THE MOUNTAIN FLAX. 317 



At least twenty-six species, exclusive of varieties, 

 are in cultivation in our gardens, of which they 

 form conspicuous ornaments, yet not one of them 

 has greater beauty than the flax of commerce, 

 whose blossoms of turquoise-blue, waving on its 

 slender steins, give so great a charm to the spring 

 aspect of flax-growing countries ; and the depth and 

 purity of whose colour is strikingly illustrated by 

 the deceptive appearance of the flax fields in some 

 sequestered Pyrenean valley, which, when viewed 

 from a distant height, may be mistaken for sheets of 

 deep and still blue water; while the intervening 

 spots of young corn increase the illusion by stand- 

 ing out from the surrounding blue, like islands in 

 a lake. 



The exquisite delicacy of the flax plant is not un- 

 worthily pictured in the words of Coleridge ; 

 * * * "The unripe flax; 



When, through its half-transparent stalk at eve, 

 The level sunshine glimmers with green light." 



And its transparent and delicate texture adds a 

 graceful appropriateness to the pretty custom, by 

 means of which the youth of Brittany formerly 

 celebrated their having passed the boundary of 

 childhood, and entered on the more important stage 

 of life. I allude to the June fete, in which all who 

 had attained to the age of sixteen years danced 

 round one of the ancient dolmens, with which that 

 interesting country abounds ; the boys being crowned 

 with ears of green corn, as emblematic of strength, 

 while the girls were adorned with bouquets of the 

 flax blossom. These bouquets were afterwards care- 



