CHAPTER VITHE SECRET OF THE WILLOW WRENThe willow wren is one of the commonest and undoubtedly the most generally diffused of the British songsters. A summer visitor, one of the earliest to arrive, usually appearing on the South Coast in the last week in March; a little later he may be met with in very nearly every wood, thicket, hedge, common, marsh, orchard, and large garden throughout the kingdom—it is hard to say, writes Seebohm, where he is not found. Wherever there are green perching-places, and small caterpillars, flies and aphides to feed upon, there you will see and hear the willow wren. He is a sweet and constant singer from the date of his arrival until about the middle of June, when he becomes silent for a season, resuming his song in July, and continuing it throughout August and even into September. This late summer singing is, however, fitful and weak and less joyous in character than in the spring. But in spite of his abundance and universality, and the charm of his little melody, he is not familiarlyknown to the people generally, as they know the robin redbreast, pied wagtail, dunnock, redstart, wheatear, and stonechat. The name we call him by is a very old one; it was first used in English by Ray, in his translation of Willughby'sOrnithology, about three centuries ago; but it still remains a book-name unknown to the rustic. Nor has this common little bird any widely known vernacular name. If by chance you find a country-man who knows the bird, and has a name for it, this will be one which is applied indiscriminately to two, three, or four species. The willow wren, in fact, is one of those little birds that are "seen rather than distinguished," on account of its small size, modest colouring, and its close resemblance to other species of warblers; also on account of the quiet, gentle character of its song, which is little noticed in the spring and summer concert of loud, familiar voices.One day in London during the late summer I was amused and at the same time a little disgusted at this general indifference to the delicate beauty in a bird-sound which distinguishes the willow wren even among such delicate singers as the warblers: it struck me as a kind of æsthetic hardness of hearing. I heard the song in the flowerwalk, in Kensington Gardens, on a Sunday morning, and sat down to listen to it; and for half an hour the bird continued to repeat his song two or three times a minute on the trees and bushes within half a dozen yards of my seat. Just after I had sat down, a throstle, perched on the topmost bough of a thorn that projected over the walk, began his song, and continued it a long time, heedless of the people passing below. Now, I noticed that in almost every case the person approaching lifted his eyes to the bird above, apparently admiring the music, sometimes even pausing for a moment in his walk; and that when two or three came together they not only looked up, but made some remark about the beauty of the song. But from first to last not one of all the passers-by cast a look towards the tree where the willow wren was singing; nor was there anything to show that the sound had any attraction for them, although they must have heard it. The loudness of the thrush prevented them from giving it any attention, and made it practically inaudible. It was like a pimpernel blossoming by the side of a poppy, or dahlia, or peony, where, even if seen, it would not be noticed as a beautiful flower.In the chapter on the wood wren, I endeavouredto trace to its source the pleasurable feelings which the song of that bird produces in me and in many others—a charm exceeding that of many more celebrated vocalists. In that chapter the song of the willow wren was mentioned incidentally. Now, these two—wood wren and willow wren—albeit nearly related, are, in the character of their notes, as widely different as it is possible for two songsters to be; and when we listen attentively to both, we recognise that the feeling produced in us differs in each case—that it has a different cause. In the case of the willow wren it might be said off-hand that our pleasure is simply due to the fact that it is a melodious sound, associated in our minds with summer scenes. As much could be said of any other migrant's song—nightingale, tree-pipit, blackcap, garden warbler, swallow, and a dozen more. But it does not explain the individual and very special charm of this particular bird—what I have ventured to call the secret of the willow wren. After all, it is not a deeply hidden secret, and has indeed been half guessed or hinted by various writers on bird melody; and as it also happens to be the secret of other singers besides the willow wren, we may, I think, find in it an explanation of the fact that the best singers donot invariably please us so well as some that are considered inferior.The song of the willow wren has been called singular and unique among our birds; and Mr Warde Fowler, who has best described it, says that it forms an almost perfect cadence, and adds, "by which I mean that it descends gradually, not, of course, on the notes of our musical scale, by which no birds in their natural state would deign to be fettered, but through fractions of one or perhaps two of our tones, and without returning upward at the end." Now, this arrangement of its notes, although very rare and beautiful, does not give the little song its highest æsthetic value. The secret of the charm, I imagine, is traceable to the fact that there is distinctly something human-like in the quality of the voice, itstimbre. Many years ago an observer of wild birds and listener to their songs came to this country, and walking one day in a London suburb he heard a small bird singing among the trees. The trees were in an enclosure and he could not see the bird, but there would, he thought, be no difficulty in ascertaining the species, since it would only be necessary to describe its peculiar little song to his friends and they would tell him. Accordingly, on his returnto the house he proceeded to describe the song and ask the name of the singer. No one could tell him, and much to his surprise, his account of the melody was received with smiles of amusement and incredulity. He described it as a song that was like a wonderfully bright and delicate human voice talking or laughingly saying something rather than singing. It was not until some time afterwards that the bird-lover in a strange land discovered that his little talker and laugher among the leaves was the willow wren. In vain he had turned to the ornithological works; the song he had heard, or at all events the song as he had heard it, was not described therein; and yet to this day he cannot hear it differently—cannot dissociate the sound from the idea of a fairy-like child with an exquisitely pure, bright, spiritual voice laughingly speaking in some green place.And yet Gilbert White over a century ago had noted the human quality in the willow wren's voice when he described it as an "easy, joyous, laughing note." It is still better to be able to quote Mr Warde Fowler, when writing inA Year with the Birds, on the futile attempts which are often made to represent birds' songs by means of our notation, since birds are guided in their songs byno regular succession of intervals. Speaking of the willow wren in this connection, he adds: "Strange as it may seem, the songs of birds may perhaps be more justly compared with the human voice when speaking, than with a musical instrument, or with the human voice when singing." The truth of this observation must strike any person who will pay close attention to the singing of birds; but there are two criticisms to be made on it. One is that the resemblance of a bird's song to a human voice when speaking is confined to some or to a few species; the second is that it is a mistake to think, as Mr Fowler appears to do, that the resemblance is wholly or mainly due to the fact that the bird's voice is free when singing—that, like the human voice in talking, it is not tied to tones and semitones. For instance, we note this peculiarity in the willow wren, but not in, say, the wren and chaffinch, although the songs of these two are just as free, just as independent of regular intervals as our voices when speaking and laughing. The resemblance in a bird's song to human speech is entirely due to the human-like quality in the voice; for we find that other songsters—notably the swallow—have a charm similar to that of the willow wren, althoughthe notes of the former bird are differently arranged, and do not form anything like a cadence. Again, take the case of the blackbird. We are accustomed to describe the blackbird's voice as flute-like, and the flute is one of the instruments which most nearly resemble the human voice. Now, on account of the leisurely manner in which the blackbird gives out his notes, the resemblance to human speech is not so pronounced as in the case of the willow wren or swallow; but when two or three or half a dozen blackbirds are heard singing close together, as we sometimes hear them in woods and orchards where they are abundant, the effect is singularly beautiful, and gives the idea of a conversation being carried on by a set of human beings of arboreal habits (not monkeys) with glorified voices. Listening to these blackbird concerts, I have sometimes wondered whether or not they produced the same effect on others' ears as on mine, as of people talking to one another in high-pitched and beautiful tones. Oddly enough, it was only while writing this chapter that I by chance found an affirmative answer to my question. Glancing through Leslie'sRiverside Letters, which I had not previously seen, I came upon the following remarks, quoted from Sir George Grove, in a letterto the author, on the blackbird's singing: "He selects a spot where he is within hearing of a comrade, and then he begins quite at leisure (not all in a hurry like the thrush) a regular conversation. 