CHRYSANTHEMUMS 

 I 



EVERY year, in November, at the season that follows 

 on the hour of the dead, the crowning and majestic 

 hour of Autumn, reverently I go to visit the chrys- 

 antheumums in the places where chance offers them to my 

 sight. For the rest, it matters little where they are shown to 

 me by the good will of travel or of sojourn. They are, indeed, 

 the most universal, the most diverse of flowers; but their di- 

 versity and surprises are, so to speak, concerted, like those of 

 fashion, in arbitrary Edens. At the same moment, even as 

 with silks, laces, jewels and curls, a voice composed of sky and 

 light gives the password in time and space; and, docile as the 

 most beautiful of women, simultaneously, in every country, in 

 every latitude, the flowers obey the sacred decree. 



It is enough, then, to enter at random one of those crystal 

 museums in which their somewhat funereal riches are dis- 

 played under the harmonious veil of a November day. We 

 at once grasp the dominant idea, the obstrusive beauty, the 

 conscious effort of the year in this special world, strange and 



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