INTRODUCTION. 
15 
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 
de.s Vaches, when heard in a foreign country, 
remind the Swiss peasant of his native moun¬ 
tains. 
“ 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 
painful feelings in Rousseau’s mind; and Bou¬ 
gainville’s South Sea Islander, on being taken to 
the Botanic Garden in Paris, knelt before an 
Otaheitean plant, and kissed it as fondly as he 
would have kissed the lips of a beloved mistress. 
It would be impossible to describe the many de- 
