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Title: The Wind Flower
Author: Hartwell James [
More Titles by James]
"The coy Anemone, that ne'er uncloses
Her lips, until they're blown on by the wind."
--H. Smith.
FLORA, Queen of all the flowers, fell in love with Zephyr, the West-wind, whose gentle breezes fanned her favorite blossoms, cooling them when the fierce rays of the sun fell hot upon them. But Zephyr cared not for Lady Flora.
Zephyr loved a gentle nymph, who returned his affection, but ere she could become his bride Flora changed her into a plant whose pale blossoms shine and twinkle in the woods like stars on a dark night.
Now this fair nymph was beloved not only by Zephyr, the gentle West-wind, but by Boreas, the cold, rough North-wind, and it happened that the time at which she became a flower was at that season when "the North-wind doth blow," so Boreas had her in his power.
And then to punish her for bestowing her love upon another, he blew roughly upon her and scattered her delicate petals upon the ground. Then the gods, because she was beloved by the winds, called her Anemone, the wind-flower.
Every year when the March winds blow she opens her dainty blossoms, and every year Boreas revenges his unrequited love by shattering and destroying her beauty.
But the gentle Anemone returns good for evil, for she loves the wind, and opens her soft pink and white petals when the March breezes blow loud and shrill.
The poets call her "Child of the Wind," and country people tell us she is a capital weather-glass, for when the wind drops and rain clouds begin to gather she knows that rain is coming.
Gentle, loving little flower, "Waiting for the breathing of the wind," we can all have a lesson from you. Why not be like the Anemone, and when others use you roughly, seek not revenge, but rather give good for evil.
[The end]
Hartwell James's short story: Wind Flower
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