36 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



and then the Edelweiss at once falls back into 

 a more becoming perspective with the landscape, 

 into a less faulty pose among the other mountain 

 flowers. 



Perhaps it is not very venturesome to think 

 that if the Edelweiss had become extinct, and 

 were now to be found only amid the fastnesses 

 of legend, it would live quite as securely in the 

 hearts of men as it does at present ; for its repute 

 rests mostly upon the fabulous. But how different 

 is the case of the earliest of the Gentians ! Here 

 is a plant which, despite the romance-breeding 

 nature of its habit, form, and colour, draws little 

 or nothing from legendary sources. Fable has 

 small command where merit is so marked ; imagi- 

 nation is outstripped by reality, and there is scarcely 

 room for invention where truth is so arresting, so 

 pronounced. 



Gentiana verna flies no false colours. Its 

 flower is a flower, and not for the greater part 

 an assemblage of hoary-haired leaves. It inspires 

 in men no performance of mad gymnastics on the 

 precipice's brink and brow ; it wears, therefore, 

 no halo of unnecessary human sacrifice. It is not 

 a tender token of attachment among lovers. It 

 does not live in myth, nor has it an important 



