SEPTEMBER 235 



LV 



The wise man who first uttered the saying that 

 'familiarity breeds contempt' little imagined, 

 perhaps, that his own words were to become 

 an illustration of the truth they expressed. Yet this 

 has come to pass, for the phrase is threadbare through 

 use of generations, and a threadbare saying commands 

 scant respect. Yet is there no shrewder truth in any 

 proverb than in the one above quoted, and it applies very 

 closely to our appreciation of natural beauty. For in- 

 stance, the glory of our Scottish hillsides in late summer 

 is the flush of heather, yet not one person in a thousand 

 of us ever thinks of inquiring into the source of that 

 colour or the beautiful structure of the plant that pro- 

 duces it. We take it for granted; familiarity with the 

 annual phenomenon has bred contempt, or at least in- 

 difference. On the other hand, how eagerly does the 

 tourist search for a bit of white heather, and prize it 

 when found so eagerly that enterprising nurserymen 

 have recently found it profitable to cultivate the white 

 variety, of which thousands of bunches are hawked about 

 the streets in August. So greatly has this traffic increased 

 of late years that there seems good prospect of familiarity 

 with these pallid blooms having its proverbial effect, and 

 men will begin to realise the superior beauty of red 

 heather. That it is really superior may easily be proved. 

 One has only to imagine white to be the normal hue of 

 heather-bloom, and to picture the moors and hillsides 

 sheeted with a chill expanse of pallor. How grievously 

 the landscape would suffer ! How keenly would a stray 

 tui'l with rosy blossoms be hunted out and carried away ! 