'And how are you? Isn't this a fine day? Let us have a nice talk,' etc., etc. He is answered in the same strain, and then replies, and so on. Nothing more thoughtful, more refined, more feeling, can be conceived." In another passage he writes: "I love them (the robins), but they fill a much smaller part than the blackbird does in my heart. To hear the blackbird talking to his mate a field off, with deliberate, refined conversation, the very acme of grace and courtesy, is perfectly splendid."There are two more common British songsters that produce much the same effect as the willow wren and blackbird; these are the swallow and pied wagtail. They are not in the first rank as melodists, and I can find no explanation of the fact that they please me better than the great singers other than their more human-like tones, which to my hearing have something of an exceedingly beautiful contralto sound. The swallow's song is familiar to every one, but that of the wagtail is not well known. The bird has two distinct songs: one, heard oftenest in early spring, consistsof a low rambling warble, with some resemblance to the whinchat's song; it is the second song, heard occasionally until late June, frequently uttered on the wing—a torrent of loud, rapidly uttered, and somewhat swallow-like notes—that comes nearest in tone to the human voice, and has the greatest charm.After these, we find other songsters with one or two notes, or a phrase, human-like in quality, in their songs. Of these I will only mention the blackcap, linnet, and tree-pipit. The most beautiful of the blackcap's notes, which come nearest to the blackbird, have this human sound; and certainly the most beautiful part of the linnet's song is the opening phrase, composed of notes that are both swallow-like and human-like.It may appear strange to some readers that I put the tree-pipit, with his thin, shrill, canary-like pipe, in this list; but his notes are not all of this character; he is moreover a most variable singer; and it happens that in some individuals the concluding notes of the song have more of that peculiar human quality than any other British songster. No doubt it was a bird in which these human-like, languishing notes at the close of the song were very full and beautiful that inspiredBurns to write his "Address to a Wood-lark." The tree pipit is often called by that name in Scotland, where the true wood-lark is not found.O stay, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay,Nor quit for me the trembling spray,A hopeless lover courts thy lay,Thy soothing, fond complaining.Again, again that tender part,That I may catch thy melting art;For surely that would touch her heartWho kills me wi' disdaining.Say, was thy little mate unkind,And heard thee as the passing wind?O nocht but love and sorrow joinedSic notes o' wae could waken!Thou tells o' never-ceasing care,O' speechless grief and dark despair;For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair,Or my poor heart is broken!Much more could be said about these and other species in the passerine order that have some resemblance, distinct or faint, to the human voice in their singing notes—an echo, as it were, of our own common emotions, in most cases simply glad or joyous, but sometimes, as in the case of the tree-pipit, of another character. And even those species that are furthest removed from us in the characterof the sounds they emit have some notes that suggest a highly brightened human voice. Witness the throstle and nightingale. The last approaches to the human voice in that rich, musical throb, repeated many times with passion, which is the invariable prelude to his song; and again, in that "one low piping note, more sweet than all," four times repeated in a wonderfully beautiful crescendo. Who that ever listened to Carlotta Patti does not remember sounds like these from her lips? It was commonly said of her that her voice was bird-like; certainly it was clarified and brightened beyond other voices—in some of her notes almost beyond recognition as a human voice. It was a voice that had a great deal of the quality of gladness in it, but less depth of human passion than other great singers. Still, it was a human voice; and, just as Carlotta Patti (outshining the best of her sister-singers even as the diamond outsparkles all other gems) rose to the birds in her miraculous flights, so do some of the birds come down to and resemble us in their songs.If I am right in thinking that it is the human note in the voices of some passerine birds that gives a peculiar and very great charm to their songs, so that an inferior singer shall please usmore than one that ranks high, according to the accepted standard, it remains to ask why it should be so. Why, I mean, should the mere likeness to a human tone in a little singing-bird impart so great a pleasure to the mind, when the undoubtedly human-like voices of many non-passerine species do not as a rule affect us in the same way? As a matter of fact, we find in the multitude of species that resemble us in their voices a few, outside of the order of singers, that do give us a pleasure similar to that imparted by the willow wren, swallow, and tree-pipit. Thus, among British birds we have the wood-pigeon, and the stock-dove; the green woodpecker, with his laugh-like cry; the cuckoo, a universal favourite on account of his double fluty call; and (to those who are not inclined to be superstitious) the wood-owl, a most musical night-singer; and the curlew, with, in a less degree, various other shore birds. But in a majority of the larger birds of all orders the effect produced is different, and often the reverse of pleasant. Or if such sounds delight us, the feeling differs in character from that produced by the melodious singer, and is mainly due to that wildness with which we are in sympathy expressed by such sounds. Human-like voices are found amongthe auks, loons, and grebes; eagles and falcons; cuckoos, pigeons, goatsuckers, owls, crows, rails, ducks, waders, and gallinaceous birds. The cries and shrieks of some among these, particularly when heard in the dark hours, in deep woods and marshes and other solitary places, profoundly impress and even startle the mind, and have given rise all the world over to numberless superstitious beliefs. Such sounds are supposed to proceed from devils, or from demons inhabiting woods and waters and all desert places; from night-wandering witches; spirits sent to prophesy death or disaster; ghosts of dead men and women wandering by night about the world in search of a way out of it; and sometimes human beings who, burdened with dreadful crimes or irremediable griefs, have been changed into birds. The three British species best known on account of their supernatural character have very remarkable voices with a human sound in them: the raven with his angry, barking cry, and deep, solemn croak; the booming bittern; and the white or church owl, with his funereal screech.It is, I think, plain that the various sensations excited in us by the cries, moans, screams, and the more or less musical notes of different species, aredue to the human emotions which they express or seem to express. If the voice simulates that of a maniac, or of a being tortured in body or mind, or overcome with grief, or maddened with terror, the blood-curdling and other sensations proper to the occasion will be experienced; only, if we are familiar with the sound or know its cause, the sensation will be weak. Similarly, if in some deep, silent wood we are suddenly startled by a loud human whistle or shouted "Hi!" although we may know that a bird, somewhere in that waste of foliage around us, uttered the shout, we yet cannot help experiencing the feelings—a combination of curiosity, amusement, and irritation—which we should have if some friend or some human being had hailed us while purposely keeping out of sight. Finally, if the bird-sounds resemble refined, bright, and highly musical human voices, the voices, let us say, of young girls in conversation, expressive of various beautiful qualities—sympathy, tenderness, innocent mirth, and overflowing gladness of heart—the effect will be in the highest degree delightful.Herbert Spencer, in his account of the origin of our love of music in hisPsychology, writes: "While the tones of anger and authority are harshand coarse, the tones of sympathy and refinement are relatively gentle and of agreeable timbre. That is to say, the timbre is associated in experience with the receipt of gratification, has acquired a pleasure-giving quality, and consequently the tones which in music have an allied timbre become pleasure-giving and are called beautiful. Not that this is the sole cause of their pleasure-giving quality.... Still, in recalling the tones of instruments which approach the tones of the human voice, and observing that they seem beautiful in proportion to their approach, we see that this secondary æsthetic element is important."As with instruments, so it is with bird voices; in proportion as they approach the tones of the human voice, expressive of sympathy, refinement, and other beautiful qualities, they will seem beautiful—in some cases even more beautiful than those which, however high they may rank in other ways, are yet without this secondary æsthetic element.CHAPTER VIISECRET OF THE CHARM OF FLOWERSWhen my mind was occupied with the subject of the last chapter—the human quality in some sweet bird voices—it struck me forcibly that all resemblances to man in the animal and vegetable worlds and in inanimate nature, enter largely into and strongly colour our æsthetic feelings. We have but to listen to the human tones in wind and water, and in animal voices; and to recognise the human shape in plant, and rock, and cloud, and in the round heads of certain mammals, like the seal; and the human expression in the eyes, and faces generally, of many mammals, birds and reptiles, to know that these casual resemblances are a great deal to us. They constitute theexpressionof numberless natural sights and sounds with which we are familiar, although in a majority of cases the resemblance being but slight, and to some one quality only, we are not conscious of the cause of the expression.It was principally with flowers, which excitemore attention and give more pleasure than most natural objects, that my mind was occupied in this connection; for here it seemed to me that the effect was similar to that produced on the mind by sweet human-like tones in bird music. In other words, a very great if not the principal charm of the flower was to be traced to the human associations of its colouring; and this was, in some cases, more than all its other attractions, including beauty of form, purity and brilliance of colour, and the harmonious arrangement of colours; and, finally, fragrance, where such a quality existed.We see, then, that there is an intimate connection between the two subjects—human associations in the colouring of flowers and in the voices of birds; and that in both cases this association constitutes, or is a principal element in, theexpression. This connection, and the fact that the present subject was suggested and appeared almost an inevitable outcome of the one last discussed, must be my excuse for introducing a chapter on flowers in a book on birds—or birds and man. But an excuse is hardly needed. It must strike most readers that a great fault of books on birds is, that there is too much about birds in them, consequently that a chapter about something else, whichhas not exactly been dragged in, may come as a positive relief.As the word expression which occurs with frequency in this chapter was not understood in the sense in which I used it on the first appearance of the book, it may be well to explain that it is not used here in its ordinary meaning as the quality in a face, or picture, or any work of art, which indicates thought or feeling. Here the word has the meaning given to it by writers on the æsthetic sense as descriptive of the quality imparted to an object by its associations. These may be untraceable: we may not be conscious and as a rule we are not conscious that any such associations exist; nevertheless they are in us all the time, and with what they add to an object may enhance and even double its intrinsic beauty and charm.