SECRET OF THE CHARM OF FLOWERS 157 



Undoubtedly he was right ; the blue sky, fair 

 weather, the open air, was a suggestion of the blue 

 flower. It amazed me to think of the years I had 

 spent under blue skies and of all I had felt about 

 blue flowers, without stumbling upon this very 

 simple fact. So simple, so near to the surface that 

 you no sooner hear it than you imagine you have 

 always known it ! It was impossible to look at 

 blue flowers and not be convinced of its truth, 

 especially when the flowers were spread over con- 

 siderable areas, as when I looked at wild hyacinths 

 in the spring woods, or followed the interminable 

 blue band of the vernal squill on the west Cornish 

 coast, or saw large arid tracts of land in Suffolk 

 blue with viper's bugloss. 



Oddly enough just after the letter containing 

 this criticism had reached me, another corres- 

 pondent who was also among my opponents, sent 

 me this fine passage from the old writer Sir John 

 Feme, on azure in blazoning : " Which blew colour 

 representeth the Aire amongst the elements, that 

 of all the rest is the greatest favourer of life, as 

 the only nurse and maintainer of spirits in any 

 living creature. The colour blew is commonly 

 taken from the blue skye which appeareth so often 

 as the tempests be overblowne, and notes pro- 



