Alice in the Garden of Live Flowersdetails

This time she came upon a large flower-bed, with a border of daisies, and a willow-tree growing in the middle.

“O Tiger-lily,” said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, “I wish you could talk!”

“We can talk,” said the Tiger-lily: “when there’s anybody worth talking to.”

Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice—almost in a whisper. “And can all the flowers talk?”

“As well as you can,” said the Tiger-lily. “And a great deal louder.”

“It isn’t manners for us to begin, you know,” said the Rose, “and I really was wondering when you’d speak! Said I to myself, ‘Her face has got some sense in it, thought it’s not a clever one!’ Still, you’re the right colour, and that goes a long way.”

“I don’t care about the colour,” the Tiger-lily remarked. “If only her petals curled up a little more, she’d be all right.”