The Scenery and Greenery of Gone with the Wind (3)

"The avenue of cedars leading from the main road to the house--that avenue of cedars without which no Georgia planter's home could be complete--had a cool dark shadiness that gave a brighter tinge, by contrast, to the green of the other trees.  The wistaria tumbling over the verandas showed bright against the whitewashed brick, and it joined with the pink crepe myrtle bushes by the door and the white-blossomed magnolias in the yard to disguise some of the awkward lines of the house.

In spring time and summer, the Bermuda grass and clover on the lawn became emerald, so enticing an emerald that it presented an irresistible temptation to the flocks of turkeys and white geese that were supposed to roam only the regions in the rear of the house.  The elders of the flocks continually led stealthy advances into the front yard, lured on by the green of the grass and the luscious promise of the cape jessamine buds and the zinnia beds."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter III

Today I'm pleased to offer another collection of lush Georgia foliage for exploration in the Scenery and Greenery of Gone with the Wind.  Below you'll find photos and info for all the plants and flowers mentioned in the quote above--with the exception of cape jessamine and magnolias, which can both be found in the second edition of the series.  Descriptions of plants, when available,  are taken from Southern wild flowers and trees, together with shrubs, vines and various forms of growth found through the mountains, the middle district and the low country of the South (1901).  

Sigh- doesn't Tara seem like the most beautiful place in the world, with all this breathtaking scenery around? No wonder Scarlett loved it so much.

Red Cedar

Family: Pine         Color: Green foliage, reddish brown bark          Blooms: May-April

"[R]ed cedar, or savin, has perhaps the happiest knack of versatility of all the trees and occurs in various forms from a low shrub to a tree, often one hundred feet high. Throughout North America it is more widely distributed than any other coniferous one, accommodating itself readily to every condition of soil."

Wisteria

 

Family: Pea          Color: Pale Purple          Blooms: April-June

"As this, one of the most beautiful of our native vines, is seen climbing over high trees and other forms of growth, it transforms truly the low grounds and swamps into bowers of fragrant loveliness; and on some warm day in April when there is a feverish desire to blossom among the little plants, it overhangs them in masses and supplants all their efforts to be gay, while also attracting to itself many more than its share of humble bee lovers."

  

Crepe Myrtle Tree 

Family: Loosestrife         Color: Pinkish purple          Blooms: July-September

"Besides other common representatives of this family which lack of space forbids entering in these pages, there is seen through the southern cities the crepe myrtle tree, Lagerstroemia indica. Originally it has been imported from eastern Asia. When well grown and hung with its deep pink, crinkly bloom it is very beautiful."

Bermuda Grass

Family: Grass          Color: Grey-Green         Blooms: N/A

Clover

Family: Pea          Color: Green leaves, white flowers         Blooms: September-October

Zinnia 

Family: Daisy          Color: Multiple         Blooms: August-September

Rue de la Paix

This week's Rue de la Paix serves both as a collage and as a friendly reminder. Gone with the Wind will be on Turner Classic Movies this Tuesday Sept. 14 at 8pm ET, featured as part of TCM's tribute to Star of the Month Vivien Leigh.  For you night owls, the documentary The Making of a Legend immediately follows the movie at 12am ET.

Classic Gable by muse_gal

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 2: The Baby Carriage Dress

We're back with another edition of Doppelganger Dresses, where we feature the possible inspirations for Gone with the Wind costumes from period fashion plates. Today's entry is the pink stripe dress a petulant Scarlett wears to go strolling down Peachtree Street with Rhett and baby Bonnie. Like the Shantytown dress we featured last week, the "baby carriage" dress was a popular style of the time and versions of it appear in many fashion plates. 

We've selected two similar fashions for your viewing after the jump, along with the original Walter Plunkett costume sketch and several publicity stills from GWTW for reference. Do you think they resemble the baby carriage dress? Which one more so? Let us know what you think in the comments! 

Poster of the Week

This week's poster (date unknown) hails from the Scandinavian north of Sweden and features Rhett and Scarlett in the famous embrace from the proposal scene. 

  

Image from movieposterdb.com 

Sweets and Champagne: Another Honeymoon Edition of Southern Cookin'

"The wines and liqueurs and champagnes of New Orleans were new and exhilarating to her, acquainted with only homemade blackberry and scuppernong vintages and Aunt Pitty's 'swoon' brandy..."

