THE JULY FIELDS 123 



Truly, this is a " sun-kissed land of plenty," with 

 July blazoned in tones of utmost triumph ! Yet 

 harmony, restraint, refinement, have not in any 

 way been sacrificed. Our sense of this is so acute 

 that when we return to the plains, the gardens 

 and their gorgeous burdens are apt to jar upon 

 us, as will vulgarity or a flagrant want of taste. 



After some three months spent in intimacy 

 with these slopes and fields, go down to the 

 swallow's summer quarters — to JNIartigny, or else- 

 where on the plain — and mark the Zinnias and 

 French Marigolds, Asters and Sweet-AVilliams, 

 and the flaming beds of Petunias, Salvias, and 

 Geraniums. Mark how gross seems all this 

 " cultivation " after the Alpine wildness. You 

 are at once constrained to ask yourself. What 

 is there derogatory in wildness if to be cultivated 

 is to be as these garden flowers ? You see at 

 once more clearly than possibly you ever saw 

 before that, after all, refinement is largely a 

 relative quantity, and that even the Rose, Dean 

 Hole's " Queen Rosa," can appear coarse after you 

 have spent a season with the Gentian. 



And perhaps it is this feeling that can account 

 in some measure for our habit of isolating all 

 Alpines upon rockworks. Perhaps it prompts us 



