ALPINE FIELDS FOR ENGLAND 159 



from their social birthright and perched in grandeur 

 upon a rockwork, they cannot but have wistful 

 thoughts of lost companionship. 



Owners of rockworks may protest that they do 

 all they possibly can for their captives, treating 

 them as tenderly as they would any beautiful bird 

 in a cage ; they may protest that their captives are 

 fed and watered most carefully and know little or 

 nothing of the struggle for existence which rules 

 upon Alpine meadows. And this is all very right 

 and proper as far as it goes ; but very many of 

 these plants could be treated even more kindly and 

 properly by allowing them something of their 

 ancestral habits. That which untrammelled Nature 

 decrees for her offspring is inevitably best, and we 

 should take practical note of it where possible. 

 We ourselves are rebels and, as modern instance 

 shows, are very conscious of it in our more rational 

 moments, crying aloud in a hazy, frightened way, 

 that we must " get back to Nature ! " Why, then, 

 compel rebeUion in so many a thing we admire ? 

 Such compulsory estrangement from what is 

 natural is a sorry sort of kindness. Let us put 

 back the field-flowers into the fields— or, at any 

 rate, as many as we may. 



To a great number of flower-lovers this would 



