THE MAY FIELDS
“This is the hour, the day,
The time, the season sweet.
Quick! hasten, laggard feet,
Brook not delay;
• • • •
... Maytide will not last;
Forth, forth, while yet ’tis time, before the
Spring is past.”
LEWIS MORRIS, _Time to Rejoice_.
It is essential that we arrive amid the Alpine fields in May; for
we must watch them from the very beginning. To postpone our coming
until June would be to miss what is amongst the primest of Alpine
experiences: the awakening of the earlier gems in their shy yet
trustful legions. Indeed, in June in any ordinary year, we should
risk finding several lovely plants gone entirely out of bloom, except
perhaps quite sparsely in some belated snow-clogged corner; for, be
it remembered, we shall not be climbing higher than this region: we
do not propose to pursue Flora as she ascends to the topmost pasture.
As for following the very general rule and coming only in late July,
it is quite out of the question. We must come in May; and it should
be towards the middle of the month—although the exact date will, of
course, be governed by the advanced or retarded state of the season.
Speaking generally, however, the 15th is usually neither too early
nor too late. It is wiser to be a day or so too early than otherwise,
because at this altitude it is remarkable how soon Nature is wide
awake when once she has opened her eyes. The earliest floral effects
are of the most fleeting in the Alps; and, like most things fleeting
in this changeful world, they are of the most lovely. To some it may
appear laughable to say that one day is of vast importance; but it is
only the truth. Down on the plains things are positively sluggish by
comparison (though an artist, wishing to paint them at their best,
knows only too well how rapid even are these). As in Greenland, up
here, at 4,800 feet, vegetation adapts itself in all practical earnest
to the exigencies of shortened seasons. June’s glories are quick in
passing; so, alas, are July’s; but the glories of May, having usually
but a brief portion of the month in which to develop, pass, as it
were, at breathless speed.
Yes, if ever there is a nervous energy of nature, it is in May in
Alpine regions; and it behoves us to be equally quick and timely. For
instance, this year (1910) I was struck by the fact that, two weeks
after the last vestige of an avalanche had cleared from off a steep
slope at the foot of the Breyaz, three or four cows belonging to the
hotels were grazing contentedly on rich green grass, and the Crocus
and Soldanella had already bloomed and disappeared.
When we quit the plains their face is well set towards June. Spring’s
early timidity and delicacy are past; the Primrose, Scilla, Hepatica,
Violet, and Wood-Anemone have retired into a diligent obscurity and
the fields are already gay with the Orchids and the Globe-Flower. But
up here at Champex we find ourselves back with the Crocus, springing
fresh and glistening from the brown, snow-soaked sward, and with the
as yet scarcely awakened Cowslip. As we climb up from Martigny the
slopes grow more and more wintry-looking, and we may perhaps begin to
regret leaving the wealth of blushing apple-blossom which dominates
the azure-blue fields of Myosotis below the Gorges du Durnand. And
this regret will probably become more keen when we plunge into the
forests just below Champex and find them still choked with snow and
ice. But we are soon and amply repaid for what at first seems a mad
ostracism on our part. One or two brief days, full of intense interest
in watching Alpine nature’s unfolding, and all regrets have vanished,
and we have quite decided that these May fields are a Paradise
wherein, in Meredith’s words, “of all the world you might imagine gods
to sit.”
The Crocus is not for long alone in making effective display. The
Soldanella soon joins it after a few hours of warm sunshine; in
fact, in many favoured corners it is already out when we arrive.
And _Geum montanum_ is no laggard; neither are the two Gentians,
_verna_ and _excisa_, nor the yellow-and-white Box-leaved Polygala.
By the time the 20th of the month has come the pastures are thickly
sown with pristine loveliness, and by the 25th this is at the height
of perfection—a height to which nothing in paint or in ink can
attain. Flora has touched the fields with her fairy wand and they
have responded with amazing alacrity. Turn which way we will, the
landscape is suffused with the freshest of yellow, rose, and
blue; and broad, surprising acres of these bewitching hues lie at our
very door, coming, as it were,
“In our winter’s heart to build a tower of song.”
[Illustration: _ANEMONE SULPHUREA_ and _VIOLA CALCARATA_ in the Val
d’Arpette in June. ]
Our “laundered bosoms” swell with hymns of praise; the plains have
receded into Memory’s darker recesses, and we vote these Alpine
meadows to a permanent and foremost place in our affections—so much
so, indeed, that, with Théophile Gautier, we unhesitatingly declare
(though not, be it said, with quite all the musical exaggeration of
his poet spirit):
“Mais, moi, je les préfère aux champs gras et fertiles
Qui sont si loin du ciel qu’on n’y voit jamais Dieu.”