• • • • •I have somewhere read a very ancient legend, which tells that man was originally made of many materials, and that at the last a bunch of wild flowers was gathered and thrown into the mixture to give colour to his eyes. It is a pretty story, but might have been better told, since it is certain that flowers which have delicate and beautifulflesh-tints are attractive mainly on that account, just as blue and some purples delight us chiefly because of their associations with the human iris. The skin, too, needed some beautiful colour, and there were red as well as blue flowers in the bunch; and the red flowers being most abundant in nature and in greater variety of tints, give us altogether more pleasure than their beautiful rivals in our affection.The blue flower is associated, consciously or not, with the human blue eye; and as the floral blue is in all or nearly all instances pure and beautiful, it is like the most beautiful human eye. This association, and not the colour itself, strikes me as the true cause of the superior attraction which the blue flower has for most of us. Apart from association blue is less attractive than red, orange, and yellow, because less luminous; furthermore green is the least effective background for such a colour as blue in so small an object as a flower; and, as a fact, we see that at a little distance the blue of the flower is absorbed and disappears in the surrounding green, while reds and yellows keep their splendour. Nevertheless the blue has a stronger hold on our affections. As a human colour, blue comes first in a blue-eyed race becauseit is the colour of the most important feature, and, we may say, of the very soul in man.Some purple flowers stand next in our regard on account of their nearness in colour to the pure blue. The wild hyacinth, blue-bottle, violet, and pansy, and some others, will occur to every one. These are the purple flowers in which blue predominates, and on that account have the same expression as the blue. The purples in which red predominates are akin in expression to the reds, and are associated with flesh-tints and blood. And here it may be noted that the blue and blue-purple flowers, which have the greatest charm for us, are those in which not only the colour of the eye but some resemblance in their form to the iris, with its central spot representing the pupil, appears. For example, the flax, borage, blue geranium, periwinkle, forget-me-not, speedwell, pansy and blue pimpernel, are actually more to us than some larger and handsomer blue flowers, such as the blue-bottle, vipers' bugloss, and succory, and of blue flowers seen in masses.With regard to the numerous blue and purple-blue flowers which we all admire, or rather for which we all feel so great an affection, we find that in many cases their very names have beensuggested by their human associations—by theirexpression.Love-in-a-mist, angels' eyes, forget-me-not, and heartsease, are familiar examples. Heartsease and pansy both strike us as peculiarly appropriate to one of our commonest and most universal garden flowers; yet we see something besides the sympathetic and restful expression which suggested these names in this flower—a certain suggestion of demureness, in fact, reminding those who have seen Guido's picture of the "Adoration of the Virgin," of one of his loveliest angels whose angelical eyes and face reveal some desire for admiration and love in the spectator. And that expression, too, of the pansy named Love-in-Idleness, has been described, coarsely or rudely it may be, in some of its country names: "Kiss me behind the garden gate," and, better (or worse) still, "Meet-her-i'-th'-entry-kiss-her-i'-th'-buttery." Of this order of names are None-so-pretty and Pretty maids, Pretty Betsy, Kiss-me-quick. Even such a name as Tears of the blood of Christ does not sound extravagantly fanciful or startling when we look at the glowing deep golden crimson of the wall flower; nor of a blue flower, the germander speedwell, such names as The more I see you themore I love you, and Angels' tears, and Tears of Christ, with many more.A writer on our wild flowers, in speaking of their vernacular names of this kind, has said: "Could we penetrate to the original suggestive idea that called forth its name, it would bring valuable information about the first openings of the human mind towards nature; and the merest dream of such a discovery invests with a strange charm the words that could tell, if we could understand, so much of the forgotten infancy of the human race."What a roll of words and what a mighty and mysterious business is here made of a very simple little matter! It is a charming example of the strange helplessness, not to say imbecility, which affects most of those who have been trained in our mind-killing schools; trained not to think, but taught to go for anything and everything they desire to know to the books. If the books in the British Museum fail to say why our ancestors hundreds of years ago named a flower None-so-pretty or Love-in-a-mist, why then we must be satisfied to sit in thick darkness with regard to this matter until some heaven-born genius descends to illuminate us! Yet I daresay there is not a country child who does not occasionally inventa name for some plant or creature which has attracted his attention; and in many cases the child's new name is suggested by some human association in the object—some resemblance to be seen in form or colour or sound. Not books but the light of nature, the experience of our own early years, the look which no person not blinded by reading can fail to see in a flower, is sufficient to reveal all this hidden wonderful knowledge about the first openings of the heart towards nature, during the remote infancy of the human race.From this it will be seen that I am not claiming a discovery; that what I have called a secret of the charm of flowers is a secret known to every man, woman, and child, even to those of my own friends who stoutly deny that they have any such knowledge. But I think it is best known to children. What I am here doing is merely to bring together and put in form certain more or less vague thoughts and feelings which I (and therefore all of us) have about flowers; and it is a small matter, but it happens to be one which no person has hitherto attempted.It may be that in some of my readers' minds—those who, like the sceptical friends I have mentioned, are not distinctly conscious of the causeor secret of the expression of a flower—some doubt may still remain after what has been said of the blue and purple-blue blossom. Such a doubt ought to disappear when the reds are considered, and when it is found that the expression peculiar to red flowers varies infinitely in degree, and is always greatest in those shades of the colour which come nearest to the most beautiful flesh-tints.When I say "beautiful flesh-tints" I am thinking of the æsthetic pleasure which we receive from the expression, the associations, of the red flower. The expression which delights is in the soft and delicate shades; and in the texture which is sometimes like the beautiful soft skin; but theexpressionwould exist still in the case of floral tints resembling the unpleasant reds, or the reds which disgust us, in the human face. And we most of us know that these distressing hues are to be seen in some flowers. I remember that I once went into a florist's shop, and seeing a great mass of hard purple-red cinerarias on a shelf I made some remark about them. "Yes, are they not beautiful?" said the woman in the shop. "No, I loathe the sight of them," I returned. "So do I!" she said very quickly, and then added that she called them beautiful because she had to sell them. She, too, had nodoubt seen that same purple-red colour in the evil flower called "grog-blossom," and in the faces of many middle-aged lovers of the bottle, male and female, who would perish before their time, to the great relief of their kindred, and whose actions after they were gone would not smell sweet and blossom in the dust.The reds we like best in flowers are the delicate roseate and pinky shades; they are more to us than the purest and most luminous tints. And here, as with bird notes which delight us on account of their resemblance to fresh, young, highly musical human voices, flowers please us best when they exhibit the loveliest human tints—the apple blossom and the bindweed, musk mallow and almond and wild rose, for example. After these we are most taken with the deeper but soft and not too luminous reds—the red which we admire in the red horse-chestnut blossom, and many other flowers, down to the minute pimpernel. Next come the intense rosy reds seen in the herb-robert and other wild geraniums, valerian, red campion and ragged robin; and this shade of red, intensified but still soft, is seen in the willow-herb and foxglove, and, still more intensified, in the bell- and small-leafed heath. Some if not all of these pleasing reds havepurple in them, and there are very many distinctly purple flowers that appeal to us in the same way that red flowers do, receiving their expression from the same cause. There is some purple colour in most skins, and even some blue.The azured harebell, like thy veins,is a familiar verse fromCymbeline; any one can see the resemblance to the pale blue of that admired and loved blossom in the blue veins of any person with a delicate skin. Purples and purplish reds in masses are mostly seen in young persons of delicate skins and high colour in frosty weather in winter, when the eyes sparkle and the face glows with the happy sensations natural to the young and healthy during and after outdoor exercise. The skin purples and purple-reds here described are beautiful, and may be matched to a nicety in many flowers; the human purple may be seen (to name a very common wild flower) in purple loosestrife and the large marsh mallow, and in dozens and scores of other familiar purple flowers; and the purple-red hue in many richly coloured skins has its exact shade in common hounds' tongue, and in other dark and purple-red flowers. But we always find, I fancy, that the expression due to human association in a purple floweris greatest when this colour (as in the human face) is placed side by side or fades into some shade of red or pink. I think we may see this even in a small flower like the fumitory, in which one portion is deep purple and all the rest of the blossoms a delicate pink. Even when the red is very intense, as in the common field poppy, the pleasing expression of purple on red is very evident.To return to pure reds. We may say that just as purples in flowers look best, or have a greater degree of expression, when appearing in or with reds, so do the most delicate rose and pink shades appeal most to us when they appear as a tinge or blush on white flowers. Probably the flower that gives the most pleasure on account of its beautiful flesh-tints of different shades is the Gloire de Dîjon rose, so common with us and so universal a favourite. Roses, being mostly of the garden, are out of my line, but they are certainly glorious to look at—glorious because of their associations, their expression, whether we know it or not. One can forgive Thomas Carew the conceit in his lines—Ask me no more where Jove bestowsWhen June is past, the fading rose,For in your beauty's orient deepThese flowers as in their causes sleep.But all reds have something human, even the most luminous scarlets and crimsons—the scarlet verbena, the poppy, our garden geraniums, etc.