Can’t see an African violet in bloom without thinking of the calm reading room at the Lilly Library in Bloomington, Indiana. You had to be buzzed in from the museum displays, and the difference in air pressure was noticeable. And there, in the midst of some of the rarest books and broadsides ever printed, a librarian kept potted violets on the thick sills of its windows.
At the time, I was reading a lot of Samuel Johnson in the original. Pinpricks, coffee stains, and all.
Jnana's Red Barn 