xxii INTRODUCTION 



higher Alpines, the Androsaces, the smaller Pinks and 

 Primulas, the little encrusted Saxifrages, or the most 

 delicate Campanulas as anything except mountain 

 plants; so much do they seem made for their moun- 

 tain home that one could almost believe they would 

 bring a vision of it to any one who knew them only in 

 captivity; and yet a great part of their beauty comes 

 from the contrast between its delicacy "so still and 

 faint and fearing to be looked upon" and the wild, 

 fierce places in which they grow by nature. But that 

 delicacy is very far from the hectic delicacy of tropical 

 flowers. The higher Alpine plants grow and flower 

 for but a short time of the year, but in that time their 

 life is eager and quick in proportion to its shortness. 

 When the warm spring wind blows and the snows 

 melt they turn from brown to green in a week. Their 

 buds swell so that you can almost see them swelling; 

 and their flowers have a peculiar brightness that seems 

 to tell of the abundance of life packed into so small 

 a compass and enjoyed for so short a season. There is 

 nothing in nature so full of wonder and delight as an 

 Alpine spring. It is the very symbol of all sudden 

 happy changes, the chief theme of mountain folk- 

 song and mountain music; and it is not strange that, 

 as we go to hear the songs of Grieg in a London con- 

 cert-room, so we should wish to see some of the magic 

 of that spring in our lowland gardens. Therefore the 

 rock gardener contrives his little makebelieve. He 

 cannot hope that his small rocks and slopes and val- 

 leys will in themselves have any look of the Alps; but 



