THE PERIWINKLE. 



daisy, the primrose, and the dandelion. Along the skirts of 

 woods the anemone and the periwinkle display a long net- 

 work of verdure and flowers. These two friendly plants 

 exchange and mingle their mutual charms. The anemone, 

 with its soft foliage, deeply cut, is of a pretty green. The 

 periwinkle has its leaves evergreen, firm, and shining. The 

 flower of the periwinkle is blue ; that of the anemone pure 

 white, with a rosy or faint purple edging. The anemone 

 lasts but a day, but she reminds us of the vivid pleasures and 

 fleeting joys of our childhood. The periwinkle emblematizes 

 a more lasting happiness ; its colour is that which friendship 

 makes choice of, and its flower was to Rousseau, the emblem 

 of Pleasing Remembrances. "I was going," he said, ''to 

 reside at Charmettes, with Madame de Warens ; while 

 walking, she saw something blue in the hedge, and said to 

 me, * Voila de la pcrvcnclie encore en fleur! " 



\_Pervenc/ie, a modern French form of the Norman-French 

 name of this flower, as spoken of by Chaucer, 



" There sprang the violet all newe, 

 And fresh pervinke, rich of hewe."] 



" I had never seen the periwinkle," Rousseau adds ; " I did 

 not stoop to examine it, and I had too brief a view of it to 

 distinguish plants on the ground as I stood upright. I only 

 cast a glance upon it as I passed, and nearly thirty }'ears 

 had elapsed without my seeing th.e periwinkle again, or 

 thought of it. In 1764, being at Grcssien, with my friend, 

 M. du Pcyron, we were going up a little hill, at the top of 

 which was a pretty room, which he justly called Bcllevue. I 



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