—although in intensity they so greatly surpass the brightest colour of the lips and the most vivid blush on the cheek. Luminous reds are not, however, confined to lips and cheeks: even the fingers when held up before the eyes to the sun or to fire-light show a very delicate and beautiful red; and this same brilliant floral hue is seen at times in the membrane of the ear. It is, in fact, the colour of blood, and that bright fluid, which is the life, and is often spilt, comes very much into the human associations of flowers. The Persian poet, whose name is best left unwritten, since from hearing it too often most persons are now sick and tired of it, has said,I sometimes think that never blooms so redThe rose as where some buried Cæsar bled.There is many and many a "plant of the blood of men." Our most common Love-lies-bleeding with its "dropping wells" of crimson serves to remind us that there are numberless vulgar names that express this resemblance and association. The thought or fancy is found everywhere in poeticliterature, in the fables of antiquity, in the tales and folk-lore of all nations, civilised and barbarous.I think that we can more quickly recognise this human interest in a flower, due to its colour, and best appreciate its æsthetic value from this cause, when we turn from the blues, purples, and reds, to the whites and the yellows. The feeling these last give us is distinctly different in character from that produced by the others. They are not like us, nor like any living sentient thing we are related to: there is no kinship, no human quality.When I say "no kinship, no human quality," I refer to flowers that are entirely pure white or pure yellow; in some dull or impure yellows, and in white and yellow flowers that have some tinge or mixture of red or purple, we do get the expression of the red and purple flower. The crystalline and snow white of the whitest flowers do indeed resemble the white of the eyeballs and the teeth in human faces; but we may see that this human white colour by itself has no human association in a flower.The whiteness of the white flower where there is any red is never unhuman, probably because a very brilliant red or rose colour on some delicate skins causes the light flesh-tints to appear whiteby contrast, and is the complexion known as "milk and roses." The apple-blossom is a beautiful example, and the beloved daisy—the "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," which would be so much less dear but for that touch of human crimson. This is the herb-Margaret of so many tender and pretty legends, that has white for purity and red for repentance. Even those who have never read these legends and that prettiest, most pathetic of all which tells of the daisy's origin, find a secret charm in the flower. Among other common examples are the rosy-white hawthorn, wood anemone, bindweed, dropwort, and many others. In the dropwort the rosy buds are seen among the creamy white open flowers; and the expression is always very marked and beautiful when there is any red or purple tinge or blush on cream-whites and ivory-whites. When we look from the dropwort to its nearest relative, the common meadow-sweet, we see how great a charm the touch of rose-red has given to the first: the meadow-sweet has no expression of the kind we are considering—no human association.In pure yellow flowers, as in pure white, human interest is wanting. It is true that yellow is a human colour, since in the hair we find yellowsof different shades—it is a pity that we cannot find, or have not found, a better word than "shades" for the specific differences of a colour. There is the so-called tow, the tawny, the bronze, the simple yellow, and the golden, which includes many varieties, and the hair called carroty. But none of these has the flower yellow. Richard Jefferies tells us that when he placed a sovereign by the side of a dandelion he saw how unlike the two colours were—that, in fact, no two colours could seem more unlike than the yellow of gold and the yellow of the flower. It is not necessary to set a lock of hair and any yellow flower side by side to know how utterly different the hues are. The yellow of the hair is like that of metals, of clay, of stone, and of various earthy substances, and like the fur of some mammals, and like xanthophyll in leaf and stalk, and the yellow sometimes seen in clouds. When Ossian, in his famous address to the sun, speaks of his yellow hair floating on the eastern clouds, we instantly feel the truth as well as beauty of the simile. We admire the yellow flower for the purity and brilliance of its colour, just as we admire some bird notes solely for the purity and brightness of the sound, however unlike the human voice they may be. We also admireit in many instances for the exquisite beauty of its form, and the beauty of the contrast of pure yellow and deep green, as in the yellow flag, mimulus, and numerous other plants. But however much we may admire, we do not experience that intimate and tender feeling which the blues and reds inspire in us; in other words, the yellow flower has not the expression which distinguishes those of other colours. Thus, when Tennyson speaks of the "speedwell's darling blue," we know that he is right—that he expresses a feeling about this flower common to all of us; but no poet would make so great, so absurd a mistake as to describe the purest and loveliest yellow of the most prized and familiar wild flower—buttercup or kingcup, yellow flag, sea poppy, marsh marigold, or broom, or furze, or rock-rose, let us say—by such a word—the word that denotes an intimate and affectionate feeling—the feeling one cherishes for the loved ones of our kind. Nor could that word of Tennyson be properly used of any pure white flower—the stitchwort for instance; nor of any white and yellow flower like the Marguerite. But no sooner do you get a touch of rose or crimson in the whitest flower, as we see in the daisy and eyebright, than you can say of it that it is a "dear" or a "darling"colour, and no one can find fault with the expression.When we consider the dull and impure yellows sometimes seen in flowers, and some soft yellows seen in combination with pleasing wholesome reds, as in the honeysuckle, we may find something of the expression—the human association—in yellow flowers. For thereisyellow in the skin, even in perfect health; it appears strongest on the neck, and spread round to the throat and chin, and is a warm buff, verybeautifulin some women; but very little of this tint appears in the face. When a tinge of this warm buffy yellow and creamy yellow is seen mixed with warmer reds, as in the Gloire de Dîjon rose, the effect is most beautiful and the expression most marked. But the expression in flowers of a pale dull, impure yellow, where there is an expression, is unpleasant. It is the yellow of unhealthy skins, of faces discoloured by jaundice, dyspepsia, and other ailments. We commonly say of such flowers that they are "sickly" in colour, and the association is with sick and decaying humanity. Gerarde, in describing such hues in flowers, was fond of the word "overworn"; and it was a very good word, and, like the one now in use, is derived from the association.It will be noted by those who are acquainted with many flowers that I have given the names of but few—it may be too few—as examples, and that these are nearly all of familiar wild flowers. My reason for not going to the garden is, that our cultivated blooms are not only artificially produced, and in some degree monstrosities, but they are seen in unnatural conditions, in crowds and masses, the various kinds too near together, and in most cases selected on account of their gorgeous colouring. The effect produced, however delightful it may be in some ways, is confusing to those simple natural feelings which flowers in a state of nature cause in us.I confess that gardens in most cases affect me disagreeably; hence I avoid them, and think and know little about garden flowers. It is of course impossible not to go into gardens. The large garden is the greatly valued annexe of the large house, and is as much or more to the mistress than the coverts to the master; and when I am asked to go into the garden to see andadmireall that is there, I cannot say, "Madam, I hate gardens." On the contrary, I must weakly comply and pretend to be pleased. And when going the rounds of her paradise my eyes light by chance on a bedof tulips, or scarlet geraniums, or blue larkspurs, ordetestedcalceolarias or cinerarias—a great patch of coloured flame springing out of a square or round bed of grassless, brown, desolate earth—the effect is more than disagreeable: the mass of colour glares at and takes possession of me, and spreads itself over and blots out a hundred delicate and prized images of things seen that existed in the mind.But I am going too far, and perhaps making an enemy of a reader when I would much prefer to have him (or her) for a friend.I have named few flowers, and those all the most familiar kinds, because it seemed to me that many examples would have had a confusing effect on readers who do not intimately know many species, or do not remember the exact colour in each case, and are therefore unable to reproduce in their minds the exactexpression—the feeling which every flower conveys. On the other hand, the reader who knows and loves flowers, who has in his mind the distinct images of many scores, perhaps of two or three hundreds of species, can add to my example many more from his own memory.There is one objection to the explanation given here of the cause of the charm of certain flowers,which will instantly occur to some readers, and may as well be answered in advance. This view, or theory, must be wrong, a reader will perhaps say, because my own preference is for a yellow flower (the primrose or daffodil, let us say), which to me has a beauty and charm exceeding all other flowers.The obvious explanation of such a preference would be that the particular flower preferred is intimately associated with recollections of a happy childhood, or of early life. The associations will have made it a flower among flowers, charged with a subtle magic, so that the mere sight or smell of it calls up beautiful visions before the mind's eye. Every person bred in a country place is affected in this way by certain natural objects and odours; and I recall the case of Cuvier, who was always affected to tears by the sight of some common yellow flower, the name of which I have forgotten.The way to test the theory is to take, or think of, two or three or half-a-dozen flowers that have no personal associations with one's own early life—that are not, like the primrose and daffodil in the foregoing instance, sacred flowers, unlike all others; some with and some without human colouring, and consider the feeling produced in eachcase on the mind. If any one will look at, say, a Gloire de Dîjon rose (in some persons its mental image will serve as well as the object itself) and then at a perfect white chrysanthemum, or lily, or other beautiful white flower; then at a perfect yellow chrysanthemum, or an allamanda, and at any exquisitely beautiful orchid, that has no human colour in it, which he may be acquainted with, he will probably say: I admire these chrysanthemums and other flowers more than the rose; they are most perfect in their beauty—I cannot imagine anything more beautiful; but though the rose is less beautiful and splendid, the admiration I have for it appears to differ somewhat in character—to be mixed with some new element which makes this flower actually more to me than the others.That something different, and something more, is the human association which this flower has for us in virtue of its colour; and the new element—the feeling it inspires, which has something of tenderness and affection in it—is one and the same with the feeling which we have for human beauty.
