“Fruitless, aimless world”? Why, willy-nilly, Nature moulds him—even by allowing him to think he is moulding her.
Behold these meadows! Will he take them and mould them to anything better than they are? No, he certainly will not. Will he give them an aim higher than they possess at present? Possibly. There is, however, only one way by which he may succeed: let him unbend, and let him gather these meadows closer to his heart and understanding: let him transport what he can of them to his parks and gardens. But let him not for one moment imagine that by so doing he is “moulding” them; for, indubitably, it is they who will be moulding him.
And for this reason: Alpine fields are such superlatively true art that he cannot but find in them, as in all true art, a common ground of interest, fellowship, happiness, advancement; “a means”—as Tolstoi says of true art—“of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings”—feelings that must ameliorate, must refine.
We are now nearing the dread but necessary moment when the scythe will be laying low the flowers; but ere the arrival of this careful, callous friend of the cows, we have a few more hours in which to cast another greedy look around. The Bistort and Buttercup, Orchid and tall Rampion, have become, or are fast becoming, dingy and seed-full, but there are several handsome and interesting newcomers; and many of these subjects, such as the Martagon Lily and Field Gentian, which at the commencement of the month had only a bloom or two open here and there, are now at perfection. The red Centaurea uniflora is a vivid object among the grasses: a “distinct advance,” as nurserymen would say, upon C. scabiosa, our common Hard-heads or Knobweed, blooming beside it. The sturdy Brown Gentian (Gentiana purpurea) and its near relation, the cream-coloured or greenish-yellow G. punctata, are conspicuous objects, and Hieracium aurantiacum, the fiery, orange-red Hawkweed or Grimm the Collier, burns as a jewel among them. Astrantia major, the Great Masterwort, unique and charming—more particularly when its flower-heads take on their truly Alpine tint of rosy magenta—is here with its little brother, A. minor, pale and fragile, perhaps from its habit of living in shadier places than major. The Campanulas are glorious, and the lilac pyramidal heads of C. spicata are striking “bits of colour” where the grass is sparser. So also are the lovely deep-blue, pea-like masses of Vicia onobrychioides, associating with Rampion, Arnica, and Martagon or Turk’s-cap Lily. Dianthus superbus spreads a lace-like mantle of pink and white over the shadier portions of the fields by the forest’s edge; and D. sylvestris is a glory of flesh-pink upon the hotter slopes by the rocks. Aconitum Napellus, blue Monkshood or Char de Venus, is not hereabouts as on the higher pastures; neither are the yellow and orange pea-like Orobus luteus and that curious Bellflower, Campanula thyrsoides, with its stumpy hollow stem surmounted by a close-set mass of washed-out yellow flowers; nor is the handsome large-flowered yellow Foxglove (Digitalis ambigua) so plentiful in the Jura Mountains and in other limestone districts. But Thalictrum aquilegifolium, most seductive of the Meadowrues, raises its soft-lilac or cream-white plumes—often beside the majestic cream-white plumes of Spiræa Aruncus, Queen of the Fields—in luxuriant hollows where dwell bushes of Alpine Eglantine and Honeysuckle. In these rich, grassy hollows, too, are noble plants of the sticky, yellow Salvia glutinosa, or Jupiter’s Distaff; the tall mauve Mulgedium alpinum, the Laitue des Alpes or Alpine Lettuce of the French; the equally tall red Adenostyles albifrons; and the Lesser Foxglove (Digitalis lutea), with dark, shiny foliage and packed spikes of pale yellow blossoms. The orange-yellow Leopard’s-Bane, Senecio Doronicum, and the pink and white Valeriana montana, are upon the dry, turfy banks; and down upon the lower slopes, among the shrubs or out in the sun-baked open, is a brilliant concourse of yellow Ononis natrix, pink O. rotundifolia (here and there white in form), blue, Thrift-like Jasione montana, tall, rich-blue, open-flowered Campanula persicifolia, and pure yellow, red-stamened Verbascum phlomoides, finest of the Mulleins. Intense-blue clumps of Hyssop enliven the hot, shaly spaces; and here, too, is Linum tenuifolium, a Flax with delicate lilac flowers; the Golden Thistle (Carlina vulgaris), which, with the white C. acaulis, is so useful for winter decoration: the exquisite pink and white rambling Vetch, Coronilla varia; and Dianthus sylvestris and D. Carthusianorum are wellnigh everywhere in pink and red abundance—the latter sometimes running to so deep and fiery a shade as to be found worthy of the additional name of atrorubens.
GERANIUM SYLVATICUM, POTENTILLA RUPESTRIS, CENTAUREA MONTANA, the pink Bistort, the little Alpine Bistort, painted on the spot in the fields at the beginning of July.
Truly, this is a “sun-kissed land of plenty,” with July blazoned in tones of utmost triumph! Yet harmony, restraint, refinement, have not in any way been sacrificed. Our sense of this is so acute that when we return to the plains, the gardens and their gorgeous burdens are apt to jar upon us, as will vulgarity or a flagrant want of taste.