Excerpt from A Wind Flower: A Novel

From the remote time when nymphs figured in society, down to the present day, the white anemone, or windflower, - that "tremulous woodland thing, " - has had some slight part to play in legend and poetry, and whether appearing as nymph or flower, it has always been invested with a contradictory charm no less than with a pathetic grace.

Various are the legends of the nymph, various the qualities attributed to the flower, but whether for love or death, it has ever some subtle relation to the wind, whether seeking it or shunning it, blossoming only under its influence, or perishing under its bitter breath.

Botanically, we know the anemone nemorosa for one of the earliest and most fragile of wild flowers, growing in the woods in exposed spots and also in sheltered nooks, "having a simple stem with involucre remote from the blossom, and bearing a single delicate white, or outwardly pinkish, vernal flower." The flower is starlike, and airily poised on the slender stem, "trembles to the faintest breeze."

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