CHAPTER VI
THE SECRET OF THE WILLOW WREN
The willow wren is one of the commonest and undoubtedly the most generally diffused of the British songsters. A summer visitor, one of the earliest to arrive, usually appearing on the South Coast in the last week in March; a little later he may be met with in very nearly every wood, thicket, hedge, common, marsh, orchard, and large garden throughout the kingdom—it is hard to say, writes Seebohm, where he is not found. Wherever there are green perching-places, and small caterpillars, flies and aphides to feed upon, there you will see and hear the willow wren. He is a sweet and constant singer from the date of his arrival until about the middle of June, when he becomes silent for a season, resuming his song in July, and continuing it throughout August and even into September. This late summer singing is, however, fitful and weak and less joyous in character than in the spring. But in spite of his abundance and universality, and the charm of his little melody, he is not familiarlyknown to the people generally, as they know the robin redbreast, pied wagtail, dunnock, redstart, wheatear, and stonechat. The name we call him by is a very old one; it was first used in English by Ray, in his translation of Willughby'sOrnithology, about three centuries ago; but it still remains a book-name unknown to the rustic. Nor has this common little bird any widely known vernacular name. If by chance you find a country-man who knows the bird, and has a name for it, this will be one which is applied indiscriminately to two, three, or four species. The willow wren, in fact, is one of those little birds that are "seen rather than distinguished," on account of its small size, modest colouring, and its close resemblance to other species of warblers; also on account of the quiet, gentle character of its song, which is little noticed in the spring and summer concert of loud, familiar voices.
One day in London during the late summer I was amused and at the same time a little disgusted at this general indifference to the delicate beauty in a bird-sound which distinguishes the willow wren even among such delicate singers as the warblers: it struck me as a kind of æsthetic hardness of hearing. I heard the song in the flowerwalk, in Kensington Gardens, on a Sunday morning, and sat down to listen to it; and for half an hour the bird continued to repeat his song two or three times a minute on the trees and bushes within half a dozen yards of my seat. Just after I had sat down, a throstle, perched on the topmost bough of a thorn that projected over the walk, began his song, and continued it a long time, heedless of the people passing below. Now, I noticed that in almost every case the person approaching lifted his eyes to the bird above, apparently admiring the music, sometimes even pausing for a moment in his walk; and that when two or three came together they not only looked up, but made some remark about the beauty of the song. But from first to last not one of all the passers-by cast a look towards the tree where the willow wren was singing; nor was there anything to show that the sound had any attraction for them, although they must have heard it. The loudness of the thrush prevented them from giving it any attention, and made it practically inaudible. It was like a pimpernel blossoming by the side of a poppy, or dahlia, or peony, where, even if seen, it would not be noticed as a beautiful flower.
In the chapter on the wood wren, I endeavouredto trace to its source the pleasurable feelings which the song of that bird produces in me and in many others—a charm exceeding that of many more celebrated vocalists. In that chapter the song of the willow wren was mentioned incidentally. Now, these two—wood wren and willow wren—albeit nearly related, are, in the character of their notes, as widely different as it is possible for two songsters to be; and when we listen attentively to both, we recognise that the feeling produced in us differs in each case—that it has a different cause. In the case of the willow wren it might be said off-hand that our pleasure is simply due to the fact that it is a melodious sound, associated in our minds with summer scenes. As much could be said of any other migrant's song—nightingale, tree-pipit, blackcap, garden warbler, swallow, and a dozen more. But it does not explain the individual and very special charm of this particular bird—what I have ventured to call the secret of the willow wren. After all, it is not a deeply hidden secret, and has indeed been half guessed or hinted by various writers on bird melody; and as it also happens to be the secret of other singers besides the willow wren, we may, I think, find in it an explanation of the fact that the best singers donot invariably please us so well as some that are considered inferior.
The song of the willow wren has been called singular and unique among our birds; and Mr Warde Fowler, who has best described it, says that it forms an almost perfect cadence, and adds, "by which I mean that it descends gradually, not, of course, on the notes of our musical scale, by which no birds in their natural state would deign to be fettered, but through fractions of one or perhaps two of our tones, and without returning upward at the end." Now, this arrangement of its notes, although very rare and beautiful, does not give the little song its highest æsthetic value. The secret of the charm, I imagine, is traceable to the fact that there is distinctly something human-like in the quality of the voice, itstimbre. Many years ago an observer of wild birds and listener to their songs came to this country, and walking one day in a London suburb he heard a small bird singing among the trees. The trees were in an enclosure and he could not see the bird, but there would, he thought, be no difficulty in ascertaining the species, since it would only be necessary to describe its peculiar little song to his friends and they would tell him. Accordingly, on his returnto the house he proceeded to describe the song and ask the name of the singer. No one could tell him, and much to his surprise, his account of the melody was received with smiles of amusement and incredulity. He described it as a song that was like a wonderfully bright and delicate human voice talking or laughingly saying something rather than singing. It was not until some time afterwards that the bird-lover in a strange land discovered that his little talker and laugher among the leaves was the willow wren. In vain he had turned to the ornithological works; the song he had heard, or at all events the song as he had heard it, was not described therein; and yet to this day he cannot hear it differently—cannot dissociate the sound from the idea of a fairy-like child with an exquisitely pure, bright, spiritual voice laughingly speaking in some green place.
And yet Gilbert White over a century ago had noted the human quality in the willow wren's voice when he described it as an "easy, joyous, laughing note." It is still better to be able to quote Mr Warde Fowler, when writing inA Year with the Birds, on the futile attempts which are often made to represent birds' songs by means of our notation, since birds are guided in their songs byno regular succession of intervals. Speaking of the willow wren in this connection, he adds: "Strange as it may seem, the songs of birds may perhaps be more justly compared with the human voice when speaking, than with a musical instrument, or with the human voice when singing." The truth of this observation must strike any person who will pay close attention to the singing of birds; but there are two criticisms to be made on it. One is that the resemblance of a bird's song to a human voice when speaking is confined to some or to a few species; the second is that it is a mistake to think, as Mr Fowler appears to do, that the resemblance is wholly or mainly due to the fact that the bird's voice is free when singing—that, like the human voice in talking, it is not tied to tones and semitones. For instance, we note this peculiarity in the willow wren, but not in, say, the wren and chaffinch, although the songs of these two are just as free, just as independent of regular intervals as our voices when speaking and laughing. The resemblance in a bird's song to human speech is entirely due to the human-like quality in the voice; for we find that other songsters—notably the swallow—have a charm similar to that of the willow wren, althoughthe notes of the former bird are differently arranged, and do not form anything like a cadence. Again, take the case of the blackbird. We are accustomed to describe the blackbird's voice as flute-like, and the flute is one of the instruments which most nearly resemble the human voice. Now, on account of the leisurely manner in which the blackbird gives out his notes, the resemblance to human speech is not so pronounced as in the case of the willow wren or swallow; but when two or three or half a dozen blackbirds are heard singing close together, as we sometimes hear them in woods and orchards where they are abundant, the effect is singularly beautiful, and gives the idea of a conversation being carried on by a set of human beings of arboreal habits (not monkeys) with glorified voices. Listening to these blackbird concerts, I have sometimes wondered whether or not they produced the same effect on others' ears as on mine, as of people talking to one another in high-pitched and beautiful tones. Oddly enough, it was only while writing this chapter that I by chance found an affirmative answer to my question. Glancing through Leslie'sRiverside Letters, which I had not previously seen, I came upon the following remarks, quoted from Sir George Grove, in a letterto the author, on the blackbird's singing: "He selects a spot where he is within hearing of a comrade, and then he begins quite at leisure (not all in a hurry like the thrush) a regular conversation. 'And how are you? Isn't this a fine day? Let us have a nice talk,' etc., etc. He is answered in the same strain, and then replies, and so on. Nothing more thoughtful, more refined, more feeling, can be conceived." In another passage he writes: "I love them (the robins), but they fill a much smaller part than the blackbird does in my heart. To hear the blackbird talking to his mate a field off, with deliberate, refined conversation, the very acme of grace and courtesy, is perfectly splendid."
There are two more common British songsters that produce much the same effect as the willow wren and blackbird; these are the swallow and pied wagtail. They are not in the first rank as melodists, and I can find no explanation of the fact that they please me better than the great singers other than their more human-like tones, which to my hearing have something of an exceedingly beautiful contralto sound. The swallow's song is familiar to every one, but that of the wagtail is not well known. The bird has two distinct songs: one, heard oftenest in early spring, consistsof a low rambling warble, with some resemblance to the whinchat's song; it is the second song, heard occasionally until late June, frequently uttered on the wing—a torrent of loud, rapidly uttered, and somewhat swallow-like notes—that comes nearest in tone to the human voice, and has the greatest charm.
After these, we find other songsters with one or two notes, or a phrase, human-like in quality, in their songs. Of these I will only mention the blackcap, linnet, and tree-pipit. The most beautiful of the blackcap's notes, which come nearest to the blackbird, have this human sound; and certainly the most beautiful part of the linnet's song is the opening phrase, composed of notes that are both swallow-like and human-like.
