A form more perfect can display;
Art could not feign more simple grace,
Nor Nature take a line away.
Yet, rich as morn, of many a hue,
When flushing clouds through darkness strike,
The Tulip’s petals shine in dew,
All beautiful, but none alike.
CHAPTER VI
BULB BARNS, NAMES, AND GROWERS
There is, without doubt, a certain charm in bulb barns; not perhaps quite the charm of an old English barn, wherein there is ever a brown twilight and never a straight line, and it is still possible to think of the Good People coming to shelter on wet nights. Dutch barns, even the least well kept of them, are too orderly for that. They are rather too foursquare and deficient in the unexpected annexes and the mysterious doors leading to nowhere and anywhere which are part of the true fascination of barns. Nevertheless they have attractions; they are warm-coloured, lofty, silent, and full of a pleasant dry smell; they are essentially not people’s houses though, especially at some seasons of the year, they are houses of quiet, stored life.