Gardening had gone out the door, nature had returned in all its glory.

Gardening had gone out the door, nature had returned in all its glory. Weeds flourished, which is a wonderful adventure for a poor patch of dirt. The stocks there were having a field day, riotously splendid. Nothing in the garden opposed the sacred effort of things toward life; venerable growth was very much at home. The trees hung down toward the brambles, the brambles reached up toward the trees, the plant climbed, the branch bowed, what crawls on the ground had gone to look for what blossoms in the air, what floats on the wind had stooped toward what trails in the moss; trunks, limbs, leaves, twigs, tufts, tendrils, shoots, thorns mixed together, crossed, married, merged; in a close and powerful embrace, the vegetation had achieved and celebrated there, under the satisfied eye of the Creator, in this enclosure of three hundred square feet, the sacred mystery of His fraternity, a symbol of human fraternity. This garden was no longer a garden, it was a colossal thicket, that is, as impenetrable as a forest, as crowded as a town, as tremulous as a nest, as sombre as a cathedral, as fragrant as a bouquet, as lonely as a tomb, as full of life as the teeming multitudes.

In Floréal, this enormous bushland, free behind its gate and within its four walls, began to rut in the mute labour of universal germination, quivering in the rising sun almost like an animal gulping in the effluvia of cosmic love and feeling the April sap rise and boil in its veins; it shook its extravagant green hair in the wind, scattered over the wet ground, over the worn statues, over the crumbling steps of the villa and even over the pavement in the deserted street, flowers like stars, dew like pearls, fecundity, beauty, life, joy, perfume. At noon, a thousand white butterflies took refuge there, and it was a divine spectacle to see this living summer snow swirling there in flakes in the shade. There, in the jaunty gloom of the greenery, a host of innocent voices spoke softly to the soul, and what the warbling forgot to say, the humming completed. At night a dreamy vapour rose from the garden and enveloped it; a shroud of mist, a calm celestial sadness covered it; that intensely intoxicating smell of honeysuckle and wild morning glory wafted up on all sides like an exquisite and subtle poison; you could hear the final calls of the tree creepers and the wagtails dozing off under the branches; you could feel the sacred intimacy of bird and tree; of a day, the wings rejoice the leaves, of a night, the leaves protect the wings.

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Victor Hugo will take very long side trips in the course of telling his story, many of which I don't care about much. This description of the garden where Marius and Cosette meet, however, is so wonderfully described that I copied it into my quote journal and have read it over several times. It is so evocative.