INTELLIGENCE OF FLOWERS 



that calls them to a fairer world. But, when they have come 

 half-way, they feel themselves suddenly held back: their stalk, 

 the very source of their life, is too short; they will never 

 reach the abode of light, the only spot in which the union of 

 the stamens and the pistil can be achieved! 



Is there any more cruel inadvertence or ordeal in nature? 

 Picture the tragedy of that longing, the inaccessible so nearly 

 attained, the transparent fatality, the impossible with not a 

 visible obstacle! ... It would be insoluble, like our own 

 tragedy upon this earth, were it not that an unexpected ele- 

 ment is mingled with it Did the males foresee the disap- 

 pointment with which they would meet? One thing is cer- 

 tain, that they have locked in their hearts a bubble of air, 

 even as we lock in our souls a thought of desperate de- 

 liverance. It is as though for a moment they hesitated ; then, 

 with a magnificent effort, the finest, the most supernatural 

 that I know of in all the pageantry of the insects and the 

 flowers, in order to rise to happiness they deliberately break 

 the bond that attaches them to life. They tear themselves 

 from their stalk and, with an incomparable flight, amid bub- 

 bles of gladness, their petals dart up and break the surface of 

 the water. Wounded to death, but radiant and free, they float 



[39] 



