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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d171512 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #55591 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55591) diff --git a/old/55591-0.txt b/old/55591-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e1ea9fe..0000000 --- a/old/55591-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1444 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Fashioned Flowers, by Maurice Maeterlinck - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Old Fashioned Flowers - and other out-of-door studies - -Author: Maurice Maeterlinck - -Translator: Alexander Teixeira De Mattos - -Release Date: September 21, 2017 [EBook #55591] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD FASHIONED FLOWERS *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif & The Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - [Illustration] - - [Illustration] - - - - - OLD - FASHIONED - FLOWERS - - AND OTHER - OUT-OF-DOOR - STUDIES - - BY - - MAURICE - MAETERLINCK - - TRANSLATED BY - ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA - DE MATTOS - - ILLUSTRATED - - NEW YORK - DODD, MEAD & CO. - 1905 - - COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE OUTLOOK COMPANY - - COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE CENTURY CO. - - COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY - - - PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1905 - - - COMPOSITION AND ELECTROTYPE PLATES BY - D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON - - - - -CONTENTS - - -OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS 3 - -NEWS OF SPRING 43 - -FIELD FLOWERS 65 - -CHRYSANTHEMUMS 85 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - -“I HAVE SEEN THEM ... IN THE GARDEN OF AN OLD SAGE” _Frontispiece_ - -“THE HOLLYHOCK ... FLAUNTS HER COCKADES” _Facing page_ 20 - -“A CLUSTER OF CYPRESSES, WITH ITS PURE OUTLINE” 50 - -“THAT SORT OF CRY AND CREST OF LIGHT AND JOY” 70 - -“HERE IS THE SAD COLUMBINE” 74 - -THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS 92 - - - - -OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS [Illustration] _OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS_ - - -This morning, when I went to look at my flowers, surrounded by their -white fence, which protects them against the good cattle grazing in the -field beyond, I saw again in my mind all that blossoms in the woods, the -fields, the gardens, the orangeries and the green-houses, and I thought -of all that we owe to the world of marvels which the bees visit. - -Can we conceive what humanity would be if it did not know the flowers? -If these did not exist, if they had all been hidden from our gaze, as -are probably a thousand no less fairy sights that are all around us, but -invisible to our eyes, would our character, our faculties, our sense of -the beautiful, our aptitude for happiness, be quite the same? We should, -it is true, in nature have other splendid manifestations of luxury, -exuberance and grace; other dazzling efforts of the superfluous forces: -the sun, the stars, the varied lights of the moon, the azure and the -ocean, the dawns and twilights, the mountain, the plain, the forest and -the rivers, the light and the trees, and lastly, nearer to us, birds, -precious stones and woman. These are the ornaments of our planet. Yet -but for the last three, which belong to the same smile of nature, how -grave, austere, almost sad, would be the education of our eye without -the softness which the flowers give! Suppose for a moment that our globe -knew them not: a great region, the most enchanted in the joys of our -psychology, would be destroyed, or rather would not be discovered. All -of a delightful sense would sleep for ever at the bottom of our harder -and more desert hearts and in our imagination stripped of worshipful -images. The infinite world of colours and shades would have been but -incompletely revealed to us by a few rents in the sky. The miraculous -harmonies of light at play, ceaselessly inventing new gaieties, -revelling in itself, would be unknown to us; for the flowers first broke -up the prism and made the most subtle portion of our sight. And the -magic garden of perfumes--who would have opened its gate to us? A few -grasses, a few gums, a few fruits, the breath of the dawn, the smell of -the night and the sea, would have told us that beyond our eyes and ears -there existed a shut paradise where the air which we breathe changes -into delights for which we could have found no name. Consider also all -that the voice of human happiness would lack! One of the blessed heights -of our soul would be almost dumb, if the flowers had not, since -centuries, fed with their beauty the language which we speak and the -thoughts that endeavour to crystallize the most precious hours of life. -The whole vocabulary, all the impressions of love, are impregnate with -their breath, nourished with their smile. When we love, all the flowers -that we have seen and smelt seem to hasten within us to people with -their known charms the consciousness of a sentiment whose happiness, but -for them, would have no more form than the horizons of the sea or sky. -They have accumulated within us, since our childhood, and even before -it, in the soul of our fathers, an immense treasure, the nearest to our -joys, upon which we draw each time that we wish to make more real the -clement minutes of our life. They have created and spread in our world -of sentiment the fragrant atmosphere in which love delights. - - -II - -That is why I love above all the simplest, the commonest, the oldest and -the most antiquated; those which have a long human past behind them, a -large array of kind and consoling actions; those which have lived with -us for hundreds of years and which form part of ourselves, since they -reflect something of their grace and their joy of life in the soul of -our ancestors. - -But where do they hide themselves? They are becoming rarer than those -which we call rare flowers to-day. Their life is secret and precarious. -It seems as though we were on the point of losing them, and perhaps -there are some which, discouraged at last, have lately disappeared, of -which the seeds have died under the ruins, which will no more know the -dew of the gardens and which we shall find only in very old books, amid -the bright grass of the Illuminators or along the yellow flower-beds of -the Primitives. - -They are driven from the borders and the proud baskets by arrogant -strangers from Peru, the Cape of Good Hope, China, Japan. They have two -pitiless enemies in particular. The first of these is the encumbering -and prolific Begonia Tuberosa, that swarms in the beds like a tribe of -turbulent fighting-cocks, with innumerous combs. It is pretty, but -insolent and a little artificial; and, whatever the silence and -meditation of the hour, under the sun and under the moon, in the -intoxication of the day and the solemn peace of the night, it sounds its -clarion cry and celebrates its victory, monotonous, shrill and -scentless. The other is the Double Geranium, not quite so indiscreet, -but indefatigable also and extraordinarily courageous. It would appear -desirable were it less lavished. These two,--with the help of a few more -cunning strangers and of the plants with coloured leaves that close up -those turgid mosaics which at present debase the beautiful lines of most -of our lawns,--these two have gradually ousted their native sisters from -the spots which these had so long brightened with their familiar -smiles. They no longer have the right to receive the guest with artless -little cries of welcome at the gilded gates of the mansion. They are -forbidden to prattle near the steps, to twitter in the marble vases, to -hum their tune beside the lakes, to lisp their dialect along the -borders. A few of them have been relegated to the kitchen-garden, in the -neglected and, for that matter, delightful corner occupied by the -medicinal or merely aromatic plants, the Sage, the Tarragon, the Fennel -and the Thyme,--old servants, too, dismissed and nourished through a -sort of pity or mechanical tradition. Others have taken refuge by the -stables, near the low door of the kitchen or the cellar, where they -crowd humbly like importunate beggars, hiding their bright dresses among -the weeds and holding their frightened perfumes as best they may, so as -not to attract attention. - -But, even there, the Pelargonium, red with indignation, and the Begonia, -crimson with rage, came to surprise and hustle the unoffending little -band; and they fled to the farms, the cemeteries, the little gardens of -the rectories, the old maid’s houses and the country convents. And now -hardly anywhere, save in the oblivion of the oldest villages, around -tottering dwellings, far from the railways and the nursery-gardener’s -overbearing hot-houses, do we find them again with their natural smile; -not wearing a driven, panting and hunted look, but peaceful, calm, -restful, plentiful, careless and at home. And, even as in former times, -in the coaching-days, from the top of the stone wall that surrounds the -house, through the rails of the white fence, or from the sill of the -windows enlivened by a caged bird, on the motionless road where none -passes, save the eternal forces of life, they see spring come and -autumn, the rain and the sun, the butterflies and the bees, the silence -and the night followed by the light of the moon. - - -III - -Brave old flowers! Wall-flowers, Gillyflowers, Stocks! For, even as the -field-flowers, from which a trifle, a ray of beauty, a drop of perfume, -divides them, they have charming names, the softest in the language; and -each of them, like tiny, artless ex-votos, or like medals bestowed by -the gratitude of men, proudly bears three or four. You Stocks, who sing -among the ruined walls and cover with light the grieving stones; you -Garden Primroses, Primulas or Cowslips, Hyacinths, Crocuses, Crown -Imperials, Scented Violets, Lilies of the Valley, Forget-me-nots, -Daisies and Periwinkles, Poet’s Narcissuses, Pheasant’s-Eyes, -Bear’s-Ears, Alyssums, Saxifrage, Anemones--it is through you that the -months that come before the leaf-time--February, March, April--translate -into smiles which men can understand the first news and the first -mysterious kisses of the sun! You are frail and chilly and yet as -bold-faced as a bright idea. You make young the grass; you are fresh as -the water that flows in the azure cups which the dawn distributes over -the greedy buds, ephemeral as the dreams of a child, almost wide still -and almost spontaneous, yet already marked by the too precocious -brilliancy, the too flaming nimbus, the too pensive grace, that -overwhelm the flowers which yield obedience to man. - - -IV - -But here, innumerous, disordered, many-coloured, tumultuous, drunk with -dawns and noons, come the luminous dances of the daughters of Summer! -Little girls with white veils and old maids in violet ribbons, -school-girls home for the holidays, first-communicants, pale nuns, -dishevelled romps, gossips and prudes. Here is the Marigold, who breaks -up with her brightness the green of the borders. Here is the Camomile, -like a nosegay of snow, beside her unwearying brothers, the Garden -Chrysanthemums, whom we must not confuse with the Japanese -Chrysanthemums of autumn. The Annual Helianthus, or Sunflower, towers -like a priest raising the monstrance over the lesser folk in prayer and -strives to resemble the luminary which he adores. The Poppy exerts -himself to fill with light his cup torn by the morning wind. The rough -Larkspur, in his peasant’s blouse, who thinks himself more beautiful -than the sky, looks down upon the Dwarf Convolvuluses, who reproach him -spitefully with putting too much blue into the azure of his flowers. The -Virginia Stock, arch and demure in her gown of jaconet, like the little -servant-maids of Dordrecht or Leyden, washes the borders of the beds -with innocence. The Mignonette hides herself in her laboratory and -silently distils perfumes that give us a foretaste of the air which we -breathe on the threshold of Paradises. The Peonies, who have drunk their -imprudent fill of the sun, burst with enthusiasm and bend forward to -meet the coming apoplexy. The Scarlet Flax traces a bloodstained furrow -that guards the walks; and the Portulaca, creeping like a moss, studies -to cover with mauve, amber or pink taffeta the soil that has remained -bare at the foot of the tall stalks. The chub-faced Dahlia, a little -round, a little stupid, carves out of soap, lard or wax his regular -pompons, which will be the ornament of a village holiday. The old, -paternal Phlox, standing amid the clusters, lavishes the loud laughter -of his jolly, easy-going colours. The Mallows, or Lavateras, like -demure misses, feel the tenderest blushes of fugitive modesty mount to -their corollas at the slightest breath. The Nasturtium paints his water -colours, or screams like a parakeet climbing up the bars of its cage; -and the Rose-mallow, Althæa Rosea, Hollyhock, riding the high horse of -her many names, flaunts her cockades of a flesh silkier than a maiden’s -breast. The Snapdragon and the almost transparent Balsam are more -timorous and awkward and fearfully press their flowers against their -stalks. - -Next, in the discreet corner of the old families, are crowded the -Long-leaved Veronica; the Red Potentilla; the - -[Illustration] - -African Marigold; the ancient Lychnis, or Maltese Cross; the Mournful -Widow, or Purple Scabious; the Foxglove, or Digitalis, who shoots up -like a melancholy rocket; the European Aquilegia, or Columbine; the -Viscaria, who, on a long, slim neck, lifts a small ingenuous, quite -round face to admire the sky; the lurking Lunaria, who secretly -manufactures the “Pope’s money,” those pale, flat crown-pieces with -which, no doubt, the elves and fairies by moonlight carry on their trade -in spells; lastly, the Pheasant’s-Eye, the red Valerian, or -Jupiter’s-Beard, the Sweet William and the old Carnation, that was -cultivated long ago by the Grand Condé in his exile. - -Besides these, above, all around, on the walls, in the hedges, among the -arbours, along the branches, like a people of sportive monkeys and -birds, the climbing plants make merry, perform feats of gymnastics, play -at swinging, at losing and recovering their balance, at falling, at -flying, at looking up at space, at reaching beyond the treetops to kiss -the sky. Here we have the Spanish Bean and the Sweet Pea, quite proud at -being no longer included among the vegetables; the modest Volubilis; the -Honeysuckle, whose scent represents the soul of the dew; the Clematis -and the Glycine; while, at the windows, between the white curtains, -along the stretched string, the Campanula, surnamed Pyramidalis, works -such miracles, throws out sheaves and twists garlands formed of a -thousand uniform flowers so prodigiously immaculate and transparent that -they who see it for the first time, refusing to believe their eyes, want -to touch with their finger the bluey marvel, cool as a fountain, pure as -a source, unreal as a dream. - -Meanwhile, in a blaze of light, the great white Lily, the old lord of -the gardens, the only authentic prince among all the commonalty issuing -from the kitchen-garden, the ditches, the copses, the pools and the -moors, among the strangers come from none knows where, with his -invariable six-petalled chalice of silver, whose nobility dates back to -that of the gods themselves--the immemorial Lily raises his ancient -sceptre, august, inviolate, which creates around it a zone of chastity, -silence and light. - - -V - -I have seen them, those whom I have named and as many whom I have -forgotten, all thus collected in the garden of an old sage, the same -that taught me to love the bees. They displayed themselves in beds and -clusters, in symmetrical borders, ellipses, oblongs, quincunxes and -lozenges, surrounded by box hedges, red bricks, earthenware tiles or -brass chains, like precious matters contained in ordered receptacles -similar to those which we find in the discoloured engravings that -illustrate the works of the old