12 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



Scenes such as these, though they be of the very 

 essence of spring in England, are altogether foreign 

 to spring in the Swiss Alps. So also are the 

 rookeries and rabbit-warrens, the hedgerows of 

 hawthorn, the banks of primroses, the nut-woods 

 carpeted with bluebells, the copses gay with 

 foxgloves — and much besides. In fact, the whole 

 'atmosphere' differs, for the larger part of the 

 fundamentals of an English spring are absent in 

 the spring of the Alps. And yet the Alps have a 

 spring no whit less entrancing than the spring ot 

 England. 



In the Alps the steel-blue of winter is still in the 

 air — indeed, one feels it in the very flowers. Even 

 though no snowy Alp be in sight, and nothing but 

 floral gaiety around, there is yet a sense of austerity. 

 The vegetation, though colourfull, is neither coarse 

 nor rank, nor even luxurious, as judged by English 

 standard. Nature is crisp and brisk ; the air is thin 

 and clear; everywhere is great refinement — yes, 

 refinement; that, perhaps, is the better word — 

 refinement quite other than that of spring in 

 England. It were as though the severity of the 

 struggle for existence could be read in the sweet 

 face of things, just as we may often read it in the 

 smiling face of some chastened human being — 