We know, of course, Divinity is not absent on the plains. When the
poet says otherwise it is a tuneful licence with which we are merely
tolerant. We quite understand that there is a more moderate meaning
behind his extravagance. We know, and everybody acquainted with Alpine
circumstance knows, that in the Alps there is a very strong and
striking sense of the nearer presence of the Divine in nature. There
is a superior and indescribable purity, together with a refinement
and restraint which defies what is the utmost prodigality of colour;
and, much as we love the divinity of things in the plains, the
divinity of those of high altitudes must take a foremost position in
our esteem and joy.
Mr. A. F. Mummery has a fine passage touching this subject—a passage
that may well be quoted here, for it sums up in admirable fashion all
that we ourselves are feeling. “Every step,” he says, “is health,
fun, and frolic. The troubles and cares of life, together with the
essential vulgarity of a plutocratic society, are left far below—foul
miasmas that cling to the lowest bottoms of reeking valleys. Above,
in the clear air and searching sunlight, we are afoot with the quiet
gods, and men can know each other and themselves for what they are.”
“The quiet gods”—yes, indeed! Here, if anywhere, in May and June,
is quietness; here at this season these hosts of lovely flowers are
indeed “born to blush unseen” and, in Man’s arrogant phrase, to “waste
their sweetness on the desert air.”
But what nonsense it is, this assumption that the flowers are wasted
if not seen by us! It is not for that reason we should be here: it is
not because the flowers would benefit one iota by our presence. What
is it to them whether they have, or have not been seen by Man? “We
are what suns and winds and waters make us,” they say; and, in saying
thus, they speak but the substantial truth. Their history is one of
strenuous self-endeavour; their unique and dazzling loveliness they
have attained “alone,” oblivious of Man’s presence in the world. After
age-long effort, from which their remarkable happiness and beauty are
the primest distillations, Man stumbles upon them in their radiance,
declares they are languishing for want of his admiration, and at once
commiserates with them upon their lone and wasted lot. What fond
presumption! How typically human!
Is there not proof abundant of Nature’s “profuse indifference to
mankind?” Why, then, should Man assume that all things are made for
him? why, in his small, lordly way, should he say—as he is for ever
saying—“The sun, the moon, the stars, have their _raison d’être_ in
Me?” In a sense he is right, but not in the arrogant sense he so
much presumes. All things help to make him. The sun, moon, and stars
are for him, inasmuch as he would not be what he is—he would not,
probably, be Man—did they not exist. But neither, then, would the
black-beetle be as it is. Do not let him forget the high claims of the
black-beetle.
“Man stands so large before the eyes of man
He cannot think of Earth but as his own;
All his philosophies can guess no plan
That leaves _him_ not on his imagined throne.”
Let us be humble: let us merge ourselves modestly in the scheme of
things. It is not to cheer up the flowers in their “loneliness” that
we ought to be with them here in the spring. We ought to be here
because of all that the flowers and their loveliness can do for
_us_, in lifting us above “the essential vulgarity of a plutocratic
society,” and in revealing us to ourselves and to each other as rarely
we are revealed elsewhere. Here with these pastures are health and
vigour—vigour that is quiet and restful; here is unpretentiousness
more radiant, more glorious, than the most dazzling of pretensions.
Here, if we will, we can come and be natural—here, where Man, that
“feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances,” as Mr.
Bernard Shaw calls him, can be in the fullest sense a man, and be in
no wise ashamed of it. For here, in a word, is Nature—unaffected,
unconventional, unconscious of herself, yet in the highest degree
efficient. The purity of it all is wonderful. And it is this, with
its beneficent power, that _we_ waste.
If spring is reckoned pure below, among “the foul miasmas that cling
to the lowest bottoms of reeking valleys,” how much purer must it not
be reckoned under Alpine skies! The amelioration is already marked
after we have risen a few hundred feet from the plains. Our minds
climb with our bodies, both attuning themselves to the increasing
purity of our surroundings, until at some 5,000 feet we feel, to use
a homely expression, as different as chalk from cheese. And nothing
aids more potently in this attunement than do the fields of springtime
blossoms.
“Why bloom’st thou so?” asks the poet of these flowers—
“Why bloom’st thou so
In solitary loveliness, more fair
In this thy artless beauty, than the rare
And costliest garden-plant?”
The question has been answered, or, at any rate, answered in important
part, and far more truthfully than by any blind, patronising remark
about “wasted beauty.” Wasted! It is an accusation which the flowers
should hurl at us! Wasted? Yes; wasted, in so far as we do not yet
take advantage of the Alpine spring; wasted, in so far as we arrive
only in late July or early August!
Nor should our praise be counted amongst surprises. Champex’s fields
bear witness to it being no mere idle adulation. On the flat damp
grass-land, intersected by sparkling glacier streams, which stretches
away to the north of the lake, great and brilliant groups of _Caltha
palustris_ (only the common Marsh-Marigold, it is true, but of how
much more luscious, brilliant hue than down upon some lowland marsh)
lie upon a vast rosy carpet of _Primula farinosa_, effectively broken
here and there by the rich purple tints of _Bartsia alpina_ and the
ruddier hues of Pedicularis. And this wondrous wealth of yellow and
rose is found again on the extensive sunny slopes to the south of
the lake; but here _Gentiana verna_ asserts its bright blue presence
amongst the Primula, and the effect is even more astonishingly
gay than it is to the north. Like Count Smorltorks “poltics,” it
“surprises by himself.”