Dutch poet, Jacob Cats. And the flowers -were drawn up in rows, some according to their kinds, others according -to their shapes and shades, while others, lastly, mingled, according to -the happy chances of the wind and the sun, the most hostile and -murderous colours, in order to show that nature acknowledges no -dissonance and that all that lives creates its own harmony. - -From its twelve rounded windows, with their shining panes, their muslin -curtains, their broad green shutters, the long, painted house, pink and -gleaming as a shell, watched them wake at dawn and throw off the brisk -diamonds of the dew and then close at night under the blue darkness that -falls from the stars. One felt that it took an intelligent pleasure in -this gentle, daily fairy-scene, itself solidly planted between two -clear ditches that lost themselves in the distance of the immense -pasturage dotted with motionless cows, while, by the roadside, a proud -mill, bending forward like a preacher, made familiar signs with its -paternal sails to the passers-by from the village. - - -VI - -Has this earth of ours a fairer ornament of its hours of leisure than -the care of flowers? It was beautiful to see thus collected for the -pleasure of the eyes, around the house of my placid friend, the splendid -throng that tills the light to win from it marvellous colours, honey and -perfumes. He found there translated into visible joys, fixed at the -gates of his house, the scattered, fleeting and almost intangible -delights of summer,--the voluptuous air, the clement nights, the -emotional sunbeams, the glad hours, the confiding dawn, the whispering -and mysterious azured space. He enjoyed not only their dazzling -presence; he also hoped--probably unwisely, so deep and confused is that -mystery--he also hoped, by dint of questioning them, to surprise, with -their aid, I know not what secret law or idea of nature, I know not what -private thought of the universe, which perhaps betrays itself in those -ardent moments in which it strives to please other beings, to beguile -other lives and to create beauty. - - -VII - -Old flowers, I said. I was wrong; for they are not so old. When we study -their history and investigate their pedigrees, we learn with surprise -that most of them, down to the simplest and commonest, are new beings, -freedmen, exiles, newcomers, visitors, foreigners. Any botanical -treatise will reveal their origins. The Tulip, for instance (remember La -Bruyère’s “Solitary,” “Oriental,” “Agate,” and “Cloth of Gold”), came -from Constantinople in the sixteenth century. The Ranuncula, the -Lunaria, the Maltese Cross, the Balsam, the Fuchsia, the African -Marigold, or Tagetes Erecta, the Rose Campion, or Lychnis -Coronaria, the two-coloured Aconite, the Amaranthus Caudatus, or -Love-lies-bleeding, the Hollyhock and the Campanula Pyramidalis arrived -at about the same time from the Indies, Mexico, Persia, Syria and Italy. -The Pansy appears in 1613; the Yellow Alyssum in 1710; the Perennial -Flax in 1775; the Scarlet Flax in 1819; the Purple Scabious in 1629; the -Saxifraga Sarmentosa in 1771; the Long-leaved Veronica in 1713. The -Perennial Phlox is a little older. The Indian Pink made its entrance -into our gardens about 1713. The Garden Pink is of modern date. The -Portulaca did not make her appearance till 1828; the Scarlet Sage till -1822. The Ageratum, or Cœlestinum, now so plentiful and so popular, -is not two centuries old. The Helichrysum, or Everlasting, is even -younger. The Zinnia is exactly a centenarian. The Spanish Bean, a native -of South America, and the Sweet Pea, an immigrant from Sicily, number a -little over two hundred years. The Anthemis, whom we find in the -least-known villages, has been cultivated only since 1699. The charming -blue Lobelia of our borders came to us from the Cape of Good Hope at the -time of the French Revolution. The China Aster, or Reine Marguerite, is -dated 1731. The Annual or Drummond’s Phlox, now so common, was sent over -from Texas in 1835. The large-flowered Lavatera, who looks so confirmed -a native, so simple a rustic, has blossomed in our gardens only since -two centuries and a half; and the Petunia since some twenty lustres. The -Mignonette, the Heliotrope--who would believe it?--are not two hundred -years old. The Dahlia was born in 1802; and the Gladiolus is of -yesterday. - - -VIII - -What flowers, then, blossomed in the gardens of our fathers? Very few, -no doubt, and very small and very humble, scarce to be distinguished -from those of the roads, the fields and the glades. Before the sixteenth -century, those gardens were almost bare; and, later, Versailles itself, -the splendid Versailles, could have shown us only what is shown to-day -by the poorest village. Alone, the Violet, the Garden Daisy, the Lily of -the Valley, the Marigold, the Poppy, a few Crocuses, a few Irises, a few -Colchicums, the Foxglove, the Valerian, the Larkspur, the Cornflower, -the Clove, the Forget-me-not, the Gillyflower, the Mallow, the Rose, -still almost a Sweetbriar, and the great silver Lily, the spontaneous -finery of our woods and of our snow-frightened, wind-frightened -fields--these alone smiled upon our forefathers, who, for that matter, -were unaware of their poverty. Man had not yet learnt to look around -him, to enjoy the life of nature. Then came the Renascence, the great -voyages, the discovery and invasion of the sunlight. All the flowers of -the world, the successful efforts, the deep, inmost beauties, the joyful -thoughts and wishes of the planet, rose up to us, borne on a shaft of -light that, in spite of its heavenly wonder, issued from our own earth. -Man ventured forth from the cloister, the crypt, the town of brick and -stone, the gloomy stronghold in which he had slept. He went down into -the garden, which became peopled with azure, purple and perfumes, opened -his eyes, astounded like a child escaping from the dreams of the night; -and the forest, the plain, the sea and the mountains, and, lastly, the -birds and the flowers, that speak in the name of all a more human -language which he already understood, greeted his awakening. - - -IX - -Nowadays, perhaps, there are no more unknown flowers. We have found all, -or nearly all, the forms which nature lends to the great dream of love, -to the yearning for beauty that stirs within her bosom. We live, so to -speak, in the midst of her tenderest confidences, of her most touching -inventions. We take an unhoped-for part in the most mysterious festivals -of the invisible force that animates us also. Doubtless, in appearance, -it is a small thing that a few more flowers should adorn our beds. They -only scatter a few impotent smiles along the paths that lead to the -grave. It is none the less true that these are new and very real -smiles, which were unknown to those who came before us; and this -recently-discovered happiness spreads in every direction, even to the -doors of the most wretched hovels. The good, the simple flowers are as -happy and as gorgeous in the poor man’s strip of garden as in the broad -lawns of the great house, and they surround the cottage with the supreme -beauty of the earth; for the earth has till now produced nothing more -beautiful than the flowers. They have completed the conquest of the -globe. Foreseeing the days when men shall at last have long and equal -leisure, already they promise an equality in sane enjoyments. Yes, -assuredly it is a small thing; and everything is a small thing, if we -look at each of our little victories one by one. It is a small thing, -too, in appearance, that we should have a few more thoughts in our -heads, a new feeling at our hearts; and yet it is just that which slowly -leads us where we hope to win. - -After all, we have here a very real fact, namely, that we live in a -world in which flowers are more beautiful and more numerous than -formerly; and perhaps we have the right to add that the thoughts of men -are more just and greedier of truth. The smallest joy gained and the -smallest grief conquered should be marked in the Book of Humanity. It -behooves us not to lose sight of any of the evidence that we are -mastering the nameless powers, that we are beginning to handle some of -the mysterious laws that govern the created, that we are making our -planet all our own, that we are adorning our stay and gradually -broadening the acreage of happiness and of beautiful life. - - - - -NEWS OF SPRING [Illustration] _NEWS OF SPRING_ - - -I have seen the manner in which Spring stores up sunshine, leaves and -flowers and makes ready, long beforehand, to invade the North. Here, on -the ever balmy shores of the Mediterranean--that motionless sea which -looks as though it were under glass--where, while the months are dark in -the rest of Europe, Spring has taken shelter from the wind and the snows -in a palace of peace and light and love, it is interesting to detect -its preparations for travelling in the fields of undying green. I can -see clearly that it is afraid, that it hesitates once more to face the -great frost-traps which February and March lay for it annually beyond -the mountains. It waits, it dallies, it tries its strength before -resuming the harsh and cruel way which the hypocrite winter seems to -yield to it. It stops, sets out again, revisits a thousand times, like a -child running round the garden of its holidays, the fragrant valleys, -the tender hills which the frost has never brushed with its wings. It -has nothing to do here, nothing to revive, since nothing has perished -and nothing suffered, since all the flowers of every season bathe here -in the blue air of an eternal summer. But it seeks pretexts, it lingers, -it loiters, it goes to and fro like an unoccupied gardener. It pushes -aside the branches, fondles with its breath the olive-tree that quivers -with a silver smile, polishes the glossy grass, rouses the corollas that -were not asleep, recalls the birds that had never fled, encourages the -bees that were workers without ceasing; and then, seeing, like God, that -all is well in the spotless Eden, it rests for a moment on the ledge of -a terrace which the orange-tree crowns with regular flowers and with -fruits of light, and, before leaving, casts a last look over its labour -of joy and entrusts it to the sun. - - -II - -I have followed it, these past few days, on the banks of the Borigo, -from the torrent of Careï to the Val de Gorbio; in those little rustic -towns, Ventimiglia, Tende, Sospello; in those curious villages, perched -upon rocks, Sant’ Agnese, Castellar, Castillon; in that adorable and -already quite Italian country which surrounds Mentone. You go through a -few streets quickened with the cosmopolitan and somewhat hateful life of -the Riviera, you leave behind you the band-stand, with its everlasting -town music, around which gather the consumptive rank and fashion of -Mentone, and behold, at two steps from the crowd that dreads it as it -would a scourge from Heaven, you find the admirable silence of the -trees, all the goodly Virgilian realities of sunk roads, clear springs, -shady pools that sleep on the mountain-sides, where they seem to await a -goddess’s reflection. You climb a path between two stone walls -brightened by violets and crowned with the strange brown cowls of the -arisarum, with its leaves of so deep a green that one might believe them -to be created to symbolize the coolness of the well, and the -amphitheatre of a valley opens like a moist and splendid flower. Through -the blue veil of the giant olive-trees that cover the horizon with a -transparent curtain of scintillating pearls, gleams the discreet and -harmonious brilliancy of all that men imagine in their dreams and paint -upon scenes that are thought unreal and unrealizable, when they wish to -define the ideal gladness of an immortal hour, of some enchanted island, -of a lost paradise, or the dwelling of the gods. - - -III - -All along the valleys of the coast are hundreds of these amphitheatres -which are as stages whereon, by moonlight or amid the peace of the -mornings and afternoons, are acted the dumb fairy-plays of the world’s -contentment. They are all alike, and yet each of them reveals a -different happiness. Each of them, as though they were the faces of a -bevy of equally happy and equally beautiful sisters, wears its -distinguishing smile. A cluster of cypresses, with its pure outline; a -mimosa that resembles a bubbling spring of sulphur; a grove of -orange-trees with dark and heavy tops symmetrically charged with golden -fruits that suddenly proclaim the royal affluence of the soil that feeds -them; a slope covered with lemon-trees, where the night seems to have -heaped up on a mountain-side, to await a new twilight, the stars -gathered by the dawn; a leafy portico which opens over the sea like a -deep glance that suddenly discloses an infinite thought; a brook hidden -like a tear of joy; a trellis awaiting the purple of the grapes, a great -stone basin drinking in the water that trickles from the tip of a green -reed--all and yet none modify the expression of the restfulness, the -tranquillity, the azure silence, the blissfulness that is its own -delight. - -[Illustration] - - -IV - -But I am looking for winter and the print of its footsteps. Where is it -hiding? It should be here; and how dares this feast of roses and -anemones, of soft air and dew, of bees and birds, display itself with -such assurance during the most pitiless month of Winter’s reign? And -what will Spring do, what will Spring say, since all seems done, since -all seems said? Is it superfluous, then, and does nothing await it? No; -search carefully: you shall find amid this life of unwearying youth the -work of its hand, the perfume of its breath which is younger than life. -Thus, there are foreign trees yonder, taciturn guests, like poor -relations in ragged clothes. They come from very far, from the land of -fog and frost and wind. They are aliens, sullen and distrustful. They -have not yet learned the limpid speed, not adopted the delightful -customs of the azure. They refused to believe in the promises of the sky -and suspected the caresses of the sun which, from early dawn, covers -them with a mantle of silkier and warmer rays than that with which July -loaded their shoulders in the precarious summers of their native land. -It made no difference: at the given hour, when snow was falling a -thousand miles away, their trunks shivered, and, despite the bold -averment of the grass and a hundred thousand flowers, despite the -impertinence of the roses that climb up to them to bear witness to life, -they stripped themselves for their winter sleep. Sombre and grim and -bare as the dead, they await the Spring that bursts forth around them; -and, by a strange and excessive reaction, they wait for it longer than -under the harsh, gloomy sky of Paris, for it is said that in Paris the -buds are already beginning to shoot. One catches glimpses of them here -and there amid the holiday throng whose motionless dances enchant the -hills. They are not many and they conceal themselves: they are gnarled -oaks, beeches, planes; and even the vine, which one would have thought -better-mannered, more docile and well-informed, remains incredulous. -There they stand, black and gaunt, like sick people on an Easter Sunday -in the church-porch made transparent by the splendour of the sun. They -have been there for years, and some of them, perhaps, for two or three -centuries; but they have the terror of winter in their marrow. They will -never lose the habit of death. They have too much experience, they are -too old to forget and too old to learn. Their hardened reason refuses to -admit the light when it does not come at the accustomed time. They are -rugged old men, too wise to enjoy unforeseen pleasures. They are wrong. -For here, around the old, around the grudging ancestors, is a whole -world of plants that know nothing of the future, but give themselves to -it. They live but for a season; they have no past and no traditions and -they know nothing, except that the hour is fair and that they must enjoy -it. While their elders, their masters and their gods, sulk and waste -their time, they burst into flower; they love and they beget. They