210

June-Honeysuckle.

The honeysuckle begins to flower a little later than the elder-tree. When the elder is all covered with its corymbs the honeysuckle flowers are opening, a bud or two here and there entirely out, the rest not yet. Their pink and yellow are pleasant with the peculiar tertiary green of the older leaves, one of the best sober greens in landscape. The new leaves are brighter and cruder.

A flower strictly contemporary with the elder, and of some importance from its quantity, notwithstanding its extreme minuteness, is the forget-me-not, the Myosotis (called so because its leaf is like the ear of a mouse). The effect of the color of this tiny flower is amazing when you consider how little there is of it; but this is due to a principle well known to modern painters, even too well known, the principle of stippling with pure color in minute touches. Here is one of those instances in which Nature herself does this. If the flower were wholly blue it would still act in the foreground, when abundant, as a stippling with pure color, but the principle is carried still farther. There is a central eye of yellow entirely surrounded by sky-blue, and the effect of the flower is due in great part to the purity of the central spot. Even the least observant are struck by the forget-me-not, and how much of the popularity of the flower is due to its bright coloring may be guessed if we suppose it green like its mouse-ear leaves. No lover would have paid much attention to it then.

I alluded in a preceding chapter to the intense dislike which some people feel for particular trees. Amongst the trees which have bitter enemies may be mentioned

It was

the acacia, or, more correctly, the robinia. brought into France from Canada by a botanist called Robin, in the reign of Henry IV., and has thriven so well that you find it all over the country. The remarkable rapidity of its growth is a great temptation to its use as an ornamental tree; but now come the objections. Its enemies dislike it because the leaves grow late in the spring, and some people cannot endure the odor of its flowers; which to me, however, is very agreeable, especially when it comes on the soft, mild, evening air of June, and is thus wafted from a little distance. Other objections are that the stem is ugly because so deeply furrowed, and that the thin, light foliage gives but little shade. I confess that there is almost a contradiction in character between such a rude stem and such delicate leaves and flowers, or at least a very striking contrast, and I admit that the shade given is not comparable to that of the lime-tree or the horsechestnut; still it may be answered, that we feel the delicacy of the leaves all the more from the roughness of the furrowed trunk, and that the robinia gives as much shade as the birch, whose beauty is generally appreciated. The branching of the robinia is rather straggling and wayward, so that the twigs do not compose so well together as those of the ash or birch; but even this is interesting as a special characteristic, for if all trees threw their branches out in exactly the same manner we should be wearied by their monotony. There is a great deal of imprévu in the branching of the robinia; no painter would invent such branching unless

212

June-Wild Thyme.

hé had studied it in Nature. Its spring colors, light green leaves, and white flowers, are gay and pleasant. As for the odor of the flowers, there are people who detest the perfume of the rose, so that it is difficult to please everybody.

Most people like the fragrance of wild thyme. There are often great quantities of it in dry, stony places, where its tiny dull-green leaves make an agreeable sober foreground color, not harshly interrupted by the modest violet of the flowers. Its strong perfume is due in part to the presence of camphor in the plant. It is beloved of hares and bees, and the scent is so refreshing that it will revive a weary or fainting person. It is constantly used by the clever French cooks to give flavor to their dishes. The poets have loved it since classic times, and with reason, for there is a great charm in the union of its modest appearance with so sweet and healthy a perfume. It is one of the humble plants which form the variegated carpet of the earth; a plant to be crushed under hoof and foot, yet so strong and spreading that it is never seriously injured, and in return for much illusage only yields its fragrance the more abundantly.

The later weeks of June are remarkably rich in flowers. The honeysuckle is then fully out (at least in the Val Ste. Véroniqne). We have the creeping bugle in abundance, with its fine blue corolla; the germander veronica, with its veined flowers of tender blue; the crosswort galium, the 'slender galingale' of poetry, with yellow flowers, honey-scented; the emollient mallow; and the harsh thistle with its purple glories. It is

curious that the thistle, which we so generally associate with donkeys, should have given, in one language at least, its name to that sweet singing-bird which, according to Chaucer, had a singing conversation with the nightingale — the goldfinch; in French, chardonneret, from chardon, because it frequents the thistle. The plant may also be associated with the fine arts, as its spiky forms are peculiarly rich and interesting in certain kinds of decorative drawing and silversmiths' work. They are excessively difficult to draw, from the complicated perspectives of the prickly wings on the leaf-margins. Few artists have ever drawn a thistle thoroughly, probably from a feeling that any complete rendering of such a plant would lead to hardness in execution.

Of the large plants which flower late the lime-tree deserves special mention, for its agreeable qualities as a shade-giving tree, and its pleasant color and odor. Few trees are more intimately connected with human life than this. It is so constantly used to shade private and public walks, that most of us have recollections associated with it. The lime has also its heroic traditions. It has never supplied masts for war-ships like the fir, nor material for their strong hulls like the oak, but it was used in ancient times for bucklers; and its bark must have had a sacred character, as it was worn by sacrificing priests. The flower of the lime-tree is gathered in great quantities for medicinal purposes, and administered very extensively in France as an infusion.

214 July-Gray Coloring after Heat.

XXXIX.

Gray Coloring after Heat - Blue Sky turns to Gray- French Landscapepainting - Monotony of Sunshine - Favorable to Work — Abundant Light-Ennui of Sunshine - Despondency caused by it- Oppression of Sunshine-Mariana in the South'- The Black Shadow — Auguste Bonheur's Interpretation of Sunshine — Changes in the Condition of the Eye - Sunshine of Different Degrees - Streams in the Val Ste. Véronique - Dreary Scenes on Southern Rivers - The Loire - Its Affluents-The Great Bridges - The Herds - Processions for Rain-Oppressive Heat-Sudden Coming of a Thunderstorm.

OWARDS the end of July, if the year has not

Tow

been exceptionally wet, the landscape of Eastern France loses its freshness, and acquires that rather dull and gray look which often astonishes English critics in the works of the most faithful French landscapepainters. From the artistic point of view I cannot think that this gray look is altogether a misfortune, The brightness of the spring color is quite gone, much of the herbage is dried by a sun that is almost African in its severity; but what the landscape loses in gayety it gains in sobriety, and the tints, quiet as they are, often go very well together, and richly deserve study. The greens all become tertiary greens, but there is great variety in them, and it is just the variety which a cultivated colorist is sure to pay great attention to,