CHAPTER VII
ON FLORAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND COLOUR
“We, having a secret to others unknown,
In the cool mountain-mosses,
May whisper together ...”
Henry Kendall,
September in Australia.
Our knowledge of life behind the balder manifestations of life is as yet so deficient that it would be pure conceit to pretend more than lightly to suggest certain thoughts that may possibly commence to explain something of the affinity existing between ourselves and the flowers. That such an affinity does actually exist there appears sufficient evidence to warrant our believing, and no one, I imagine, with an interested eye for these matters, would care to pronounce against this evidence without making careful reservations. And if this affinity exists for one it exists for all, though in some, because of the variable nature of the human mechanism, it is less demonstrable than in others. Nor does it show itself merely in our admiration and care for the flowers; there are many instances of its appearing in a form which borders upon the “uncanny”—a form of that universal and universally sympathetic subconsciousness which Psychology is doing its best to investigate.
Thoreau in one of his Essays mentions how that one day he wished to find a certain rare orchid, but had no idea in which direction to seek it; and, setting out in this blind state of mind, his steps took him straight to the very object of his quest. Of course those in whom prejudice is a more real possession than open-mindedness will dismiss such evidence as pointing to mere coincidence or to an unmistakable case of chance. They will say the same, too, of the instance mentioned by Mr. H. Stuart Thompson in an article, “Ten Days in Co. Kerry,” which appeared in the Gardeners’ Chronicle for October 22, 1910. “My companion,” says Mr. Thompson, “makes no claim to be a botanist, but he has an innate faculty for finding good plants if they are to be found; and let it be said here that during a ski-ing holiday in Switzerland last winter he managed to grub up through the snow quite a wonderful collection of interesting Alpines which are succeeding capitally on his rockery.” This will also be called coincidence; but there is, I believe, far less justification for doing so than for calling it sympathy. Personally, I have more liking for design in these matters than I have for luck. Surely it were a poor world—nay, an impossible world—that were governed by chance in whatsoever degree. Evolution may know no “categorical imperative” and yet be a stranger to aimless drifting. The law of cause and effect seems to guarantee this. And is it not also guarantee of a universal sympathy, since the prime essential of this law is that all things are linked up in one continuous chain?
