The Open Air 



grasses, a delicate mist of blue floating on the surface, 

 has always been an especial delight to me. Finches 

 shake it from the stalks as they rise. No day, no hour 

 of summer, no step but brings new mazes there is 

 no word to express design without plan, and these 

 designs of flower and leaf and colours of the sun cannot 

 be reduced to set order. The eye is for ever drawn 

 onward and finds no end. To see these always so 

 sharply, wet and fresh, is almost too much sometimes 

 for the wearied yet insatiate eye. I am obliged to 

 turn away to shut my eyes and say I will not see, I 

 will not observe; I will concentrate my mind on my 

 own little path of life, and steadily gaze downwards. 

 In vain. Who can do so? who can care alone for 

 his or her petty trifles of existence, that has once 

 entered amongst the wild flowers ? How shall I shut 

 out the sun ? Shall I deny the constellations of the 

 night? They are there; the Mystery is for ever 

 about us the question, the hope, the aspiration 

 cannot be put out. So that it is almost a pain not 

 to be able to cease observing and tracing the untrace- 

 able maze of beauty. 



Blue veronica was the next identified, sometimes 

 called germander speedwell, sometimes bird's-eye, 

 whose leaves are so plain and petals so blue. Many 

 names increase the trouble of identification, and 

 confusion is made certain by the use of various 

 sj^stems of classification. The flower itself I knew, 

 its name I could not be sure of not even from the 

 illustration, which was incorrectly coloured; the 

 central white spot of the flower was reddish in the 

 plate. This incorrect colouring spoils much of the 

 flower-picturing done; pictures of flowers and birds 

 are rarely accurate unless hand-painted. Any one 

 else, however, would have been quite satisfied that the 



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