are -the humble flowers of dear solitude,--the Easter daisy that covers the -sward with its frank and methodical neatness; the borage bluer than the -bluest sky; the anemone, scarlet or dyed in aniline; the virgin -primrose; the arborescent mallow; the bell-flower, shaking its bells -that no one hears; the rosemary that looks like a little country maid; -and the heavy thyme that thrusts its grey head between the broken -stones. - -But, above all, this is the incomparable hour, the diaphanous and liquid -hour of the wood-violet. Its proverbial humility becomes usurping and -almost intolerant. It no longer cowers timidly among the leaves: it -hustles the grass, overtowers it, blots it out, forces its colours upon -it, fills it with its breath. Its unnumbered smiles cover the terraces -of olives and vines, the tracks of the ravines, the bend of the valleys -with a net of sweet and innocent gaiety; its perfume, fresh and pure as -the soul of the mountain spring, makes the air more translucent, the -silence more limpid and is, in very deed, as a forgotten legend tells -us, the breath of Earth, all bathed in dew, when, a virgin yet, she -wakes in the sun and yields herself wholly in the first kiss of early -dawn. - - -V - -Again, in the little gardens that surround the cottages, the bright -little houses with their Italian roofs, the good vegetables, -unprejudiced and unpretentious, have known no fear. While the old -peasant, who has come to resemble the trees he cultivates, digs the -earth around the olives, the spinach assumes a lofty bearing, hastens to -grow green nor takes the smallest precaution; the garden bean opens its -eyes of jet in its pale leaves and sees the night fall unmoved; the -fickle peas shoot and lengthen out, covered with motionless and -tenacious butterflies, as though June had entered the farm-gate; the -carrot blushes as it faces the light; the ingenuous strawberry-plants -inhale the flavours which noontide lavishes upon them as it bends -towards earth its sapphire urns; the lettuce exerts itself to achieve a -heart of gold wherein to lock the dews of morning and night. - -The fruit-trees alone have long reflected: the example of the vegetables -among which they live urged them to join in the general rejoicing, but -the rigid attitude of their elders from the North, of the grandparents -born in the great dark forests, preached prudence to them. But now they -awaken: they too can resist no longer and at last make up their minds to -join the dance of perfumes and of love. The peach-trees are now no more -than a rosy miracle, like the softness of a child’s skin turned into -azure vapour by the breath of dawn. The pear and plum and apple and -almond-trees make dazzling efforts in drunken rivalry; and the pale -hazel-trees, like Venetian chandeliers, resplendent with a cascade of -gems, stand here and there to light the feast. As for the luxurious -flowers that seem to possess no other object than themselves, they have -long abandoned the endeavour to solve the mystery of this boundless -summer. They no longer score the seasons, no longer count the days, and, -knowing not what to do in the glowing disarray of hours that have no -shadow, dreading lest they should be deceived and lose a single second -that might be fair, they have resolved to bloom without respite from -January to December. Nature approves them, and, to reward their trust in -happiness, their generous beauty and amorous excesses, grants them a -force, a brilliancy and perfumes which she never gives to those which -hang back and show a fear of life. - -All this, among other truths, was proclaimed by the little house that I -saw to-day on the side of a hill all deluged in roses, carnations, -wall-flowers, heliotrope and mignonette, so as to suggest the source, -choked and overflowing with flowers, whence Spring was preparing to pour -down upon us; while, upon the stone threshold of the closed door, -pumpkins, lemons, oranges, limes and Turkey figs slumbered in the -majestic, deserted, monotonous silence of a perfect day. - - - - -FIELD FLOWERS [Illustration] _FIELD FLOWERS_ - - -They welcome our steps without the city gates, on a gay and eager carpet -of many colours, which they wave madly in the sunlight. It is evident -that they were expecting us. When the first bright rays of March -appeared, the Snowdrop, or Amaryllis, the heroic daughter of the -hoar-frost, sounded the reveille. Next sprang from the earth efforts, as -yet shapeless, of a slumbering memory,--vague ghosts of flowers, pale -flowers that are scarcely flowers at all: the three-fingered Saxifrage, -or Samphire; the almost invisible Shepherd’s-Pouch; the two-leaved -Squill; the Stinking Hellebore, or Christmas Rose; the Colt’s-Foot; the -gloomy and poisonous Spurge Laurel--all plants of frail and doubtful -health, pale-blue, pale-pink, undecided attempts, the first fever of -life in which nature expels her ill-humours, anæmic captives set free by -winter, convalescent patients from the underground prisons, timid and -unskilful endeavours of the still buried light. - -But soon this light ventures forth into space; the nuptial thoughts of -the earth become clearer and purer; the rough attempts disappear; the -half-dreams of the night lift like a fog dispelled by the dawn; and the -good rustic flowers begin their unseen revels under the blue, all around -the cities where man knows them not. No matter, they are there, making -honey, while their proud and barren sisters, who alone receive our care, -are still trembling in the depths of the hot-houses. They will still be -there, in the flooded fields, in the broken paths, and adorning the -roads with their simplicity, when the first snows shall have covered the -country-side. No one sows them and no one gathers them. They survive -their glory, and man treads them under foot. Formerly, however, and not -so long ago, they alone represented Nature’s gladness. Formerly, -however, a few hundred years ago, before their dazzling and chilly -kinswomen had come from the Antilles, from India, from Japan, or before -their own daughters, ungrateful and unrecognizable, had usurped their -place, they alone enlivened the stricken gaze, they alone brightened the -cottage porch, the castle precincts, and followed the lovers’ footsteps -in the woods. But those times are no more; and they are dethroned. They -have retained of their past happiness only the names which they received -when they were loved. - -And these names show all that they were to man; all his gratitude, his -studious fondness, all that he owed them, all that they gave him, are -there contained, like a secular aroma in hollow pearls. And so they bear -names of queens, shepherdesses, virgins, princesses, sylphs and fairies, -which flow from the lips like a caress, a lightning-flash, a kiss, a -murmur of love. Our language, I think, contains nothing that is better, -more daintily, more affectionately named than these homely flowers. Here -the word clothes the idea almost always with care, with light precision, -with admirable happiness. It is like an ornate and transparent stuff -that moulds the form which it embraces and has the proper shade, perfume -and sound. Call to mind the Easter Daisy, the Violet, the Bluebell, the -Poppy, or, rather, Coquelicot--the name is the flower itself. How -wonderful, for instance, that sort of cry and crest of light and joy, -“Coquelicot!”--to designate the scarlet flower which the scientists -crush under this barbarous title, Papaver rhœas! See the Primrose, -or, rather, the Cowslip, the Periwinkle, the Anemone, the Wild Hyacinth, -the blue Speedwell, the Forget-me-not, the Wild Bindweed, the Iris, the -Harebell: their name depicts them by equivalents and analogies which the -greatest poets but rarely light upon. It represents all their ingenuous -and visible soul. It hides itself, it bends over, it rises to the ear -even as those who bear it lie concealed, stoop forward, or stand erect -in the corn and in the grass. - -These are the few names that are known to all of us; we do not know the -others, though their music describes with the same gentleness, the same -happy genius, flowers which we see by every wayside and upon all the -paths. Thus, at this moment, that is to say, at the end of the month in -which the ripe corn falls beneath the reaper’s sickle, the banks of the -roads are a pale violet: it is the Sweet Scabious, who has blossomed at -last, discreet, aristocratically poor and modestly beautiful, as her -title, that of a mist-veiled precious stone, proclaims. Around her, a -treasure lies scattered: it is the Ranunculus, or Buttercup, who has -two names, even as he has two lives; for he is at once the innocent -virgin that covers the grass with sun-drops, and the redoubtable and -venomous wizard that deals out death to heedless animals. Again we have -the Milfoil and the St. John’s Wort, little flowers, once useful, that -march along the roads, like silent school-girls, clad in a dull uniform; -the vulgar and innumerous Bird’s Groundsel; her big brother, the Hare’s -Lettuce of the fields; then the dangerous black Nightshade; the -Bitter-sweet, who hides herself; the creeping Knotweed, with the patient -leaves: all the families without show, with the resigned smile, wearing -the practical grey livery of autumn, which already is felt to be at -hand. - - -II - -But, among those of March, April, May, June, July, remember the glad and -festive names, the springtime syllables, the vocables of azure and dawn, -of moonlight and sunshine! Here is the Snowdrop, or Amaryllis, who -proclaims the thaw; the Stitchwort, or Lady’s Collar, who greets the -first-communicants along the hedges, whose leaves are as yet -indeterminate and uncertain, like a diaphanous green lye. Here are the -sad Columbine and the Field Sage, the Jasione, the Angelica, the Field -Fennel, the Wall-flower, dressed like a servant of a village-priest; the -Osmond, who is a king fern; the Luzula, - -[Illustration] - -the Parmelia, the Venus’ Looking-glass; the Esula or Wood Spurge, -mysterious and full of sombre fire; the Physalidis, whose fruit ripens -in a lantern; the Henbane, the Belladonna, the Digitalis, poisonous -queens, veiled Cleopatras of the untilled places and the cool woods. And -then, again, the Camomile, the good-capped Sister with a thousand -smiles, bringing the health-giving brew in an earthenware bowl; the -Pimpernel and the Coronilla, the pale Mint and the pink Thyme, the -Sainfoin and the Euphrasy, the Ox-eye Daisy, the mauve Gentian and the -blue Verbena, the Anthemis, the lance-shaped Horse-Thistle, the -Cinquefoil or Potentilla, the Dyer’s Weed ... to tell their names is to -recite a poem of grace and light. We have reserved for them the most -charming, the purest, the clearest sounds and all the musical gladness -of the language. One would think that they were the persons of a play, -dancers and choristers of an immense fairy-scene, more beautiful, more -startling and more supernatural than the scenes that unfold themselves -on Prospero’s Island, at the Court of Theseus, or in the Forest of -Arden. And the comely actresses of this silent, never-ending -comedy--goddesses, angels, she devils, princesses and witches, virgins -and courtezans, queens and shepherd-girls--carry in the folds of their -names the magic sheens of innumerous dawns, of innumerous springtimes -contemplated by forgotten men, even as they also carry the memory of -thousands of deep or fleeting emotions which were felt before them by -generations that have disappeared, leaving no other trace. - - -III - -They are interesting and incomprehensible. They are vaguely called the -“Weeds.” They serve no purpose. Here and there a few, in very old -villages, retain the spell of contested virtues. Here and there one of -them, right at the bottom of the apothecary’s or herbalist’s jars, still -awaits the coming of the sick man faithful to the infusions of -tradition. But sceptic medicine will have none of them. No longer are -they gathered according to the olden rites; and the science of “Simples” -is dying out in the housewife’s memory. A merciless war is waged upon -them. The husbandman fears them; the plough pursues them; the gardener -hates them and has armed himself against them with clashing weapons: the -spade and the rake, the hoe and the scraper, the weeding-hook, the -grubbing-axe. Along the highroads, their last refuge, the passer-by -crushes them, the waggon bruises them. In spite of all, they are there: -permanent, assured, abundant, peaceful; and not one but answers the -summons of the sun. They follow the seasons without swerving by an hour. -They take no account of man, who exhausts himself in conquering them, -and, so soon as he rests, they spring up in his footsteps. They live on, -audacious, immortal, untamable. They have peopled our flower-baskets -with extravagant and unnatural daughters; but they, the poor mothers, -have remained similar to what they were a hundred thousand years ago. -They have not added a fold to their petals, reordered a pistil, altered -a shade, invented a perfume. They keep the secret of a mysterious -mission. They are the indelible primitives. The soil is theirs since its -origin. They represent, in short, an essential smile, an invariable -thought, an obstinate desire of the Earth. - -That is why it is well to question them. They have evidently something -to tell us. And, then, let us not forget that they were the first--with -the sunrises and sunsets, with the springs and autumns, with the song -of the birds, with the hair, the glance and the divine movements of -women--to teach our fathers that there are useless and beautiful things -upon this globe. - - - - -CHRYSANTHEMUMS [Illustration] _CHRYSANTHEMUMS_ - - -Every year, in November, at the season that follows on the hour of the -dead, the crowning and majestic hour of autumn, reverently I go to visit -the chrysanthemums in the places where chance offers them to my sight. -For the rest, it matters little where they are shown to me by the good -will of travel or of sojourn. They are, indeed, the most universal, the -most diverse of flowers; but their diversity and surprises are, so to -speak, concerted, like those of fashion, in I know not what arbitrary -Edens. At the same moment, even as with silks, laces, jewels and curls, -a mysterious voice gives the password in time and space; and, docile as -the most beautiful women, simultaneously, in every country, in every -latitude, the flowers obey the sacred decree. - -It is enough, then, to enter at random one of those crystal museums in -which their somewhat funereal riches are displayed under the harmonious -veil of the days of November. We at once grasp the dominant idea, the -obtrusive beauty, the unexpected effort of the year in this special -world, strange and privileged even in the midst of the strange and -privileged world of flowers. And we ask ourselves if this new idea is a -profound and really necessary idea on the part of the sun, the earth, -life, autumn, or man. - - -II - -Yesterday, then, I went to admire the year’s gentle and gorgeous floral -feast, the last which the snows of December and January, like a broad -belt of peace, sleep, silence and night, separate from the delicious -festivals that commence again with the germination (powerful already, -though hardly visible) that seeks the light in February. - -They are there, under the immense transparent dome, the noble flowers of -the month of fogs; they are there, at the royal meeting-place, all the -grave little autumn fairies, whose dances and attitudes seem to have -been struck motionless with a single word. The eye that recognizes them -and has learned to love them perceives, at the first pleased glance, -that they have actively and dutifully continued to evolve towards their -uncertain ideal. Go back for a moment to their modest origin: look at -the poor buttercup of yore, the humble little crimson or damask rose -that still smiles sadly, along the roads full of dead leaves, in the -scanty garden-patches of our villages; compare with them these enormous -masses and fleeces of snow, these disks and globes of red copper, these -spheres of old silver, these trophies of alabaster and amethyst, this -delirious