SECRET OF THE CHARM OF FLOWERS 135 



has not exactly been dragged in, may come as a 

 positive relief. 



As the word expression which occurs with fre- 

 quency in this chapter was not understood in the 

 sense in which I used it on the first appearance 

 of the book, it may be well to explain that it is 

 not used here in its ordinary meaning as the quality 

 in a face, or picture, or any work of art, which 

 indicates thought or feeling. Here the word has 

 the meaning given to it by writers on the aesthetic 

 sense as descriptive of the quality imparted to an 

 object by its associations. These may be untrace- 

 able : we may not be conscious and as a rule we 

 are not conscious that any such associations exist ; 

 nevertheless they are in us all the time, and with 

 what they add to an object may enhance and even 

 double its intrinsic beauty and charm. 



I have somewhere read a very ancient legend, 

 which tells that man was originally made of many 

 materials, and that at the last a bunch of wild 

 flowers was gathered and thrown into the mixture 

 to give colour to his eyes. It is a pretty story, 

 but might have been better told, since it is certain 

 that flowers which have delicate and beautiful 



