56 FI.OWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



is a good thing. As all sunshine and no storm 

 would make man a nonentity, so would it produce 

 Alpines devoid of their present great ability and 

 comeliness. A thing of complete beauty is a thing 

 of all weathers ; and it is a thing of present joy, 

 and of joy for ever, because of much anguish 

 in the past. You and I could see nothing of 

 loveliness if it were not for ugliness ; and these 

 Alpines would not be worth looking at were it 

 not for the awful attempts made by Nature to 

 overwhelm them. " A perpetual calm will never 

 make a sailor " ; or, as Mr. Dooley says, " Foorce 

 rules the wurruld " — and keeps it peacefully dis- 

 turbed, bewitchingly "alive." 



And Alpine inclemency possesses an aesthetic 

 value which is as important as it is alluring. 

 Whether " in the smiles or anger of the high air," 

 these flower-fields are invariably things of beauty ; 

 even as the diamond glitters in the gloom, so do 

 these pastures shine throughout the storm. What 

 could be more ssthetically beautiful than the 

 rosy expanses of Mealy Primrose bathed in dense, 

 driving mists, or (as in the picture facing page 16) 

 the regiments of Globe- Flower, standing pale but 

 fascinating, in weather which, were we down on 

 the plains, we should consider " not fit for a dog 



