Open your mind to every form of beauty

One arranges flowers as the spirit moves you to obey some inner prompting to put this colour with that, to have brilliance here, line there, a sense of opulence in this place or sparseness in that to suit your surroundings, your mood, the weather, the occasion. In a word, to do as you please, just as, if you could, you might paint a picture.

China tea, the scent of hyacinths, wood fires and bowls of violets – that is my mental picture of an agreeable February afternoon.