28 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



would the black-beetle be as it is. Do not let 

 him forget the high claims of the black-beetle. 



" Man stands so large before the eyes of man 

 He cannot think of Earth but as his own ; 

 All his philosophies can guess no plan 

 That leaves him not on his imagined throne." 



Let us be humble : let us merge ourselves 

 modestly in the scheme of things. It is not to 

 cheer up the flowers in their " loneliness " that we 

 ought to be with them here in the spring. We 

 ought to be here because of all that the flowers 

 and their loveliness can do for us, in lifting us 

 above "the essential vulgarity of a plutocratic 

 society," and in revealing us to ourselves and to 

 each other as rarely we are revealed elsewhere. 

 Here with these pastures are health and vigour — 

 vigour that is quiet and restful ; here is unpre- 

 tentiousness more radiant, more glorious, than the 

 most dazzling of pretensions. Here, if we will, we 

 can come and be natural — here, where Man, that 

 " feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and 

 grievances," as Mr. Bernard Shaw calls him, can 

 be in the fullest sense a man, and be in no wise 

 ashamed of it. For here, in a word, is Nature- 

 unaffected, unconventional, unconscious of herself, 

 yet in the highest degree efficient. The purity of 



