DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62134#0057
A HANDFUL OF FLOWERS.
49
of the lake and mountains lying below them : it really was
too bad being defrauded of the most beautiful spot in the
garden by young fellows who were smoking and beer-
drinking ; but as they formed a picturesque group with
their scarlet caps and white shirt-sleeves,, for they had
flung off their coats the day being hob I gradually for-
gave them. The second best seat in the garden we dis-
covered was as much infested with ants as the other had been
“ infested with youth”—to use the expression of an old
Englishman; therefore we were forced to content ourselves
with the third best breakfast-parlour. Marie seated herself
under the shadowy beech-trees, whilst I, to beguile my
impatience for breakfast, began gathering a nosegay. First
I plucked cowslips and grasses; but, behold ! there were
flowers here to be gathered, to my English eyes, far more
precious than cowslips; there were tufts of the small Alpine
gentian, with its peacock blue so gorgeous in the sunlight •
there was the Trolius with its ball of gold; there were
oxlips and a little plant creeping over the dry turf with a
cistus leaf and pea-shaped orange and cream coloured
blossom—an entirely new flower to me—and another plant
yet more beautiful, and equally un-English, its blossom
resembling a blue Verbenum, but its leaves soft and of
tender green and oval-shaped, growing close to the earth.
It had a faint, delicate perfume, such as our greenhouse
primulas have. I noticed during the course of the day this
lovely lilac flower growing in the greatest profusion in the
rich grass around the lake. Marie, I fancy, thought me
scarcely less childish in my joy over my odorous bouquet of
wildflowers than her good old uncle and Signor L. had done
when I discovered the host of blue hepaticas in the beech-
woods near SchwanthaleFs castle. Marie, it seemed, did
not trouble her memory with the names of flowers ; which
was an unlucky thing for me.
VOL. II. E
49
of the lake and mountains lying below them : it really was
too bad being defrauded of the most beautiful spot in the
garden by young fellows who were smoking and beer-
drinking ; but as they formed a picturesque group with
their scarlet caps and white shirt-sleeves,, for they had
flung off their coats the day being hob I gradually for-
gave them. The second best seat in the garden we dis-
covered was as much infested with ants as the other had been
“ infested with youth”—to use the expression of an old
Englishman; therefore we were forced to content ourselves
with the third best breakfast-parlour. Marie seated herself
under the shadowy beech-trees, whilst I, to beguile my
impatience for breakfast, began gathering a nosegay. First
I plucked cowslips and grasses; but, behold ! there were
flowers here to be gathered, to my English eyes, far more
precious than cowslips; there were tufts of the small Alpine
gentian, with its peacock blue so gorgeous in the sunlight •
there was the Trolius with its ball of gold; there were
oxlips and a little plant creeping over the dry turf with a
cistus leaf and pea-shaped orange and cream coloured
blossom—an entirely new flower to me—and another plant
yet more beautiful, and equally un-English, its blossom
resembling a blue Verbenum, but its leaves soft and of
tender green and oval-shaped, growing close to the earth.
It had a faint, delicate perfume, such as our greenhouse
primulas have. I noticed during the course of the day this
lovely lilac flower growing in the greatest profusion in the
rich grass around the lake. Marie, I fancy, thought me
scarcely less childish in my joy over my odorous bouquet of
wildflowers than her good old uncle and Signor L. had done
when I discovered the host of blue hepaticas in the beech-
woods near SchwanthaleFs castle. Marie, it seemed, did
not trouble her memory with the names of flowers ; which
was an unlucky thing for me.
VOL. II. E