EFFECT OF ASSOCIATION 313 



cinerarias, calceolarias, larkspurs, &c. The subdued 

 light of the interior softens the intensity, and some- 

 times crudity, of the strongest colours, and makes 

 them suitable for decoration. The effect is like that 

 of stained-glass windows, or of a bright embroidery 

 on a sober ground. The graceful, grey, flowery reeds, 

 and the light-green reed-mace, with its brown velvet 

 head, and the moist yellow of the mimulus, which 

 quickly loses its freshness, look not well in the dim, 

 religious light of the old village church. These should 

 be seen where the sunlight and wind and water are, 

 or not seen at all. 



Beautiful as the mimulus is when viewed in its 

 natural surroundings, by running waters amidst the 

 greys and light and dark greens of reed and willow, 

 and of sedge and aquatic grasses, and water-cress, and 

 darkest bulrush, its attractiveness was to me greatly 

 increased by association. Now to say that a flower 

 which is new to one can have any associations may 

 sound very strange, but it is a fact in this case. 

 Viewing it at a distance of, say, forty or fifty yards, as 

 a flower of a certain size, which might be any shape, 

 in colour a very pure, luminous yellow, blooming in 

 profusion all over the rich green, rounded masses of 

 the plants, as one may see it in September at Oving- 

 ton, and at many other points on the Itchen, from 

 its source to Southampton Water, and on the Test, 

 I am so strongly reminded of the yellow camalote 

 of the South American watercourses that the memory 



