Miss Sydney's Flowers

"Miss Sydney's Flowers" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a charming and evocative short story that explores themes of nature, community, and the simple pleasures of life. Set in a small New England town, it follows the character of Miss Sydney, an elderly woman with a deep appreciation for the beauty of flowers. Through her interactions with her neighbors and her passion for gardening, the story highlights the connections between people and the natural world, revealing how these relationships can bring joy and fulfillment. Jewett's rich prose and keen observations of rural life provide readers with a vivid sense of place and the enduring power of human connection.

• Short story

								
However sensible it may have been considered by other people, it
certainly was a disagreeable piece of news to Miss Sydney, that the
city authorities had decided to open a new street from St. Mary Street
to Jefferson. It seemed a most unwarrantable thing to her that they
had a right to buy her property against her will. It was so provoking,
that, after so much annoyance from the noise of St. Mary Street during
the last dozen years, she must submit to having another public
thoroughfare at the side of her house also. If it had only been at the
other side, she would not have minded it particularly; for she rarely
sat in her drawing-room, which was at the left of the hall. On the
right was the library, stately, dismal, and apt to be musty in damp
weather; and it would take many bright people, and a blazing
wood-fire, and a great deal of sunshine, to make it pleasant. Behind
this was the dining-room, which was really bright and sunny, and which
opened by wide glass doors into a conservatory. The rattle and clatter
of St. Mary Street was not at all troublesome here; and by little and
little Miss Sydney had gathered her favorite possessions from other
parts of the house, and taken one end of it for her sitting-room. The
most comfortable chairs had found their way here, and a luxurious
great sofa which had once been in the library, as well as the bookcase
which held her favorite books.

The house had been built by Miss Sydney's grandfather, and in his day
it had seemed nearly out of the city: now there was only one other
house left near it; for one by one the quiet, aristocratic old street
had seen its residences give place to shops and warehouses, and Miss
Sydney herself had scornfully refused many offers of many thousand
dollars for her home. It was so changed! It made her so sad to think
of the dear old times, and to see the houses torn down, or the
small-paned windows and old-fashioned front-doors replaced with French
plate-glass to display better the wares which were to take the places
of the quaint furniture and well-known faces of her friends! But Miss
Sydney was an old woman, and her friends had diminished sadly. "It
seems to me that my invitations are all for funerals in these days,"
said she to her venerable maid Hannah, who had helped her dress for
her parties fifty years before. She had given up society little by
little. Her friends had died, or she had allowed herself to drift away
from them, while the acquaintances from whom she might have filled
their places were only acquaintances still. She was the last of her
own family, and, for years before her father died, he had lived mainly
in his library, avoiding society and caring for nothing but books; and
this, of course, was a check upon his daughter's enjoyment of
visitors. Being left to herself, she finally became content with her
own society, and since his death, which followed a long illness, she
had refused all invitations; and with the exception of the interchange
of occasional ceremonious calls with perhaps a dozen families, and her
pretty constant attendance at church, you rarely were reminded of her
existence. And I must tell the truth: it was not easy to be intimate
with her. She was a good woman in a negative kind of way. One never
heard of any thing wrong she had done; and if she chose to live alone,
and have nothing to do with people, why, it was her own affair. You
never seemed to know her any better after a long talk. She had a very
fine, courteous way of receiving her guests,--a way of making you feel
at your ease more than you imagined you should when with her,--and a
stately kind of tact that avoided skilfully much mention of
personalities on either side. But mere hospitality is not attractive,
for it may be given grudgingly, or, as in her case, from mere habit;
for Miss Sydney would never consciously be rude to any one in her own
house--or out of it, for that matter. She very rarely came in contact
with children; she was not a person likely to be chosen for a
confidante by a young girl; she was so cold and reserved, the elder
ladies said. She never asked a question about the winter fashions,
except of her dressmaker, and she never met with reverses in
housekeeping affairs, and these two facts rendered her unsympathetic
to many. She was fond of reading, and enjoyed heartily the pleasant
people she met in books. She appreciated their good qualities, their
thoughtfulness, kindness, wit, or sentiment; but the thought never
suggested itself to her mind that there were living people not far
away, who could give her all this, and more.

If calling were not a regulation of society, if one only went to see
the persons one really cared for, I am afraid Miss Sydney would soon
have been quite forgotten. Her character would puzzle many people. She
put no visible hinderance in your way; for I do not think she was
consciously reserved and cold. She was thoroughly well-bred, rich, and
in her way charitable; that is, she gave liberally to public
subscriptions which came under her notice, and to church
contributions. But she got on, somehow, without having friends; and,
though the loss of one had always been a real grief, she learned
without much trouble the way of living the lonely, comfortable, but
very selfish life, and the way of being the woman I have tried to
describe. There were occasional days when she was tired of herself,
and life seemed an empty, formal, heartless discipline. Her wisest
acquaintances pitied her loneliness; and busy, unselfish people
wondered how she could be deaf to the teachings of her good clergyman,
and blind to all the chances of usefulness and happiness which the
world afforded her; and others still envied her, and wondered to whom
she meant to leave all her money.

I began by telling you of the new street. It was suggested that it
should bear the name of Sydney; but the authorities decided finally to
compliment the country's chief magistrate, and call it Grant Place.
Miss Sydney did not like the sound of it. Her family had always been
indifferent to politics, and indeed the kite of the Sydneys had flown
for many years high above the winds that affect commonplace people.
The new way from Jefferson Street to St. Mary was a great convenience,
and it seemed to our friend that all the noisiest vehicles in the city
had a preference for going back and forth under her windows. You see
she did not suspect, what afterward became so evident, that there was
to be a way opened into her own heart also, and that she should
confess one day, long after, that she might have died a selfish old
woman, and not have left one sorry face behind her, if it had not been
for the cutting of Grant Place.

The side of her conservatory was now close upon the sidewalk, and this
certainly was not agreeable. She could not think of putting on her big
gardening-apron, and going in to work among her dear plants any more,
with all the world staring in at her as it went by. John the coachman,
who had charge of the greenhouse, was at first very indignant; but,

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