River — creating the 640-acre artificial Lake Toxaway — and constructed the luxurious 500-guest Toxaway Inn. After 1904, when the Southern Railroad opened a depot on the lake, the area was known as “Switzerland of America.”
The Lodge was presented in a 1905 company brochure as a “nature kindergarten” for “children of the city” to learn about trees, flowers, and birds. Farm animals and poultry were also available for study.
At an altitude of over 4,500 ft., the views from the wrap-around porch and the lookout tower were particularly good. Guests from the other Toxaway hotels would spend the night in the house to see the sunrise or sunset over the mountains.
It was also used as a hunting retreat for wealthy industrialists.
The Lodge no longer exists — although it was still there in 1920, four years after severe flooding caused the company’s dam to burst. (Some homes were destroyed, but only a mule perished.)
Lake Toxaway disappeared, and the Toxaway Inn emptied out as well. It never re-opened after 1916 and was demolished in 1947.
In the early 1960s, another group of investors rebuilt the dam. The lake re-filled, and a golf club and hotel were opened. The property around what was once The Lodge is now Preserve at Rock Creek, an “exclusive” real estate development.
To scroll through larger version of the photos, click on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on any thumbnail in the gallery.
My mind was once the true survey
Of all these meadows fresh and gay,
And in the greenness of the grass
Did see its hopes as in a glass. . .— Andrew Marvell, from “The Mower’s Song“
enclos*ure 