THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 41 



on the torrent spray, on the grass of the valley, and entangled 

 among the laurel stems, or glancing from their leaves, become 

 a thousandfold lovelier and more sacred than the sunbeams, 

 burning on the mountain side." 



What an eloquent burst on the mysterious Law governing 

 the Immutability of Species : — "But through all defeats by 

 which insolvent endeavors to sum the order of Creation must 

 be reproved, and the midst of the successes by which patient in- 

 sight will be surprised, the fact of the confirntation of species 

 in plants and animals must always remain a miraculous one. 

 What outstretched sign of constant Omnipotence can be more 

 awful, that the susceptibility to external influences, with the re- 

 ciprocal power of transformation, in the organs of the plant; 

 and the infinite powers of moral training and mental concep- 

 tion over the nativity of animals, should be so restrained, with- 

 in impassible limits, and by inconceivable laws, that from gen- 

 eration to generation, under all the clouds and revolutions of 

 Heaven with its stars, and among all the calamities and con- 

 vulsions of the Earth with her passions, the number and the 

 names of her kindred may still be counted for her in unfail- 

 ing truth ; — still the fifth sweet leaf unfold for the Rose, and 

 the sixth spring for the Lily; an yet the wolf rave tameless 

 round the folds of the pastoral mountains, and yet the tiger 

 flame through the forests of the night." 



Ruskin has been placed, after Shakespeare, as the greatest 

 force in English Literature. It is not extravagant praise. As 

 a stylist in English prose he has no superior, past or present. 

 A study of the varied and copious volumes that flowed from 

 his pen during a half century of unwearied toil, would of it- 

 self end in a liberal culture. These lines are offered rather as 

 suggestions; to commend the readers of The American 

 Botanist to the pages of Proserpina, and incidentally to the 

 entire writings of the versatile author. 



Hanibal, Mo. 