" 'You eat as though each meal were your last,' said Rhett. 'Don't scrape the plate, Scarlett.  I'm sure there's more in the kitchen. You have only to ask the waiter.  If you don't stop being such a glutton, you'll be as fat as the Cuban ladies and then I shall divorce you.'

But she only put out her tongue at him and ordered another pastry, thick with chocolate and stuffed with meringue."  

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XLVIII

In our previous installment of Southern Cookin' we brought you an assortment of Creole dishes that Rhett and Scarlett could have enjoyed on their honeymoon in New Orleans. But MM didn't just mention rich entrees, of course. There's also the small matter of liqueurs and champagne and sweets. So today I'm pleased to highlight the good stuff some sweeter and more bubbly fare from New Orleans.

The recipes--all either sugar or alcohol based--once again come from the trusty The Picayune's Creole Cook Book, first published in 1901 by The New Orleans Times-Picayune. (More info about the cookbook can be found in the first honeymoon cuisine post.)  

Check out the completely delicious, totally unhealthy menu after the jump.

The Quotable Rhett Butler: Good Phrases From "That Book"

As one of our readers aptly observed in a comment for the very first edition of our Quotable Rhett Butler (aww, I am getting nostalgic), for a man who professes not to be a believer, Rhett does use a solid number of biblical references. In fact, the Bible and Shakespeare are probably the top two sources for the allusions one can find in his speech. And it's always a pleasure to see that our talented Mr. Butler is aware of that fact as well: 

"'Lusting in your heart.' That's a good phrase, isn't it? There are a number of good phrases in that Book, aren't there?" --Gone with the Wind, Chapter LIV

You probably recognize the setting for this conversation: the dining room of the Butler mansion, after Ashley's infamous birthday party, with a drunken Rhett  just getting started on the central theme of the night: mental infidelity. Well aware of the fact that his wife was never physically unfaithful to him, he nonetheless knows that her love for Ashley is what triggered both that day's scandal and Scarlett's decision to ask for separate bedrooms. And what better phrase could he find to illustrate that than one picked from a collection of warnings against adultery (Proverbs 6: 20-36, that is)? 

"Do not lust in your heart after her beauty

   or let her captivate you with her eyes,

for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, 

  and the adulteress preys upon your very life. "

But what's more interesting about his line is that, though the phrase is clearly lifted from the Old Testament, its meaning there is quite different from the one in which Rhett uses it. It's obvious that the message was one of precaution: lusting in one's heart and allowing one to be tempted by a woman opened the door to actual adultery, and that was the sin, not the lusting itself. Rhett, however, implies that mental infidelity qualifies as adultery in itself, ergo Scarlett is guilty, though she was never physically unfaithful.

But we can find another passage in the Bible (and if we can't, Google sure can), a little different in wording perhaps, but that captures the essence of that idea better, by going further than the Old Testament had gone. And what's more interesting is that we know for sure Rhett was familiar with it. Here it is, the entire fragment from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 27 ), with the relevant sentence highlighted:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

And if we convert a small fragment of this to King James' English--"And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee"--it starts to sound awfully familiar, doesn't it?

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 1: The Shantytown Dress

As we promised earlier, it's time to kick off our new series, Doppelganger Dresses, highlighting real dresses from period fashion plates that closely resemble the costumes of Gone with the Wind. 

Our first dress is the Shantytown dress and to get things started, we've found two dresses that match up nicely with it. You can find the two fashion plates, along with several movie screenshots and the original sketch from costume designer Walter Plunkett for comparison after the jump. The first plate is dated 1866 and taken from a beautifully illustrated book of fashion history called Dame Fashion: Paris-London, 1786-1912, published in 1913 and filled with authentic fashion plates from the time span in question. The second plate is dated as 1865-1870 and comes from another lovely old book, The History of Fashion in France, published in 1882. 

While the two dresses posted here are the closest ones I have seen to the GWTW costume, the general style (light grey/blue dress with dark decorative detailing) seems to have been a tremendously popular one in the mid 1860s. I've spotted at least a half dozen dresses in period fashion plates that generally look like the Shantytown dress. So it's not surprising at all that this style became part of Scarlett's wardrobe.

Take a look and let us know what you think in the comments- do the dresses look like the Shantytown dress to you too?