prodigy of petals which seems to be trying to exhaust to its -last riddle the world of autumnal shapes and shades which the winter -entrusts to the bosom of the sleeping woods; let the unwonted and -unexpected varieties pass before your eyes; admire and appraise them. - -Here, for instance, is the marvellous family of the stars: flat stars, -bursting stars, diaphanous stars, solid and fleshly stars, milky ways -and constellations of the earth that correspond with those of the -firmament. Here are the proud plumes that await the diamonds of the dew; -here, to put our dreams to shame, the fascinating poem of unreal -tresses: wise, precise and meticulous tresses; mad and miraculous -tresses; honeyed moonbeams, golden bushes and flaming whirlpools; curls -of fair and smiling maidens, of fleeing nymphs, of passionate -bacchantes, of swooning sirens, of cold virgins, of frolicsome children, -whom angels, mothers, fauns, lovers, have caressed with their calm or -quivering hands. And then here, pellmell, are the monsters that cannot -be classed: hedgehogs, spiders, curly endives, pineapples, pompons, -Tudor roses, shells, vapours, breaths, stalactites of ice and falling -snow, a throbbing hail of sparks, wings, flashes, fluffy, pulpy, fleshy -things, wattles, bristles, funeral piles and sky-rockets, bursts of -light, a stream of fire and sulphur. - - -III - -Now that the shapes have capitulated comes the question of conquering -the region of the proscribed colours, of the reserved shades, which the -autumn, as we can see, denies to the flowers that represent it. Lavishly -it bestows on them all the wealth of the twilight and the night, all the -riches of the harvest-time: it gives them all the mud-brown work of the -rain in the woods, all the silvery fashionings of the mist in the -plains, of the frost and the snow in the gardens. It permits them, above -all, to draw at will upon the inexhaustible treasures of the dead leaves -and the expiring forest. It allows them to deck - -[Illustration] - -themselves with the golden sequins, the bronze medals, the silver -buckles, the copper spangles, the elfin plumes, the powdered amber, the -burnt topazes, the neglected pearls, the smoked amethysts, the calcined -garnets, all the dead but still dazzling jewellery which the North Wind -heaps up in the hollows of ravines and footpaths; but it insists that -they shall remain faithful to their old masters and wear the livery of -the drab and weary months that give them birth. It does not permit them -to betray those masters and to don the princely, changing dresses of the -spring and the dawn; and if, sometimes, it suffers a pink, this is only -on condition that it be borrowed from the cold lips, the pale brow of -the veiled and afflicted virgin praying on a tomb. It forbids most -strictly the tints of summer, of too youthful, ardent and serene a life, -of a health too joyous and expansive. In no case will it consent to -hilarious vermilions, impetuous scarlets, imperious and dazzling -purples. As for the blues, from the azure of the dawn to the indigo of -the sea and the deep lakes, from the periwinkle to the borage and the -cornflower, they are banished on pain of death. - - -IV - -Nevertheless, thanks to some forgetfulness of nature, the most unusual -colour in the world of flowers and the most severely forbidden--the -colour which the corolla of the poisonous euphorbia is almost the only -one to wear in the city of the umbels, petals and calyces--green, the -colour exclusively reserved for the servile and nutrient leaves, has -penetrated within the jealously-guarded precincts. True, it has slipped -in only by favour of a lie, as a traitor, a spy, a livid deserter. It is -a forsworn yellow, steeped fearfully in the fugitive azure of the -moonbeam. It is still of the night and false, like the opal depths of -the sea; it reveals itself only in shifting patches at the tips of the -petals; it is vague and anxious, frail and elusive, but undeniable. It -has made its entrance, it exists, it asserts itself; it will be daily -more fixed and more determined; and, through the breach which it has -contrived, all the joys and all the splendours of the banished prism -will hurl themselves into their virgin domain, there to prepare -unaccustomed feasts for our eyes. This is a great tiding and a memorable -conquest in the land of flowers. - -We must not think that it is puerile thus to interest one’s self in the -capricious forms, the unwritten shades of a humble, useless flower, nor -must we treat those who seek to make it more beautiful or more strange -as La Bruyère once treated the lover of the tulip or the plum. Do you -remember the charming page? - - * * * * * - -“The lover of flowers has a garden in the suburbs, where he spends all -his time from sunrise to sunset. You see him standing there and would -think that he had taken root in the midst of his tulips before his -‘Solitaire;’ he opens his eyes wide, rubs his hands, stoops down and -looks closer at it; it never before seemed to him so handsome; he is in -an ecstasy of joy, and leaves it to go to the ‘Orient,’ then to the -‘Widow,’ from thence to the ‘Cloth of Gold,’ on to the ‘Agatha,’ and at -last returns to the ‘Solitaire,’ where he remains, is tired out, sits -down, and forgets his dinner; he looks at the tulip and admires its -shade, shape, colour, sheen and edges, its beautiful form and calyc; but -God and nature are not in his thoughts, for they do not go beyond the -bulb of his tulip, which he would not sell for a thousand crowns, though -he will give it to you for nothing when tulips are no longer in fashion -and carnations are all the rage. This rational being, who has a soul and -professes some religion, comes home tired and half starved, but very -pleased with his day’s work: he has seen some tulips. - -“Talk to another of the healthy look of the crops, of a plentiful -harvest, of a good vintage, and you will find that he cares only for -fruit and understands not a single word that you say; then turn to figs -and melons; tell him that this year the pear-trees are so heavily laden -with fruit that the branches almost break, that there is abundance of -peaches, and you address him in a language which he completely ignores, -and he will not answer you, for his sole hobby is plum-trees. Do not -even speak to him of your plum-trees, for he is fond of only a certain -kind, and laughs and sneers at the mention of any others; he takes you -to his tree and cautiously gathers this exquisite plum, divides it, -gives you one half, keeps the other himself and exclaims, ‘How -delicious! Do you like it? Is it not heavenly? You cannot find its equal -anywhere;’ and then his nostrils dilate, and he can hardly contain his -joy and pride under an appearance of modesty. What a wonderful person, -never enough praised and admired, whose name will be handed down to -future ages! Let me look at his mien and shape, while he is still in the -land of the living, that I may study the features and the countenance of -a man who, alone among mortals, is the happy possessor of such a plum.” - - * * * * * - -Well, La Bruyère is wrong. We readily forgive him his mistake, for the -sake of the marvellous window, which he, alone among the authors of his -time, opens upon the unexpected gardens of the seventeenth century. The -fact none the less remains that it is to his somewhat bigoted florist, -to his somewhat frenzied horticulturist, that we owe our exquisite -flower-beds, our more varied, more abundant, more luscious vegetables, -our even more delicious fruits. Contemplate, for instance, around the -chrysanthemums, the marvels that ripen nowadays in the meanest gardens, -among the long branches wisely subdued by the patient and generous -espaliers. Less than a century ago they were unknown; and we owe them to -the trifling and innumerable exertions of a legion of small seekers, all -more or less narrow, all more or less ridiculous. - -It is thus that man acquires nearly all his riches. There is nothing -that is puerile in nature; and he who becomes impassioned of a flower, a -blade of grass, a butterfly’s wing, a nest, a shell, wraps his passion -around a small thing that always contains a great truth. To succeed in -modifying the appearance of a flower is insignificant in itself, if you -will; but reflect upon it for however short a while, and it becomes -gigantic. Do we not violate, or deviate, profound, perhaps essential -and, in any case, time-honoured laws? Do we not exceed too easily -accepted limits? Do we not directly intrude our ephemeral will on that -of the eternal forces? Do we not give the idea of a singular power, a -power almost supernatural, since it inverts a natural order of things? -And, although it is prudent to guard against over-ambitious dreams, does -not this allow us to hope that we may perhaps learn to elude or to -transgress other laws no less time-honoured, nearer to ourselves and -important in a very different manner? For, in short, all things touch, -all things go hand to hand; all things obey the same invisible -principles, the identical exigencies; all things share in the same -spirit, in the same substance, in the terrifying and wonderful problem; -and the most modest victory gained in the matter of a flower may one -day disclose to us an infinity of the untold.... - - -V - -Because of these things I love the chrysanthemum; because of these -things I follow its evolution with a brother’s interest. It is, among -familiar plants, the most submissive, the most docile, the most -tractable and the most attentive plant of all that we meet on life’s -long way. It bears flowers impregnated through and through with the -thought and will of man: flowers already human, so to speak. And, if the -vegetable world is some day to reveal to us one of the words that we are -awaiting, perhaps it will be through this flower of the tombs that we -shall learn the first secret of existence, even - -as, in another kingdom, it is probably -through the dog, the almost thinking -guardian of our homes, that we -shall discover the mystery -of animal life. - - -THE END - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Old Fashioned Flowers, by Maurice Maeterlinck - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD FASHIONED FLOWERS *** - -***** This file should be named 55591-0.txt or 55591-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/5/9/55591/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif & The Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Old Fashioned Flowers - and other out-of-door studies - -Author: Maurice Maeterlinck - -Translator: Alexander Teixeira De Mattos - -Release Date: September 21, 2017 [EBook #55591] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD FASHIONED FLOWERS *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif & The Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="c"> -<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="302" height="500" alt="[Image -of the book's cover unavailable.]" /></a> -</p> - -<p><a name="front" id="front"></a></p> - -<p class="c"> -<a href="images/i002_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i002_sml.jpg" width="282" height="500" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -</p> - -<p class="c"> -<a href="images/i003_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i003_sml.jpg" width="284" height="500" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -</p> - -<h1><a href="images/title_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/title_sml.jpg" -width="266" -alt="OLD -FASHIONED -FLOWERS - -AND OTHER -OUT-OF-DOOR -STUDIES - -BY - -MAURICE -MAETERLINCK - -TRANSLATED BY -ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA -DE MATTOS - -ILLUSTRATED - -NEW YORK -DODD, MEAD & CO. -1905" -/></a></h1> - -<p class="c"><small>COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE OUTLOOK COMPANY<br /> -COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE CENTURY CO.<br /> -COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY<br /><br /> - -PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1905<br /> -<br /> -COMPOSITION AND ELECTROTYPE PLATES BY<br /> -D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON</small> -</p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td><a href="#OLD-FASHIONED_FLOWERS">OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS</a> </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_003">3</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#NEWS_OF_SPRING">NEWS OF SPRING</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_043">43</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#FIELD_FLOWERS">FIELD FLOWERS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_065">65</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><a href="#CHRYSANTHEMUMS">CHRYSANTHEMUMS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_085">85</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#front">“I HAVE SEEN THEM ... IN THE GARDEN OF AN OLD SAGE”</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#front"> <i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#page_020">“THE HOLLYHOCK ... FLAUNTS HER COCKADES” </a> </td><td class="rt"><i>Facing page</i> <a href="#page_020">20</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#page_050">“A CLUSTER OF CYPRESSES, WITH ITS PURE OUTLINE”</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_050">50</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#page_070">“THAT SORT OF CRY AND CREST OF LIGHT AND JOY”</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_070">70</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#page_074">“HERE IS THE SAD COLUMBINE”</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_074">74</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#page_092">THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS</a></td><td class="rt"><a href="#page_092">92</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a>{1}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="OLD-FASHIONED_FLOWERS" id="OLD-FASHIONED_FLOWERS"></a>OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a>{2}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a>{3}</span></p> - -<p class="titl"> -<a href="images/i013_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i013_sml.jpg" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<br /> -<i>OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span><small>HIS</small> morning, when I went to look at my flowers, surrounded by their -white fence, which protects them against the good cattle grazing in the -field beyond, I saw again in my mind all that blossoms in the woods, the -fields, the gardens, the orangeries and the green-houses, and I thought -of all that we owe to the world of marvels which the bees visit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a>{4}</span></p> - -<p>Can we conceive what humanity would be if it did not know the flowers? -If these did not exist, if they had all been hidden from our gaze, as -are probably a thousand no less fairy sights that are all around us, but -invisible to our eyes, would our character, our faculties, our sense of -the beautiful, our aptitude for happiness, be quite the same? We should, -it is true, in nature have other splendid manifestations of luxury, -exuberance and grace; other dazzling efforts of the superfluous forces: -the sun, the stars, the varied lights of the moon, the azure and the -ocean, the dawns and twilights, the mountain, the plain, the forest and -the rivers, the light and the trees, and lastly, nearer to us, birds,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a>{5}</span> -precious stones and woman. These are the ornaments of our planet. Yet -but for the last three, which belong to the same smile of nature, how -grave, austere, almost sad, would be the education of our eye without -the softness which the flowers give! Suppose for a moment that our globe -knew them not: a great region, the most enchanted in the joys of our -psychology, would be destroyed, or rather would not be discovered. All -of a delightful sense would sleep for ever at the bottom of our harder -and more desert hearts and in our imagination stripped of worshipful -images. The infinite world of colours and shades would have been but -incompletely revealed to us by a few rents in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a>{6}</span> the sky. The miraculous -harmonies of light at play, ceaselessly inventing new gaieties, -revelling in itself, would be unknown to us; for the flowers first broke -up the prism and made the most subtle portion of our sight. And the -magic garden of perfumes—who would have opened its gate to us? A few -grasses, a few gums, a few fruits, the breath of the dawn, the smell of -the night and the sea, would have told us that beyond our eyes and ears -there existed a shut paradise where the air which we breathe changes -into delights for which we could have found no name. Consider also all -that the voice of human happiness would lack! One of the blessed heights -of our soul would be almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a>{7}</span> dumb, if the flowers had not, since -centuries, fed with their beauty the language which we speak and the -thoughts that endeavour to crystallize the most precious hours of life. -The whole vocabulary, all the impressions of love, are impregnate with -their breath, nourished with their smile. When we love, all the flowers -that we have seen and smelt seem to hasten within us to people with -their known charms the consciousness of a sentiment whose happiness, but -for them, would have no more form than the horizons of the sea or sky. -They have accumulated within us, since our childhood, and even before -it, in the soul of our fathers, an immense treasure, the nearest to our -joys, upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a>{8}</span> which we draw each time that we wish to make more real the -clement minutes of our life. They have created and spread in our world -of sentiment the fragrant atmosphere in which love delights.