82 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



the unknown maiden was popularly canonised 

 as St. Veronica, just as the real blood of 

 Christ, the Sangre Real or Sang Reel, pre- 

 served by Joseph of Arimathea, became the 

 Saint Greal and the Holy Grail of mediaeval 

 legends. At some later period, by a pretty 

 conceit, some poetical botanist or other I 

 think it was Tournefort, though I don't know 

 whether he invented the name himself or only 

 borrowed it from the early herbalists trans- 

 ferred the title of veronica to this lovely little 

 blue blossom, because it seemed to him 

 exactly to mirror in its delicate hue the deep 

 azure colour of the sky above. It was the 

 vera icon of the open heaven, and so he called 

 it, too, veronica. The conceit is far-fetched, 

 no doubt ; but it is a pleasant one to me ; and 

 I can never see the first speedwells opening 

 their familiar blue flowers in the spring-time 

 without feeling that the legend throws an 

 added charm for my mind around their simple 

 native prettiness. 



Our thoughts about nature are often too 



