132 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



specialist. For joy comes mostly fuller with the 

 broader moments of life, and analysis is apt to 

 injure the soul-stirring harmony of things. And 

 as the merely emotional value of these fields is 

 immense, their appeal is quite as general as it is 

 particular, perhaps even more so ; for the emotional 

 qualities of anything are more acceptable to the 

 man-in-the-street than are its precise and reasoned 

 quantities. And, just as there are far fewer 

 musicians within the ranks of executants than 

 outside, so there are more flower-lovers and lovers 

 of floral beauty outside the ranks of botany and 

 gardening than there are within. Thus amid 

 these fields the plain, expansive man or woman 

 need be in no fear of ennui. Ennui ! — why, even 

 when the visitors do come and the flowers have 

 seen their best, there is no en7iui I Then how 

 much more inspiring must it be when the fields 

 are in their hey-day, not their hay-day ! 



It is, then, upon all and sundry that I urge the 

 claims of the Alps from the middle of May to 

 mid- July ; it is to the merest tyro in plant-lore, as 

 well as to the botanical and gardening enthusiast, 

 that I say, and say in all persuasiveness of con- 

 viction : " You know not what you miss by failing 

 ' To catch the master-note of Nature's lyre "* ; 