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a>{9}</span></p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span><small>HAT</small> is why I love above all the simplest, the commonest, the oldest and -the most antiquated; those which have a long human past behind them, a -large array of kind and consoling actions; those which have lived with -us for hundreds of years and which form part of ourselves, since they -reflect something of their grace and their joy of life in the soul of -our ancestors.</p> - -<p>But where do they hide themselves? They are becoming rarer than those -which we call rare flowers to-day. Their life is secret and precarious. -It seems as though we were on the point of losing them, and perhaps -there are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a>{10}</span> some which, discouraged at last, have lately disappeared, of -which the seeds have died under the ruins, which will no more know the -dew of the gardens and which we shall find only in very old books, amid -the bright grass of the Illuminators or along the yellow flower-beds of -the Primitives.</p> - -<p>They are driven from the borders and the proud baskets by arrogant -strangers from Peru, the Cape of Good Hope, China, Japan. They have two -pitiless enemies in particular. The first of these is the encumbering -and prolific Begonia Tuberosa, that swarms in the beds like a tribe of -turbulent fighting-cocks, with innumerous combs. It is pretty, but -insolent and a little artificial; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a>{11}</span> whatever the silence and -meditation of the hour, under the sun and under the moon, in the -intoxication of the day and the solemn peace of the night, it sounds its -clarion cry and celebrates its victory, monotonous, shrill and -scentless. The other is the Double Geranium, not quite so indiscreet, -but indefatigable also and extraordinarily courageous. It would appear -desirable were it less lavished. These two,—with the help of a few more -cunning strangers and of the plants with coloured leaves that close up -those turgid mosaics which at present debase the beautiful lines of most -of our lawns,—these two have gradually ousted their native sisters from -the spots which these had so long brightened with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a>{12}</span> their familiar -smiles. They no longer have the right to receive the guest with artless -little cries of welcome at the gilded gates of the mansion. They are -forbidden to prattle near the steps, to twitter in the marble vases, to -hum their tune beside the lakes, to lisp their dialect along the -borders. A few of them have been relegated to the kitchen-garden, in the -neglected and, for that matter, delightful corner occupied by the -medicinal or merely aromatic plants, the Sage, the Tarragon, the Fennel -and the Thyme,—old servants, too, dismissed and nourished through a -sort of pity or mechanical tradition. Others have taken refuge by the -stables, near the low door of the kitchen or the cellar, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a>{13}</span> they -crowd humbly like importunate beggars, hiding their bright dresses among -the weeds and holding their frightened perfumes as best they may, so as -not to attract attention.</p> - -<p>But, even there, the Pelargonium, red with indignation, and the Begonia, -crimson with rage, came to surprise and hustle the unoffending little -band; and they fled to the farms, the cemeteries, the little gardens of -the rectories, the old maid’s houses and the country convents. And now -hardly anywhere, save in the oblivion of the oldest villages, around -tottering dwellings, far from the railways and the nursery-gardener’s -overbearing hot-houses, do we find them again with their natural<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a>{14}</span> smile; -not wearing a driven, panting and hunted look, but peaceful, calm, -restful, plentiful, careless and at home. And, even as in former times, -in the coaching-days, from the top of the stone wall that surrounds the -house, through the rails of the white fence, or from the sill of the -windows enlivened by a caged bird, on the motionless road where none -passes, save the eternal forces of life, they see spring come and -autumn, the rain and the sun, the butterflies and the bees, the silence -and the night followed by the light of the moon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a>{15}</span></p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span><small>RAVE</small> old flowers! Wall-flowers, Gillyflowers, Stocks! For, even as the -field-flowers, from which a trifle, a ray of beauty, a drop of perfume, -divides them, they have charming names, the softest in the language; and -each of them, like tiny, artless ex-votos, or like medals bestowed by -the gratitude of men, proudly bears three or four. You Stocks, who sing -among the ruined walls and cover with light the grieving stones; you -Garden Primroses, Primulas or Cowslips, Hyacinths, Crocuses, Crown -Imperials, Scented Violets, Lilies of the Valley, Forget-me-nots, -Daisies and Periwinkles, Poet’s Narcissuses,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a>{16}</span> Pheasant’s-Eyes, -Bear’s-Ears, Alyssums, Saxifrage, Anemones—it is through you that the -months that come before the leaf-time—February, March, April—translate -into smiles which men can understand the first news and the first -mysterious kisses of the sun! You are frail and chilly and yet as -bold-faced as a bright idea. You make young the grass; you are fresh as -the water that flows in the azure cups which the dawn distributes over -the greedy buds, ephemeral as the dreams of a child, almost wide still -and almost spontaneous, yet already marked by the too precocious -brilliancy, the too flaming nimbus, the too pensive grace, that -overwhelm the flowers which yield obedience to man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a>{17}</span></p> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span><small>UT</small> here, innumerous, disordered, many-coloured, tumultuous, drunk with -dawns and noons, come the luminous dances of the daughters of Summer! -Little girls with white veils and old maids in violet ribbons, -school-girls home for the holidays, first-communicants, pale nuns, -dishevelled romps, gossips and prudes. Here is the Marigold, who breaks -up with her brightness the green of the borders. Here is the Camomile, -like a nosegay of snow, beside her unwearying brothers, the Garden -Chrysanthemums, whom we must not confuse with the Japanese -Chrysanthemums of autumn. The Annual<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a>{18}</span> Helianthus, or Sunflower, towers -like a priest raising the monstrance over the lesser folk in prayer and -strives to resemble the luminary which he adores. The Poppy exerts -himself to fill with light his cup torn by the morning wind. The rough -Larkspur, in his peasant’s blouse, who thinks himself more beautiful -than the sky, looks down upon the Dwarf Convolvuluses, who reproach him -spitefully with putting too much blue into the azure of his flowers. The -Virginia Stock, arch and demure in her gown of jaconet, like the little -servant-maids of Dordrecht or Leyden, washes the borders of the beds -with innocence. The Mignonette hides herself in her laboratory and -silently<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a>{19}</span> distils perfumes that give us a foretaste of the air which we -breathe on the threshold of Paradises. The Peonies, who have drunk their -imprudent fill of the sun, burst with enthusiasm and bend forward to -meet the coming apoplexy. The Scarlet Flax traces a bloodstained furrow -that guards the walks; and the Portulaca, creeping like a moss, studies -to cover with mauve, amber or pink taffeta the soil that has remained -bare at the foot of the tall stalks. The chub-faced Dahlia, a little -round, a little stupid, carves out of soap, lard or wax his regular -pompons, which will be the ornament of a village holiday. The old, -paternal Phlox, standing amid the clusters, lavishes the loud laughter -of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a>{20}</span> jolly, easy-going colours. The Mallows, or Lavateras, like -demure misses, feel the tenderest blushes of fugitive modesty mount to -their corollas at the slightest breath. The Nasturtium paints his water -colours, or screams like a parakeet climbing up the bars of its cage; -and the Rose-mallow, Althæa Rosea, Hollyhock, riding the high horse of -her many names, flaunts her cockades of a flesh silkier than a maiden’s -breast. The Snapdragon and the almost transparent Balsam are more -timorous and awkward and fearfully press their flowers against their -stalks.</p> - -<p>Next, in the discreet corner of the old families, are crowded the -Long-leaved Veronica; the Red Potentilla; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a>{21}</span></p> - -<p class="c"><a href="images/i031_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i031_sml.jpg" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a></p> - -<p>African Marigold; the ancient Lychnis, or Maltese Cross; the Mournful -Widow, or Purple Scabious; the Foxglove, or Digitalis, who shoots up -like a melancholy rocket; the European Aquilegia, or Columbine; the -Viscaria, who, on a long, slim neck, lifts a small ingenuous, quite -round face to admire the sky; the lurking Lunaria, who secretly -manufactures the “Pope’s money,” those pale, flat crown-pieces with -which, no doubt, the elves and fairies by moonlight carry on their trade -in spells; lastly, the Pheasant’s-Eye, the red Valerian, or -Jupiter’s-Beard, the Sweet William and the old Carnation, that was -cultivated long ago by the Grand Condé in his exile.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a>{22}</span></p> - -<p>Besides these, above, all around, on the walls, in the hedges, among the -arbours, along the branches, like a people of sportive monkeys and -birds, the climbing plants make merry, perform feats of gymnastics, play -at swinging, at losing and recovering their balance, at falling, at -flying, at looking up at space, at reaching beyond the treetops to kiss -the sky. Here we have the Spanish Bean and the Sweet Pea, quite proud at -being no longer included among the vegetables; the modest Volubilis; the -Honeysuckle, whose scent represents the soul of the dew; the Clematis -and the Glycine; while, at the windows, between the white curtains, -along the stretched string, the Campanula, surnamed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a>{23}</span> Pyramidalis, works -such miracles, throws out sheaves and twists garlands formed of a -thousand uniform flowers so prodigiously immaculate and transparent that -they who see it for the first time, refusing to believe their eyes, want -to touch with their finger the bluey marvel, cool as a fountain, pure as -a source, unreal as a dream.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, in a blaze of light, the great white Lily, the old lord of -the gardens, the only authentic prince among all the commonalty issuing -from the kitchen-garden, the ditches, the copses, the pools and the -moors, among the strangers come from none knows where, with his -invariable six-petalled chalice of silver, whose nobility dates<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a>{24}</span> back to -that of the gods themselves—the immemorial Lily raises his ancient -sceptre, august, inviolate, which creates around it a zone of chastity, -silence and light.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a>{25}</span></p> - -<h3>V</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> <small>HAVE</small> seen them, those whom I have named and as many whom I have -forgotten, all thus collected in the garden of an old sage, the same -that taught me to love the bees. They displayed themselves in beds and -clusters, in symmetrical borders, ellipses, oblongs, quincunxes and -lozenges, surrounded by box hedges, red bricks, earthenware tiles or -brass chains, like precious matters contained in ordered receptacles -similar to those which we find in the discoloured engravings that -illustrate the works of the old Dutch poet, Jacob Cats. And the flowers -were drawn up in rows, some according to their kinds,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a>{26}</span> others according -to their shapes and shades, while others, lastly, mingled, according to -the happy chances of the wind and the sun, the most hostile and -murderous colours, in order to show that nature acknowledges no -dissonance and that all that lives creates its own harmony.</p> - -<p>From its twelve rounded windows, with their shining panes, their muslin -curtains, their broad green shutters, the long, painted house, pink and -gleaming as a shell, watched them wake at dawn and throw off the brisk -diamonds of the dew and then close at night under the blue darkness that -falls from the stars. One felt that it took an intelligent pleasure in -this gentle, daily<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a>{27}</span> fairy-scene, itself solidly planted between two -clear ditches that lost themselves in the distance of the immense -pasturage dotted with motionless cows, while, by the roadside, a proud -mill, bending forward like a preacher, made familiar signs with its -paternal sails to the passers-by from the village.