It may appear strange to some readers that I put the tree-pipit, with his thin, shrill, canary-like pipe, in this list; but his notes are not all of this character; he is moreover a most variable singer; and it happens that in some individuals the concluding notes of the song have more of that peculiar human quality than any other British songster. No doubt it was a bird in which these human-like, languishing notes at the close of the song were very full and beautiful that inspiredBurns to write his "Address to a Wood-lark." The tree pipit is often called by that name in Scotland, where the true wood-lark is not found.
O stay, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay,Nor quit for me the trembling spray,A hopeless lover courts thy lay,Thy soothing, fond complaining.Again, again that tender part,That I may catch thy melting art;For surely that would touch her heartWho kills me wi' disdaining.Say, was thy little mate unkind,And heard thee as the passing wind?O nocht but love and sorrow joinedSic notes o' wae could waken!Thou tells o' never-ceasing care,O' speechless grief and dark despair;For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair,Or my poor heart is broken!
Much more could be said about these and other species in the passerine order that have some resemblance, distinct or faint, to the human voice in their singing notes—an echo, as it were, of our own common emotions, in most cases simply glad or joyous, but sometimes, as in the case of the tree-pipit, of another character. And even those species that are furthest removed from us in the characterof the sounds they emit have some notes that suggest a highly brightened human voice. Witness the throstle and nightingale. The last approaches to the human voice in that rich, musical throb, repeated many times with passion, which is the invariable prelude to his song; and again, in that "one low piping note, more sweet than all," four times repeated in a wonderfully beautiful crescendo. Who that ever listened to Carlotta Patti does not remember sounds like these from her lips? It was commonly said of her that her voice was bird-like; certainly it was clarified and brightened beyond other voices—in some of her notes almost beyond recognition as a human voice. It was a voice that had a great deal of the quality of gladness in it, but less depth of human passion than other great singers. Still, it was a human voice; and, just as Carlotta Patti (outshining the best of her sister-singers even as the diamond outsparkles all other gems) rose to the birds in her miraculous flights, so do some of the birds come down to and resemble us in their songs.
If I am right in thinking that it is the human note in the voices of some passerine birds that gives a peculiar and very great charm to their songs, so that an inferior singer shall please usmore than one that ranks high, according to the accepted standard, it remains to ask why it should be so. Why, I mean, should the mere likeness to a human tone in a little singing-bird impart so great a pleasure to the mind, when the undoubtedly human-like voices of many non-passerine species do not as a rule affect us in the same way? As a matter of fact, we find in the multitude of species that resemble us in their voices a few, outside of the order of singers, that do give us a pleasure similar to that imparted by the willow wren, swallow, and tree-pipit. Thus, among British birds we have the wood-pigeon, and the stock-dove; the green woodpecker, with his laugh-like cry; the cuckoo, a universal favourite on account of his double fluty call; and (to those who are not inclined to be superstitious) the wood-owl, a most musical night-singer; and the curlew, with, in a less degree, various other shore birds. But in a majority of the larger birds of all orders the effect produced is different, and often the reverse of pleasant. Or if such sounds delight us, the feeling differs in character from that produced by the melodious singer, and is mainly due to that wildness with which we are in sympathy expressed by such sounds. Human-like voices are found amongthe auks, loons, and grebes; eagles and falcons; cuckoos, pigeons, goatsuckers, owls, crows, rails, ducks, waders, and gallinaceous birds. The cries and shrieks of some among these, particularly when heard in the dark hours, in deep woods and marshes and other solitary places, profoundly impress and even startle the mind, and have given rise all the world over to numberless superstitious beliefs. Such sounds are supposed to proceed from devils, or from demons inhabiting woods and waters and all desert places; from night-wandering witches; spirits sent to prophesy death or disaster; ghosts of dead men and women wandering by night about the world in search of a way out of it; and sometimes human beings who, burdened with dreadful crimes or irremediable griefs, have been changed into birds. The three British species best known on account of their supernatural character have very remarkable voices with a human sound in them: the raven with his angry, barking cry, and deep, solemn croak; the booming bittern; and the white or church owl, with his funereal screech.
It is, I think, plain that the various sensations excited in us by the cries, moans, screams, and the more or less musical notes of different species, aredue to the human emotions which they express or seem to express. If the voice simulates that of a maniac, or of a being tortured in body or mind, or overcome with grief, or maddened with terror, the blood-curdling and other sensations proper to the occasion will be experienced; only, if we are familiar with the sound or know its cause, the sensation will be weak. Similarly, if in some deep, silent wood we are suddenly startled by a loud human whistle or shouted "Hi!" although we may know that a bird, somewhere in that waste of foliage around us, uttered the shout, we yet cannot help experiencing the feelings—a combination of curiosity, amusement, and irritation—which we should have if some friend or some human being had hailed us while purposely keeping out of sight. Finally, if the bird-sounds resemble refined, bright, and highly musical human voices, the voices, let us say, of young girls in conversation, expressive of various beautiful qualities—sympathy, tenderness, innocent mirth, and overflowing gladness of heart—the effect will be in the highest degree delightful.
Herbert Spencer, in his account of the origin of our love of music in hisPsychology, writes: "While the tones of anger and authority are harshand coarse, the tones of sympathy and refinement are relatively gentle and of agreeable timbre. That is to say, the timbre is associated in experience with the receipt of gratification, has acquired a pleasure-giving quality, and consequently the tones which in music have an allied timbre become pleasure-giving and are called beautiful. Not that this is the sole cause of their pleasure-giving quality.... Still, in recalling the tones of instruments which approach the tones of the human voice, and observing that they seem beautiful in proportion to their approach, we see that this secondary æsthetic element is important."
As with instruments, so it is with bird voices; in proportion as they approach the tones of the human voice, expressive of sympathy, refinement, and other beautiful qualities, they will seem beautiful—in some cases even more beautiful than those which, however high they may rank in other ways, are yet without this secondary æsthetic element.
CHAPTER VII
SECRET OF THE CHARM OF FLOWERS
When my mind was occupied with the subject of the last chapter—the human quality in some sweet bird voices—it struck me forcibly that all resemblances to man in the animal and vegetable worlds and in inanimate nature, enter largely into and strongly colour our æsthetic feelings. We have but to listen to the human tones in wind and water, and in animal voices; and to recognise the human shape in plant, and rock, and cloud, and in the round heads of certain mammals, like the seal; and the human expression in the eyes, and faces generally, of many mammals, birds and reptiles, to know that these casual resemblances are a great deal to us. They constitute theexpressionof numberless natural sights and sounds with which we are familiar, although in a majority of cases the resemblance being but slight, and to some one quality only, we are not conscious of the cause of the expression.
It was principally with flowers, which excitemore attention and give more pleasure than most natural objects, that my mind was occupied in this connection; for here it seemed to me that the effect was similar to that produced on the mind by sweet human-like tones in bird music. In other words, a very great if not the principal charm of the flower was to be traced to the human associations of its colouring; and this was, in some cases, more than all its other attractions, including beauty of form, purity and brilliance of colour, and the harmonious arrangement of colours; and, finally, fragrance, where such a quality existed.
We see, then, that there is an intimate connection between the two subjects—human associations in the colouring of flowers and in the voices of birds; and that in both cases this association constitutes, or is a principal element in, theexpression. This connection, and the fact that the present subject was suggested and appeared almost an inevitable outcome of the one last discussed, must be my excuse for introducing a chapter on flowers in a book on birds—or birds and man. But an excuse is hardly needed. It must strike most readers that a great fault of books on birds is, that there is too much about birds in them, consequently that a chapter about something else, whichhas not exactly been dragged in, may come as a positive relief.
As the word expression which occurs with frequency in this chapter was not understood in the sense in which I used it on the first appearance of the book, it may be well to explain that it is not used here in its ordinary meaning as the quality in a face, or picture, or any work of art, which indicates thought or feeling. Here the word has the meaning given to it by writers on the æsthetic sense as descriptive of the quality imparted to an object by its associations. These may be untraceable: we may not be conscious and as a rule we are not conscious that any such associations exist; nevertheless they are in us all the time, and with what they add to an object may enhance and even double its intrinsic beauty and charm.
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I have somewhere read a very ancient legend, which tells that man was originally made of many materials, and that at the last a bunch of wild flowers was gathered and thrown into the mixture to give colour to his eyes. It is a pretty story, but might have been better told, since it is certain that flowers which have delicate and beautifulflesh-tints are attractive mainly on that account, just as blue and some purples delight us chiefly because of their associations with the human iris. The skin, too, needed some beautiful colour, and there were red as well as blue flowers in the bunch; and the red flowers being most abundant in nature and in greater variety of tints, give us altogether more pleasure than their beautiful rivals in our affection.
