PREFACE 



RUSKIN, in one of his friendly lecture-talks on 

 art, with the sympathetic spiritual perception 

 and originality of thought which character- 

 ize his unique genius, says : "Now, what we espe- 

 cially need for educational purposes, is,, to know, not 

 the anatomy of plants, but their biography how and 

 where they live and die, their tempers, benevolences, 

 distresses and virtues." The quaint sentiment voiced 

 by the great philosopher many years ago is somewhat 

 significantly in harmony with this dawning time of 

 a simpler and brighter understanding of humanity and 

 of nature. And could we find for such a flower bi- 

 ography a subject more entrancing, so seductive, al- 

 most eerie, so plaintively sturdy, so instilled with ro- 

 mance, with patriotism and with pathos as the High- 

 land Heather? 



There dwells, perhaps, no solitary plant or flower 

 in the sheltered garden or in the lonely wild, whose 

 family ties show no modest record hidden somewhere 

 in the stately annals of history; but the crude fact 

 of history, like a tale that is listlessly told, has little 

 power to charm where lack the flash and glow of 

 emotional ardor ; and so I have invoked to my hum- 

 ble biographical narrative of this bonnie floral her- 

 mit on our bleak majestic Highlands, that ancient 



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