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a>{28}</span></p> - -<h3>VI</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span><small>AS</small> this earth of ours a fairer ornament of its hours of leisure than -the care of flowers? It was beautiful to see thus collected for the -pleasure of the eyes, around the house of my placid friend, the splendid -throng that tills the light to win from it marvellous colours, honey and -perfumes. He found there translated into visible joys, fixed at the -gates of his house, the scattered, fleeting and almost intangible -delights of summer,—the voluptuous air, the clement nights, the -emotional sunbeams, the glad hours, the confiding dawn, the whispering -and mysterious azured space. He enjoyed not only their dazzling<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a>{29}</span> -presence; he also hoped—probably unwisely, so deep and confused is that -mystery—he also hoped, by dint of questioning them, to surprise, with -their aid, I know not what secret law or idea of nature, I know not what -private thought of the universe, which perhaps betrays itself in those -ardent moments in which it strives to please other beings, to beguile -other lives and to create beauty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>{30}</span></p> - -<h3>VII</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span><small>LD</small> flowers, I said. I was wrong; for they are not so old. When we study -their history and investigate their pedigrees, we learn with surprise -that most of them, down to the simplest and commonest, are new beings, -freedmen, exiles, newcomers, visitors, foreigners. Any botanical -treatise will reveal their origins. The Tulip, for instance (remember La -Bruyère’s “Solitary,” “Oriental,” “Agate,” and “Cloth of Gold”), came -from Constantinople in the sixteenth century. The Ranuncula, the -Lunaria, the Maltese Cross, the Balsam, the Fuchsia, the African -Marigold, or Tagetes Erecta, the Rose<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a>{31}</span> Campion, or Lychnis Coronaria, -the two-coloured Aconite, the Amaranthus Caudatus, or -Love-lies-bleeding, the Hollyhock and the Campanula Pyramidalis arrived -at about the same time from the Indies, Mexico, Persia, Syria and Italy. -The Pansy appears in 1613; the Yellow Alyssum in 1710; the Perennial -Flax in 1775; the Scarlet Flax in 1819; the Purple Scabious in 1629; the -Saxifraga Sarmentosa in 1771; the Long-leaved Veronica in 1713. The -Perennial Phlox is a little older. The Indian Pink made its entrance -into our gardens about 1713. The Garden Pink is of modern date. The -Portulaca did not make her appearance till 1828; the Scarlet Sage till -1822. The Ageratum,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a>{32}</span> or Cœlestinum, now so plentiful and so popular, -is not two centuries old. The Helichrysum, or Everlasting, is even -younger. The Zinnia is exactly a centenarian. The Spanish Bean, a native -of South America, and the Sweet Pea, an immigrant from Sicily, number a -little over two hundred years. The Anthemis, whom we find in the -least-known villages, has been cultivated only since 1699. The charming -blue Lobelia of our borders came to us from the Cape of Good Hope at the -time of the French Revolution. The China Aster, or Reine Marguerite, is -dated 1731. The Annual or Drummond’s Phlox, now so common, was sent over -from Texas in 1835. The large-flowered<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a>{33}</span> Lavatera, who looks so confirmed -a native, so simple a rustic, has blossomed in our gardens only since -two centuries and a half; and the Petunia since some twenty lustres. The -Mignonette, the Heliotrope—who would believe it?—are not two hundred -years old. The Dahlia was born in 1802; and the Gladiolus is of -yesterday.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a>{34}</span></p> - -<h3>VIII</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span><small>HAT</small> flowers, then, blossomed in the gardens of our fathers? Very few, -no doubt, and very small and very humble, scarce to be distinguished -from those of the roads, the fields and the glades. Before the sixteenth -century, those gardens were almost bare; and, later, Versailles itself, -the splendid Versailles, could have shown us only what is shown to-day -by the poorest village. Alone, the Violet, the Garden Daisy, the Lily of -the Valley, the Marigold, the Poppy, a few Crocuses, a few Irises, a few -Colchicums, the Foxglove, the Valerian, the Larkspur, the Cornflower, -the Clove, the Forget-me-not, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a>{35}</span> Gillyflower, the Mallow, the Rose, -still almost a Sweetbriar, and the great silver Lily, the spontaneous -finery of our woods and of our snow-frightened, wind-frightened -fields—these alone smiled upon our forefathers, who, for that matter, -were unaware of their poverty. Man had not yet learnt to look around -him, to enjoy the life of nature. Then came the Renascence, the great -voyages, the discovery and invasion of the sunlight. All the flowers of -the world, the successful efforts, the deep, inmost beauties, the joyful -thoughts and wishes of the planet, rose up to us, borne on a shaft of -light that, in spite of its heavenly wonder, issued from our own earth. -Man ventured<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a>{36}</span> forth from the cloister, the crypt, the town of brick and -stone, the gloomy stronghold in which he had slept. He went down into -the garden, which became peopled with azure, purple and perfumes, opened -his eyes, astounded like a child escaping from the dreams of the night; -and the forest, the plain, the sea and the mountains, and, lastly, the -birds and the flowers, that speak in the name of all a more human -language which he already understood, greeted his awakening.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a>{37}</span></p> - -<h3>IX</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span><small>OWADAYS</small>, perhaps, there are no more unknown flowers. We have found all, -or nearly all, the forms which nature lends to the great dream of love, -to the yearning for beauty that stirs within her bosom. We live, so to -speak, in the midst of her tenderest confidences, of her most touching -inventions. We take an unhoped-for part in the most mysterious festivals -of the invisible force that animates us also. Doubtless, in appearance, -it is a small thing that a few more flowers should adorn our beds. They -only scatter a few impotent smiles along the paths that lead to the -grave. It is none the less true that these are new<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a>{38}</span> and very real -smiles, which were unknown to those who came before us; and this -recently-discovered happiness spreads in every direction, even to the -doors of the most wretched hovels. The good, the simple flowers are as -happy and as gorgeous in the poor man’s strip of garden as in the broad -lawns of the great house, and they surround the cottage with the supreme -beauty of the earth; for the earth has till now produced nothing more -beautiful than the flowers. They have completed the conquest of the -globe. Foreseeing the days when men shall at last have long and equal -leisure, already they promise an equality in sane enjoyments. Yes, -assuredly it is a small thing; and everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a>{39}</span> is a small thing, if we -look at each of our little victories one by one. It is a small thing, -too, in appearance, that we should have a few more thoughts in our -heads, a new feeling at our hearts; and yet it is just that which slowly -leads us where we hope to win.</p> - -<p>After all, we have here a very real fact, namely, that we live in a -world in which flowers are more beautiful and more numerous than -formerly; and perhaps we have the right to add that the thoughts of men -are more just and greedier of truth. The smallest joy gained and the -smallest grief conquered should be marked in the Book of Humanity. It -behooves us not to lose sight of any of the evidence that we are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a>{40}</span> -mastering the nameless powers, that we are beginning to handle some of -the mysterious laws that govern the created, that we are making our -planet all our own, that we are adorning our stay and gradually -broadening the acreage of happiness and of beautiful life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a>{41}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="NEWS_OF_SPRING" id="NEWS_OF_SPRING"></a>NEWS OF SPRING</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a>{42}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a>{43}</span></p> - -<p class="titl"><a href="images/i055_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i055_sml.jpg" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a><br /> -<i>NEWS OF SPRING</i></p> - - -<hr /> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> <small>HAVE</small> seen the manner in which Spring stores up sunshine, leaves and -flowers and makes ready, long beforehand, to invade the North. Here, on -the ever balmy shores of the Mediterranean—that motionless sea which -looks as though it were under glass—where, while the months are dark in -the rest of Europe, Spring has taken shelter from the wind and the snows -in a palace<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a>{44}</span> of peace and light and love, it is interesting to detect -its preparations for travelling in the fields of undying green. I can -see clearly that it is afraid, that it hesitates once more to face the -great frost-traps which February and March lay for it annually beyond -the mountains. It waits, it dallies, it tries its strength before -resuming the harsh and cruel way which the hypocrite winter seems to -yield to it. It stops, sets out again, revisits a thousand times, like a -child running round the garden of its holidays, the fragrant valleys, -the tender hills which the frost has never brushed with its wings. It -has nothing to do here, nothing to revive, since nothing has perished -and nothing suffered,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a>{45}</span> since all the flowers of every season bathe here -in the blue air of an eternal summer. But it seeks pretexts, it lingers, -it loiters, it goes to and fro like an unoccupied gardener. It pushes -aside the branches, fondles with its breath the olive-tree that quivers -with a silver smile, polishes the glossy grass, rouses the corollas that -were not asleep, recalls the birds that had never fled, encourages the -bees that were workers without ceasing; and then, seeing, like God, that -all is well in the spotless Eden, it rests for a moment on the ledge of -a terrace which the orange-tree crowns with regular flowers and with -fruits of light, and, before leaving, casts a last look over its labour -of joy and entrusts it to the sun.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a>{46}</span></p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> <small>HAVE</small> followed it, these past few days, on the banks of the Borigo, -from the torrent of Careï to the Val de Gorbio; in those little rustic -towns, Ventimiglia, Tende, Sospello; in those curious villages, perched -upon rocks, Sant’ Agnese, Castellar, Castillon; in that adorable and -already quite Italian country which surrounds Mentone. You go through a -few streets quickened with the cosmopolitan and somewhat hateful life of -the Riviera, you leave behind you the band-stand, with its everlasting -town music, around which gather the consumptive rank and fashion of -Mentone, and behold, at two steps from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a>{47}</span> crowd that dreads it as it -would a scourge from Heaven, you find the admirable silence of the -trees, all the goodly Virgilian realities of sunk roads, clear springs, -shady pools that sleep on the mountain-sides, where they seem to await a -goddess’s reflection. You climb a path between two stone walls -brightened by violets and crowned with the strange brown cowls of the -arisarum, with its leaves of so deep a green that one might believe them -to be created to symbolize the coolness of the well, and the -amphitheatre of a valley opens like a moist and splendid flower. Through -the blue veil of the giant olive-trees that cover the horizon with a -transparent curtain of scintillating pearls, gleams<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a>{48}</span> the discreet and -harmonious brilliancy of all that men imagine in their dreams and paint -upon scenes that are thought unreal and unrealizable, when they wish to -define the ideal gladness of an immortal hour, of some enchanted island, -of a lost paradise, or the dwelling of the gods.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a>{49}</span></p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span><small>LL</small> along the valleys of the coast are hundreds of these amphitheatres -which are as stages whereon, by moonlight or amid the peace of the -mornings and afternoons, are acted the dumb fairy-plays of the world’s -contentment. They are all alike, and yet each of them reveals a -different happiness. Each of them, as though they were the faces of a -bevy of equally happy and equally beautiful sisters, wears its -distinguishing smile. A cluster of cypresses, with its pure outline; a -mimosa that resembles a bubbling spring of sulphur; a grove of -orange-trees with dark and heavy tops symmetrically charged with golden<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a>{50}</span> -fruits that suddenly proclaim the royal affluence of the soil that feeds -them; a slope covered with lemon-trees, where the night seems to have -heaped up on a mountain-side, to await a new twilight, the stars -gathered by the dawn; a leafy portico which opens over the sea like a -deep glance that suddenly discloses an infinite thought; a brook hidden -like a tear of joy; a trellis awaiting the purple of the grapes, a great -stone basin drinking in the water that trickles from the tip of a green -reed—all and yet none modify the expression of the restfulness, the -tranquillity, the azure silence, the blissfulness that is its own -delight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a>{51}</span></p> - -<p class="c"><a href="images/i063_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i063_sml.jpg" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a></p> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span><small>UT</small> I am looking for winter and the print of its footsteps. Where is it -hiding? It should be here; and how dares this feast of roses and -anemones, of soft air and dew, of bees and birds, display itself with -such assurance during the most pitiless month of Winter’s reign? And -what will Spring do, what will Spring say, since all seems done, since -all seems said? Is it superfluous, then, and does nothing await it? No; -search carefully: you shall find amid this life of unwearying youth the -work of its hand, the perfume of its breath which is younger than life. -Thus, there are foreign trees yonder, taciturn guests, like poor -relations<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a>{52}</span> in ragged clothes. They come from very far, from the land of -fog and frost and wind. They are aliens, sullen and distrustful. They -have not yet learned the limpid speed, not adopted the delightful -customs of the azure. They refused to believe in the promises of the sky -and suspected the caresses of the sun which, from early dawn, covers -them with a mantle of silkier and warmer rays than that with which July -loaded their shoulders in the precarious summers of their native land. -It made no difference: at the given hour, when snow was falling a -thousand miles away, their trunks shivered, and, despite the bold -averment of the grass and a hundred thousand flowers, despite the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a>{53}</span> -impertinence of the roses that climb up to them to bear witness to life, -they stripped themselves for their winter sleep. Sombre and grim and -bare as the dead, they await the Spring that bursts forth around them; -and, by a strange and excessive reaction, they wait for it longer than -under the harsh, gloomy sky of Paris, for it is said that in Paris the -buds are already beginning to shoot. One catches glimpses of them here -and there amid the holiday throng whose motionless dances enchant the -hills. They are not many and they conceal themselves: they are gnarled -oaks, beeches, planes; and even the vine, which one would have thought -better-mannered, more docile and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a>{54}</span>well-informed, remains incredulous. -There they stand, black and gaunt, like sick people on an Easter Sunday -in the church-porch made transparent by the splendour of the sun. They -have been there for years, and some of them, perhaps, for two or three -centuries; but they have the terror of winter in their marrow. They will -never lose the habit of death. They have too much experience, they are -too old to forget and too old to learn. Their hardened reason refuses to -admit the light when it does not come at the accustomed time. They are -rugged old men, too wise to enjoy unforeseen pleasures. They are wrong. -For here, around the old, around the grudging ancestors, is a whole -world<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a>{55}</span> of plants that know nothing of the future, but give themselves to -it. They live but for a season; they have no past and no traditions and -they know nothing, except that the hour is fair and that they must enjoy -it. While their elders, their masters and their gods, sulk and waste -their time, they burst into flower; they love and they beget. They are -the humble flowers of dear solitude,—the Easter daisy that covers the -sward with its frank and methodical neatness; the borage bluer than the -bluest sky; the anemone, scarlet or dyed in aniline; the virgin -primrose; the arborescent mallow; the bell-flower, shaking its bells -that no one hears; the rosemary that looks like a little country<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a>{56}</span> maid; -and the heavy thyme that thrusts its grey head between the broken -stones.