INTRODUCTION. 
23 
growing wild. I have never since beheld the 
cyclamen without being reminded of the beloved 
friends with whom I first plucked and examined 
it, and of the smiling landscapes with which we 
were surrounded. There are various other 
plants, the sight of which also revives in my 
mind recollections of dear and interesting per¬ 
sons, and which brings the scenes of early youth 
forcibly before me, as the strains of the Runs 
des Vaches , when heard in a foreign country, 
remind the Swiss peasant of his native mountains. 
“Numerous examples might be adduced to 
prove that, in the power of exciting past recol¬ 
lections, the sight of a flower has often a more 
magic effect than even the favourite melodies 
of our youth. I myself know a young lady who, 
though entirely free from nervous weakness, 
could never look at a carnation without burst¬ 
ing into tears, because she was plucking a 
flower of that kind at the moment when she was 
informed of her mother’s death. The sight of 
the periwinkle always produced pleasingly pain¬ 
ful feelings in Rousseau’s mind; and Bougain- 
' ville’s South Sea Islander, on being taken to the 
Botanic Garden in Paris, knelt before an Otahei- 
