In flower-seeking, as in other sports and sciences, the unexpected is always happening; there are rich days and poor days, surprises and disappointments; the plant which we hailed as a rarity may prove on examination to be but a gay deceiver; and contrariwise, when we think we have come home empty-handed, it may turn out that the vasculum contains some unrecognized treasure; as when, after what seemed to be a barren day on Helvellyn, I found that I had brought back with me the Alpine saw-wort.
That in the study of flowers, as in all natural history, we should be more attracted by the rare than by the common is inevitable; it is a tendency that cannot be escaped or denied, but it may at least be kept within bounds, so that familiarity shall not breed the proverbial contempt, nor rarity a vulgar and excessive admiration.[22] The quest for the rare, provided that it does not make us forget that the common is often no less beautiful, or lead to that selfish acquisitiveness which is the bane of "collecting," is a foible harmless in itself and even in some cases useful, as inciting us to further activities.
The sulphur-wort, or "sea hog's-fennel," for instance, is not especially attractive—a big coarse plant, five feet in stature, with a solid stem, uncouth masses of grass-like leaves, and large umbels of yellow flowers—yet I have a gratifying recollection of a visit which I once paid to its haunts on the Essex salt marshes near Hamford Water. Again, the twisted-podded whitlow-grass is a rather shabby-looking little crucifer; but the day when I found it under the crags of Snowdon in Cwm Glas stands out distinguished and unforgotten. It is natural that we should observe more closely what there are fewer opportunities of observing.
Let me speak first of the barren days. An old friend of mine who is of an optimistic temperament once assured me for my comfort, that the flower-seeker must not feel discouraged if he fail in his pursuit; since it is not from mere success, but from the effort itself, that benefit is derived. The text should run, not "Seek, and ye shall find," but, "Seek, and ye shall not need to find." This may be a true doctrine, but it seems rather a hard one; certainly it is not easy, at the time, to regard with entire complacency the result of a blank day; and that there will be blank days is beyond doubt, for it is strange how long some of the "wanted" plants, the De Wets of the floral world, will evade discovery. I have looked into the face of many hundreds of star-saxifrages on the hills of Wales and Cumberland, but have never yet set eyes upon its rare sister, the snow or "clustered" saxifrage. In like manner among the innumerable flowers of the chalk fields, in the South, that elusive little annual, the mouse-tail, has hitherto remained undetected. So, too, with many other rarities: the list of the found may increase year by year, but that of the unfound is never exhausted.
It is well that it is so, and that satiety cannot chill the ardour of the flower-lover, but like Ulysses, "always roaming with a hungry heart," he has ever before him an object for his pursuit. "Wretched is he," says Rousseau, "who has nothing left to wish for." Nor is the reward a merely figurative one, such as that of the husbandmen in the fable, who, after digging the ground in search of a buried treasure, were otherwise recompensed; for the lean days are happily interspersed with the fat days, and to the botanist there is surely no joy on earth like that of discovering a flower that is new to him; it is a thrilling event which compensates tenfold for all the failures of the past.
Very remarkable, too, is the freakishness of fortune, which often, while denying what you crave, will toss you something quite different and unlooked for: I remember how when searching vainly for the spider orchis at the foot of the Downs in Kent, I stumbled on an abundance of the "green man." Or perhaps, just at the moment when you are relinquishing the quest as hopeless, and have put it wholly from your mind, you will be startled to see the very flower that you sought.
Burningly it came on me all at once!
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
After a life spent training for the sight!
As Thoreau expressed it: "What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you come full upon, all the family at dinner."