On these southern slopes, too, are quantities of Micheli’s Daisy,
enlivening still more with their glistening whiteness the beautiful
colour-scheme. There are also colonies of the two Pinguiculas, mauve
and creamy-white; also of the quaint Alpine Crowfoot and of the
yet more quaint, æsthetically tinted _Ajuga pyramidalis_—the most
arresting of the Bugles—and of the demure little Alpine Polygala,
varying from blue (the type) through mauve to reddish-pink, even to
white. Here, also, is the Sulphur Anemone just unfolding the earliest
of its clear citron-coloured blossoms. But to see this Anemone to
fullest advantage we must turn to the drier pastures to the east
and north of the lake, where it is scattered in endless thousands
amongst sheets of _Gentiana verna_ and _excisa_ and a profusion of the
yellow Pedicularis (_tuberosa_), the white Potentilla (_rupestris_),
the golden Geum (_montanum_), the purple Calamintha (_alpina_),
the canary-yellow Biscutella (_lævigata_), the rosy-red Saponaria
(_ocymoides_), and many another of the earlier pasture-flowers. And
by the side of all this ravishing young life and colour are the still
remaining avalanches of piled-up frozen snow—grim reminders of what
wild riot winter makes upon these pastures whilst the flowers are
sleeping.
Surely, then our praise is not surprising? Surely, nowhere in the
Alps in May shall we find anything more admirable or more amazingly
colour-full than are these pasture-slopes and meadows of Lac Champex?
In some one or other respect their equal may be found in many favoured
places; in many spots we shall find most astonishing displays of other
kinds of plants than we have here—of, for instance, the white _Anemone
alpina_ and the purple _Viola calcarata_, as on the slopes of the
Chamossaire above Villars-sur-Ollon (though the Viola is in quantity
near Champex, in the Val d’Arpette, in June), or of the Pheasant-eye
Narcissus, as at Les Avants and Château d’Oex, and the Daffodil, as
at Champéry and Saas; but, taking Champex’s floral wealth as a whole,
it can have few, if any superiors in point of abundance and colour at
this early season. Mindful of what Mr. Reginald Farrer has said of
Mont Cenis towards the end of June, we may safely declare that the
Viola and Gentian clothed slopes of that district are not the only
slopes in the Alps which might be “visible for miles away.”
[Illustration: EARLY JUNE FIELDS beyond Praz de Fort in the Val
Ferret, backed by the Groupe du Grand Saint-Bernard et du Grand
Golliaz. ]
Perhaps some more substantial idea of these fields at this season
may be gathered from the pictures facing pages iii and 3; but these
transcriptions, though to the uninitiated they may appear reckless
with regard to truth, are really far from adequate. Seeing the
thing itself must, in this case, alone bring entire belief and
understanding. “Colour, the soul’s bridegroom,” is so abounding, so
fresh, light, joyful, and enslaving, that, after all has been said and
done to picture it, one sits listless, dejected and despairing over
one’s tame and lifeless efforts; one feels that it must be left to
speak for itself in its own frank, dreamland language—language at once
both elusive and comprehensible. The soul of things is possessed of an
eloquent and secret code which is every whit its own; and the soul of
these fields is no exception. In spite of Wordsworth, there is, and
there must be, “need of a remoter charm”; there is, and there must
be, an “interest unborrowed from the eye”; and it is just this vague,
appealing “something”—this “something” so real as to transcend what is
known as reality—which speaks to us and invades us in the bright and
intimate presence of these hosts of Alpine flowers.
In rural parts of England spring is said to have come when a maiden’s
foot can cover seven daisies at once on the village green. Why, when
spring had come here, on these Alpine meadows, I was putting my foot
(albeit of goodlier proportions than a maiden’s) upon at least a
score of Gentians! Whilst painting the study of Sulphur Anemones
(facing page 96) about May 20, my feet, camp-stool, and easel were
perforce crushing dozens of lovely flowers—flowers which in England
would have been fenced about with every sort of reverence. But
sacrifice is the _mot d’ordre_ of a live and useful world; worship
at any shrine is accompanied by some “hard dealing”; and, sadly as
it went against the grain, there was no gentler way in which I could
effect my purpose.
Looking at the close-set masses of blossom, it is difficult to realise
into what these slopes and fields will develop later on. There seems
no room for a crop of hayfield grass. Amid this neat and packed
abundance there seems no possible footing for a wealth of greater
luxuriance. And yet, in a few weeks’ time, these fields will have
so changed as to be scarcely recognisable. What we see at present,
despite its ubiquity, is but a moiety of all they can produce. June
and July will border upon a plethora of wonders, though they will not
perhaps be rivals to the exquisite charm of May.