The blue flower is associated, consciously or not, with the human blue eye; and as the floral blue is in all or nearly all instances pure and beautiful, it is like the most beautiful human eye. This association, and not the colour itself, strikes me as the true cause of the superior attraction which the blue flower has for most of us. Apart from association blue is less attractive than red, orange, and yellow, because less luminous; furthermore green is the least effective background for such a colour as blue in so small an object as a flower; and, as a fact, we see that at a little distance the blue of the flower is absorbed and disappears in the surrounding green, while reds and yellows keep their splendour. Nevertheless the blue has a stronger hold on our affections. As a human colour, blue comes first in a blue-eyed race becauseit is the colour of the most important feature, and, we may say, of the very soul in man.
Some purple flowers stand next in our regard on account of their nearness in colour to the pure blue. The wild hyacinth, blue-bottle, violet, and pansy, and some others, will occur to every one. These are the purple flowers in which blue predominates, and on that account have the same expression as the blue. The purples in which red predominates are akin in expression to the reds, and are associated with flesh-tints and blood. And here it may be noted that the blue and blue-purple flowers, which have the greatest charm for us, are those in which not only the colour of the eye but some resemblance in their form to the iris, with its central spot representing the pupil, appears. For example, the flax, borage, blue geranium, periwinkle, forget-me-not, speedwell, pansy and blue pimpernel, are actually more to us than some larger and handsomer blue flowers, such as the blue-bottle, vipers' bugloss, and succory, and of blue flowers seen in masses.
With regard to the numerous blue and purple-blue flowers which we all admire, or rather for which we all feel so great an affection, we find that in many cases their very names have beensuggested by their human associations—by theirexpression.
Love-in-a-mist, angels' eyes, forget-me-not, and heartsease, are familiar examples. Heartsease and pansy both strike us as peculiarly appropriate to one of our commonest and most universal garden flowers; yet we see something besides the sympathetic and restful expression which suggested these names in this flower—a certain suggestion of demureness, in fact, reminding those who have seen Guido's picture of the "Adoration of the Virgin," of one of his loveliest angels whose angelical eyes and face reveal some desire for admiration and love in the spectator. And that expression, too, of the pansy named Love-in-Idleness, has been described, coarsely or rudely it may be, in some of its country names: "Kiss me behind the garden gate," and, better (or worse) still, "Meet-her-i'-th'-entry-kiss-her-i'-th'-buttery." Of this order of names are None-so-pretty and Pretty maids, Pretty Betsy, Kiss-me-quick. Even such a name as Tears of the blood of Christ does not sound extravagantly fanciful or startling when we look at the glowing deep golden crimson of the wall flower; nor of a blue flower, the germander speedwell, such names as The more I see you themore I love you, and Angels' tears, and Tears of Christ, with many more.
A writer on our wild flowers, in speaking of their vernacular names of this kind, has said: "Could we penetrate to the original suggestive idea that called forth its name, it would bring valuable information about the first openings of the human mind towards nature; and the merest dream of such a discovery invests with a strange charm the words that could tell, if we could understand, so much of the forgotten infancy of the human race."
What a roll of words and what a mighty and mysterious business is here made of a very simple little matter! It is a charming example of the strange helplessness, not to say imbecility, which affects most of those who have been trained in our mind-killing schools; trained not to think, but taught to go for anything and everything they desire to know to the books. If the books in the British Museum fail to say why our ancestors hundreds of years ago named a flower None-so-pretty or Love-in-a-mist, why then we must be satisfied to sit in thick darkness with regard to this matter until some heaven-born genius descends to illuminate us! Yet I daresay there is not a country child who does not occasionally inventa name for some plant or creature which has attracted his attention; and in many cases the child's new name is suggested by some human association in the object—some resemblance to be seen in form or colour or sound. Not books but the light of nature, the experience of our own early years, the look which no person not blinded by reading can fail to see in a flower, is sufficient to reveal all this hidden wonderful knowledge about the first openings of the heart towards nature, during the remote infancy of the human race.
From this it will be seen that I am not claiming a discovery; that what I have called a secret of the charm of flowers is a secret known to every man, woman, and child, even to those of my own friends who stoutly deny that they have any such knowledge. But I think it is best known to children. What I am here doing is merely to bring together and put in form certain more or less vague thoughts and feelings which I (and therefore all of us) have about flowers; and it is a small matter, but it happens to be one which no person has hitherto attempted.
It may be that in some of my readers' minds—those who, like the sceptical friends I have mentioned, are not distinctly conscious of the causeor secret of the expression of a flower—some doubt may still remain after what has been said of the blue and purple-blue blossom. Such a doubt ought to disappear when the reds are considered, and when it is found that the expression peculiar to red flowers varies infinitely in degree, and is always greatest in those shades of the colour which come nearest to the most beautiful flesh-tints.
When I say "beautiful flesh-tints" I am thinking of the æsthetic pleasure which we receive from the expression, the associations, of the red flower. The expression which delights is in the soft and delicate shades; and in the texture which is sometimes like the beautiful soft skin; but theexpressionwould exist still in the case of floral tints resembling the unpleasant reds, or the reds which disgust us, in the human face. And we most of us know that these distressing hues are to be seen in some flowers. I remember that I once went into a florist's shop, and seeing a great mass of hard purple-red cinerarias on a shelf I made some remark about them. "Yes, are they not beautiful?" said the woman in the shop. "No, I loathe the sight of them," I returned. "So do I!" she said very quickly, and then added that she called them beautiful because she had to sell them. She, too, had nodoubt seen that same purple-red colour in the evil flower called "grog-blossom," and in the faces of many middle-aged lovers of the bottle, male and female, who would perish before their time, to the great relief of their kindred, and whose actions after they were gone would not smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
The reds we like best in flowers are the delicate roseate and pinky shades; they are more to us than the purest and most luminous tints. And here, as with bird notes which delight us on account of their resemblance to fresh, young, highly musical human voices, flowers please us best when they exhibit the loveliest human tints—the apple blossom and the bindweed, musk mallow and almond and wild rose, for example. After these we are most taken with the deeper but soft and not too luminous reds—the red which we admire in the red horse-chestnut blossom, and many other flowers, down to the minute pimpernel. Next come the intense rosy reds seen in the herb-robert and other wild geraniums, valerian, red campion and ragged robin; and this shade of red, intensified but still soft, is seen in the willow-herb and foxglove, and, still more intensified, in the bell- and small-leafed heath. Some if not all of these pleasing reds havepurple in them, and there are very many distinctly purple flowers that appeal to us in the same way that red flowers do, receiving their expression from the same cause. There is some purple colour in most skins, and even some blue.
The azured harebell, like thy veins,
is a familiar verse fromCymbeline; any one can see the resemblance to the pale blue of that admired and loved blossom in the blue veins of any person with a delicate skin. Purples and purplish reds in masses are mostly seen in young persons of delicate skins and high colour in frosty weather in winter, when the eyes sparkle and the face glows with the happy sensations natural to the young and healthy during and after outdoor exercise. The skin purples and purple-reds here described are beautiful, and may be matched to a nicety in many flowers; the human purple may be seen (to name a very common wild flower) in purple loosestrife and the large marsh mallow, and in dozens and scores of other familiar purple flowers; and the purple-red hue in many richly coloured skins has its exact shade in common hounds' tongue, and in other dark and purple-red flowers. But we always find, I fancy, that the expression due to human association in a purple floweris greatest when this colour (as in the human face) is placed side by side or fades into some shade of red or pink. I think we may see this even in a small flower like the fumitory, in which one portion is deep purple and all the rest of the blossoms a delicate pink. Even when the red is very intense, as in the common field poppy, the pleasing expression of purple on red is very evident.
To return to pure reds. We may say that just as purples in flowers look best, or have a greater degree of expression, when appearing in or with reds, so do the most delicate rose and pink shades appeal most to us when they appear as a tinge or blush on white flowers. Probably the flower that gives the most pleasure on account of its beautiful flesh-tints of different shades is the Gloire de Dîjon rose, so common with us and so universal a favourite. Roses, being mostly of the garden, are out of my line, but they are certainly glorious to look at—glorious because of their associations, their expression, whether we know it or not. One can forgive Thomas Carew the conceit in his lines—
Ask me no more where Jove bestowsWhen June is past, the fading rose,For in your beauty's orient deepThese flowers as in their causes sleep.
But all reds have something human, even the most luminous scarlets and crimsons—the scarlet verbena, the poppy, our garden geraniums, etc.—although in intensity they so greatly surpass the brightest colour of the lips and the most vivid blush on the cheek. Luminous reds are not, however, confined to lips and cheeks: even the fingers when held up before the eyes to the sun or to fire-light show a very delicate and beautiful red; and this same brilliant floral hue is seen at times in the membrane of the ear. It is, in fact, the colour of blood, and that bright fluid, which is the life, and is often spilt, comes very much into the human associations of flowers. The Persian poet, whose name is best left unwritten, since from hearing it too often most persons are now sick and tired of it, has said,
I sometimes think that never blooms so redThe rose as where some buried Cæsar bled.
