Work of Art by Sinclair Lewis

The wide grounds of Tippecanoe Lodge lay beside an estuary leading from Pontevedra Inlet, which was separated from open sea only by the long sand-bank of Pontevedra Island, with its hard bathing- beach. As they drove along the inlet, Myron was disappointed by the thickets of anonymous grey-green shrubbery. Was this the tropic-coloured Florida? It looked like ragged undergrowth on cut- over timber-land. But as they passed through the somewhat lopsided wooden ornamental gateway into the Tippecanoe grounds, he stiffened with admiration. The grounds were a little wild, but they were radiant, they were scented with orange trees, lemons, coco-nut palms, hairy-trunked palmettoes, live oaks cloaked with Spanish moss, cypresses through which glistened a swamp alive with bird- wings. He had never before seen palms outside a park. And here the geranium that in his Connecticut had behaved as a modest pussy- cat sort of plant towered up like a bush wanton with crimson.

'Tropics!' whispered the Northerner.