SECRET OF THE CHARM OF FLOWERS 153 



which will instantly occur to some readers, and 

 may as well be answered in advance. This view, 

 or theory, must be wrong, a reader will perhaps 

 say, because my own preference is for a yellow 

 flower (the primrose or daffodil, let us say), which 

 to me has a beauty and charm exceeding all other 

 flowers. 



The obvious explanation of such a preference 

 would be that the particular flower preferred is 

 intimately associated with recollections of a happy 

 childhood, or of early life. The associations will 

 have made it a flower among flowers, charged with 

 a subtle magic, so that the mere sight or smell of 

 it calls up beautiful visions before the mind's eye. 

 Every person bred in a country place is affected 

 in this way by certain natural objects and odours ; 

 and I recall the case of Cuvier, who was always 

 affected to tears by the sight of some common 

 yellow flower, the name of which I have forgotten. 



The way to test the theory is to take, or think 

 of, two or three or half-a-dozen flowers that have 

 no personal associations with one's own early life 

 — that are not, like the primrose and daffodil in 

 the foregoing instance, sacred flowers, unlike all 

 others ; some with and some without human colour- 

 ing, and consider the feeling produced in each 



