BINDWEED. 201 



waves on the sea sands. The flower hap- 

 pened to be folded so, and got coloured, or 

 discoloured, accordingly. But when a man 

 comes to look at it, he recognises in the 

 alternation of colours and the symmetrical 

 arrangement one of those elements of beauty 

 with which he is familiar in the handicraft 

 of his own kind. He reads an intention into 

 this result of natural causes, and personifies 

 Nature as though she worked with an aes- 

 thetic design in view, just as a decorative 

 artist works when he similarly alternates 

 colours or arranges symmetrical and radial 

 figures on a cup or other piece of human 

 pottery. The beauty is not in the flower 

 itself; it is in the eye which sees and the 

 brain which recognises the intellectual order 

 and perfection of the work. 



I turn the bindweed blossom mouth up- 

 ward, and there I see that these russet 

 marks, though paler on the inner surface, 

 still show faintly through the pinky white 

 corolla. This produces an effect not unlike 



