It seems to me the worst of all the plagues is the slug, the snail without a shell. He is beyond description repulsive, a mass of sooty, shapeless slime, and he devours everything.

O happy, happy morning! O dear, familiar place! / O warm, sweet tears of Heaven, fast falling on my face! / O well-remembered, rainy wind, blow all my care away, / That I may be a child again this blissful morn of May.

To stand by the beds at sunrise and see the flowers awake is a heavenly delight.

It seems to me the worst of all the plagues is the slug, the snail without a shell. He is beyond description repulsive, a mass of sooty, shapeless slime, and he devours everything.

So deeply is the gardener's instinct implanted in my soul, I really love the tools with which I work; the iron fork, the spade, the hoe, the rake, the trowel, and the watering pot are pleasant objects in my eyes.

Oh, I never meant, in my old age, to become subject to the thrall of a love like this; it is almost dreadful, so absorbing, so stirring down to the deeps. For the tiny creature is so old and wise and sweet, and so fascinating in his sturdy common sense and clear intelligence; and his affection for me is a wonderful, exquisite thing, the sweetest flower that has bloomed for me in all my life through.

I am fully and intensely aware that plants are conscious of love and respond to it as they do to nothing else.