A FRINGED GENTIAN 



&quot; Nothing so beautiful in all our fields. Were 

 it to grow in Thibet, they would canonize it. 

 Persia would ascribe supernatural virtue to it. 

 Greece would have immortalized it ; but not 

 having it, she had to take up with the less regal 

 flower, Narcissus. I dare say, if we could get 

 into the community of flowers, we should find 

 that this is the queen, though it is a shame to 

 call her a queen when she refuses to grow in any 

 but a republican country. Isn t that spray exactly 

 the curve of fresh beauty making vassals of us 

 all by mere contour ? Zenobia never held her 

 head more proudly, and Cleopatra could not wrap 

 herself so luxuriously after her bath as this poor 

 princess of the wild-wood.&quot; 



This strain quite caught me. &quot; I am glad to 

 hear you attribute such human qualities to a 

 flower,&quot; I said. &quot; I was inclined to do that 

 myself, just now, and, to be idiomatic, you sat 

 upon me.&quot; 



&quot; Do you observe,&quot; said the Doctor, &quot;that she 

 is wrapping her tissuey shawls about her and 

 hiding her face ? Look at the spiral fringe ; did 

 you ever see such an airy twist as that ? The 

 Sultan s women try to do it with their laces. If 

 one of our serpentine dancers could do that, she 

 would take Paris by storm.&quot; 



It was true the flowers had closed up spirally, 

 and the line of fringe on each one of the four 

 leaves of the corolla were wound about as when a 

 belle wraps herself after the ball. 



&quot;You are right,&quot; I said. &quot;I never saw a 

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