328 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
the way in which it came before me that has given 
it such a lustre in my mind. I was motoring with 
friends from Land’s End to London, when in coming 
through the hilly country near Tavistock I caught 
sight of a flower unknown to me on a tall stalk 
among the thick herbage at the roadside, and 
shouted to the chauffeur to stop. He did so after 
rushing on a farther hundred yards or so, but very 
reluctantly, as he was angry with the hills and 
anxious to get to Exeter. I walked back and 
secured my strange lovely flower, and for the rest 
of the day it was a delight to us, and I’m pretty 
sure that its image exists still and shines in the 
memory of all who were with me in the car that 
day—the chauffeur excepted. 
I am bringing too many flowers into this chapter, 
since only one is named in the title, but once I 
begin to think of them they keep me, and a dream 
of fair flowers is as much to me as that Dream of 
Fair Women is to the Tennysons and Swinburnes 
who write poetry. Or perhaps they are more like 
fair little girls than grown women, the beautiful 
little dear ones I loved and remember—Alice and 
Doris, and pensive Monica, “laughing Allegra and 
Edith with golden hair,’ and dozens more. But 
I must really break away. from this crowd to 
concentrate on my chequered daffodil, only I must 
first be allowed to mention just one more—the 
blue columbine, the wild flower, always true blue 
and supposed to be indigenous. I don’t believe 
it; I imagine for various reasons that it is a garden 