There is many and many a "plant of the blood of men." Our most common Love-lies-bleeding with its "dropping wells" of crimson serves to remind us that there are numberless vulgar names that express this resemblance and association. The thought or fancy is found everywhere in poeticliterature, in the fables of antiquity, in the tales and folk-lore of all nations, civilised and barbarous.
I think that we can more quickly recognise this human interest in a flower, due to its colour, and best appreciate its æsthetic value from this cause, when we turn from the blues, purples, and reds, to the whites and the yellows. The feeling these last give us is distinctly different in character from that produced by the others. They are not like us, nor like any living sentient thing we are related to: there is no kinship, no human quality.
When I say "no kinship, no human quality," I refer to flowers that are entirely pure white or pure yellow; in some dull or impure yellows, and in white and yellow flowers that have some tinge or mixture of red or purple, we do get the expression of the red and purple flower. The crystalline and snow white of the whitest flowers do indeed resemble the white of the eyeballs and the teeth in human faces; but we may see that this human white colour by itself has no human association in a flower.
The whiteness of the white flower where there is any red is never unhuman, probably because a very brilliant red or rose colour on some delicate skins causes the light flesh-tints to appear whiteby contrast, and is the complexion known as "milk and roses." The apple-blossom is a beautiful example, and the beloved daisy—the "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," which would be so much less dear but for that touch of human crimson. This is the herb-Margaret of so many tender and pretty legends, that has white for purity and red for repentance. Even those who have never read these legends and that prettiest, most pathetic of all which tells of the daisy's origin, find a secret charm in the flower. Among other common examples are the rosy-white hawthorn, wood anemone, bindweed, dropwort, and many others. In the dropwort the rosy buds are seen among the creamy white open flowers; and the expression is always very marked and beautiful when there is any red or purple tinge or blush on cream-whites and ivory-whites. When we look from the dropwort to its nearest relative, the common meadow-sweet, we see how great a charm the touch of rose-red has given to the first: the meadow-sweet has no expression of the kind we are considering—no human association.
In pure yellow flowers, as in pure white, human interest is wanting. It is true that yellow is a human colour, since in the hair we find yellowsof different shades—it is a pity that we cannot find, or have not found, a better word than "shades" for the specific differences of a colour. There is the so-called tow, the tawny, the bronze, the simple yellow, and the golden, which includes many varieties, and the hair called carroty. But none of these has the flower yellow. Richard Jefferies tells us that when he placed a sovereign by the side of a dandelion he saw how unlike the two colours were—that, in fact, no two colours could seem more unlike than the yellow of gold and the yellow of the flower. It is not necessary to set a lock of hair and any yellow flower side by side to know how utterly different the hues are. The yellow of the hair is like that of metals, of clay, of stone, and of various earthy substances, and like the fur of some mammals, and like xanthophyll in leaf and stalk, and the yellow sometimes seen in clouds. When Ossian, in his famous address to the sun, speaks of his yellow hair floating on the eastern clouds, we instantly feel the truth as well as beauty of the simile. We admire the yellow flower for the purity and brilliance of its colour, just as we admire some bird notes solely for the purity and brightness of the sound, however unlike the human voice they may be. We also admireit in many instances for the exquisite beauty of its form, and the beauty of the contrast of pure yellow and deep green, as in the yellow flag, mimulus, and numerous other plants. But however much we may admire, we do not experience that intimate and tender feeling which the blues and reds inspire in us; in other words, the yellow flower has not the expression which distinguishes those of other colours. Thus, when Tennyson speaks of the "speedwell's darling blue," we know that he is right—that he expresses a feeling about this flower common to all of us; but no poet would make so great, so absurd a mistake as to describe the purest and loveliest yellow of the most prized and familiar wild flower—buttercup or kingcup, yellow flag, sea poppy, marsh marigold, or broom, or furze, or rock-rose, let us say—by such a word—the word that denotes an intimate and affectionate feeling—the feeling one cherishes for the loved ones of our kind. Nor could that word of Tennyson be properly used of any pure white flower—the stitchwort for instance; nor of any white and yellow flower like the Marguerite. But no sooner do you get a touch of rose or crimson in the whitest flower, as we see in the daisy and eyebright, than you can say of it that it is a "dear" or a "darling"colour, and no one can find fault with the expression.
When we consider the dull and impure yellows sometimes seen in flowers, and some soft yellows seen in combination with pleasing wholesome reds, as in the honeysuckle, we may find something of the expression—the human association—in yellow flowers. For thereisyellow in the skin, even in perfect health; it appears strongest on the neck, and spread round to the throat and chin, and is a warm buff, verybeautifulin some women; but very little of this tint appears in the face. When a tinge of this warm buffy yellow and creamy yellow is seen mixed with warmer reds, as in the Gloire de Dîjon rose, the effect is most beautiful and the expression most marked. But the expression in flowers of a pale dull, impure yellow, where there is an expression, is unpleasant. It is the yellow of unhealthy skins, of faces discoloured by jaundice, dyspepsia, and other ailments. We commonly say of such flowers that they are "sickly" in colour, and the association is with sick and decaying humanity. Gerarde, in describing such hues in flowers, was fond of the word "overworn"; and it was a very good word, and, like the one now in use, is derived from the association.
It will be noted by those who are acquainted with many flowers that I have given the names of but few—it may be too few—as examples, and that these are nearly all of familiar wild flowers. My reason for not going to the garden is, that our cultivated blooms are not only artificially produced, and in some degree monstrosities, but they are seen in unnatural conditions, in crowds and masses, the various kinds too near together, and in most cases selected on account of their gorgeous colouring. The effect produced, however delightful it may be in some ways, is confusing to those simple natural feelings which flowers in a state of nature cause in us.
I confess that gardens in most cases affect me disagreeably; hence I avoid them, and think and know little about garden flowers. It is of course impossible not to go into gardens. The large garden is the greatly valued annexe of the large house, and is as much or more to the mistress than the coverts to the master; and when I am asked to go into the garden to see andadmireall that is there, I cannot say, "Madam, I hate gardens." On the contrary, I must weakly comply and pretend to be pleased. And when going the rounds of her paradise my eyes light by chance on a bedof tulips, or scarlet geraniums, or blue larkspurs, ordetestedcalceolarias or cinerarias—a great patch of coloured flame springing out of a square or round bed of grassless, brown, desolate earth—the effect is more than disagreeable: the mass of colour glares at and takes possession of me, and spreads itself over and blots out a hundred delicate and prized images of things seen that existed in the mind.
But I am going too far, and perhaps making an enemy of a reader when I would much prefer to have him (or her) for a friend.
I have named few flowers, and those all the most familiar kinds, because it seemed to me that many examples would have had a confusing effect on readers who do not intimately know many species, or do not remember the exact colour in each case, and are therefore unable to reproduce in their minds the exactexpression—the feeling which every flower conveys. On the other hand, the reader who knows and loves flowers, who has in his mind the distinct images of many scores, perhaps of two or three hundreds of species, can add to my example many more from his own memory.
There is one objection to the explanation given here of the cause of the charm of certain flowers,which will instantly occur to some readers, and may as well be answered in advance. This view, or theory, must be wrong, a reader will perhaps say, because my own preference is for a yellow flower (the primrose or daffodil, let us say), which to me has a beauty and charm exceeding all other flowers.
The obvious explanation of such a preference would be that the particular flower preferred is intimately associated with recollections of a happy childhood, or of early life. The associations will have made it a flower among flowers, charged with a subtle magic, so that the mere sight or smell of it calls up beautiful visions before the mind's eye. Every person bred in a country place is affected in this way by certain natural objects and odours; and I recall the case of Cuvier, who was always affected to tears by the sight of some common yellow flower, the name of which I have forgotten.
The way to test the theory is to take, or think of, two or three or half-a-dozen flowers that have no personal associations with one's own early life—that are not, like the primrose and daffodil in the foregoing instance, sacred flowers, unlike all others; some with and some without human colouring, and consider the feeling produced in eachcase on the mind. If any one will look at, say, a Gloire de Dîjon rose (in some persons its mental image will serve as well as the object itself) and then at a perfect white chrysanthemum, or lily, or other beautiful white flower; then at a perfect yellow chrysanthemum, or an allamanda, and at any exquisitely beautiful orchid, that has no human colour in it, which he may be acquainted with, he will probably say: I admire these chrysanthemums and other flowers more than the rose; they are most perfect in their beauty—I cannot imagine anything more beautiful; but though the rose is less beautiful and splendid, the admiration I have for it appears to differ somewhat in character—to be mixed with some new element which makes this flower actually more to me than the others.
That something different, and something more, is the human association which this flower has for us in virtue of its colour; and the new element—the feeling it inspires, which has something of tenderness and affection in it—is one and the same with the feeling which we have for human beauty.