FIELD FLOWERS 



gratitude, his studious fondness, all that he owed them, all 

 that they gave him are there contained, like an enduring 

 aroma held in hollow pearls. And so they bear names of 

 queens, shepherdesses, virgins, princesses, sylphs and fairies, 

 which flow from the lips like a caress, a lightning-flash, a 

 kiss, a murmur of love. Our language, I think, contains 

 nothing that is better-, more daintily-, more lovingly- 

 named than these homely flowers. Here the word clothes 

 the idea almost always with care, with light precision, with 

 wonderful aptness. It is like an ornate and transparent 

 drapery that moulds the form which it embraces and has the 

 proper shade, perfume and sound. Call to mind the Daisy, 

 the Violet, the Bluebottle, the Poppy, or, rather, Coquelicot: 

 the name is the flower itself. How marvellous, for instance, 

 that sort of cry and crest of light and joy, "Coquelicot!" to 

 designate the scarlet flower which the scientists crush under 

 this barbarous title: ''Papaver rhceasr See the Primrose, 

 or Primula, the Periwinkle, the Anemone, the Wild Hya- 

 cinth, the blue Speedwell, or Veronica, the Forget-me-not, the 

 Wild Bindweed, or Convolvulus, the Iris, the Harebell, or 

 Campanula: their name depicts them by equivalents and anal- 

 ogies which the greatest poets but rarely light upon. It 



[147] 