</p> - -<p>But, above all, this is the incomparable hour, the diaphanous and liquid -hour of the wood-violet. Its proverbial humility becomes usurping and -almost intolerant. It no longer cowers timidly among the leaves: it -hustles the grass, overtowers it, blots it out, forces its colours upon -it, fills it with its breath. Its unnumbered smiles cover the terraces -of olives and vines, the tracks of the ravines, the bend of the valleys -with a net of sweet and innocent gaiety; its perfume, fresh and pure as -the soul of the mountain spring, makes the air more translucent, the -silence more limpid and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a>{57}</span> is, in very deed, as a forgotten legend tells -us, the breath of Earth, all bathed in dew, when, a virgin yet, she -wakes in the sun and yields herself wholly in the first kiss of early -dawn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a>{58}</span></p> - -<h3>V</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span><small>GAIN</small>, in the little gardens that surround the cottages, the bright -little houses with their Italian roofs, the good vegetables, -unprejudiced and unpretentious, have known no fear. While the old -peasant, who has come to resemble the trees he cultivates, digs the -earth around the olives, the spinach assumes a lofty bearing, hastens to -grow green nor takes the smallest precaution; the garden bean opens its -eyes of jet in its pale leaves and sees the night fall unmoved; the -fickle peas shoot and lengthen out, covered with motionless and -tenacious butterflies, as though June had entered the farm-gate; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a>{59}</span> -carrot blushes as it faces the light; the ingenuous strawberry-plants -inhale the flavours which noontide lavishes upon them as it bends -towards earth its sapphire urns; the lettuce exerts itself to achieve a -heart of gold wherein to lock the dews of morning and night.</p> - -<p>The fruit-trees alone have long reflected: the example of the vegetables -among which they live urged them to join in the general rejoicing, but -the rigid attitude of their elders from the North, of the grandparents -born in the great dark forests, preached prudence to them. But now they -awaken: they too can resist no longer and at last make up their minds to -join the dance of perfumes and of love. The peach-trees<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a>{60}</span> are now no more -than a rosy miracle, like the softness of a child’s skin turned into -azure vapour by the breath of dawn. The pear and plum and apple and -almond-trees make dazzling efforts in drunken rivalry; and the pale -hazel-trees, like Venetian chandeliers, resplendent with a cascade of -gems, stand here and there to light the feast. As for the luxurious -flowers that seem to possess no other object than themselves, they have -long abandoned the endeavour to solve the mystery of this boundless -summer. They no longer score the seasons, no longer count the days, and, -knowing not what to do in the glowing disarray of hours that have no -shadow, dreading lest they should<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a>{61}</span> be deceived and lose a single second -that might be fair, they have resolved to bloom without respite from -January to December. Nature approves them, and, to reward their trust in -happiness, their generous beauty and amorous excesses, grants them a -force, a brilliancy and perfumes which she never gives to those which -hang back and show a fear of life.</p> - -<p>All this, among other truths, was proclaimed by the little house that I -saw to-day on the side of a hill all deluged in roses, carnations, -wall-flowers, heliotrope and mignonette, so as to suggest the source, -choked and overflowing with flowers, whence Spring was preparing to pour -down upon us; while,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a>{62}</span> upon the stone threshold of the closed door, -pumpkins, lemons, oranges, limes and Turkey figs slumbered in the -majestic, deserted, monotonous silence of a perfect day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a>{63}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="FIELD_FLOWERS" id="FIELD_FLOWERS"></a>FIELD FLOWERS</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a>{64}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a>{65}</span></p> - -<p class="titl"><a href="images/i079_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i079_sml.jpg" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a><br /> -<i>FIELD FLOWERS</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span><small>HEY</small> welcome our steps without the city gates, on a gay and eager carpet -of many colours, which they wave madly in the sunlight. It is evident -that they were expecting us. When the first bright rays of March -appeared, the Snowdrop, or Amaryllis, the heroic daughter of the -hoar-frost, sounded the reveille. Next sprang from the earth efforts, as -yet shapeless, of a slumbering<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a>{66}</span> memory,—vague ghosts of flowers, pale -flowers that are scarcely flowers at all: the three-fingered Saxifrage, -or Samphire; the almost invisible Shepherd’s-Pouch; the two-leaved -Squill; the Stinking Hellebore, or Christmas Rose; the Colt’s-Foot; the -gloomy and poisonous Spurge Laurel—all plants of frail and doubtful -health, pale-blue, pale-pink, undecided attempts, the first fever of -life in which nature expels her ill-humours, anæmic captives set free by -winter, convalescent patients from the underground prisons, timid and -unskilful endeavours of the still buried light.</p> - -<p>But soon this light ventures forth into space; the nuptial thoughts of -the earth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a>{67}</span> become clearer and purer; the rough attempts disappear; the -half-dreams of the night lift like a fog dispelled by the dawn; and the -good rustic flowers begin their unseen revels under the blue, all around -the cities where man knows them not. No matter, they are there, making -honey, while their proud and barren sisters, who alone receive our care, -are still trembling in the depths of the hot-houses. They will still be -there, in the flooded fields, in the broken paths, and adorning the -roads with their simplicity, when the first snows shall have covered the -country-side. No one sows them and no one gathers them. They survive -their glory, and man treads them under foot. Formerly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a>{68}</span> however, and not -so long ago, they alone represented Nature’s gladness. Formerly, -however, a few hundred years ago, before their dazzling and chilly -kinswomen had come from the Antilles, from India, from Japan, or before -their own daughters, ungrateful and unrecognizable, had usurped their -place, they alone enlivened the stricken gaze, they alone brightened the -cottage porch, the castle precincts, and followed the lovers’ footsteps -in the woods. But those times are no more; and they are dethroned. They -have retained of their past happiness only the names which they received -when they were loved.</p> - -<p>And these names show all that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a>{69}</span> were to man; all his gratitude, his -studious fondness, all that he owed them, all that they gave him, are -there contained, like a secular aroma in hollow pearls. And so they bear -names of queens, shepherdesses, virgins, princesses, sylphs and fairies, -which flow from the lips like a caress, a lightning-flash, a kiss, a -murmur of love. Our language, I think, contains nothing that is better, -more daintily, more affectionately named than these homely flowers. Here -the word clothes the idea almost always with care, with light precision, -with admirable happiness. It is like an ornate and transparent stuff -that moulds the form which it embraces and has the proper shade, perfume -and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a>{70}</span> sound. Call to mind the Easter Daisy, the Violet, the Bluebell, the -Poppy, or, rather, Coquelicot—the name is the flower itself. How -wonderful, for instance, that sort of cry and crest of light and joy, -“Coquelicot!”—to designate the scarlet flower which the scientists -crush under this barbarous title, Papaver rhœas! See the Primrose, -or, rather, the Cowslip, the Periwinkle, the Anemone, the Wild Hyacinth, -the blue Speedwell, the Forget-me-not, the Wild Bindweed, the Iris, the -Harebell: their name depicts them by equivalents and analogies which the -greatest poets but rarely light upon. It represents all their ingenuous -and visible soul. It hides itself, it bends over, it rises to the ear<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a>{71}</span> -even as those who bear it lie concealed, stoop forward, or stand erect -in the corn and in the grass.</p> - -<p>These are the few names that are known to all of us; we do not know the -others, though their music describes with the same gentleness, the same -happy genius, flowers which we see by every wayside and upon all the -paths. Thus, at this moment, that is to say, at the end of the month in -which the ripe corn falls beneath the reaper’s sickle, the banks of the -roads are a pale violet: it is the Sweet Scabious, who has blossomed at -last, discreet, aristocratically poor and modestly beautiful, as her -title, that of a mist-veiled precious stone, proclaims. Around her, a -treasure<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a>{72}</span> lies scattered: it is the Ranunculus, or Buttercup, who has -two names, even as he has two lives; for he is at once the innocent -virgin that covers the grass with sun-drops, and the redoubtable and -venomous wizard that deals out death to heedless animals. Again we have -the Milfoil and the St. John’s Wort, little flowers, once useful, that -march along the roads, like silent school-girls, clad in a dull uniform; -the vulgar and innumerous Bird’s Groundsel; her big brother, the Hare’s -Lettuce of the fields; then the dangerous black Nightshade; the -Bitter-sweet, who hides herself; the creeping Knotweed, with the patient -leaves: all the families without show, with the resigned smile,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a>{73}</span> wearing -the practical grey livery of autumn, which already is felt to be at -hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a>{74}</span></p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span><small>UT</small>, among those of March, April, May, June, July, remember the glad and -festive names, the springtime syllables, the vocables of azure and dawn, -of moonlight and sunshine! Here is the Snowdrop, or Amaryllis, who -proclaims the thaw; the Stitchwort, or Lady’s Collar, who greets the -first-communicants along the hedges, whose leaves are as yet -indeterminate and uncertain, like a diaphanous green lye. Here are the -sad Columbine and the Field Sage, the Jasione, the Angelica, the Field -Fennel, the Wall-flower, dressed like a servant of a village-priest; the -Osmond, who is a king fern; the Luzula,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a>{75}</span></p> - -<p class="c"><a href="images/i089_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i089_sml.jpg" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a></p> - -<p class="nind">the Parmelia, the Venus’ Looking-glass; the Esula or Wood Spurge, -mysterious and full of sombre fire; the Physalidis, whose fruit ripens -in a lantern; the Henbane, the Belladonna, the Digitalis, poisonous -queens, veiled Cleopatras of the untilled places and the cool woods. And -then, again, the Camomile, the good-capped Sister with a thousand -smiles, bringing the health-giving brew in an earthenware bowl; the -Pimpernel and the Coronilla, the pale Mint and the pink Thyme, the -Sainfoin and the Euphrasy, the Ox-eye Daisy, the mauve Gentian and the -blue Verbena, the Anthemis, the lance-shaped Horse-Thistle, the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a>{76}</span>Cinquefoil or Potentilla, the Dyer’s Weed ... to tell their names is to -recite a poem of grace and light. We have reserved for them the most -charming, the purest, the clearest sounds and all the musical gladness -of the language. One would think that they were the persons of a play, -dancers and choristers of an immense fairy-scene, more beautiful, more -startling and more supernatural than the scenes that unfold themselves -on Prospero’s Island, at the Court of Theseus, or in the Forest of -Arden. And the comely actresses of this silent, never-ending -comedy—goddesses, angels, she devils, princesses and witches, virgins -and courtezans, queens and shepherd-girls—carry in the folds of their -names the magic sheens of innumerous dawns, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a>{77}</span> innumerous springtimes -contemplated by forgotten men, even as they also carry the memory of -thousands of deep or fleeting emotions which were felt before them by -generations that have disappeared, leaving no other trace.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a>{78}</span></p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span><small>HEY</small> are interesting and incomprehensible. They are vaguely called the -“Weeds.” They serve no purpose. Here and there a few, in very old -villages, retain the spell of contested virtues. Here and there one of -them, right at the bottom of the apothecary’s or herbalist’s jars, still -awaits the coming of the sick man faithful to the infusions of -tradition. But sceptic medicine will have none of them. No longer are -they gathered according to the olden rites; and the science of “Simples” -is dying out in the housewife’s memory. A merciless war is waged upon -them. The husbandman fears them;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a>{79}</span> the plough pursues them; the gardener -hates them and has armed himself against them with clashing weapons: the -spade and the rake, the hoe and the scraper, the weeding-hook, the -grubbing-axe. Along the highroads, their last refuge, the passer-by -crushes them, the waggon bruises them. In spite of all, they are there: -permanent, assured, abundant, peaceful; and not one but answers the -summons of the sun. They follow the seasons without swerving by an hour. -They take no account of man, who exhausts himself in conquering them, -and, so soon as he rests, they spring up in his footsteps. They live on, -audacious, immortal, untamable. They have peopled our flower-baskets<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a>{80}</span> -with extravagant and unnatural daughters; but they, the poor mothers, -have remained similar to what they were a hundred thousand years ago. -They have not added a fold to their petals, reordered a pistil, altered -a shade, invented a perfume. They keep the secret of a mysterious -mission. They are the indelible primitives. The soil is theirs since its -origin. They represent, in short, an essential smile, an invariable -thought, an obstinate desire of the Earth.</p> - -<p>That is why it is well to question them. They have evidently something -to tell us. And, then, let us not forget that they were the first—with -the sunrises and sunsets, with the springs and autumns,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a>{81}</span> with the song -of the birds, with the hair, the glance and the divine movements of -women—to teach our fathers that there are useless and beautiful things -upon this globe.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a>{82}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a>{83}</span> </p> - -<h2><a name="CHRYSANTHEMUMS" id="CHRYSANTHEMUMS"></a>CHRYSANTHEMUMS</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a>{84}</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a>{85}</span></p> - -<p class="titl"><a href="images/i101_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i101_sml.jpg" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a><br /> -<i>CHRYSANTHEMUMS</i></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">E</span><small>VERY</small> year, in November, at the season that follows on the hour of the -dead, the crowning and majestic hour of autumn, reverently I go to visit -the chrysanthemums in the places where chance offers them to my sight. -For the rest, it matters little where they are shown to me by the good -will of travel or of sojourn. They are, indeed, the most universal, the -most diverse of flowers; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a>{86}</span> their diversity and surprises are, so to -speak, concerted, like those of fashion, in I know not what arbitrary -Edens. At the same moment, even as with silks, laces, jewels and curls, -a mysterious voice gives the password in time and space; and, docile as -the most beautiful women, simultaneously, in every country, in every -latitude, the flowers obey the sacred decree.</p> - -<p>It is enough, then, to enter at random one of those crystal museums in -which their somewhat funereal riches are displayed under the harmonious -veil of the days of November. We at once grasp the dominant idea, the -obtrusive beauty, the unexpected effort of the year in this special -world, strange and privileged<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a>{87}</span> even in the midst of the strange and -privileged world of flowers. And we ask ourselves if this new idea is a -profound and really necessary idea on the part of the sun, the earth, -life, autumn, or man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a>{88}</span></p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">Y</span><small>ESTERDAY</small>, then, I went to admire the year’s gentle and gorgeous floral -feast, the last which the snows of December and January, like a broad -belt of peace, sleep, silence and night, separate from the delicious -festivals that commence again with the germination (powerful already, -though hardly visible) that seeks the light in February.</p> - -<p>They are there, under the immense transparent dome, the noble flowers of -the month of fogs; they are there, at the royal meeting-place, all the -grave little autumn fairies, whose dances and attitudes seem to have -been struck motionless with a single word. The eye<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a>{89}</span> that recognizes them -and has learned to love them perceives, at the first pleased glance, -that they have actively and dutifully continued to evolve towards their -uncertain ideal. Go back for a moment to their modest origin: look at -the poor buttercup of yore, the humble little crimson or damask rose -that still smiles sadly, along the roads full of dead leaves, in the -scanty garden-patches of our villages; compare with them these enormous -masses and fleeces of snow, these disks and globes of red copper, these -spheres of old silver, these trophies of alabaster and amethyst, this -delirious prodigy of petals which seems to be trying to exhaust to its -last riddle the world of autumnal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a>{90}</span> shapes and shades which the winter -entrusts to the bosom of the sleeping woods; let the unwonted and -unexpected varieties pass before your eyes; admire and appraise them.</p> - -<p>Here, for instance, is the marvellous family of the stars: flat stars, -bursting stars, diaphanous stars, solid and fleshly stars, milky ways -and constellations of the earth that correspond with those of the -firmament. Here are the proud plumes that await the diamonds of the dew; -here, to put our dreams to shame, the fascinating poem of unreal -tresses: wise, precise and meticulous tresses; mad and miraculous -tresses; honeyed moonbeams, golden bushes and flaming whirlpools; curls -of fair and smiling<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a>{91}</span> maidens, of fleeing nymphs, of passionate -bacchantes, of swooning sirens, of cold virgins, of frolicsome children, -whom angels, mothers, fauns, lovers, have caressed with their calm or -quivering hands. And then here, pellmell, are the monsters that cannot -be classed: hedgehogs, spiders, curly endives, pineapples, pompons, -Tudor roses, shells, vapours, breaths, stalactites of ice and falling -snow, a throbbing hail of sparks, wings, flashes, fluffy, pulpy, fleshy -things, wattles, bristles, funeral piles and sky-rockets, bursts of -light, a stream of fire and sulphur.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a>{92}</span></p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span><small>OW</small> that the shapes have capitulated comes the question of conquering -the region of the proscribed colours, of the reserved shades, which the -autumn, as we can see, denies to the flowers that represent it. Lavishly -it bestows on them all the wealth of the twilight and the night, all the -riches of the harvest-time: it gives them all the mud-brown work of the -rain in the woods, all the silvery fashionings of the mist in the -plains, of the frost and the snow in the gardens. It permits them, above -all, to draw at will upon the inexhaustible treasures of the dead leaves -and the expiring forest. It allows them to deck<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a>{93}</span></p> - -<p class="c"><a href="images/i109_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/i109_sml.jpg" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a></p> - -<p class="nind">themselves with the golden sequins, the bronze medals, the silver -buckles, the copper spangles, the elfin plumes, the powdered amber, the -burnt topazes, the neglected pearls, the smoked amethysts, the calcined -garnets, all the dead but still dazzling jewellery which the North Wind -heaps up in the hollows of ravines and footpaths; but it insists that -they shall remain faithful to their old masters and wear the livery of -the drab and weary months that give them birth. It does not permit them -to betray those masters and to don the princely, changing dresses of the -spring and the dawn; and if, sometimes, it suffers a pink, this is only -on condition that it be borrowed from the cold lips, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a>{94}</span> pale brow of -the veiled and afflicted virgin praying on a tomb. It forbids most -strictly the tints of summer, of too youthful, ardent and serene a life, -of a health too joyous and expansive. In no case will it consent to -hilarious vermilions, impetuous scarlets, imperious and dazzling -purples. As for the blues, from the azure of the dawn to the indigo of -the sea and the deep lakes, from the periwinkle to the borage and the -cornflower, they are banished on pain of death.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a>{95}</span></p> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">N</span><small>EVERTHELESS</small>, thanks to some forgetfulness of nature, the most unusual -colour in the world of flowers and the most severely forbidden—the -colour which the corolla of the poisonous euphorbia is almost the only -one to wear in the city of the umbels, petals and calyces—green, the -colour exclusively reserved for the servile and nutrient leaves, has -penetrated within the jealously-guarded precincts. True, it has slipped -in only by favour of a lie, as a traitor, a spy, a livid deserter. It is -a forsworn yellow, steeped fearfully in the fugitive azure of the -moonbeam. It is still of the night and false, like the opal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a>{96}</span> depths of -the sea; it reveals itself only in shifting patches at the tips of the -petals; it is vague and anxious, frail and elusive, but undeniable. It -has made its entrance, it exists, it asserts itself; it will be daily -more fixed and more determined; and, through the breach which it has -contrived, all the joys and all the splendours of the banished prism -will hurl themselves into their virgin domain, there to prepare -unaccustomed feasts for our eyes. This is a great tiding and a memorable -conquest in the land of flowers.</p> - -<p>We must not think that it is puerile thus to interest one’s self in the -capricious forms, the unwritten shades of a humble, useless flower, nor -must we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a>{97}</span> treat those who seek to make it more beautiful or more strange -as La Bruyère once treated the lover of the tulip or the plum. Do you -remember the charming page?</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>“The lover of flowers has a garden in the suburbs, where he spends all -his time from sunrise to sunset. You see him standing there and would -think that he had taken root in the midst of his tulips before his -‘Solitaire;’ he opens his eyes wide, rubs his hands, stoops down and -looks closer at it; it never before seemed to him so handsome; he is in -an ecstasy of joy, and leaves it to go to the ‘Orient,’ then to the -‘Widow,’ from thence to the ‘Cloth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a>{98}</span> of Gold,’ on to the ‘Agatha,’ and at -last returns to the ‘Solitaire,’ where he remains, is tired out, sits -down, and forgets his dinner; he looks at the tulip and admires its -shade, shape, colour, sheen and edges, its beautiful form and calyc; but -God and nature are not in his thoughts, for they do not go beyond the -bulb of his tulip, which he would not sell for a thousand crowns, though -he will give it to you for nothing when tulips are no longer in fashion -and carnations are all the rage. This rational being, who has a soul and -professes some religion, comes home tired and half starved, but very -pleased with his day’s work: he has seen some tulips.</p> - -<p>“Talk to another of the healthy look<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a>{99}</span> of the crops, of a plentiful -harvest, of a good vintage, and you will find that he cares only for -fruit and understands not a single word that you say; then turn to figs -and melons; tell him that this year the pear-trees are so heavily laden -with fruit that the branches almost break, that there is abundance of -peaches, and you address him in a language which he completely ignores, -and he will not answer you, for his sole hobby is plum-trees. Do not -even speak to him of your plum-trees, for he is fond of only a certain -kind, and laughs and sneers at the mention of any others; he takes you -to his tree and cautiously gathers this exquisite plum, divides it, -gives you one half, keeps the other himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a>{100}</span> and exclaims, ‘How -delicious! Do you like it? Is it not heavenly? You cannot find its equal -anywhere;’ and then his nostrils dilate, and he can hardly contain his -joy and pride under an appearance of modesty. What a wonderful person, -never enough praised and admired, whose name will be handed down to -future ages! Let me look at his mien and shape, while he is still in the -land of the living, that I may study the features and the countenance of -a man who, alone among mortals, is the happy possessor of such a plum.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Well, La Bruyère is wrong. We readily forgive him his mistake, for the -sake of the marvellous window, which he, alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a>{101}</span> among the authors of his -time, opens upon the unexpected gardens of the seventeenth century. The -fact none the less remains that it is to his somewhat bigoted florist, -to his somewhat frenzied horticulturist, that we owe our exquisite -flower-beds, our more varied, more abundant, more luscious vegetables, -our even more delicious fruits. Contemplate, for instance, around the -chrysanthemums, the marvels that ripen nowadays in the meanest gardens, -among the long branches wisely subdued by the patient and generous -espaliers. Less than a century ago they were unknown; and we owe them to -the trifling and innumerable exertions of a legion of small seekers, all -more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>{102}</span> or less narrow, all more or less ridiculous.</p> - -<p>It is thus that man acquires nearly all his riches. There is nothing -that is puerile in nature; and he who becomes impassioned of a flower, a -blade of grass, a butterfly’s wing, a nest, a shell, wraps his passion -around a small thing that always contains a great truth. To succeed in -modifying the appearance of a flower is insignificant in itself, if you -will; but reflect upon it for however short a while, and it becomes -gigantic. Do we not violate, or deviate, profound, perhaps essential -and, in any case, time-honoured laws? Do we not exceed too easily -accepted limits? Do we not directly intrude our ephemeral<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a>{103}</span> will on that -of the eternal forces? Do we not give the idea of a singular power, a -power almost supernatural, since it inverts a natural order of things? -And, although it is prudent to guard against over-ambitious dreams, does -not this allow us to hope that we may perhaps learn to elude or to -transgress other laws no less time-honoured, nearer to ourselves and -important in a very different manner? For, in short, all things touch, -all things go hand to hand; all things obey the same invisible -principles, the identical exigencies; all things share in the same -spirit, in the same substance, in the terrifying and wonderful problem; -and the most modest victory gained in the matter of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a>{104}</span> a flower may one -day disclose to us an infinity of the untold....<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a>{105}</span></p> - -<h3>V</h3> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span><small>ECAUSE</small> of these things I love the chrysanthemum; because of these -things I follow its evolution with a brother’s interest. It is, among -familiar plants, the most submissive, the most docile, the most -tractable and the most attentive plant of all that we meet on life’s -long way. It bears flowers impregnated through and through with the -thought and will of man: flowers already human, so to speak. And, if the -vegetable world is some day to reveal to us one of the words that we are -awaiting, perhaps it will be through this flower of the tombs that we -shall learn the first secret of existence, even<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a>{106}</span></p> - -<p class="c"> -as, in another kingdom, it is probably<br /> -through the dog, the almost thinking<br /> -guardian of our homes, that we<br /> -shall discover the mystery<br /> -of animal life.<br /> -</p> - -<p class="c">THE END</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Old Fashioned Flowers, by Maurice Maeterlinck - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD FASHIONED FLOWERS *** - -***** This file should be named 55591-h.htm or 55591-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/5/9/55591/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif & The Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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